So the Premier used his official campaign launch the other day to promise more upgrades for Transperth, and thus I shall launch into a public transport rant!

The media release makes tantalising promises of 10 new trains, more late-night services, and improved bus frequencies (yay!). But there are bigger announcements: apparently he’ll spend $850m (ouch!) on a railway from Midland to Ellenbrook, something that’s been on the cards for years now. And even better, he intends to fix the biggest remaining hole in Perth’s rail system, due north of the city towards Ballajura.

Except instead of actually fixing it, he’s offering up a bus lane, albeit one using new “auto-tram” vehicles out of Germany (incidentally: not a proven technology, although they really are just modified buses).

No offence to Ellenbrook, but it’s got a mere ten thousand people. Compared to the sixty-plus thousand living along Alexander Drive, with thought to how much fun it is to drive that road at peak hour, and assuming the state can only afford one train line … surely the correct place for a railway (or subway or tramway or something) is not out in the sticks?

(That said, two railways is obviously better; they needn’t be that expensive!)

I can’t believe I’m about to write this.

Today, I was actually impressed by Transperth management.

For months I’ve been getting mildly annoyed waiting at the Busport for the infrequent, often late services between Perth and UWA. (Buses are only frequent during semester, but people come on campus all the time.) Yesterday and today, they finally did something about it and got some guys who (I think) would have been running down Mounts Bay Road empty anyway to pick up everyone going to UWA. Woohoo!

Meanwhile, it’s Valentine’s Day, Shannon Noll is on the office radio, and I still can’t get our Macs to reliably connect to Microsoft Active Directory. Grrrr.