Fri 7 April - More on overcrowding...
I just wanted to take the opportunity to comment on some of the overcrowding issues that have arisen lately...
Firstly on bikes, thanks again to CB for this one... "Bicycles and surfboards may be carried on train passenger services free of charge at all times, provided that the comfort of other passengers is not affected" from a December 2004 Gazette. So what happens if other passengers are affected, as was the situation Wednesday morning? Answer... nothing! It's a meaningless clause that will be ignored by the inconsiderate and will already be understood and followed by the considerate.
Also there is a recent comment from Jackie on the ConnexWhinger feedback page that highlights the problem for people with injuries or disabilities. For those of us who are fit enough a crowded train can be a real annoyance, how much worse if you're experiencing pain as a result? This is an aspect of overcrowding that I've seen a few times and it does seem very poor. Obviously something "Comeng" who posts further down on the same page clearly has no sympathy for.
The 07:14 is on time.
The 18:01 just scrapes in at around two minutes late.
CW wins letter of the day in MX, here's the full, unedited letter...
In reference to this evening’s headline article, I completely disagree. I rarely see people holding doors and it is even more rare to see people attempt to open them after they’ve closed. Occasionally at Flinders Street somebody may come racing down the escalator as the doors close and make half-hearted attempt to open them again – usually the driver keeps on going, so there is no delay. I’m one of the accused referred to in the article who favours one particular carriage – the one next to the escalators - so if it were happening anywhere it would be there and I would see it far more often than I do.
The blocking doors issue is one that has had much discussion recently on my blog – http://blogspot.connexwhinger.com – with no real outcome. A simple and glib answer is that if the trains weren’t so crowded, people would not need to stand in the doorways. And if they did so in an uncrowded train it wouldn’t matter anyway.
But of course the answer is more complex than this. Those who spout the doorway dogma seem to have some idealised notion of how this should work that simply does not translate to reality. If everybody did force themselves to pack into the gaps between seats so that the doorways were kept clear, guess what? When they, or the people in the seats, arrived at their stations they’d still be fighting their way through other people to get out. The only difference is that they’d be doing so in the body of the carriage rather than in the doorways. Of course if we all formed ranks according to which station we planned to alight from, I’m sure that would help!
The bottom line is that both of these issues are trivial in comparison to the major factors that impede the delivery of a quality, reliable service to Melbourne’s hard-pressed commuters. Remove Peter “Weasel” Batchelor from office and replace Bruce “Sir Topham Hatt” with a competent CEO: start delivering service and we’ll quickly forget all about such diversionary nonsense.
Regards etc
Firstly on bikes, thanks again to CB for this one... "Bicycles and surfboards may be carried on train passenger services free of charge at all times, provided that the comfort of other passengers is not affected" from a December 2004 Gazette. So what happens if other passengers are affected, as was the situation Wednesday morning? Answer... nothing! It's a meaningless clause that will be ignored by the inconsiderate and will already be understood and followed by the considerate.
Also there is a recent comment from Jackie on the ConnexWhinger feedback page that highlights the problem for people with injuries or disabilities. For those of us who are fit enough a crowded train can be a real annoyance, how much worse if you're experiencing pain as a result? This is an aspect of overcrowding that I've seen a few times and it does seem very poor. Obviously something "Comeng" who posts further down on the same page clearly has no sympathy for.
The 07:14 is on time.
The 18:01 just scrapes in at around two minutes late.
CW wins letter of the day in MX, here's the full, unedited letter...
In reference to this evening’s headline article, I completely disagree. I rarely see people holding doors and it is even more rare to see people attempt to open them after they’ve closed. Occasionally at Flinders Street somebody may come racing down the escalator as the doors close and make half-hearted attempt to open them again – usually the driver keeps on going, so there is no delay. I’m one of the accused referred to in the article who favours one particular carriage – the one next to the escalators - so if it were happening anywhere it would be there and I would see it far more often than I do.
The blocking doors issue is one that has had much discussion recently on my blog – http://blogspot.connexwhinger.com – with no real outcome. A simple and glib answer is that if the trains weren’t so crowded, people would not need to stand in the doorways. And if they did so in an uncrowded train it wouldn’t matter anyway.
But of course the answer is more complex than this. Those who spout the doorway dogma seem to have some idealised notion of how this should work that simply does not translate to reality. If everybody did force themselves to pack into the gaps between seats so that the doorways were kept clear, guess what? When they, or the people in the seats, arrived at their stations they’d still be fighting their way through other people to get out. The only difference is that they’d be doing so in the body of the carriage rather than in the doorways. Of course if we all formed ranks according to which station we planned to alight from, I’m sure that would help!
The bottom line is that both of these issues are trivial in comparison to the major factors that impede the delivery of a quality, reliable service to Melbourne’s hard-pressed commuters. Remove Peter “Weasel” Batchelor from office and replace Bruce “Sir Topham Hatt” with a competent CEO: start delivering service and we’ll quickly forget all about such diversionary nonsense.
Regards etc
posted by Connex Whinger at 7:45 pm
19 comments
