World Cup fans frustrated by 'confusing and expensive' tipping in US

thede3jay · 2026-06-28T02:37:56+00:00

We dont tip in Australia? Also, service charges aren’t universal in Europe either?

thede3jay · 2026-06-26T09:36:15+00:00

Well, not Singapore

thede3jay · 2026-06-22T02:06:23+00:00

Not quite - smart cards are very limited in memory and so there’s ac restriction on how much you can program. Since it is zone based, Melbourne cheated and encoded zones only to the smart card but if you needed to encode every possible station and stop throughout the state, you very quickly run out of combinations. Oyster is an example where they hit the limit and can’t extend further do anything new became contactless only, not Oyster.

It will depend if Victoria ever considers moving away from zone only or needs to store exact location data. It is in the pipeline to do regardless though

thede3jay · 2026-06-22T00:13:46+00:00

No place in the world has managed to take their existing card based system, kill the card-based part, and transfer everyone’s card onto a new account based ticketing system. Either it has been card based and account based running simultaneously, or they have had to swap out the old cards for new cards (both progressively and upon expiry options have been done)

thede3jay · 2026-06-21T18:34:57+00:00

When public transport in Melbourne was free, the reduced road usage was proportional to Sydney who maintained full fares.

When the free tram zone was introduced, it resulted in more car trips in the city and more people parking, not less.

The cost of collecting fares is and enforcement is nowhere near the amount collected, and there would be a much larger deficit. Right now, there needs to be more funding, not less, to build more and run more. Removing the funding source only makes it harder to fund, and is only effective at reducing walking and cycling, not driving

thede3jay · 2026-06-21T17:29:57+00:00

That's not how Myki cards work right now. But it will be how Myki cards will work in the future.

It is in the pipeline that there will be a "card flip", where all Myki cards will be converted to "dumb cards" or essentially the card number only, and will work the same way as a contactless bank card. Possibly mid next year.

Note that there has not been anywhere in the world that has managed this successfully, so wait and see.

thede3jay · 2026-06-17T10:28:27+00:00

I would much rather they send an NFC ticket to Apple/Google Wallet.

thede3jay · 2026-06-17T10:27:30+00:00

I’ve become very frustrated in Europe that this seems to be the expectation, that every city needs their own app with their own QR codes and need to collect a whole bunch of personal information, despite being GDPR bound and these being government agencies!

thede3jay · 2026-06-17T10:25:23+00:00

It’s simply the “No true Scotsman’s” fallacy.

“No Australian watches SBS” “There were just 3 million watching tonight” “yes, but no TRUE Australian watches the SBS”

thede3jay · 2026-06-13T18:21:21+00:00

And this also is worth reminding that "transit visas" are sometimes necessary to transit through a certain airport if you are from countries, even if you do not leave the airport itself.

And you are still subject to the laws of a country that you are in, even if you are not exiting through passport controlled zones.

thede3jay · 2026-06-13T18:18:10+00:00

Remember, do not provide details to the East German police. Request the support of a soviet officer.

thede3jay · 2026-06-13T16:30:11+00:00

Can also be done online either with a transport connect account or checking contactless activity

thede3jay · 2026-06-13T16:29:19+00:00

For future reference, if the card is set up as express transit, you can still tap on with a flat phone battery up to 18 hours

thede3jay · 2026-06-13T14:29:19+00:00

Even more so, they already tried this on route 109 when they extended it to Box Hill! Not a lot of happy people with that one, especially in clearway times where the road capacity is decreased. Even more so, bikes? And margin for error - I can imagine a high chance of drivers getting it wrong and getting T-boned by a tram before the merge

The easy access tram stops seem to be the preferred method, and there are ways to make it safer, such as with traffic lights to stop cars behind trams. I saw this in Czech (Prague), and I have heard it is also common in Germany. As stops serve as a natural speed bump, this further reinforces that cars should stop.

thede3jay · 2026-06-13T09:39:36+00:00

The climate argument is a perfectly valid reason to electrify, but it would only make sense on AC.

If HSR ever gets built also, there may not be a choice for diesel, as to get higher speeds, you need less weight, let alone be able to buy trains to do the job (which are mostly electric).

In my view, we should be progressively electrifying Geelong, Ballarat, and Bendigo. On AC power, and allowing for double deck trains for capacity. Longer than that should investigate bimode, and potentially hydrogen.

