Posts filed under 'Canberra Stories'
Is it time that ACTION bus drivers stopped being allocated shift buses and took whatever bus was available?
For the last few days, the bus which I catch in to 1WAY FM in the morning has been late, this morning by ten minutes…and why was it late? Because the driver had to move six other buses at the depot in order to pick up his preferred bus. (After I mentioned this on-air, we received a call from an ACTION driver claiming that the other driver was fibbing, as there is only ever a need to move one bus in order for drivers to get to their own bus. This doesn’t alter the validity of my point though.)
Now I can understand if his shift had required him to pick up a bus with a bike rack, but that was not the case, and with ACTION progressively rolling out bike racks to all buses, surely it’s time for the days of the designated shift bus to come to an end.
Drivers may protest, and understandably, considering that many drivers become quite attached to the characteristics of their particular bus…but they get assigned a different bus just about every time there’s a minor change to the timetables anyway, so as far as I’m concerned, it’s time that ACTION start treating the buses as public property, and not the property of individual drivers, and make drivers take whatever suitable bus is available, in an effort to keep services running on time, and improve the overall quality of the service.
And who knows…perhaps if the buses were on time, more people might catch them? Jon Stanhope, are you listening?
Samuel
May 7th, 2009 at 01:40pm
I spoke with ACT Treasurer and Deputy Chief Minister Katy Gallagher about the ACT budget on the 1WAY FM morning show today, and the interview is now on the 1WAY FM Interviews podcast feed.
The interview can also be heard below.
[audio:http://mediapoint.org.au/podcasts/0000016265.mp3]
Download MP3
Samuel
May 7th, 2009 at 11:40am
ACT Treasurer and Deputy Chief Minister Katy Gallagher at 9:20 to talk about the ACT budget.
More on the ACT Infrastructure Tax being passed on to customers by Telstra.
The spammers are adapting their messages for the rising unemployment levels.
Maritz baked yesterday’s food with a slight modification…and some sentence which doesn’t make any sense.
A quiz or two.
And more.
The 1WAY FM morning show: 9am-11:30am on Canberra’s 91.9 and 94.3, 1WAY FM.
Samuel
May 7th, 2009 at 08:00am
Katy Gallagher handed down her first budget yesterday, and on the whole I have to say that I think she has got it right.
I don’t agree with everything in it, but in difficult economic times, Katy’s approach of “wait it out and see” seems to be the right one, and a much better approach than Wayne Swan’s apparent “slash and burn” approach to the federal budget.
Katy’s approach has been backed up today by the US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, who says the recession in the US will end this year, as long as they don’t have any further major dramas.
The ACT budget has a forecast deficit of 247 million dollars, with deficits predicted until at least the 2015-2016 financial year. Predictions like that always amuse me slightly because elections before then could change the government, and the plans going forward.
None the less, if the economy does improve before next year’s budget, as Katy Gallagher believes it will, then it should be a fairly smooth road to recovery. However as her critics have pointed out, if things get worse, then we will be in for a huge slash and burn budget next year and the year after.
I think Katy has it right, but time will tell.
As for the contents of the budget, the emphasis on increasing rates, parking fees and bus fares instead of cutting services seems sensible, but it does raise a few questions. For one, if the government are trying to push people on to buses, which their expensive new express bus service is aiming for, and which I think will fail miserably (as I have previously mentioned), then why are they increasing bus fares instead of car registration and driver licence fees?
Admittedly government owned parking meters will cost more, but this is hardly an across the board deterrent for drivers, especially with the prevalence of free parking in the parliamentary triangle.
Apart from rising bus fares, there’s no respite for cyclists. The free rides on buses for cyclists will end.
I also have to wonder about the new mental health unit for Canberra Hospital slated to cost 9.7 million dollars. We already have a mental health service at Canberra Hospital, and various mental health services spread through Canberra, and they don’t seem to communicate properly. Surely it would make more sense to consolidate management of these services to improve service standards, rather than spending money on new services.
I also note that there are still no bus services for the beleaguered residents of Hall and Tharwa, and nothing slated for Williamsdale despite the possibility of infrastructure out there. Yet the Alexander Machonichie Centre Of Respite For The Criminally Challenged has its own bus service. Go figure!
I’m not convinced that all the spending priorities are correct, but I think the overall sentiment of the budget is correct at this time.
It’s unusual for me to praise Katy Gallagher, but on this occasion I think she has made the tough decisions, and got them right in the process.
Samuel
May 6th, 2009 at 12:13pm
Originally published May 1, 3:32pm. I’m republishing this because it deserves a wider audience than what it probably received when originally published late on Friday.
