Some More Randomness 11

It hasn't even been four weeks since my last update, so I must be doing good.

Since my last update, I've done routes 367, 414, 431, 561 and 570. Five routes is better than nothing, right?

Yeah, I thought so.

Some More Randomness 10

It's been just barely over three weeks since my last post, so I'm doing reasonably well I'd like to think.

Since my last update, I've sadly only gotten one day specifically for gunzelling (which was Thursday just past). However, I did do routes 279 (to Templestowe), 401, 409, 432 and 704. It's not all that many, but it's still a few off my list.

I had been intending to do routes 927, 928 and 929 since I went to Pakenham during the day, but I decided to give that a miss and do 704 instead, so I could head home slightly earlier. After all, gunzelling after waking up at 4:40am with sweet FA sleep is hard. ;)

I have some free time coming up in the next few weeks, though, so I might get out a bit more. I need to concentrate more on the northern and outer eastern suburbs, which account for about two thirds of the routes I haven't done yet. I'll get around to them eventually, though.

Randomness 9

I rode the new route 418 from St Albans to Caroline Springs this morning, then walked about a km and got route 456 to Melton (Woodgrove Shopping Centre). From there I got route 457 to Melton to finish the part of the route that I hadn't yet done, then after having a quick lunch and racing back to the Palmerston St interchange, I got route 459 to Melton station.

And for the first time today, I rode a V/Locity at full speed. It was almost orgasmic, somehow.

(Do I sense a hint of train-wankerism here?)

Randomness 5

I went to Rockbank yesterday, finally. The station itself sucks. It's useless, and I wouldn't want to wait there for more than the half hour I did. I have now been to all stations except Flemington Racecourse, and all stations between Leawarra and Morradoo.

Here goes a random partly-sensical rant about activity centres around me, mixed with some more gunzelling.

I also went to Sunshine yesterday for no real reason. Well, I did have a reason sort of. I decided to randomly do a photographic tour, which involved taking the longest possible route between Sunshine and Albion on foot. I realised that Sunshine has tremendous amounts of open and underutilised, and therefore developable, space.

Due to a lack of low-density housing surrounding the core activity centre, Sunshine could easily accommodate taller (ten to twelve storey) buildings without much of a problem. But I already knew that anyway. It just seems more surreal to actually look at the whole centre specifically in terms of development space.

So, I eventually got to Albion station, opposite which there is a massive (unused?) flour mill, which would look completely awesome if it was converted into apartments. I was thinking of how a possible redevelopment of that one building would fit in with Melbourne 2030, and I came to the conclusion that it's a perfect example, and is also in a perfect location:

• It preserves the early-20th century heritage-listed building
• It's right next to a train station and a few bus routes
• Nearby residents couldn't complain about the height of the building, because it's been there the whole time (this is actually an important point in my opinion, considering how anti-development people in Brimbank, unlike me, tend to be)

So anyway, I got on a train back to Sunshine, and decided to randomly ride route 454 from end to end and return (which I did without getting off the bus - that's how tragic I am). I took some more photos of Sunshine, this time on the western side of the train line, before getting on a train to Sydenham.

Sydenham (in particular around Watergardens) isn't much of a principal activity centre at the moment, despite being a Transit City. Something worth noting, though, is the level of development that is now under construction and/or approved. Sydenham is going through a construction boom (of sorts) right now, including a new "Learning Centre" and a large shopping centre expansion. It is eventually going to have a town square linking the shopping centre to the train station. So, after taking a couple of photos, I got the 421 to Centro Keilor.

Centro Keilor is just an everyday supermarket-based shopping centre. No real description is required for that reason. I transferred to route 418, to St Albans.

St Albans is a major activity centre. It's very busy, and has significant numbers of people arriving by public transport (although also significant amounts of car traffic). I wasn't there for very long. Just long enough, in fact, to walk from the Alfrieda St bus terminus to the train station, to buy a Sunday Saver, and then get on the 423 a few minutes later.

Route 423 goes through Cairnlea, one of Vicurban's flagship "sustainable" suburbs. The only problem is, Cairnlea only has a single bus route which runs every 40 minutes on weekdays, every hour on Saturdays, and not at all during evenings or on Sundays. True sustainability (I assume) would include reducing reliance on cars, which certainly hasn't happened. But enough about that.

I got to Brimbank Central, which is currently the largest shopping centre in Brimbank (but is going to be overtaken by Watergardens very soon). It is nominated as a major activity centre, and will eventually have the Green Orbital Smartbus running through it. I had lunch there, while thinking about how PT to it should be improved. It would involve running at least routes 423 and 451 on Sundays.

But, enough compulsive ranting for now. Main points for today:

• Sunshine should get lots of high rise buildings. It's in a perfect location
• West Sunshine (particularly around Glengala Rd) is a hole, and should disappear from the face of the earth
• Shopping centres in Brimbank are too small, and should be massively expanded
• I think I'm a bus gunzel......

Some updates

I haven't really gotten out on PT much this week really, apart from going to uni a few times.

I have, however, done a small amount of travelling around the CBD and western suburbs (the highlights being getting off Kensington station, then route 402 from Kensington to Grattan/Swanston Sts one day, and another day going to West Maribyrnong), which means I have now been everywhere on the tram network (since I went to rt. 5 Malvern terminus some time a couple of weeks ago, which I neglected to mention).

And that's about it. I did however get dragged along on a drive to Southland via North Brighton and Sandringham, which was interesting to say the least. A lot of houses in Brighton are massive! Enough about that.

I've made a small addition to the blog layout: there are now a pile of links on the right sidebar that go to various transport-related sites, one being my Railpage photo gallery. Yeah, there's a few photos of trams in there that I took while walking from the corner of Harbour Esp./Latrobe St, Docklands to Spencer Street station via Latrobe and Spencer Sts. I also have a pile of photos of buildings that I might post somewhere eventually.

Now, hopefully in the coming week I can actually get out more, since I still have 74 stations that I have left to go to, which means I'm not quite on track of getting to my target of only 50. And I also need to use the remaining four trips on my 10x2hr Metcard, but maybe I could save them for some other time when I really really need them.

Erm, I also want to go to Adelaide when their new trams enter service (and since I also have a pile of timetables I want to get hold of). They look so cool. But that's enough ranting for today I think.