Rubénerd!

I had a thought this morning, and it hurt a lot. Not used to thinking so early in the morning.

Trains in Sydney are trains that are in Sydney

One of the variables both my sister and I (who can't drive) were really worrying about when we decided to move back in with our dad who was being transferred back to Sydney was how the trains would be. In Singapore the MRT is always full, but there are ultra clean stations everywhere, they keep building new lines, they're affordable and most importantly there's no timetable, just a frequency count with minutes measured in low single digits.

One of the more startling things about taking the train in Sydney is that... they're actually quite reliable and I can often get a seat on them when it isn't peak hour. I never, NEVER got a seat on the Singapore MRT or the LRT in KL! Part of the problem was I always felt guilty taking up a seat that someone older than me would need, so I just gave up and stood next to the doors.

Secondly, double decker carriages are awesome. The view from the top is great, and if there are noisy people, you can just walk downstairs or upstairs. That's huge in the afternoon when those <old man voice>loud teenagers get on and start yakking on their phones loudly about clothes and how their boy/girl friends aren't getting any.</old man voice>

Lots of people seem to have a negative opinion of the Sydney rail system, and it certainly isn't perfect, but fortunately we were able to get a house near a train station and its been a breeze. A 15 minute trip to get to the centre of town and only waiting 10 minutes for a train is mighty nice ^_^.

Sharing rhymes with pairing. Is pearing a word?

All of that last section may have been fine for some pointless rambling, but it wasn't what I intended to talk about!

The other thing that surprised me is just how much other rail traffic shares the rails with suburban trains. In Adelaide we'd regularly have huge container hauling diesel locomotives rumble right through the Mawson Interchange which was a bit unnerving (and LOUD!) but in Sydney the foreign guest that most frequently flies through is the XPT.

Back when I had a mad obsession with trains I studied the XPT, basically its a modified version of the British Intercity 125 double headed train that provides services to rural New South Wales and Brisbane, I think. Because of Australia's huge distances, the engines are diesel-electric because putting up catenaries (that always looks like canaries to me) would be prohibitively expensive, and Aussie governments don't give a rats arse about clean high speed rail because they're too busy pandering to airline companies. But I digress.

I'm not an engineer, but as I see these XPT trains rumbling and belching their fumes through these suburban stations, I can't help but wonder why they can't switch to catenary power when its available! The XPT locomotives use the diesel generator to power electric motors, so you could have pantographs to collect power and sidestep this process when it can. The diesel generator would act as backup power.

They do this on the Northeast Corridor in the New England region of the US, so its possible. I read Sydney uses some weird DC current for their electrical systems though, so maybe that wouldn't work for something with higher power demands like an XPT. In that case, maybe that needs to be changed too, or maybe it could just supplement the diesel generated power so it doesn't have to work as hard.

Unless they've done some hedging like the airlines (SIA is killer at this), I can't help but think all that diesel fuel wouldn't be cheap. But heck, what do I know, I'm not an XPT engineer ^_^. Off to have a grilled cheese sandwich :D.

Photo courtesy of Axel Cheah from Wikipedia.

What could possibly go wrong?

Extra fuel is joining peanuts and magazines on the list of things American Airlines wants to ditch at the gate. The airline announced plans this week to save cash by using "scientifically precise" computer models to load less fuel. If pilots want more, they'll need to submit a request in writing.

I would think retiring the world's largest fleet of ageing MD-80 would do more to reduce fuel consumption than these penny pinching schemes. They still call 1c coins pennies in the US, right? I found an Aussie penny in a drawer yesterday from before decimalisation. It had King George The Something on it.

Back to this flight nonsense, it's almost as if they have an ulterior motive with these decisions... say for example being able to land earlier than other planes in holding patterns above airports because they're running out of fuel sooner, or so they can pretend to appeal to greenies while saving themselves a few bucks, or so they can blame pilots for more problems. "Hey it's not our fault for that, the pilot didn't fill out form 23A..."