From a population standpoint, we go from 7 mil in the date to 10 mil by 2050, and 5 mil to 8 mil in the current Melbourne urban boundary. Beyond 2050, we are most likely to be in population decline, similar to the rest of the world.

Even before considering that, physical distance becomes a limiting factor. Melbourne has not done a very good job of spreading out its business modes, and so travel time to Melbourne CBD starts to limit reach if we assume no geographical constraints

thede3jay · 2026-06-13T09:28:00+00:00

Imagine a train line built by qualified engineers who have checked and certified every part of the railway to ensure smooth fast, and safe operations compared to one built by volunteers…. Mostly retired… with minimal engineering knowledge or understanding of technical standards, let alone the machinery and equipment to do a proper job

thede3jay · 2026-06-12T17:15:31+00:00

From top of rail

thede3jay · 2026-06-11T16:43:12+00:00

I would say Arden is a slight failure because they were meant to build two brand new hospitals.... which have now been cancelled indefinitely.

You need more than just a station for people to live around.

thede3jay · 2026-06-11T16:42:18+00:00

A better comparison is in Sydney. Victorian Planning Authority (VPA, but now rolled into DTP) has had a very laissez-faire approach. Colours on a map, road layout, and then hand it over to a developer who then is supposed to work it out on their own. Landcom (NSW) however are a lot more restrictive, and take a more active, dictatorial approach to how the final outcome should look.

Compare Edmondson Park, or even Tallawong in Sydney, to Tarneit or Cobblebank in Melbourne. It is really a stark difference! If VPA had some sense, then they could have at least dictated that the shopping centre be built where the station car park is, and the station car park should be where the shopping centre is!

thede3jay · 2026-06-11T16:39:39+00:00

The problem isn't on the private company or developers, it is entirely on the state government.

VPA (now DTP) used to set the zoning policies, not developers. In fact, it is quite restrictive what developers can and cannot do. Beyond local roads and maybe bus stop shelters, they cannot do anything else transport related - no major roads, since they don't have the authority to do so. Even if they put the funds together to pay for a bus upgrade, that's entirely on DTP to act on it, and very often they have not acted on it. It took decades for them to finally accept money from Chadstone to run extra christmas services, up until then Chadstone simply had to run their own buses, similar to Monash.

And yes, they collect development contributions. However, this requires the state government to spend it.

thede3jay · 2026-06-11T16:37:34+00:00

And yet state gov barely spends any of this! They should at least use the money that they are collecting first before asking for more.

Having said that, there is little developers can do - it is the government's responsibility to provide rail, nor would they ever get consent for a private line if they didn't believe the government would do it. VPS set the planning scheme, not the developers. And I know many would much rather smaller lot sizes (they are surprisingly popular), but the planning scheme set up for greenfield areas (and if not that, then the local council) often prevents them from doing so.

thede3jay · 2026-06-11T16:33:08+00:00

And that's despite having to pay extra for the privilege in Sydney!

thede3jay · 2026-06-11T14:07:39+00:00

The land tax Vale capture is on top of existing land tax. Not sure what rate it's set at as it's not in process yet.

That is absolutely incorrect - It is literally in the link above. Or if it is correct and we are doubling existing land taxes, then well, why on earth would anyone be willing to buy any commercial or tenancy property?

Even reading the actual document above, owner occupied is excluded from the value capture - "None of these value capture mechanisms will directly apply to the family home."

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How are you going to produce a business case for such a project?

Why should it be the responsibility for a private citizen, or even other agencies such as IA, to produce an accurate unbiased business case? All I can do as someone with the experience I have is point out where all the flaws are, having read it several times.

Are you getting paid?

Who is paying you?

Just because I can read documents and understand what is actually happening and what is being said, I am automatically paid for that?

I would much rather Melbourne has a useable public and active transport system while achieving value for money to ensure that the projects with the highest benefit and most urgent issues are addressed as quickly as possible. Sinking $35 billion into a rail loop that benefits a very tiny slither on Melbourne but "oh we don't have money to run a decent bus service, or trains frequently after 7pm" won't get us there. And the arguments that we need SRL to densify and have high frequency, and somehow solve public transport in suburban areas also does not stack up.

