The problem of trucks in urban and suburan streets

[rokwiz]

Just wondering how we are all doing in the cities given todays circumstances.
Would be a long time waiting on re stocking food stores without our trucking industry both local urban and OTR.

Meanwhile the rail has been shut down several times locally due to two major train derailments 2 weeks apart. The XPT passenger service has run once since then all the way to Melbourne.. And now the ARTC fools are re fixing the line....again.

[Thoglette]

Would be a long time waiting on re stocking food stores without our trucking industry .

Actually, the dependence on just-in-time logistics is a contributor to the empty shelves we see. Particularly in staples like toilet paper (a low value, low density product - i.e. low $ per metre of shelf space) whose demand is normally very stable. (more here)

The choice of vehicle for the first, last or middle mile has little to do with it. The total number of miles, on the other hand, certainly does. (Notes from KPMG, PWC and Deloitte, )

[Thoglette]

Man arrested after truck hits five pedestrians in Melbourne's Southbank, leaving two critically injured

Left turn, back end rode over the kerb.

Investigators say the truck turned left from City Road onto Power Street about 7:00pm on Thursday before it mounted the footpath and took out the traffic light.

The B-double tanker did not stop at the crash scene and left via Power Street.

This is a B double.

[find_bruce]

Thoglette, while that is a b-double, its not the b-double & there is nothing to suggest lindsay transport had any involvement.

The b-double was a tanker, and it appears it was carrying dangerous goods & so not permitted in the tunnels

I believe this is the intersection.

Why a B-Double is allowed in inner city streets is beyond me - the comments from the experienced driver point to it never being a safe route.

[tpcycle]

Thoglette, while that is a b-double, its not the b-double & there is nothing to suggest lindsay transport had any involvement.

The b-double was a tanker, and it appears it was carrying dangerous goods & so not permitted in the tunnels

I believe this is the intersection.

Why a B-Double is allowed in inner city streets is beyond me - the comments from the experienced driver point to it never being a safe route.

That's a b double tanker (although many are a big shorter). Google street view shows plenty of large trucks at that intersection, including of course a dump truck with a dog trailer - which I find to be the most dangerous vehicles on the roads usually driven by aggressive cowboys.

[find_bruce]

That's a b double tanker (although many are a big shorter). Google street view shows plenty of large trucks at that intersection, including of course a dump truck with a dog trailer - which I find to be the most dangerous vehicles on the roads usually driven by aggressive cowboys.

Thanks - my objection was to showing what appears to be an unrelated company so a generic pic is good.

I still don't understand why its legal for a b-double to be in the inner city. I've heard concerns about dog trailers before, but that still doesn't explain why B-Doubles, with a large swept path are permitted.

[neild]

Agree with this:

I still don't understand why its legal for a b-double to be in the inner city. I've heard concerns about dog trailers before, but that still doesn't explain why B-Doubles, with a large swept path are permitted.

I thought B-Doubles could only go on approved roads. All the talk I've heard on the radio is that this was an accident waiting to happen and they need to upgrade the corner. How about not letting those vehicles onto roads that aren't appropriate in the first place.

[fat and old]

That intersection has been a truck route as long as I’ve had a license. Pre tunnel it was on the route between the West Gate Fwy and South Eastern Fwy, carrying 1,000’s of movements each day.

It was a nightmare.

As is obvious, it’s still used by the big boys, but it’s ridiculous. That corner cannot be modified, there’s a bloody high rise 3m in from the kerb We used to repair the kerb every 6 months down there. As per Bruce’s obs, if it was a placarded load it’s gonna go thataway.

[Thoglette]

Thanks - my objection was to showing what appears to be an unrelated company so a generic pic is good.

Fair call - I should’ve noted it was a generic B double (and credited Wikipedia) and not assumed people would know it was a type of trailer arrangement.

[opik_bidin]

After coming here to Indonesia, where a popular route of climbing which is narrow is heavily populated with tanker trucks delivering water (because some mafia business and laziness to install water pipes), its not too much of a problem in regards to safety as the crash numbers are lower that what I would expect, in an area which also has pedestrians and motorcycles.

it is very congested though

[baabaa]

Thanks - my objection was to showing what appears to be an unrelated company so a generic pic is good.

Fair call - I should’ve noted it was a generic B double (and credited Wikipedia) and not assumed people would know it was a type of trailer arrangement.

