Waking up in Geelong

Throw your arms in the air (like you just don’t care about burning the guy next to you)

May 17th, 2012 No Comments

If you work in the Melbourne CBD, then the following should be a familiar sight: smokers walking the streets while clutching burning cigarettes, in a vain attempt to get in a few more puffs before they reach the office. Passive smoking might be a well known health concern, but on the busy city streets there is another hazard to non-smokers: getting burnt by lit cigarettes.

The act of walking requires arm movement, and smokers are no exception to this. Combine a lit cigarette with someone who isn’t paying attention to where they are flailing their arms around, and the end result is getting an innocent pedestrian getting their leg burnt.

Bonus rage is reserved for fat smokers who block up more of the footpath than their skinnier counterparts.

Super Bonus rages goes for smokers who light up inside the converted areas of railway stations, while still managing to throw their hands in the air.

Inconsiderate douchebags.

Footnote

In a few years of working in the Melbourne CBD I’ve managed to avoid my leg getting burnt by smokers. My sister hasn’t been so lucky. (Then again, I’m the kind of guy who loses at games of footpath chicken.)

Careers for girls leaving school, circa 1981

May 8th, 2012 4 Comments

In the process of researching my blog posts, I’ve spent a lot of time trawling through Google News’ digitised copies of Melbourne’s The Age newspaper for titbits related to Australian industry or aviation. However my most recent find was something rather different – a pair of related advertisements that illustrated the world that girls faced on graduating high school in the early 1980s.

Today seeing women working as mechanics, electricians or carpenters isn’t unheard off, but back then it probably was – hence why in 1981 Box Hill TAFE College state that over 500 female apprentices were already working in ‘traditionally male’ jobs, and invite girls to a free seminar to learn about their options in one of over 100 different trades.

Meanwhile a few pages along in the same newspaper, things start to head into 1960s Mad Men territory, with this advert aimed at parents of secondary school girls by Stotts Secretarial College. What runs the office of today? Telex, dictating machines, print-out calculators, telephone switchboards and electric typewriters? Act now and get your daughter on her way, because no matter what the state of the economy, well trained office staff are always in demand!

Today the above pieces of office equipment are obsolete and so are job titles like as secretary and typist, but Stott’s Colleges are still running training courses, in what is now a Certificate III in Business Administration.

As for gender roles in today’s workforce: I’ve seen a number of women up the front of my morning train to work, but I’m yet to find a bloke working as a receptionist. I wonder how the workplace will look in another 30 years time?

Further reading

Digital archives of The Age, 1854-1989 at the Google News Archive
Blog post about Australia’s Historic Newspapers Online

History of Phillip Island’s Penguin Parade

May 2nd, 2012 3 Comments

If you have ever paid a visit to Victoria’s Phillip Island, the reason for the trip was probably the nightly Penguin Parade, where wild little penguins emerge from the sea at sunset and waddle across the beach to their sand dune burrows.

Located on the south-western tip of the island at Summerland Beach, the Penguin Parade is one of Australia’s most popular wildlife attractions, with almost half a million people visiting each year. To cater for these hoards of tourists, floodlights illuminate the beach in front of concrete viewing terraces, and a network of boardwalks have been constructed over the sand dunes so that the delicate environment beneath is protected.

While today’s Penguin Parade is a big budget production, this postcard from 1940 shows a very different scene at Summerland Beach. It was an age of little environmental concern, when parking cars on the delicate penguin burrows was not given a second thought, and introduced foxes and pet dogs killed dozens of penguins.

Phillip Island penguin parade, Summerland Beach, 1940

The first organised trips to see the Summerland Beach penguins occurred in 1928, when local residents Bert West, Bern Denham and Bert Watchorn started to pick up visitors at the Cowes ferry pier and take them on a tour of the island for five shillings. However it was not until the 1940 opening of a bridge to the mainland that tourism to the island really took off, and so did the environment damage caused by the hoards of visitors.

The first efforts to protect the penguin colony date to 1930, when four hectares of land on the Summerland Peninsula was given to the people of Victoria by Mr and Mrs Spencer Jackson as a penguin reserve. Additional land was added to the reserve soon after by the Phillip Island Shire Council, with further land added in 1955, and formal regulations for the reserve being gazetted in 1956. Development of tourist infrastructure commenced in 1961 when fences and concrete viewing stands were erected along the beach, with the involvement of the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

Today management of the facilities is the responsibility of the Phillip Island Nature Parks, a not-for-profit body created by the State Government to conserve and protect the flora and fauna reserves of the island. The current facilities at Summerland Beach date to 1988 when a major redevelopment was carried out, with the opening of a visitor centre and carpark a few hundred metres away from the sand dunes, enlarged viewing terraces on the beach, and a network of boardwalks to link the two.