An ACTION bus driver is in a critical condition in hospital following an accident at the Belconnen bus depot a bit over a week ago.
Samuel’s Blog has learned that on Tuesday April 21, a bus driver was walking between buses when a bus being driven by an ACTION refueller reversed rapidly, crushing the man between two buses. It is believed that the man suffered extensive internal injuries, including multiple broken bones, as well as having his head forced through the windscreen of the stationary bus.
The man was conveyed to hospital, where he remains in a coma more than a week after the accident.
The two buses involved in the accident, which did not have bumper bars, received significant panel damage.
Samuel’s Blog understand that the incident has revived concerns inside ACTION about the lack of reversing beepers on the buses, and has resulted in drivers being asked not to reverse park buses where other options are available.
It is not known why the incident has been kept quiet by ACTION officials.
Samuel
May 4th, 2009 at 05:24am
Earlier this week an ACTION bus driver was allegedly caught drink driving with a blood alcohol level twelve times over the 0.02 limit which applies to bus drivers.
Until now, all that has been known about how he was caught, is that police were called to the scene. I have received information from reliable sources which sheds some light on how this happened.
The driver in question is believed to have been working a “split shift”. He completed his morning shift and left work as normal. Later in the day he returned to work for his afternoon shift, allegedly drunk, not that anyone noticed at the time. The driver was apparently on his way to conduct a school run when, for one reason or another, ACTION’s communication centre attempted to contact him via the two-way radio system and received a slurred, garbled and unintelligible response.
The reaction of the communication centre was that the driver must be having a stroke, and as such they dispatched a supervisor to the scene. The supervisor found the driver in an allegedly drunk state, and called the police. The rest is history and documented the police press release.
Samuel
May 1st, 2009 at 09:26pm
Why do I get the feeling that this will turn in to another failed experiment very quickly?
Commuters can expect a bus every 15 minutes during peak times and every 30 minutes during off-peak times on high-demand weekday routes when the ACT Labor Government trials new rapid transit buses in 2009-10.
Chief Minister and Minister for Transport Jon Stanhope revealed today that the Territory Budget will provide $1 million for the new service, REDEX – Rapid Express Direct, to be trialled in 2009-10 between 6:30am and 7pm on weekdays during school terms.
[..]
REDEX 1 will be a return service to Gungahlin, Dickson, City, Russell, Barton, Woden, Erindale and Tuggeranong. REDEX 2 will be a return service to Kippax, Belconnen, City, Russell, Barton, Woden, Erindale and Tuggeranong.
Buses will run every 15 minutes from 6:30am to 9:30am and 3:30pm to 6:30pm and every 30 minutes at all other times.
It immediately occurs to me that Weston has been completely missed from this service, meaning that Westonites need to travel to Woden to utilise it. Fyshwick is also missing, as is deepest darkest southern Tuggeranong (a fairly large area) and the Eastern areas surrounding Red Hill.
I’ve said it before (although I don’t recall ever saying it on here) and I’ll say it again. The only way to get people to use the bus service in droves is to run direct centre-to-centre runs, in both directions, at regular intervals at all times of the day and weekend.
When I worked in Weston, the bus was not even a remotely viable option due to the fact that, in order to get to Weston at 8am, I needed to be out the door shortly after 6am. Much easier to drive to work at 7:45am. When ACTION eventually did produce an express service from the City to Weston, they decided that people would only need to go from Weston to the City in the morning, and the reverse in the afternoon. A direct City to Weston service in the morning would have made the bus a viable option, even though it would have taken longer than driving.
I really doubt that ACTION are going to tap in to a market of Gungahlinites who travel to Tuggeranong each day…with that service visiting Dickson and Russell and Barton, I wouldn’t be surprised if people will be able to drive directly from Gungahlin to Tuggeranong, back to Gungahlin and to Tuggeranong again in the time it will take that bus to get there. In fact, when the service is operational, I intend on testing my theory.
ACTION and Mr. Stanhope, direct centre-to-centre services (and preferably, direct suburb to centre services in peak hour) are the only way you’ll attract a large influx of passengers. Yes, it will be expensive, but with Canberra growing, do you really think a bus service through almost every part of Canberra is going to be quick enough for most people to put up with?
Oh…I just spotted another missing town centre…Hume!
Place these words in a different order: elephant, white.
