Tag Archives: public transportation

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Stopping All Stations Except East Richmond

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TAKEN FOR A RIDEmetro_train_cut_CC

Royce Millar and Clay Lucas (The Age, January 2011)

Somewhere between Caulfield and Clayton a drunk whom the whole train watched brought his fist, without warning, down on top of the skull of a teenager sitting beside him. While the kid grabbed his head, the drunk turned towards the dumbfounded gentleman next to him and giggled that no other way existed to deal with an Asian.

At the blow, I stood at the other end of the carriage. It took me at least five seconds to barge in, plenty long enough for any of the onlookers to collect their wits and confront him. But no one did. Continue reading

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Bus Shelters

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POLICING PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: AN ENVIRONMENTAL AND PROCEDURAL EVALUATION OF BUS STOPSbus

Kooi, Brandon R.  (LFB Scholarly Publishing, 2007, series: “Criminal Justice: Recent Scholarship”, ISBN 9781593321468)

One day, some transport minister may decide to give up his car for a year so he can experience the reality of relying on public transport. Unless he and all his mistresses live on a train line, he will sit in a lot of bus stops. Some of these, like the ones in Clayton, will follow the old-fashioned, comfortable design of an ass-width plank with either a straight backrest or one arched to match the human spine. Some others, like the unenclosed seats in Mt. Waverley, leave out the backrest, which does no harm. But if the minister rides out to Oakleigh, his backside will discover special pain benches that replace the backrest with a thick horizontal pole at scapula height.

The benches themselves arch downwards to stop you from trying to perch at the front edge away from the pole. They measure twenty-eight centimetres deep, but the pole overhangs them by twelve centimetres. Continue reading

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