$1.35 Billion well spent

I saw the train pull in and thought if I run I might just be able to make it. Alas, I’m not quite as nimble as I remembered and the train pulled away before I could make it. Swearing to myself I sat and waited. Twenty minutes between trains is the norm isn’t it? I was wondering though, why no one else tried to make the last minute dash for the doors. Two minutes later, a train pulls into the underground station and we are away. I’d paid a dollar for the trip, (a dollar!) and now I was entitled to go anywhere in the city. The stations were clean and the trains weren’t overly crowded. The tracks were all underground, transfers were quick and easy and I saw some people using ‘myki’ type cards. Even the teenagers seemed nice.

Clearly, I was not in Melbourne.

Melbourne, where I believe it costs $1.35 billion for a myki ticket, which you can get now, as long as you don’t want to use buses or trams, What a fantastic idea, I know it’s two years late but try and tell me it’s not worth it. It does appear though that Ms Kosky was a little concerned about the bad publicity the system has been receiving lately. She said, ‘it’s been a tough period but we really feel like we’re making progress. At least with the hot weather people are forgetting about the ticketing system and concentrating on the fact they can’t actually get anywhere, so that has been a relief. If we could get just get some decent bushfires now, our most recent figures indicate that 94% of people wouldn’t give a crap about how many billions the ticketing system cost.’

It’s funny how easily we become accustom to very poor standards. If only we could live up to the dizzying heights outlined above which was set by the public transport system in Santiago, Chile.

Where were you last Friday night?

The death of Nitin Garg last weekend was a deplorable act and we can only hope that the police find those responsible as soon as possible. It is a simple statement that could apply to anyone’s murder. Unfortunately in large cities such as ours these crimes do occur.

It is however, a little embarrassing watching the Indian media and government suddenly become so sanctimonious. The Indian government issued travel warnings to Melbourne and the media is demanding answers for this ‘racist’ attack. Maybe, the media are right, maybe this is the worst kind of racist attack that killed Nitin but isn’t it better to wait until motives have been established? Nitin’s wallet was found in the park so robbery was ruled out and apparently that only leaves ‘racist attack’ as the motive. They could well be right, no one including the police are willing to discount it, but it could just as easily have been an underpanted member of the Carlton Football Club, drunk, angry and disorientated after a week wondering the streets, unable to locate Crown. We don’t know, and can even come across as a little stupid when we try to guess.

Perhaps the Indian government could consider a similar warning for all of us in Melbourne (not just the Indian community) after the actions of Puneet Puneet in 2008. ‘It is advised to be aware of Indian drivers affected by drugs and alcohol on the roads in Melbourne.’ It only happened once a couple of years ago but at this stage the death toll is the same.