H.A.L.
Don’t suppose you have any idea what the damn thing is, huh?
I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
It can only be attributable to human error.
August 20, 2010 at 10:19 am | Architecture, Creative Commons, Minimalism, Photography, Public Transport, Urban | View Comments
The work of Malcolm MacGregor
Photo by Malcolm MacGregor © All Rights Reserved
I’ve been following Malcolm MacGregor’s work for a good few months now. Watching it develop in ways I didn’t expect, but was incredibly impressed by. When I first encountered Malcolm’s stream he was making some incredibly impressive and very popular HDR shots.
In recent months however, whilst still publishing some very impressive HDR shots, he’s also been producing some stunning, more subtle and in my opinion more refined work.
His work ‘at the lake’ is especially breathtaking, a beautiful environment with a lot of magical wildlife. A stream well worth following.
August 20, 2010 at 1:17 am | Architecture, Flowers, Bugs, Nature, etc, Heavy Treatment, Landscapes, Photography, Rural, Urban | View Comments
Election Time!
This ad was actually made by an advertising company for Gruen Nation. A spin-off of The Gruen Transfer. Whilst The Gruen Transfer looks at advertising in general Gruen Nation has been concentrating on political advertising. The week this was featured there were 2 fake ads put up by different advertising companies. This one was trying to convert new voters to the Greens.
The other was trying to dissuade traditional Green voters away from the party. Both ads I felt were excellent, but being a Green voter I’m not showing the other one!
Here’s another real Green ad (that was very unpopular amongst the Gruen crew but I think it excellent!)
August 19, 2010 at 10:59 pm | Political | View Comments
morning mist
Photo by laurynasm – Creatvie Commons BY-NC 2.0
If suburbia always looked this good I think I could cope with it.
August 14, 2010 at 11:49 am | Creative Commons, Photography, Suburban | View Comments
Special Cup 150CC
Sorry for the slackness of this blog lately to anyone that ever checks this thing… Not really sure how many people check it, but I promise I’ll have a bunch of new posts going up next week. Got a few planned, just very slack and busy. In the meantime here’s something fairly different to my usual style.
August 14, 2010 at 2:07 am | Creative Commons, Heavy Treatment, My Photos, Photography, Street | View Comments
You want a new f&#$ing photo Benji?
Happy now?
July 31, 2010 at 12:57 am | Creative Commons, My Photos, Photography, Public Transport, Urban | View Comments
Anyone got an apartment to rent in the Melbourne CBD?
Just kidding, that would be electoral fraud. Seriously wish my seat wasn’t quite such a safe Labor seat though, still there is always the Senate.
July 29, 2010 at 9:23 pm | Political, Video | View Comments
Bicycle Victoria’s response to my Melbourne Bike Share analysis
Photo by clara-maya – Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 2.0
A few days ago I wrote a post about how Melbourne’s Bike Share program has been implemented very poorly. It’s only a three posts down, but here’s a link anyway.
Anywho, I sent a link to the post to Bicycle Victoria to see if they had anything to say about it. They did. Here’s the email exchange between us.
Garry’s response
Hi Julian
There is some information on our website here:
http://www.bv.com.au/bikes-&-riding/42222/One thing to note is that there was a feasibility study undertaken by SKM a couple of years back before the government committed to the scheme. That study was available for download on the Age website.
The best analysis of public bikes was that done by Dept of Transport in NY City.
That is available here:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/transportation/td_bike_share.shtmlThat study shows that for schemes to work you have to have high density cities and high numbers of bikes and stations.
The Melbourne scheme is relatively small, and all the stations and bikes are not out on the streets yet.
No one will know whether it will be successful until the summer.
–
Regards,
Garry BrennanBicycle Victoria
Tel 03 8636 8888 / 1800 639 634
Online form:
http://www.bv.com.au/sendmessage/?cx=6
My reply to Gary
Dear Garry
Interesting that you point me to that study.
Currently I have only read the executive summary of the report however I would like to point out a few things.
Listed under the major findings is the following statement:
- Small programs do not work. Successful bike-share programs that produce real and demonstrable transportation, economic and health benefits depend on a high concentration of bike-stations and widespread program coverage. Often, financial viability increases with larger programs.
I would also like to point you to the following article on population density of Australian, US and Canadian cities as it has some rather surprising (and rather under-reported) facts.
You should see there that the population density of Melbourne is 15.7 people per hectare. Montreal in comparison is not a great deal higher with a population density of 19.7.
Montreal’s system (which I believe has the exact same bike’s as Melbourne’s system) started with 3,000 bicycles and 300 stations. It is currently expanding to 5,000 bicycles and 400 stations.
And in regards to your comment “No one will know whether it will be successful until the summer.” I agree that starting the system in winter was a poor idea, however again from the study NYC did that you kindly pointed me to “Despite seasonal weather changes, bike-share programs are used througout the year.”
Kind Regards,
Julian Wearne
I really can’t believe that this was the response I got. I mean honestly if the sponsors of the Melbourne Bike Share program are defending it’s implementation by directing critics to documents that clearly state the network they’re building won’t work, what chance does it have?
Since writing the response to Gary I’ve also skimmed through the Implementation chapter in the ‘Bike-Share Opportunities in New York City, 2009′ study that Gary kindly directed me to. Unsurprisingly the report suggests opening the program in “large swift phases”. For some reason I have a feeling NYC’s idea of swift and large phases isn’t starting with 10 stations then over the course of three or so months expanding to 50 stations.
If we do choose to look at the population density argument put forth in the NYC feasibility study Melbourne couldn’t possibly instigate a bike share program that would work no matter how we did it. Their report suggests only implementing the program where the population density is higher than 32,000/sq mi (approx 12,360 per km2). According to this website Melbourne’s densest suburb in 1999 only had a population density of 14,477 people per square mile (5,585 per km2).
However, given that Montreal has a population density of 11,496/sq mi (4,439 per km2) and their Bixi system has been a huge success, I think we can conclude implementation is more important than population density, as is true with all public transport.
Update:
After getting some feedback regarding lack of sources for my original post on the issue I have added sources to backup my claims.
July 28, 2010 at 11:54 pm | Creative Commons, Photography, Political, Public Transport, Urban | View Comments
Storm Cell
Photo by stephencurtin © All Rights Reserved.
If the world was flat, this is how I imagine the edge of the world would look like. Brilliant composition and nice rich colour in this stunning shot from Stephen Curtin.
July 28, 2010 at 9:07 pm | Landscapes, Photography, Suburban | View Comments
Railyard for NYC #7 subway line
Photo by joiseyshowaa – Creative Commons BY-SA 2.0
I really dig this tilt shift (or fake tilt shift, I’m not sure) HDR by joiseyshowaa. There are a few obvious reasons why I like it. Firstly, trains, secondly NYC but I’m also just really enjoying the combination of HDR and tilt-shift together which isn’t something I’ve come across before. It makes the whole thing look even more like a toy set. Who can resist those little purple 7’s either?
