APESMA AGM, Gonzo's 60th

[tcpip]

Attended the APESMA Victorian branch AGM. Perhaps not so surprising, by making a concerted effort to seek young members (especially students) they have become a union with an increasing membership. Guest speaker for the night was an old associate, Dr. Paul Mees, who spoke - in a most entertaining and informative manner - of the need for central and integrated planning in public transport, comparing the disaster that is Melbourne with the successes of Switzerland (espcially Zurich). Caught up with Paul again the following night on the bus home from work and continued the conversation. Apropos on APESMA I have enrolled in Managing Innovation and Pathways to Organisational Best Practise (awful name, good subject). Alas, some of my preferred choices aren't available over the summer trimester.

Last night attended to sixtieth birthday party of Gonzo Heyglemeyer (he has a real name too), founder of Polyester Books, a place of great myth of legend in my youth in the Western Lands (not the least for providing the classic book High Weirdness By Mail, which now has a website and daily 'blog, well worth reading. Gonzo's gathering was small and cosy and I was pleased to encounter Fiona Patten at the function. Gonzo provided a fine collection of shorts from some classic and truly strange films, his son's band performed admirably, and concluded with Gonzo doing a version of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put A Spell on You".

Comments

[mr-figgy.livejournal.com]

Toronto's subway system currently has pro-public ads (TV spot version) up calling Melbourne's system a disaster, also singling out London and Vancouver. The aim is clearly to avoid privatizing the system. What are your thoughts? I see Dr. Paul Mees is actually cited as a source here.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well, Mees provides a weight of evidence and examples that is hard to refute. He is quite openly happy with the privatisation of the service (e.g., contracting), but very much opposed to the privitastion of the system, due to the integration and public good issues. The greatest problem that Melbourne faces is a lack of political leadership and a lumbering beast of a transport bureaucracy that has become used to not actually providing transport.

Hence we have 160 public servants employed just to oversee the introduction of the private Myki ticketing system. Zurich has 35 public servants for the entire system (plus, of course, service workers).