Not sure that many people really know what is what until they see them out on the road. This may help sort the road trains from the "OMGosh - that is a Road Train!"
Heavy vehicles chart
https://roads-waterways.transport.nsw.g ... -chart.pdf

[Thoglette]

From the “they never learn” files

But the Victoria government also in mid-2021 approved large “A Double” trucks being able to access the Port of Melbourne. These trucks can carry two 12-metre containers and be up to 36 metres long – much longer than the standard semitrailer at 19 metres

This despite a decade old (at least) plan to move the customs clearance to the industrial burbs and get rid of the truck completely.

More on the sorry tale in The Conversation article Instead of putting more massive trucks on our roads, we need to invest in our rail network

[fat and old]

From the “they never learn” files

But the Victoria government also in mid-2021 approved large “A Double” trucks being able to access the Port of Melbourne. These trucks can carry two 12-metre containers and be up to 36 metres long – much longer than the standard semitrailer at 19 metres

This despite a decade old (at least) plan to move the customs clearance to the industrial burbs and get rid of the truck completely.

More on the sorry tale in The Conversation article Instead of putting more massive trucks on our roads, we need to invest in our rail network

It's not just the Port of Melbourne. I near spat my coffee at an intersection in Preston a few weeks ago when one of these as a fuel supply set up....yeah, 70,000 odd litres worth....crossed my path! This may be a DOT road, but it's two lanes shared with a tram where he came from (_Plenty Rd, Reservoir)...I've seen two more since then.

[Thoglette]

Garbage truck driver not at fault over four-year-old Launceston boy's death, coroner finds

Apparently it’s no-ones fault if a truck driver can’t see vulnerable road users.

[g-boaf]

Garbage truck driver not at fault over four-year-old Launceston boy's death, coroner finds

Apparently it’s no-ones fault if a truck driver can’t see vulnerable road users.

Earlier this year I had a frightening close pass from a big truck, done very deliberately when he could have slowed a little bit or changed lanes. The solution seems to be always, vulnerable road users should just get off the road. That's crap.

I watched a video today of a well known cyclist from Sydney talking about moving overseas, and he is right, the environment here is totally hostile towards riders and cycling in general.

[trailgumby]

Garbage truck driver not at fault over four-year-old Launceston boy's death, coroner finds

Apparently it’s no-ones fault if a truck driver can’t see vulnerable road users.

'
This is why BNSW is an active participant in the CLOCS-A forum. Heavy vehicle driver vision standards must change.

https://clocs-a.org.au/

[Thoglette]

Coulda put this in “war in cars” but it’s more about trucks, subsidies for trucks and structural neglect of the safer, greener, cheaper alternatives.
More than ever, it’s time to upgrade the Sydney–Melbourne railway
Published: in Th Conversation
August 4, 2022 1.54pm AEST
Philip Laird, University of Wollongong

Fifty years ago, rail and road held roughly equal shares of the land freight moving between Sydney and Melbourne.

Palletised and containerised freight is now below 1%

[g-boaf]

Agree that the rail link should be upgraded. Think of the benefits if it was quality high speed track, you could have passenger rail going much faster - and freight could also run more quickly.

Overseas you can find freight trains that can go up to 200km/h - but they are electric powered, not diesel. You can even have freight TGV, such a thing actually existed and took mail or package freight at 300km/h between major cities.

But it's easier to just have trucks on roads do it, then everything goes on the private company or contractor running the truck.

[rokwiz]

I love these govco announcements. ARTC aren't to keen on upgrading the line between Junee and Sydney as their new inland route will bypass this all together.
Most freight doesn't go this way apart from 1 train a day from Pt Kemble (the Onesteel train) Probably 3 freight trains pass here a day fully loaded and return mainly empty (hows that for efficiency) mean while B doubles and the new pocket Road Trains ply the Hume 24 / 7.
They can not even decide how to replace several bridges around Wangaratta / Glenrowen over the line for double decking clearance. Public discussion has been going on for a long time with most locals here not wanting their solutions for bridge replacement. Even the local cycling group are complaining the new road bridge proposed is way to steep at its approaches. I regularly drive over the existing one loaded with granite from the quarry and that's to steep. to Glenrowen being built on solid granite ARTC have no plans to lower the rail lines as a fix.
A similar thing happened here a couple of years back when the (replacement) Sydney to Melbourne gas pipeline ground to a halt at Springhurst due to the large granite outcrop its machinery couldn't get through.

