Re: [MELB] City Loop issues

[amorton@mudguard.ee.mu.oz.au (Anthony Morton)]

>Vaughan Williams <ender2000@mailandnews.com> wrote:

>> I'd probably run the loop in the same direction all day so that its 
>> consistent.

Stacy  <sjudin@yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au> wrote:

>But then you have the problem of workers and students being delayed either
>on their way to or from work at Flinders St - I agree with the
>bi-direction concept, where you will have no wait time between arrival and
>departure if you board/alight at underground stations (assuming you go in
>in the morning and out in the afternoon!).

On the other hand I travel from East Brunswick to Monash Uni every day, and
the way the loop runs at present could hardly be more inconvenient.  In the
morning I arrive at Parliament station and have to catch one train around
to Flinders Street and then another out to Huntingdale (I could take the one
train all the way around the loop but that adds to my travel time).  In the
evening I get to Flinders St and have to catch a tram across the CBD, which
takes an extra 10 minutes.

The moral is that no system for running the Loop is going to please everybody.
The present system does seem to be aimed at achieving the greatest good for
the greatest number of people, but leaves those like me at a disadvantage.
And the arrangements on weekends just confuse the hell out of me.

So I lean toward Vaughan's view that trains on a particular line should run
consistently in one direction or the other all the time, so that you achieve
consistency while not penalising travel in any particular direction.  At the
same time I can see that as long as the majority of train travellers are
peak-hour commuters from the suburbs into the CBD, the present system can be
seen as a fair compromise.

Regards,
Tony M.