The latest news from Australia is that just 30 cases of Buruli have been reported in 2020, compared with reports of 50 or so by this time in recent years. That could be good news, or it could just be a consequence of people staying away from doctors’ offices because of COVID-19. Stinear had to temporarily halt his on-the-ground surveys in March because of the coronavirus, adding Buruli to the list of diseases, such as tuberculosis and polio, that may gain ground as a result of the pandemic. With coronavirus cases on the rise again, Australia’s tourism minister has recently announced that the country may shut its borders until 2021.
But cooped-up locals will still need an escape. Nothing, after all, can keep the tourists away. And maybe they’re not entirely wrong to take that risk: They’ll probably end up all right. Others aren’t so lucky. That’s because this disease—like COVID-19, like so much else—will be tamed in Australia long before the suffering ends in Africa. And the reason for that is no mystery at all.
Tag: Melbourne
Award-winning audio fiction series from the ABC. Walk the streets of Fitzroy, Melbourne, shaped by gangsters, migrants, Aboriginal activists, the working poor. Now, it’s fancy shops and hipster bars. Until you really look.
It’s a tale that has everything: ghastly crimes, executions, exhumations, grave robbery, publicly-funded Great Depression-era mass-employment construction schemes and, of course, Ned Kelly.
Researchers are drilling into remnant billabongs across the city to document the landscape as it was under Aboriginal management
By analysing the sediment – from the traces of pollen, and layers of charcoal and organic matter, to the DNA of lost creatures and micro-organisms – with the local Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung elders and community, Fletcher will add to the collective knowledge of this secluded spot.
This touches on what Tim Flannery has described as a ‘temperate Kakadu‘.
To improve community structures with citizens’ input, the United Nations uses a computer game inspired by Lego.
The Heritage Council of Victoria commissioned a study to find answers. It would become, says Jeremy Smith, principal archaeologist with Heritage Victoria, one of the “most significant combinations of historical and archaeological research that’s ever been conducted.”
The report has now been delivered and “It wasn’t what we expected,” Mr Smith says. “It’s going to have implications for the way we do archaeology for the next 50 years.”
The Alliance Archaeology study, Heritage in Ruins: An investigation into Melbourne’s ‘Buried Blocks’ reveals details of a forgotten campaign throughout the 1850 and 1860s by Melbourne’s then-council to raise the levels of swampy Melbourne’s putrid streets.
Hills were flattened and low-lying areas filled, the reason for today’s milder up-and-down cross-town walks.
However, the bombshell in the study was its discovery of a law passed in 1853 requiring those in low-lying areas to bury their homes. If a landowner refused or was too slow, the council was empowered to raise the level of the land itself and charge the costs.
Aaron PareckiGoodbye #Melbourne! A short but sweet visit! I enjoyed your coffee and blue fairy penguins thoroughly.
Just wondering, where did you catch site of the penguins? Did you make it down to Philip Island or somehow see them at St. Kilda?
On a side note, I was reminded that it the aquarium is a private business when I was asked to provide a dearth of information when buying tickets online. What was interesting was there was no mention of what that information would be used for. I wonder if such approaches will change or if such habits are now ingrained?
By as early as 2028, it’s projected to be Australia’s biggest city. By 2050, it will have grown to 8 million — the size of London and New York.
“It’s the fourth-fastest growing developed city on the planet today,” demographer Bernard Salt said.
“If we don’t invest, and continue with this rate of growth, then we collapse under our own weight. You end up with a Bangkok situation — where you have an extraordinary level of growth and congestion, and you simply cannot move around the city.”
The widespread failure of American mass transit is usually blamed on cheap gas and suburban sprawl. But the full story of why other countries succeed is more complicated.
Living in a new suburb amoungst the sprawl, we have one bus route which runs every hour, which is pretty useless and another which runs every twenty minutes. I usually end up driving to the station, where the trains run close to every six minutes during peak. However, there are only a limited number of parks.
There is the promise of new infrastructure, new tunnels and ring around the city. However, this will still take time and there is no political guarantee, especially when many of the ideas were first mooted in the 60’s.
Marginalia
Instead of building highways first, which tends to make neighborhoods auto-centric and de-prioritizes transit, European cities tended to put transit first when they built new neighborhoods.
Why do we only run decent service on expensive subways that were built from scratch?
Germany, for example, high-speed Autobahnen go just about everywhere. The land of BMW and Mercedes-Benz boasts a strong car culture, and its plans for a national network of expressways were first formed in the 1920s; indeed, these highways helped inspire America’s interstate build-out. But Germany never stopped building rail systems
Fares need to be low enough that people can afford to take transit. New York City will soon join other cities like Tucson and Ann Arbor in having discounted fares for low-income people. That is important to make transit accessible to everyone. But fair fares isn’t just about keeping fares low. It’s also about eliminating arbitrary inequities. People shouldn’t have to pay a transfer penalty or a double fare just because they switch from bus to rail, transfer between agencies, or travel across the city limits. A transfer is an inconvenience—you shouldn’t have to pay extra for it
Nearly every Torontonian is within a 15-minute walk of a 24-hour bus route. Virtually every one of the major roads on the city’s grid has a bus route that comes at least every 10 minutes, all day long. People making long trips across town usually transfer to the subway for a quicker ride, but it is also convenient to make cross-suburban journeys by transferring between buses—they come frequently enough that there is little risk of standing for an hour at a forlorn suburban bus stop waiting for the connection
In 1969 a bold new vision for Melbourne’s public transport system was presented to the state government with a deadline for completion in mind; the year 1985. It’s not clear why the Melbourne Metropolitan Transportation Plan set its target date a modest 16 years past the publication of the plan. Perhaps to coincide with a mid 80s visit from Bruce ‘The Boss’ Springsteen when throngs of double denim fans would descend on the city and demand an efficient train ride? Whatever the reason, the public transport developments that emerged from that plan have more than outlasted the ’80s rock star era, in fact, almost fifty years on and it continues to transport millions of Victorians in and out of the City every week.
A plan to build a multi-billion-dollar underground rail loop connecting Melbourne’s western and eastern suburbs via the airport, and link all major train lines, has been unveiled by the Victorian Labor Government.
Final designs for Melbourne’s five new underground train stations have been unveiled, with Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan predicting they will become new landmarks for the city.
It will be interesting to see these spaces when finished and how they will change the surrounding environment.
Essendon and Watergardens DDA, business cases for Broadmeadows/Pakenham, improvements Kananook and Seaford $16m — I’m a bit surprised Watergardens needs major works given it was only built in 2002. Does it suffer from capacity problems?
This issue is only amplified by the capacity on the Sunbury line. I would imagine that this is only going to increase with the development of land between Caroline Springs and Melton. Really they are in need of ramps similar to Sunshine Station.
The 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan was a road and rail transport plan for Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia, instituted by Henry Bolte’s state government. Most prominently, the plan recommended the provision of an extensive freeway network, much of which has since been built.
It is intriguing to think about this about what it might look like in the future. Some talk about fluidity of public transport in the future, will this put a stop to things such as train lines. Time will tell.