I've got an even better idea

Anyway I've got an even better idea (you just said that Ruben) to reduce fuel consumption in places like the US and Australia: ditch domestic flights altogether and replace them with cross-continent high speed rail! They'd be more comfortable, more convenient, vast airport land could be reclaimed for parks and other such Hippie draws, and best of all we could wire them up to renewable energy sources like geothermal for baseload and solar in the centre where very little rain falls. It's genius, I tell you!

Hey, I can dream, right?

Photo of an American Airlines MD80 being deiced by PhilipC on Flickr.

This has nothing to do with computer science or software or anime, but when Alex Sadlier shared this in Google Reader I just had to comment on it.

I want the car culture to fall down tomorrow, and I no longer care who knows it. I want the end of single-occupant vehicles, and the end of suburbs that force us to drive 30 or 40 miles to get to a job.

Yes, yes and yes!

The Aussie Factor

First I want to get this disclaimer out of the way. With all my recent blog posts on airport searches and internet filters I may give the impression that I hate Australia. I don't, I'm just bitterly disappointed at all her missed opportunities and think she and her people are capable of so much more, if people in charge were competent and forward thinking enough.

Oh yeah, and if we got rid of the states. An entire country with less people than many cities doesn't need them and it only adds to the red tape, bureaucracy and waste of our already ineffective federal government!

I digress!

When the British first arrived in Australia, they held the promise of creating an egalitarian society without the rigid social classes and sense of entitlement so entrenched in much of the Western world at the time. Instead that potential was squandered in an attempt to realise the Aussie Dream of a 1/4 acre lot and two cars, at the expense of our land's native peoples, the environment and ultimately of sustainable living.

With only 4 million people, Sydney is larger in land area than New York City, is it any surprise services such as public transport can't be effective when people are spread so thin?

It's a car entitlement culture thingy

I've touched on this a few times on this blog, but basically the way I see it Australia, like the United States, has a car entitlement culture which has such a deep and profound effect on virtually everything. Cities can't afford to provide good public transport because they're too busy clearing huge swaths or land or tunnelling to build gigantic roads and other necessary infrastructure so individual people can sit in their gigantic cars and talk on their phones about how the traffic is so terrible and run over a few pedestrians and bike riders. As a result, nobody uses public transport because it's slow and ineffective. It's a viscous cycle that no politician for decades has had the balls to break other than token new tram lines or refurbished carriages.

It goes even deeper than a practical standpoint of "needing" a car. It's a rite of passage for 16 year olds to start learning to drive and to get their first wheels. As a financial result of growing up in Singapore, I'm 24 and the only vehicle I have a licence for is a Segway. It used to embarrass me. I don't care now.

I've only really talked about public transport here, but there are many other issues. With people living so far out, the idea of walking to work or school is out of the question for so many people which I can only imagine is having serious health effects. Many people somehow think living in a trendy apartment is still just a cheapie substitute to a "real" house. There's less space for parks. We can't use renewable energy to power trains because people are too busy burning a disgusting liquid in their cars that spills and causes disaster, not to mention chokes the air we breathe.

This isn't to say there aren't legitimate uses for cars, but for every person using one there are dozens who abuse them. You really need a gigantic car to go one block... by yourself... really?!

Put down the pot your hippie!

And yet if I say this to people, I'm called a daydreaming hippie or a stupid commie red socialist, or some less polite combination of the two! Anyway, call me what you will, I'm off to take the Singapore MRT two stops. If I miss the train, another one will be there in 2 minutes, and when I go on it there won't be any graffiti or broken windows either.

Ah the wonders of investing in your future!

Image credits

• Melbourne aerial photo by Wongm on Wikimedia Commons
• Sydney urban sprawl photo by Bunzip on Flickr
• Holden car photo by User:OSX on Wikipedia.
• Photo of baked cat pie with Guinness by Neal O'Carroll from the IntoYourHead show.

Along with all the talk about IKEA decking out Paris Métro stations with couches and lamps as an advertising stunt, there have been a ton of comments that pretty much follow this formula: "That'd never work in New York, the subways here aren't clean like the ones in Europe!"