Samuel
April 30th, 2009 at 02:16am
The shock has worn off, but the disbelief hasn’t. 2CC have apparently fired breakfast host Mike Jeffreys. I say “apparently” because the actual mode of Jeffreys’ departure (be it dismissal, redundancy, quit) are not known, although given his rapid disappearance from the 2CC website (his profile, listing in the schedule and his podcasts are gone, although they haven’t deleted all of his photos yet…I did have to dig a bit to find them though), dismissal is the most likely option.
Update: I can now confirm independently of The Canberra Times that Mike was fired. The importance of verifying this independently of said newspaper is that the CT have had an axe to grind against Jeffreys for some time now, and I have to take anything which they say about Jeffreys with a grain of salt. End Update
The rumour circulating at the moment is that Mark Parton is taking over as breakfast host, although I can’t confirm it as tomorrow is a public holiday and Mike is therefore expectedly absent from the lineup.
Update: And now I can confirm it. Mark arranged an interview with Michael Linke from the RSPCA via Twitter. 6:50am Tuesday requested and agreed to. I also note Mark’s casual reference to Saturday’s Canberra Times, but a clear absence of any mention of the story about Mike Jeffreys which was in that paper. I think I need to go and wash my hands in bleach after linking to Twitter that many times. End Update
The rumour does make sense though, as 2CC have just bought the rights to the satirical series “How Green Was My Cactus” which used to air on Mark Parton’s old stomping ground, Mix 106.3…and quite frankly, I can’t imagine Mike Jeffreys allowing such an interruption to his show multiple times per morning.
As for why Mike and 2CC are separating, RiotACT are speculating that it’s to do with the recent defamation action against 2CC and Mike Jeffreys by (the now late) Koomarri CEO Margaret Spalding. (Personally, having listened to the broadcast in question, I think Mike’s comments were not defamatory, and were a reasonably held opinion backed up by a number of facts, but I’m not a lawyer). I doubt that the defamation action is the sole reason for Mike’s departure, especially considering that talk stations often receive defamation lawsuits…it’s just that most aren’t publicly well-known.
The rumours abound that certain senior staff at the station are not exactly best friends with Jeffreys, so I would be more inclined to believe that it’s a combination of the recent ratings result in which 2CC ranked second last in the listed stations and the publicity surrounding the defamation case, giving some people a good excuse to get rid of somebody they don’t particularly like. Obviously this is only a theory, but without further information, it’s the only logical conclusion I can draw.
So, what now for 2CC? Well if previously leaked information about Mike’s ratings are anything to go by, this is probably not the best time to let him go. Mike has traditionally rated pretty well for the station, even if the station overall has not. I struggle to see how 2CC can hold its breakfast share in the short term and I now expect the next survey to see another fall for 2CC, possibly far enough to put them in last place. This isn’t to say that Mark Parton can’t make his way in the timeslot…I’m sure that over time he will grow an audience of his own, but if I had to choose a replacement breakfast host it would be Mike Welsh, not Mark Parton, and I have a very good reason for this.
I am yet to see proof of Mark’s aggressive streak, he’s a “nice guy” of radio who can launch the occasional necessary tirade, but just doesn’t strike me as being aggressive enough to keep the local politicians in check. Welshie on the other hand has a good track record doing just that, and in my opinion would shed less of the existing Jeffreys audience than Parton. Don’t get me wrong…I like Mark, he’s a nice guy and he did a great job filling the 9am-midday shift over Christmas/New Year, but I don’t think he is the right person for a hard-hitting breakfast show.
Mike Jeffreys is THE strong conservative voice of Canberra Radio in the morning, and I think this has been one of their main draw cards. As far as I’m concerned, Canberra no longer has a strong conservative voice in the morning. In the long term this could prove to be a good thing for 2CC as this is a fairly left-wing town, but that will only work if they drop a lot of the 2UE programming…a move which would be a disaster for the conservative movement in Canberra, and would require a lot of rebranding and reworking of 2CC program lineup.
As for Mike Jeffreys, I’ll miss him. I’ve been listening to him for six years and he is, in my view, one of the best talk hosts in the country. I only hope that he resurfaces on radio soon…and perhaps with Alan Jones dropping back to part time next year, there may be a slot for him up at 2GB. In the meantime, I hope he starts updating his website again.
Also I should note that Mike Welsh is the only remaining person in the timeslot listed on the poster I made in 2005 for my school bag. For this reason, Welshie will be getting a signed copy of said poster.
I should also mention that I am now undecided as to what I will be listening to in the morning. As I said earlier, I like Mark, but without meaning to offend him in any way, I would probably prefer to listen to Alan Jones on 2GB Sydney or Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin (depending on timezone differences) on KXNT Las Vegas or James Scott on 1WAY FM Canberra at that time of day. I will give Mark a go though.
