• The Western Australian government are apparently a bunch of small-minded stupid folk who wouldn’t be able to devise any kind of vision if their lives depended on it. Or at least, that’s what I conclude from the most recent Perth foreshore proposal. (Even Richard Court aimed higher: Claisebrook Cove ain’t perfect, but it’s still fun.) Kudos to Antzpantz.
• And again: now that they’re taking delivery of new trains ordered a few years ago — a good thing! — why on earth are they dropping midday service on the Mandurah and Joondalup lines? Those every-7-minutes trains are busy, dang it. (Except for the occasional quiet carriage, but hey, no worse than BART at midday here.) Then again, I guess this government still can’t get over sniping about how the Mandurah Line that was built is better than what the previous Liberal government proposed.
• Two lighter concluding notes! First, here’s a nice summary of why you should question anyone who parrots the phrase “eight glasses of water per day”.
• And second, yes, California’s government is still screwed …

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!)

• So the owners of Perth Airport have finally announced a plan to upgrade the freakin’ thing. Coming home will be that much less painful … from 2015! In fact, said owners are so reluctant to get this process started that they have little more than a map to show — the press release contains the lovely admission that “concept designs are still being developed”. Going on what they have said, the plan isn’t bad, but neither is it great (regional terminal? yay! such a long walk away? eek!). And it’s still likely to turn out less than adequate — by their own boasting, passenger numbers are consistently growing a good 13% each year.
• The State Government re-announced this week the Riverside development in East Perth, which is nice, and that Transperth fares will go up, which is less so.
• And finally, the dear State Liberal Party is talking leadership spill again (over some stupid little indiscretion; does anyone even remember the Ruddster’s strip club incident?). Seriously kids, the election is nine months away. If you’re bickering about this now, your chances of success are zero.

• The Ruddster didn’t do a bad job of communicating to the Chinese government their failings last week. Not that I expect this to achieve anything — he certainly isn’t the first leader to quiz ’em about Tibet — but it’s nice to see him not kowtowing. Although the greatest substance from this meeting seems to have been some muttering about clean coal, which won’t exactly save the world from Chinese pollution.
• We are soon to have a new Governor-General, and like the bloke who appointed her, she’s from Queensland! (Oh, and she’s female.)
• In the airline industry, I’m sad to see Oasis Hong Kong shut down — all the British backpackers I met in Hong Kong were raving about how cheap their fares were — and I wonder how many other airlines’ business models are in trouble.
• Finally, I’m not yet sure that I trust Google’s Transit service, which recently added data from Transperth — apparently it takes twenty minutes to walk the platform bridge at Cockburn Central. And for all its flaws, the Transperth site is at least reliable in its recommendations since it knows about things like station closures. Compare to the Bay Area’s equivalent sites, which suck in general but also do wonderful things like leave me stranded in San Jose for an hour because a light rail station was being rebuilt.

Although I never did get those action shots of SmartRider Man that I’d been hoping for, it seems that I didn’t need to. He’s popping up in the newspapers, on the sides of buses, and even in random online promotions.

But why does he never seem to be smiling? The best he can manage is some kind of weird straight-faced smirk. Is it some sort of blasphemy for an RFID card to be happy about its triumphance over magnetic strips?

Rejoice, for the threat posed by terrorists is no more! Transperth have pulled down the “if you see something, say something” posters over the stairs at the Busport, replacing them with posters for their community consultation sessions — one of which I attended some time ago. (I would have photos, but my batteries weren’t charged …)

Clearly, we can stop being fearful now. And if I do see a Arab-looking person carrying a sack of ammonium nitrate, well, I dunno, I think I might forget what to do.

On the note of buses: my ride home today was on a shiny new natural gas bus, complete with the lovely smell of fresh synthetic seat covering. It seems Swan Transit have finally gotten in on the CNG-bus action (previously only Path and Southern Coast had them), and the new toys sport several design changes.

Back when the CNG buses first appeared I commented on the interior design, which seemed ugly at the time but has since grown on me. These newer natural gas buses feature sexy black plastic handles on the seats (not only is black the new black, it’s the new yellow!) and the surveillance camera mountings are much, much more subtle. Other changes include better lighting (with reading lights for the kids at the front) and … dig it … openable windows! But there are only four of them, and they’re small, so I doubt they’re of any real use.

The new gas buses also seem to have addressed (albeit perhaps not solved) the annoying violent gear-shift problems of the older ones. Yay for not feeling like I’m being beaten up by the playground bully every time I’m on a bus …