As someone who recently zipped around in Paris on the Métro, the word clean wouldn't be one of the words I'd use to describe it! Intensely interesting, reliable, fast, affordable, comprehensive, yes. Clean? Eh, maybe not ;). The photo I took above shows one of the few good ones, but often there's litter everywhere and... certain odors which we won't discuss here.

As a matter of disclosure...

• Everything's relative, expensive private hospitals in Australia seems dirty after riding the Singapore MRT.

• I'm a self confessed IKEA nut because it's like Lego for adults, which allegedly means I'm a loser with too much free time. Yeah, thanks again Dave :P

• On our latest Eurotrip we also spent time in Munich before heading off to Paris and the Munich U-Bahn is beautiful. I'll upload my own photos eventually, for now check them out on Wikipedia and see for yourself :O

• And because it's St Patty's Day, don't mock Dublin's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luas">Luas system for its silly name (that probably means something which means I just made myself look like an arse), it's pretty cool too!

• Oh yeah, and my father's side of the family is also German, which means I'm biased ;). I kid, Paris is amazing, but Munich is a nicer place. I think I'll stop now before I get myself intro trouble!

What I love about Twitter is the spontaneousness (is that a word?) of random discussions about virtually anything. Today @oliyoung, @chimpocalypse and I were responding to the South Aussie government's ambitious road plans by taking about high speed rail and how Australia desperately needs it.

I remember earlier last year having a discussion with Todd Tyrtle in Google Reader about the prospect of Aussie high speed rail because we're both those weird people who don't have nor want a car. Despite loving high speed rail when we're in Europe on holidays and so on, at the time I rehashed the talking points I'd been given about the problems with such a system in Australia, namely that high speed rail is only competitive with air travel within certain distances, and Australia's major cities are too far apart and too low in population to be worthwhile. In Europe and the seaboards of North America you have the population density to support trains, in Australia you've got far fewer people and far greater distances between them.

When I though about it though, even if air travel may be faster I still think there'd be a market for high speed trains for the convenience and the fact you feel mighty better stepping off a train than you do when you've been in a pressurised tube trillions of kilometres in the air. Then there are the arguments that trains take you to the centre of town not an orbital airport in the middle of nowhere that you then have to commute in and out of. Plus you'd get to view some spectacular scenery city slickers like me would otherwise never see.

My grandiose plan!

What would be fantastic are high speed routes from Perth, through Adelaide then down to Melbourne, across to Canberra, then Sydney, along the NSW coast to Brisbane then along QLD up to Cairns. The Ghan could act as the auxiliary route from Adelaide through the red centre to Darwin.

I haven't talked to one single Aussie who says a high speed rail line would be a bad idea, although as that episode of South Park demonstrated I suppose the airlines (especially the budget ones) would lobby hard to make sure such a system would never leave the drawing board. Which is real shame.

As you may have noticed if you've been reading my blog for a while, I'm somewhat of a public transport nut. Having lived in Singapore most of my life, moving back to Australia for part of the year made me realise just how much I'd taken the public transport there for granted.

Many Singaporeans complain about the reliability of some of the buses and that they think it costs too much money to constantly build new underground train lines, but those are the kinds of investments that will be paying dividends for decades.

In comparison most Australian cities seem to follow the American model (sans perhaps New York City and Portland) of new expensive highways over public transport; while there are token efforts every now and then there is still the publicly held consensus that car ownership is a right not a privilege, and that the opportunity cost of building a new highway in place of a new train line is an acceptable one to take. I've been arguing for years this is entirely backwards and that if people are given a reliable, fast, comprehensive and affordable public transport system they'll use it.

Anyway, I was going somewhere with this! Scott Ludlam of the Aussie Greens had this to share this afternoon in regards to the current Senate report on public transport, in particular the issue I was talking about with road transport always getting priority:

The report on the Senate Inquiry into Public Transport tabled today recognised a multitude of reasons why public transport is a vital part of our nations' infrastructure and that its significance will grow in the years ahead.

