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Waste and corruption in a public good as vital as rail transport is truly sad. It happens everywhere though. In Melbourne, contracts for their new ticketing sys

Waste and corruption in a public good as vital as rail transport is truly sad. It happens everywhere though. In Melbourne, contracts for their new ticketing system were given to a totally unqualified company and ran several hundred million over budget. Rather than just eat the cost, the corrupt city officials have doubled down by wasting more money of worthless ticket inspectors to attempt to recover some of the costs from fare evaders. https://sites.google.com/site/cheaperthanmyki/home https://sites.google.com/site/cheaperthanmyki/home

boulos 9y ago
Having just visited Melbourne, I truly hated being forced into paying $7 (AUD) for the privilege of getting a myki card to make a $4.10 trip each way (so $8.20). There is no longer any way to buy paper tickets, and unlike San Francisco which can print out reasonable RF-enabled single ride tickets for MUNI, everyone took it as obvious that $7 AUD was simply the cost of doing business. Thanks for the backstory on myki!
- ClassyJacket 9y ago
  Melbourne had a disposable ticket system in place for Myki - the tickets had already been made[1]. The Liberal government threw them out, wasting 15 million dollars in the process. And probably more on the equipment to dispense them. This is the same party that on a federal level threw out the nationwide fibre to the premises project, wasting 50 billion dollars on installing new DSL connections instead. I am actually being serious, they will be installing new DSL at a cost of 2400$ per premises until at least 2020. [1] http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/15m-myki-cards-set-to-be-pulped-20110904-1jsf3.html http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/15m-myki-cards-set-to-be-p...
jseliger 9y ago
It happens everywhere though Did you read the article? The leaders entrusted to expand New York’s regional transit network have paid the highest construction costs in the world, spending billions of dollars that could have been used to fix existing subway tunnels, tracks, trains and signals. The estimated cost of the Long Island Rail Road project, known as “East Side Access,” has ballooned to $12 billion, or nearly $3.5 billion for each new mile of track — seven times the average elsewhere in the world. The recently completed Second Avenue subway on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and the 2015 extension of the No. 7 line to Hudson Yards also cost far above average, at $2.5 billion and $1.5 billion per mile, respectively

boulos 9y ago

Having just visited Melbourne, I truly hated being forced into paying $7 (AUD) for the privilege of getting a myki card to make a $4.10 trip each way (so $8.20). There is no longer any way to buy paper tickets, and unlike San Francisco which can print out reasonable RF-enabled single ride tickets for MUNI, everyone took it as obvious that $7 AUD was simply the cost of doing business. Thanks for the backstory on myki!

ClassyJacket 9y ago
Melbourne had a disposable ticket system in place for Myki - the tickets had already been made[1]. The Liberal government threw them out, wasting 15 million dollars in the process. And probably more on the equipment to dispense them. This is the same party that on a federal level threw out the nationwide fibre to the premises project, wasting 50 billion dollars on installing new DSL connections instead. I am actually being serious, they will be installing new DSL at a cost of 2400$ per premises until at least 2020. [1] http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/15m-myki-cards-set-to-be-pulped-20110904-1jsf3.html http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/15m-myki-cards-set-to-be-p...

jseliger 9y ago

It happens everywhere though Did you read the article? The leaders entrusted to expand New York’s regional transit network have paid the highest construction costs in the world, spending billions of dollars that could have been used to fix existing subway tunnels, tracks, trains and signals. The estimated cost of the Long Island Rail Road project, known as “East Side Access,” has ballooned to $12 billion, or nearly $3.5 billion for each new mile of track — seven times the average elsewhere in the world. The recently completed Second Avenue subway on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and the 2015 extension of the No. 7 line to Hudson Yards also cost far above average, at $2.5 billion and $1.5 billion per mile, respectively