The Westgate Bridge

The Westgate Bridge is the major bridge linking western and eastern Melbourne.  As such, it is often seen as symbolic of the divide between the different parts of Melbourne.  I know residents of the eastern suburbs who have literally never driven over that bridge.

I recently had the opportunity to go on a boat tour of the Port of Melbourne precinct, and took some photos of the bridge at angles you normally never see it at, so I thought I'd post them here for anyone who's interested to view.

Many people think of the bridge as being isolated and industrial, but there's actually quite a lot of parkland around the bridge area.  There's even a golf course under the western approaches - you do the first hole on the southern side of the bridge and then the next tee is literally directly under it.

Next to the golf course is a sports field where football and cricket are played.  Apparently a few stray balls have ended up on the freeway!

The bridge was built so high to enable large container ships to pass under, as some of the key Port docks are upriver.  It's an amazing sight seeing those enormous ships entering and departing the Port and going under the bridge.  At high tide some of them only just squeeze under!

Buses and busy city streets

The following article is about a plan to create a fully-separated busway on 34th Street in New York:
http://www.streetsblog.org/2010/03/02/dot-plans-to-bring-nycs-first-separated-busway-to-34th-street/



We really need to do more of these in Melbourne too! Every time I work on a planning study for a freeway, I hear people saying that we should be investing in public transport instead. However, there's no reason why you can't use roads for public transport, and building one form of infrastructure and using it for all forms of transport (public, individual, freight and commercial) is the most efficient use of public funds.
Imagine something like this on Punt Road/Hoddle Street, Johnston Street and so on ... it would make both traffic and buses move much faster. The New York DoT is predicting that bus speeds will improve by 35%, which will reduce travel time significantly.
At present in Melbourne we are just too tentative about bus lanes. The ones on Springvale Road, for example, appear and disappear all the time, and are ignored more often than they are honoured. The buses are still stopping in traffic much of the time, because many of the bus stops have still not been indented from the road.
I used buses all the time when I was in New York - they were a great way to get around. It was easy to see where they were going and you could watch the city as you were passing by. Buses are clearly a major form of public transport in New York, covering areas where the subway system doesn't go.