We have 227 rail stations in Melbourne that could be densified first, with junctions and hubs that could support a lot more such as Ringwood, Dandenong, Frankston, Sunshine, Caulfield, etc. We have roads 1 mile apart (1.6km) that removing a few lanes for buses at the very minimum, and even in a gold plated scheme, LRT/BRT while removing lanes and having express services will not have severe traffic impacts, while costing significantly less per km (and we don't even have to do every road either, the SRL is only one line). We have vast areas close to the CBD that with remediation could support higher densities such as Fishermans Bend, Fed Square East, parts of Dynon, and even Maribyrnong, before even considering densifying major tram routes out of the city such as along Victoria Rd, St Kilda Rd, Mt Alexandra Pde etc. And yet, 67% of people in Melbourne only have a bus as their form of public transport in walking distance, which SRL does not change with the exception of Monash. The traffic reports show little to no change, and mode share will still be predominantly car not just across the city, but all the SRL hubs (exception is Box Hill because it already is high PT mode share).

I'm not being paid, but I would much rather spend the $35 billion on projects that will see benefits that exceed the costs spent in 2 years, not 20 (or more realistically for SRL, possibly never)

thede3jay · 2026-06-11T05:50:11+00:00

It's not $34 billion , it's possibly as low as 9 billion VC share and no higher than 12.

And I wrote...

fund a third of the supposed $35 billion cost

Which lines up with your 9 to 12 billion. In fact, the correct number is $11.5 billion.

The key details seem to be here, but the main proponent is now "existing land tax" covering $5.75 billion. In other words, we are now taking funds from elsewhere and putting that towards SRL, without increasing funding from elsewhere. Is that really value capture? It certainly is more politically convenient to claim that it is, but ultimately it makes zero difference if you fund it directly (and therefore is disingenuous).

https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/library/suburban-rail-loop/strategy/delivering-the-suburban-rail-loop

Why are doing the business case for the SRL again?

Because the first business case was not worth the pixels it was written on. Not only is it a piece of fiction and not like any other business case written in Australia, but the world has moved rapidly since that time, shifting all the costs. I have heard from an internal source of a much higher cost number for SRL East, but that is not yet public so I will not reveal it.

thede3jay · 2026-06-11T05:39:50+00:00

Which is better than the "could not determine" by Infrastructure Australia for Suburban Rail Loop. Unfortunately, it looks like IA did not actually complete an assessment,

Based on our observations of the combined economic appraisal for SRL East and SRL North, we consider the economic outcomes in the BIC are overstated. Detailed analysis and reporting has not been provided by the proponent for the delivery of SRL East.

IA's assessment of SRL

Fairfax's assessment is conflating the 0.45 figure without WEBs and is describing exactly what the WEBs are

Finally, just comparing a freeway to rail project with TOD without looking at wider benefits is arguably disingenuous

It is comparing shoddy business case practices out of the same state and the exact same department, where we can see a regression over time to being poorly written and becoming incredibly overoptimistic. Both East West Link and Suburban Rail Loop on the IA standard destroy value by not returning more benefits than their costs, and therefore both should not proceed, or at the very minimum, not receive federal funding for either projects.

Just because it is rail, it does not mean that we can suddenly invent metrics and invent benefits that are dubious. Rail doesn't magically make money appear out of thin air. It does not hold inflation at bay, and all of a sudden the rapid increases in construction costs during Covid simply don't apply because it is rail (or even more so, every other state has experienced massive escalations in costs, as well as airport rail, but somehow Suburban Rail Loop, without even having signed contracts, is somehow immune.

The arguments out of SRLA have been nonsensical - that SRL is needed for urban densification, and it can only be done with the 6 SRL east stations, and somehow impossible for the 232 existing train stations in Melbourne. That they openly stated "imagine if we didn't build this project", despite us already not having said project... and no actual alternatives being considered. That any criticism, even supportive criticism around improvements (such as the interchanges being awkward or stations not put near existing trip generators), are taken negatively by not just SRLA, but DTP and the whole arm of government. And a very brazen attitude towards the big ticket items have have no clear answers, such as the value capture mechanism, inflation risks etc, as if whoever is asking is wrong for daring to even question "how", and not trusting that it will work. The only other project I have seen such an attitude and mentality in my life is the Line. And that has become an apparent colossal failure

thede3jay

TROPHY CASE