The end

After nearly seven years the time has come to put Melbourne on Transit to sleep. It will remain online but there won’t be new posts. Comments on previous posts will continue to be accepted.

I’ve enjoyed being able to document the many changes in Melbourne public transport during this time. By and large they have been for the good; the declines up to the early 1980s and stagnation through to the early 2000s have given way to a growth unseen for generations.

So why am I ceasing posting? There is no one reason. Time is one; like this one's topic, service frequency is critical to maintain reader interest, and the headway between posts was sometimes too long. Another is that more outlets are now available, for instance magazine articles and research papers.

While I’ve been in the industry for some time, its fragmented structure invariably put me at some distance from (and in different organisations to) those for whom the topics herein were of more than academic interest. This won’t necessarily be the case in the future, and I think this is a good time to finish. Fortunately this does not leave us without a Melbourne-based public transport blog and I recommend reading and supporting Transport Textbook.

Finally, I thank the readers and commenters for their encouragement that allowed Melbourne on Transit to continue the time it did. While there is no means to measure any influence it might have had, I am heartened by some recent changes in how those charged with its planning view the network. I hope these posts encouraged such tendencies and fostered a climate conducive to making Melbourne’s trains, trams and buses move more people more effectively.