Life at 40

How's it been going with the recently introduced 40 kph zone in local streets around Bay St? There are a few anomalies. VicRoads did not support the 40 kph for Station St, or for Liardet St [between Pickles and Bay St]. Bay St, a VicRoads rather than a Council managed road, remains the stand out anomaly with a speed limit of 60 kph. 
Council will keep on advocating for 40 kph in Bay St as applies in Clarendon, Fitzroy and Carlisle Sts.
Some people have questioned the rationale for introducing the 40 kph zones. Road safety authorities agree that 'for pedestrians, small differences in travelling speed can mean the difference between life and death. If you collide with a pedestrian, death or serious injury is likely even at relatively low speeds. Although a pedestrian who is hit by a car travelling at 60 km/h has little chance of survival, if the car were travelling at 50 km/h the chance of the pedestrian surviving would be 60 per cent. [VicRoads speeding and safety] Chances of survival improve when the speed is lowered further.
Since the Council wants to support a conducive environment for walking, lowered speeds make sense.

Port Phillip Council election on Saturday 27 October

Today, Jason Dowling wrote an Opinion piece in the Age  - 'How to make your council vote count'. The positive in a generally negative article lies in alerting people to the Council elections coming up on October 27. Dowling reminds readers of the significant influence Councils have on places - through planning, parks, and a wide range of services. He suggests that research on candidates is well worth doing.
As advised to Port Melbourne residents recently, I will not be contesting the Sandridge ward at the Port Phillip Council election. Thank you for the generous messages people have sent in response to that letter.
Over coming weeks, there will be more discussion on Port Focus about the Sandridge ward and the Port Phillip Council election.

Spiny surprise off Sandridge

The beach was pretty clean and the water clear on Saturday for 3207 Beach Patrol's clean up. The water was clear enough to see this anenome in the shallows off Sandridge Beach.

Station Pier

HMAS Tobruk is at Outer East, Station Pier until Monday. There is also some work underway on Station Pier - perhaps in preparation for the cruise ship season?

Hottest, coldest, wettest, dryest ...

How often might you have said that this is the coldest winter in many years? Is it? A fascinating project* is underway to build a picture of South East Australia's climate before formal weather records started around 1910. Using newspapers, journals of early settlers and paleoclimatic records - such as tree ring records - researchers are building a picture of the variations of climate from the earliest days of settlement until reliable weather records began.  The researchers have used Trove to trawl through newspapers for information. So how was the weather in Melbourne in August 1862? Well - the Argus for 2 August 1862, p7 gives a very detailed analysis of the temperature for the month of June of that year and the relationship of the weather to the mortality for that period.
*SEARCH: South East Australia Recent Climate History

3207 Beach Patrol clean up on Saturday

The good people of 3207 Beach Patrol will get together for a group clean on Saturday from 9 am at First Point Beach - next to Princes Pier. Coffee or hot chocolate after. Here are some foreshore pictures from Dili in East Timor - familiar yet different. Discarded plastic bottle familiarity and people rather than mechanical cleaning the difference.

A decisive move on car dooring

From tomorrow the penalty for opening a car door into the path of a cyclist will more than double, reflecting the risk to riders that this offence poses.
'Rule 269(3) of the Victorian Road Safety Road Rules 2009, states that it is an offence to cause a hazard to a person or a vehicle by opening a door, leaving a door of a vehicle open or getting out of a vehicle. The on-the-spot fine for this offence will increase from $141 (one penalty unit) to $352 (2.5 penalty units) and the maximum court penalty from $423 (three penalty units) to $1,408 (ten penalty units).' More on safely sharing the road from the VicRoads website here. To prompt that awareness, free 'look for bike' stickers from VicRoads are available at the Assist desk at the Port Melbourne Town Hall. Do you think the increased penalty and the stickers will help address the problem?