Update: I forgot to mention that “The Best of Mike Jeffreys” aired as usual between 6am and 7am today. If I had been thinking I would have recorded it like I did with the final “Best of John Laws”…I suppose I can always buy it from Media Monitors. End Update
Samuel
April 26th, 2009 at 08:13pm
The full results are in:
Leaderboard
1st: FM 104.7 20.5% (up from 17.4%)
2nd: 666 ABC Canberra 19.0% (up from 17.4%)
3rd: Mix 106.3 16.0% (down from 17.3%)
4th: Triple J 8.8% (down from 10.8%)
5th: ABC Classic FM 7.7% (down from 9.4%)
6th: ABC Radio National 6.9% (down from 7.6%)
7th: 1053 2CA 5.9% (up from 4.1%)
8th: 1206 2CC 5.6% (down from 6.6%)
9th: Combined Unlisted 5.5% (down from 6%)
10th: ABC NewsRadio 4.1% (up from 3.4%)
Ratings since Survey 1 2005
Leaderboard positions since Survey 1 2005
Gains and losses
FM 104.7 +3.1
1053 2CA +1.8
666 ABC Canberra +1.6
ABC NewsRadio +0.7
Combined Unlisted -0.5
ABC Radio National -0.7
1206 2CC -1.0
Mix 106.3 -1.3
ABC Classic FM -1.7
Triple J -2.0
Gains and losses since Survey 2 2005
Music Vs Talk
Music 58.9% (down from 59.0%)
Talk 35.6% (up from 35.6%)
Combined Unlisted 5.5% (6.0%)
Music Vs Talk since survey 1 2005
Music Vs Talk: Average per station
Music 11.78% (down from 11.80%)
Talk 8.90% (up from 8.75%)
ABC Vs Commercial
ABC 46.5% (down from 48.6%)
Commercial 48.0% (up from 45.4%)
Combined Unlisted 5.5% (down from 6.0%)
ABC Vs Commercial since survey 1 2005
ABC Vs Commercial average per station
ABC 9.30% (down from 9.72%)
Commercial 12.00% (up from 11.35%)
AM Vs FM
AM 37.4% (up from 35.7%)
FM 57.1% (down from 58.3%)
Combined Unlisted 5.5% (down from 6.0%)
AM Vs FM since survey 1 2005
AM Vs FM average per station
AM 9.350% (up from 8.925%)
FM 11.420% (down from 11.660%)
Samuel
April 9th, 2009 at 04:32am
It doesn’t look like Nielsen Media Research have placed the full results online yet, however Jock’s Journal have this brief blurb:
104.7 has rated No 1 in the latest Canberra ratings (Nielsen Media Research – People 10+ Sun-Mon). They were followed by ABC 666 with 19%, then Mix 106.3 – 16%. 2CA rated 5.9% with sister station 2CC on 5.6%.
I’m assuming that they mean “Sunday to Saturday” and not “Sunday to Monday”.
Anyway, full results as they come to hand.
Update: Full details now online. Click here to view them. End Update
Samuel
April 8th, 2009 at 02:59pm
From AAP
Canberra airport bosses say a three-year .. 350-million dollar makeover will make it the best airport in Australia.
Managing director STEPHEN BYRON was speaking at the launch of the start of construction on the airport’s new environmentally-friendly southern concourse terminal today.
He says the Commonwealth Bank of Australia .. Westpac and WestLB will provide more than 330-million dollars to fund the project .. dubbed AirVolution.
Travellers will eventually benefit from the installation of international capabilities .. including immigration and customs .. more than double the number of check-in counters .. triple the baggage capacity and quadruple the airline club lounge areas.
About time! As Canberra grows, this is precisely the sort of infrastructure upgrade the city needs. With any luck, direct international flights to Canberra will help with tourism as well.
Samuel
April 7th, 2009 at 02:57pm
Are you looking for a new job?
Do you enjoy complicating things?
Do people often struggle or fail to comprehend your decisions?
Do you often struggle or fail to comprehend your decisions?
Do you believe that the quickest way from point A to point B is via points C through F, L through Q and Y via H?
When you follow a map, do you still end up in the wrong place?
If you answered yes to all of these questions, then ACTION want you to become a valuable member of their network planning team. In reality, the word “planning” gives the wrong impression…what ACTION want is somebody who revels in chaos and can make their network even harder to comprehend than it currently is.
Being able to write gibberish which can be fed to the Minister for Territory and Municipal Services which will then be used to fill articles in The Chronicle will be considered advantageous.