[...] only states with coherent public transport plans and proposals will benefit. States that retain outdated planning policies favouring freeways over public transport will miss out. I hope that this report will play a role in focusing Government attention on the urgent need for a systematic re-prioritising of transport funding," Senator Ludlam said.

Trips made using public transport increased by 14.7 per cent from 2004 to 2008 in the eight capital cities.

These figures nearly made me fall out of my chair:

In the 30 years to 2004 the Commonwealth spent $58 billion dollars on roads, $2.2 billion on rail, and just $1.5 billion on public transport.

Even if you "John C Dvorak" the figures they still seem wildly disproportionate:

In the 30 years to 2004 the Commonwealth spent a meagre $58 billion dollars on roads, while spending a huge $2.2 billion on rail, and a whopping $1.5 billion on public transport!

I just don't know where to begin with these. Yes roads are needed and are useful for a functioning economy, and Australia's vast size and limited population presents formidable challenges for dealing with moving people and goods around, but come on... 1.5 billion? 2.2 for rail? It just boggles the mind!

Ah well, at least I'm lucky enough to live next to a train station here so I can commute into Adelaide and return without too many problems. The vast majority of Aussies aren't so lucky.

Photo of the Adelaide CBD by Mozul

Two comments I submitted on articles on the AdelaideNow website (the online version of the Adelaide Advertiser):

Australian's not buying local produce

AUSTRALIANS will stand up for the flag and the anthem but not for their mates when it comes to buying Australian, a study suggests.

An Australia SCAN survey shows only 28 per cent of consumers consider buying Australian-made goods necessary.

In 1995, 46 per cent of Australians ranked it highly.

Social analyst David Chalke said that as the recession continued, people would become even less inclined to buy domestic products which cost more than an imported alternative.

"I think we're going to hunker down a bit more," he said.

I would love to buy Australian and help people here, but as a computer guy I don't have a choice than to buy from overseas, all the stuff I get is from the US, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and Korea. Even though I'm Aussie I've lived most of my life overseas and I realise the reality that some places are better at producing things than other places, it's Economics 101. Food I proudly buy Australian at the supermarket not just because "it comes from here" but because of it's superior quality.

Perhaps with further local development and investment in education I could one day buy my electronics from Aussie companies too; I certainly believe the entrepreneurial spirit and creativity needed are already here.

Adelaide's Gallipoli underpass a traffic nightmare

THE much-vaunted $118 million Gallipoli underpass - open for just over six weeks - has become a nightmare for commuters during afternoon peak-hour.

Thousands of motorists are now being caught in anp exasperating daily crawl - but authorities say drivers will have to put up with the problems for now.

During Friday night's rush hour, traffic banked up more than 1.5km between the Anzac Hwy turnoff on South Rd to Greenhill Rd.

The almost daily gridlock occurs because Anzac Hwy commuters are forced to give way to south-bound underpass traffic.

Public transport public transport public transport grilled cheese sandwiches public transport.

Having a coffee while typing this at a... very busy cafe!

One of the great things about living in Adelaide from a lifestyle point of view compared to most other Aussie cities is it's relatively small and urban sprawl hasn't taken hold to the extent it has in Sydney and Melbourne for example. What this means is any trip via the CBD is easy to plan, especially on public transport. It also helps that the Adelaide Metro has unified timetables and signage for trains, trams, buses and jaffles, a huge relief if you're from Melbourne where each bus company does their own thing!

Despite being smaller though, Adelaide's public transport system is still far too complex in my opinion. Back in Singapore you can pick up a TransitLink guide book which is slightly larger than a stack of playing cards and in it each bus route is clearly defined with fare stops and frequency that don't change. In Adelaide each set of bus routes has it's own foldout broadsheet guide with a dizzying array of tables containing detailed times, stops and exceptions, all of which change depending on the time of day, what day it is, whether there's a full moon and so on. If you rely on puplic transport you rapidly accumulate these foldout broadsheet things, and nine times out of ten the information is inaccurate anyway!