[Thoglette]

In Melbourne there's a push for more freight to be moved by rail — but there's a big thing missing

By Elise Kinsella, ABC Online
Another sad tale of delay in critical infrastructure that would remove masses of trucks from urban and suburban roads

[foo on patrol]

And the containers and their contents get and from the rail, how

Foo

[brumby33]

Down here in the South of Sydney from Port Botany to the SouthWest on the M5 Motorway was a great corridor and it stopped trucks including many B-Doubles from using Forest Road Bexley and Stoney Creek Road and King Georges road, all very busy thoroughfares and it was the only way to go many years ago untill the M5 was opened.
Then this hideously inane NSW State government decided to join a tunnel to the M5 that became the M8 and it only goes to the St Peters just South of Newtown, that in it'self is ok but the Government decided a toll way was to be built just before that tunnel where a toll was never charged before so every vehicle who wanted to head into the City/ North Sydney/ Eastern Subs and Port Botany had to pay additional tolls whether or not they ever wanted to use that additional tunnel, it was never charged from the entire time of the opening of the M5, so cars and trucks are slugged and extra toll, so what happened? Trucks then decided it was easier and cheaper to go back the OLD way and clog up areas like Bexley shops, all the way down to Stoney Creek road and through Beverly Hills back to the M5 to head South and only had to cop 1 toll, not 2.
Many trucking Companies as well as bus companies including the one I worked for till recently, banned their drivers from using the M5 tunnel due to the extra toll. For heavy vehicles that meant $50 for every return trip to and from Port Botany.
It's ludicrous, the M5 was built primarily to get trucks and other traffic out of Suburban roads and then the Government basically forced them back onto those suburban roads.
I live only 1 block from the Stoney creek and King George's road at Beverly Hills and the traffic has tripled since that toll way had happened and the Government has made no attempts to squash it due to the lucrative contract deal with Trans-Urban the toll collecting company.....it absolutely stinks.

Furthermore, that poor little shopping precinct of Bexley has had to endure dirty stinking traffic which is always banked up and is the only alternative road for which the traffic can go apart from Bexley road then onto the M5 from there but still they have to go past Bexley via Rockdale to do that.

It's incredible how 1 extra road and a stupid Government decision can ruin what was an ideal solution to get cars and trucks away from suburbs.
Honestly...you wouldn't feed these decision makers if you had a choice, once the damage is done, those Pollies go elsewhere and they just wipe their hands and couldn't give a rats what problems they caused....damned parasites!!

[trailgumby]

Honestly...you wouldn't feed these decision makers if you had a choice, once the damage is done, those Pollies go elsewhere and they just wipe their hands and couldn't give a rats what problems they caused....damned parasites!!

What's worse is those parasites then go on to lucrative jobs in the industry after their political career. Not with the company they benefited - that would be too obvious - but someone else. Here I'm looking at Duncan Gay.

And it's not just at the top, it happens right through the industry and at all levels of the government organisations responsible. Supposedly, "industry experience" is a key requirement for government hiring, and vice versa. The revolving door between fox and gamekeeper is a form of grey corruption.

[brumby33]

Honestly...you wouldn't feed these decision makers if you had a choice, once the damage is done, those Pollies go elsewhere and they just wipe their hands and couldn't give a rats what problems they caused....damned parasites!!

What's worse is those parasites then go on to lucrative jobs in the industry after their political career. Not with the company they benefited - that would be too obvious - but someone else. Here I'm looking at Duncan Gay.

And it's not just at the top, it happens right through the industry and at all levels of the government organisations responsible. Supposedly, "industry experience" is a key requirement for government hiring, and vice versa. The revolving door between fox and gamekeeper is a form of grey corruption.

I think I'm going to buy that Game of mate's book tg, sounds compelling. Yes this so called transparency that pollies bang on about is anything but, secret handshakes, dodgy deal from inside information ...yes Darryl Maquire, you know all about that don't you, Andrew Constance and his selling of public transport to global Companies who have deteriorated the public transport system of Sydney and feeding his new mates in Trans-Urban who now own a monopoly on toll collecting on our motorways making them some of the most expensive in the Country, and pretty much the world. The buying of overseas trains, light rail and buses because Gladys reckons we can't build them here which is BS coz we've been building out Buses, trains and Trams here for over 70 years and it's built for operational condition for our network. I could go on and on about this high level of corruption and incompetence, it just burns my blood and no matter who gets in Government (do we really have a choice) it's all the same bunch of clowns and self serving twats running the show.

[Thoglette]

And the containers and their contents get and from the rail, how

You didn’t bother reading the article?

In a few words: almost none of the containers arriving at the port are destined for inner Melbourne. Rather, they are destined for large warehouses (and lay down areas & factories etc) in industrial areas on the outskirts of Melbourne, or other regions altogether.

At the Port end, containers go straight onto carriages. Those that end up in the industrial area should be split between carriages-to-Warehouse and short truck trips within the local area. Those destined for other areas remain on train carriages.