The Age hits out at the state of our public transport system

It is good to see The Age in today's paper making some very bold criticisms of the Bracks governments lack of forward thinking on public transport. In an article entitled "Melbourne grinding to a halt", then age goes into detail about a report being released on Monday by Transport Minister Peter Bachelor that is quite critical of the state of public transport in Melbourne.

What I find most frustrating is that many groups such as the PTUA, the CBC, and many others have been trying to say this for quite some time now, but it has been falling on deaf ears. I only hope that as an outsider professor Peter Newman (author of the damning report) can succeed where others a little closer to the situation such as Professor Paul Mees have so far been unsuccessful.

My personal opinion is that Peter Bachelor should be forced to catch the train to work when parliament is in session instead of being chauffeur driven. In the IT industry we call this "Dog Fooding", where you force the people developing the product to actually use it. There is no quicker way I know of to get action on usability issues faster than forcing someone who has the power to make the changes use the damn thing. My only concern would be for Mr Bachelors safety, as by his station (Clifton Hill) during peek hour, the trains are filled to bursting point, and people aren't particularly happy when they have spent 20 mins waiting because a train was cancelled, then 15 mins smelling someone's arm pitt. If anyone were to recognise the man responsible for the atrocious state of Melbournes public transport, then rationality may give way to rage.