Adelaide has just over 1 million people, Singapore has over 4.5 million, yet if you were to look at their public transport information you'd swear it was the other way around!

Traffic and trams on North Terrace in Adelaide by Bill Drury

As more people become aware of the impact they're having on the planet or just don't want to have to deal with the costs and hassle of owning cars, an efficient and predictable public transport system becomes even more important. I see all this needless complexity and shake my head because I see the potential for the government to spend the same amount of money but provide better service. If it were simpler, more people would use it.

This afternoon my sister and I went to the HarbourTown shopping centre at Westbeach which meant we had to take the 132 from the city. We waited in line at the bus stop and caught it, only to be told halfway the service stopped there because it was the 132B. Sure enough when I figured out how to unfold the huge guide for the 13X buses, ONLY at the time we boarded was the scheduled bus the 132B. Then after a certain time and after a certain part of the way along the route the number changes to something else entirely! I took responsibility for not reading the bus number properly and received deserved head smacks from my sister, but it still begs the question why different bus numbers are needed at different times and why some have to have letters after them. Sheesh!

Wait, the bus stops here?! Ah crap!

I'd still feel guilty owning a car at this point because I can live without one and the last thing the world needs is another single guy in a rich country burning petrol because they're too lazy to walk or research public transport, but experiences like this do really test my patience!

I've been typing this at a coffee shop on my iTelephone, but now it's time for us to leave. I hope we don't accidentally board the bus which despite it's number goes to The Ocean because between 18:00 and 18:15 it travels west not east.

The changing Singapore and public transport episode!

Do more people know where Singapore is now? Sleeping with blinking lights; Asia changing every five minutes; gutting the Bishan MRT station; the Singapore Heartland; changing skylines; apartment buildings springing up from nowhere; the feared "en bloc sale" phenomena; the Adelaide Glenelg Tramline; the Sydney Cross City Tunnel; using the Internet Archive for Rubenerd Shows; rating shows with stars; Liberal and Labor guys; an extended rant on building roads instead of public transport; and don't blame me I voted for The Greens!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 21:15 9.9MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

The Holden Commodore Omega, photo by User:OSX. Can we afford to have everyone driving such huge cars?

I know I only wrote about this issue last week (Reduced profits of auto companies a good thing?) but the headlines keep cropping up in Google Reader and I have to expand on my ideas again.

Today's two articles are about General Motors and their failing bottom line: to put it bluntly they're simply struggling with sharply reduced demand. Adelaide Now lets us know that Holden (GM's Australian subsidiary) is cutting back production again. Time magazine asks whether or not General Motors is worth saving.

As with other car companies, General Motors has a disproportionally greater responsibility over other companies to help us in our global effort to protect our environment, and so far their [lack of] fulfillment of their environmental obligations has been laughable. Due to a loophole in American law which does not impose more stringent fuel efficiency standards on light trucks and SUVs because they're not "cars", the Big Three fell asleep behind their corporate wheels and didn't do anything while companies like Honda and Toyota have worked to improve efficiency and create hybrid technologies. They are certainly a long way from being perfect, but at least they're driving in the right direction.

The German InterCityExpress (ICE) by Sebastian Terfloth

I think General Motors should be given financial assistance, but only on the proviso that they wake up and starting taking the environment seriously: such funding should go towards developing more fuel efficient cars and researching alternative fuels, NOT towards restyling the bodywork on their current petrol-guzzlers for a new year range. They should also be supervised, and be encouraged to take seriously some brilliant, practical and unconventional ideas.

Such funding however should also be complimented by much larger government funding grants for the serious construction of public transport; this doesn't just apply to the United States. And I mean serious. Our planet cannot afford any more cars. It couldn't afford any more cars 20 years ago.

Only with a concerted and long term plan to improve public transport systems around the world will we see any change. We need to fundamentally rethink the way we get around this planet.