Re: V/Line Pass- Railways now forgotten in Government Policy?

["Michael Walker" <walker@hotkey.net.au>]

>We all are. Though there are a lot of people, as someone suggested in this
>ng yesterday, that have short memory spans and think "oh goody! the libs
>have made our transport system the best ever!" which of course is a load of
>bulltish.
>
OK, as the  person who seems to be alone in giving some credit where credit
is due, let me have some right of reply, Mr. Speaker (collective noun).

1. I don't agree with the cutbacks to peak hour service. I think it is a
poor effort when we have crowded trains and nothing is done about it.

2. The comments were interesting about the union involvement with Alan Brown
and I have no doubt Jeff wanted to take on the unions (and not just rail
either). I must admit my interpretation of the situation was that the
proposed changes were a ploy to stick it up the union but I would have been
surprised if they had actually gone ahead. I guess we will never know now.

3. Lets give some credit where credit is due. There have been some services
introduced that probably would not have happened under a Labour government
(again, we'll never know but if they were going to change anything, they had
a long time to do it). For example, Sunday services were improved to half
hourly on some lines from the previous 40 minute frequency. And recently
they were improved again to 20 minute frequency between 11am and 7pm on
Sundays. The Upfield line was upgraded at a cost of $30 million dollars or
thereabouts and evening and weekend services reintroduced. The Labour
government wanted to turn it into a light rail line. There were some express
trains introduced outside of peak hour (the now withdrawn 'shopper specials'
from Frankston and Dandenong), extra trains to Ringwood after 7pm and so on.
I think Jeff has done a poor job running public transport. The same could be
said for the previous mob. But both had their merits and did some small
things amongst the wholesale disaster that has been public transport in the
last 20 years. Lets recognise those, even if we don't think much of the rest
of what has happened. Otherwise we are as blinkered as our representatives,
just in different ways.