GrodsCorp

Newspaper pushes for fare boycott

Thursday 1 February 2007, 6:55 pm

The Editor

Categories: Media, Melbourne, Public transport

Tags: boycott, Connex, privatisation, TheAge

Any person living in Melbourne who has recently been trying to catch a train from time-to-time, let alone regularly, will know all about the mental condition known as Connex Anger. For non-Melburnians a quick one sentence primer: Melbourne’s privately operated train network has been shit for years but recent brake problems with rolling stock have resulted in dozens of train cancellations per day and may soon force the entire network to run a Saturday timetable on weekdays.

People are pissed.

The Age online is running a story claiming that a day of action is planned on 1 March whereby commuters will not buy or validate train tickets. The impression is given in the first half of the story that the “day of action” is being organised and supported by the Public Transport Users’ Association (PUTA). However, it’s not until the second half of the story that the driver of the “day of action” is revealed as some anonymous nobody on The Age’s lame-arse Your Say page and a throwaway comment is made acknowledging that PUTA does not condone fare evasion.

GrodsCorp sez: Connex are shit and a day of action is the least they deserve.

GrodsCorp sez: The Age should quit sourcing their stories from comments on their pathetic online “blogs” and get on with the important tasks of designing vapid lifestyle magazine inserts and cut-and-pasting celebrity “news” from the wire services.

3 Comments

Adam (Thursday 1 February 2007, 11:35 pm) #

Private public transport - doesn’t exactly sound like an award winning idea to me!
ilibcc (Friday 2 February 2007, 4:17 pm) #

I think you mean PTUA. The system is indeed dreadful.

I was on a trashed carriage along with several druggies - you can tell because they wear tracksuits and push babies in prams. Someone down the end was chroming, and I don’t mean the doorhandles.

Then suddenly, crash! A rock hit the glass of the door, shattering it and spraying safety-glass (but still dangerous) shards all over everyone.

You’d be better off migrating to India and riding on top of the bloody things.
Alex Makin (Monday 5 February 2007, 12:13 am) #

The Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) certainly understands the frustrations shared by Melbourne’s rail passengers.

However a “day of action” in the form of a boycott is not the best way of airing these frustrations.

Ultimately Melbourne’s rail passengers must make it clear that they will no longer tolerate the State Government using Connex as a buffer to excuse the Bracks Government’s mismanagement of Melbourne’s rail network.

The State Government must take responsibility for the ongoing debacle and take immediate action to improve Melbourne’s public transport.

Alex Makin