With the park receiving no recurrent operational funding from the government, Phillip Island Nature Parks is reliant on income from tourist operations to fund their activities. In 2007/08 the total operating revenue was almost $14 million, when a total of 487,251 people visited the penguin parade, with 63% of them being international tourists. With the competing interests of wildlife conservation and increasing the number of visitors, management needs to walk a fine line to avoid destroying the very reason for the park existing.

Sources

History of the Penguin Parade from the ABC program ‘Penguin Island’
History of the Summerland Peninsula by Roz Jessop, Environment Manager at the Phillip Island Nature Parks
The potential impacts of climate change on the Phillip Island Little Penguin colony, a report from 2009
Strategic Management Plan 2012–2017, Phillip Island Nature Parks
Annual Report 2009/2010, Phillip Island Nature Parks

‘Fixes’ for Myki queues at suburban stations

April 23rd, 2012 2 Comments

The other month I wrote about the queues forming at Melbourne’s City Loop railway stations caused by the increased use of Myki: so what happens to these commuters when they return home at the end of the day? ‘Stuck in more queues’ is the unfortunate answer.

Thankfully the solution to these crowds at suburban stations is a sensible one – secondary exits have been constructed on the outbound platforms at many stations, with additional Myki FPDs being installed to allow passengers to touch on or off their cards, allowing them to avoid the main entrance to the station. A much more elegant solution than the last minute ‘throw the barriers open before someone gets trampled‘ solution seen in the city.

However in the case of Myki, even good solutions manage to snatch failure from the jaws of success: the rollout of these secondary exits has been half baked, with temporary fencing blocking up many of the exits, leaving passengers still stuck in the crowds.

So why are they blocked up? The root cause is due to the work being divided into two phases: civil works to install the steps and path to access the platform, followed by the installation of the actual Myki equipment, with some halfwit having decided that the perfectly safe and complete pathways should not be used by passengers until ticketing equipment is installed.

As a result Metcard and Myki pass holders who don’t need to touch off still have to wait in line behind people who do want to touch off. I wonder how long until someone in charge realises?

Footnote

The secondary exit shown in the first photo was at Spotswood, the fenced off exits are at Ascot Vale and Bell stations. I’m sure there are plenty more of each type of exit around the Melbourne suburban network.

Educating the cattle: Myki touch on and off

April 17th, 2012 2 Comments

I’ve posted about the issues with Myki a few times over the past month: first I wrote about congestion at City Loop stations in peak hour, and yesterday I mentioned the lack of account information the system gives to commuters. So what have the head honchos at Myki been doing in that time?

You could say not much, but just on a month ago they did issue a decree on the correct way to use your Myki:

15 March 2012
MYKI USERS URGED TO TOUCH, NOT SWIPE OR WAVE
As more passengers make the switch to myki, public transport users are urged to ensure they touch on and off successfully.
Transport Ticketing Authority Chief Executive Officer Bernie Carolan said it is encouraging to see so many people making the switch from Metcard to myki, but acknowledged there are reports of difficulties when passengers ‘swipe’, ‘wave’, ‘rub’ or repeatedly ‘tap’ their myki at the myki reader.
“The most important tip is for people to touch their card to the centre of the reader and hold it still to ensure a successful touch on or touch off, rather than swiping, waving, tapping repeatedly or rubbing their card across the reader.
“When passengers are more familiar with myki they will find it takes about a second to touch on or off, meaning they easily enter or exit a gated or ungated train station, tram or bus.
“The main message is: touch, don’t swipe, touch, don’t wave, touch don’t rub, touch, don’t tap.”
To assist passengers, the Transport Ticketing Authority has uploaded a brief video tutorial to the myki website demonstrating how to touch on and off successfully, but more importantly, what not to do.

The video in question is here:

The above video does illustrate how one should successfully touch your Myki to the readers, but what good does it do if the message doesn’t reach those who are actually travelling on Melbourne’s public transport network? One month on, it appears someone at Myki head office has finally decided to roll out the campaign to somewhere that matters – the City Loop railway stations.

This animation appeared on Monday morning at Southern Cross Station on the large advertising screen outside the Collins Street ticket barriers. It reinforces the “don’t swipe / don’t wave / don’t tap tap” message, as well as the sometimes incorrect “always touch off, even if the barriers are open” spiel.