Bendigo Weekly 973

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BendigoWeekly issue 973 friday, june 24, 2016

www.bendigoweekly.com.au

Purrfect homes needed THERE are cats aplenty waiting for homes in Bendigo, and the RSPCA has a plan. From now until Monday all

adult cats are free to a good home. They are microchipped and desexed, and just need a place to stay.

top cat: Jess Darling with Shivers, one of the cats on offer at the RSPCA this weekend.

metro fail Photo: ANDREW PERRYMAN

By Joel Peterson

BENDIGO’S long-awaited $2 million Metro Rail network becomes a reality on Monday, but stage one of the project falls short of providing a reliable commuter service. The state government project delivers 14 weekday services at Epsom station, as well as an extra service from Eaglehawk and every Bendigo line train stopping at Kangaroo Flat. Despite the increase in trains, only one bus route regularly stops directly at a station and six of the seven trains from Epsom to Bendigo are slower than the connecting buses.

Transport link plan falls short

City of Greater Bendigo strategy manager Trevor Budge, a member of the Bendigo Metro Rail taskforce, said the roll out was on track to meet the ultimate goal of a 20-minute peak service but conceded current connections between trains and buses still require a lot of work. “There’s more work to be done. It’s probably more than tweaking that needs to be done with the bus network,” he said. “Council had a presentation

from one of Public Transport Victoria (PTV)’s senior people, and he admitted that it was a work in progress and that there was more to do. ”There is a lot of work being done about monitoring movement on the buses... Now that we have Bendigo Metro in place we can start to think about realigning the bus network.” PTV’s Bendigo Metro website says it “has been has been coordinated with the Bendigo bus network... to ensure bus services are better con-

Gun scare causes security lockdown – Page 3

nected with V/Line services”. The main commuter train from Epsom, at 8.23am, takes 22 minutes to get to Bendigo according to the new timetable. It pulls up a full eight minutes after the connecting number five bus arrives at Bendigo station. Only the 10.20am train is quicker than the connecting number five bus, but gives commuters only two minutes to walk about 250m from the bus stop on Howard St to Epsom Station.

The Epsom 50 bus directly services the city’s newest station, but regular waits of over half an hour for a connecting train into the CBD present headaches for those patrons. Eaglehawk station does not have a direct bus connection – though an improved service is a focus of a new master plan – and Kangaroo Flat lost its full-time connecting bus in the network review at the start of the year. Public Transport Users Association spokesman Daniel Bowen said more work on bus connections was needed to create a viable service.

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48-page property guide inside


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