Without Any Trains the Rail Network Will be Much Easier to Run

It is a hot, humid and generally disgusting day.  Simply walking outside results in damp clothes clinging to your body which is a lot less fun when you actually have to be somewhere.  People familiar with Sydney's public transport network will know what that means; it's trackwork day!  On a day like today the rail authority (or whatever they call themselves now) shuts down part of the railway network to do maintenance.  Usually they manage to shut down whatever part of it I need to use.  None of which would bother me (well, not too much) if I could see any improvement in the rail service after they had finished but apparently this is the amount of work necessary to simply maintain the rail network in its current state of inadequacy.

It is rather unfair of me to complain about our rail network.  It was designed and built rather well.  Unfortunately most of it was designed and built rather well about eighty years ago.  It is a tribute to the skill and far sight of its creators that it functions as well as it does.  And it does function well.  Despite all of the disparaging comments (many of them by me) large metal cylinders trundle down the tracks periodically stopping to pick up and drop off their human cargo generally at least within shouting distance of the timetable.

Where the rail network falls down is in capacity and extent.  Or to put it another way the city has grown to the point where we are starting to exceed the capacity for prophecy shown by the engineers and builders eighty years ago.  So what to do?  Of course the ideal solution would be to build extensions and upgrades to the network so that its good for another eighty years or so.  However in the unlikely event that our states political leaders turn out to be a bunch of feckless, irresponsible, short termist, pathetically incompetent halfwits it is probably a good idea to have a contingency plan standing by.

And here it is!  Let's get rid of public transport entirely.  Think about it; what do people use public transport for?  Three things mainly; to get to work, to visit friends and relatives and to go shopping.  All of these things can now be done over the internet so there seems no real reason to have public transport at all.  In fact there seems to be very little reason to have private transport either.  When the roads are clear of all except emergency vehicles and we're all living a troglodyte existence within our homes the world will be cleaner, safer and much more peaceful.  Best of all we will have the perfect excuse not to visit those irritating relatives we can't stand.