Questions regarding this position should be directed to contact officer Tim Swift on (02) 6207 8000 as per the ACT Government Jobs page. Applications should be sent to jobs@act.gov.au addressing the above criteria and including the application cover sheet available from http://www.jobs.act.gov.au/application_information.
What brought on this extraordinary outburst I hear you ask? Quite simple really. I caught the 25 from Woden to Cooleman Court, got off at the first stop on McInnes Street and walked the rest of the way. I beat the bus to Cooleman Court by seven minutes.
Add to this the odd belief that people don’t want to travel before 8am on Sundays, and the even weirder belief that Erindale, via a lengthy detour through Wanniassa, is a major town centre on weekends…a belief which adds a lot of time to the run between Woden and Tuggeranong, and I think you start to catch my drift.
Samuel
March 3rd, 2009 at 01:58pm
I note with some interest that today’s item for sale over at zazz.com.au is a reverse parking sensor, and I note this with interest not for personal interest (I can reverse park if I want to, I just choose not to most of the time…sometimes I do it just for the fun of it), but because I know of at least one driver in Canberra who could benefit from this little device.
I’m referring to the woman who reversed in to a taxi in Dickson yesterday afternoon. She was parked in the space next to me and was just about to leave when I arrived. I parked and fed one of those coin eating machines which donates money to ACT Chief Turnip Jon Stanhope in exchange for not sending around a uniformed person to demand a lot more money on behalf of Mr. Stanhope. Just as I returned with the slip of shiny paper proving that I had fed Mr. Stanhope’s electronic pet, this particular woman was slowly reversing out of her parking space and starting to steer her vehicle in-line with the direction of the normal flow of traffic on the road.
The Dickson taxi rank. Image copyright: Google
Somehow, and I don’t really understand how, she managed to completely underestimate the angle of steering required to successfully exit a parking space in this area (not that you need much of an angle, it’s quite possible to achieve a 90 degree turn whilst reversing without entering the taxi rank) and also managed to reverse straight in to a taxi. The taxi driver tried to prevent the accident by honking his horn at her just prior to her hitting his car, but it didn’t help.
Thankfully she was travelling slowly and only appeared to cause a very small amount of panel damage to the taxi…none-the-less, $39.95 for a reverse parking sensor plus postage and handling would probably be cheaper than the cost of having any panel damage fixed under insurance.
This makes me wonder if any insurance company has considered reducing premiums for vehicles which have a parking sensor? Considering the sheer number of parking bingles which occur each year, surely it would make sense…although insurance companies being insurance companies, they’d probably just raise the cost of insurance for the rest of us.
Hmmm, perhaps parking sensors aren’t the solution, perhaps what we need are airbags outside our cars to protect them from being damaged by rogue-reversers. High-pressure airbags might be an even better idea…protect your car, and repel the rogue-reverser.
This might just be proof that I’ve had too much coffee and my mind is wandering as a result.
Samuel
February 17th, 2009 at 12:46am
It’s a landslide. Members of the Canberra Raiders Sports Club have approved the acquisition of the West Belconnen Leagues Club by a margin of 1069 to 70, with 26 further invalid votes .
Members of West Belconnen have also approved the acquisition by 2525 votes to 93, with another 30 votes being invalid.
Update: Numbers were originally attributed to members of the wrong clubs. This has now been corrected, and I apologise for any confusion that this may have caused. End Update
On that basis, I must have spoken with at least 15% of the people who voted “no”. Most of the people who I spoke to who voted “no” said that they did so for the same reason as me, the $4 million debt belonging to West Belconnen, and the fact that they aren’t even close to being the dominant club in the area. Most of the people who I spoke to who voted “yes” said that they did so because they received a voting form in the mail with clear instructions to vote “yes”.
I hope that the majority of people who voted “yes” are not well represented by the people I spoke to, and I hope that the people in charge of the Raiders Sports Club know what they’re doing, because it’s going to take a lot of work to turn West Belconnen around.
Good luck none-the-less.
Samuel
February 13th, 2009 at 02:02pm
Update: Acquisition approved in a landslide vote. Click here for details. End Update
Title says it all really. The voting on the proposed acquisition closes today and I strongly urge Raiders Sports Club members to vote against the acquisition. For my reasoning, take a look at the linked article.
The results of the ballot will be published in The Canberra Times next Friday (February 13) and on the notice boards of the four Raiders clubs.
I will be republishing the results here, along with my commentary if I deem a commentary to be necessary.
Samuel
February 6th, 2009 at 09:34am
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