transportation

Transport these days can feel more like transportation—in the sense that one is made to feel like a criminal.

The other day I exit Parliament Station and cross to the tram platform on the Lonsdale Street corner. A 96 departs and an 86 rattles up to take its place. I barely break stride as I step aboard and hold my myki on the pad till it beeps. An announcement: more ticket inspectors. In plain clothes. Then the catchphrase: more checks, more fines, more often. Welcome aboard.

Airport pretentiousness gets right up my nose. Flights don’t travel to a destination, but through to wherever they’re going. Now V/line announcers are catching the add-an-unnecessary-preposition virus.

Once on board the plane you can wander aimlessly about the aisle but if seated your seatbelt must be fastened low and tight at all times. And window shutters must be pulled up for landing. Is there any good reason for this or are the airlines pulling the pud? You’re a prisoner in their plane and you’ll do as they damn well command. 

Metro, our train service provider, has pulled a great con. To save their sorry arse they’ve tinkered with the timetables, adding minutes to most journey times, so as to reduce the number of trains falling outside the government punctuality benchmarks. Formerly ‘on-time’ trains now actually run early. As a traveller, you can’t win.

And, of course, the Great Myki Fiasco. Hundreds of people incarcerated underground in loop stations, unable to get to the surface because the card readers are inferior and insufficient in number. Blind Freddy could see the problem coming.

Despite all this, we must travel. Or go nowhere. There is indeed something noble about the humble traveller. And even more noble about the traveller as captive of the train, tram or airplane he dares set foot on. It is, as everyone knows, better to travel that to arrive. My view is that travelling makes arrival so much more pleasurable.

Today MM pay for me to hire a car to get to Geelong, then Castlemaine, and back to Melbourne. I  rock in to Hertz’s Vermont office just after eight. And leave at 8:40. Their computers are on go-slow. The women behind the counter are tearing their hair out waiting for receipts to print. I remain philosophical. And a prisoner in their grubby office. What can you do?

Rock on.