Vic Metro Trains Melbourne

[grizzlym]

Metro and before them Connex and before them whoever are only given the service contract so that Joe/Jane Public blames them instead of the Victorian Government (both Coalition and Labor over the years).

It's a shit PR exercise that costs a shitload. The Government still owns all the infrastructure.

For whatever reasons the Coalition and Labor don't really believe in improving public transportation.

I had the misfortune of working on a few of the transport contracts. The penalties are a farce too - they get the money they are 'fined' right back as grants anyway.

Of course the operator is a layer of insulation for the government of the day. It's a joke, and yet another disgusting example of how governments are basically only interested in staying in power and preserving their political fortunes.

The Brack's government had an opportunity when they bought back V/Line from National Rail to implement some significant changes that would have had a profound effect on this state, mainly turning outlying towns into defacto suburbs of Melbourne. But that required biting the bullet and putting in extra lines thus enabling two set of fast rail tracks in both directions. The result? The ability to run fast express trains more regularly, thus making a place like Castlemaine a bit over an hour away. But no, that would have meant acquiring land in marginal seats. Just think of what that could have meant for Melbourne, infrastructure, house prices and all of the stuff. But we needed politicians of vision, not fart-catching yes men who were more interested in keeping the 'narrative' and making sure the party were put first. Don't get me wrong, this applies to all parties not just labour.

How's this? The minister at the time, Peter Batchelor, and his bursting-at-the-seams department were obsessed with naming the new Velocity trains and what colour to paint them. Bloody working groups were set up to research topics where the names of the new trains could be derived from. I've seen the documents and they were like doctoral thesis's on the various areas - it was mindblowingly indulgent, expensive, pretentious and utterly without value.

And then the saga of what colour to paint the new trains. The same kind of bloated process was also applied, but involving graphic designers, identity consultants and the like, innumerable swatches were paired-up, rationalised, documents were written. And after months and months, countless meetings, a stack load of cash, it was all thrown out and the minister's wife selected the colours. The purple representing the suffragette movement.

I have stories like this across just about every department. Don't get me started on Myki or the De Sal plant.

It's all characterised by the same thing: over-management, an over-inflated sense of significance, risk aversion, the power to say maybe, and limiting any and all damage to the party.

 

[FootyJunkie]

Metro and before them Connex and before them whoever.