COMMUTERS BEING LET DOWN BY POOR PLANNING

CHAD Van Estrop’s report (GA 1/10) on the bus replacements for Geelong commuters is just another example of poor leadership and the “plan to fail” mentality of our transport administrators.

Catching the V/Line is a painful task to begin with, so it is not surprising that the incompetence is ever more pronounced when a shutdown like this happens.

The changing of traffic light sequences should have occurred the moment buses were replacing services, not after. The bus routes should be planned so that they don’t get bogged down in the daily congestion on the bridges across the Yarra.

Services could run through the old Werribee lines, but unfortunately drivers are not prepared or trained to go through those areas, and there was no plan to prepare them, so that solution is out as well. To add salt to the wound, no compensation of any kind is on the table. In fact, full fees all the way, because this is supposedly a “planned” disruption.

These closures should not even be needed in the first place, but it seems a First World country with top-class engineers cannot design a method in which both transport services and construction works can occur at the same time. This despite so many other nations and cities being able to do as such.

Our governments have access to all the time and experts the world has to offer, and they still fail. It seems all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Joshua Lim, Belmont