Melbourne trams called a 'luxury'
By Alex Cooper
MELBOURNE — Comments by the most senior bureaucrat in the Public Transport Corporation (PTC) have outraged public transport groups and users.
Alan Reiher, acting secretary of the PTC, told an equal opportunities hearing on March 24 that Melbourne's trams were a luxury which the people and government of Victoria could ill afford. He was speaking on a case brought by people with disabilities over the government's plans to scrap conductors.
Public Transport Users Association spokesperson John McPherson called on the transport minister to sack Reiher and Stewart Joy (a transport consultant employed by the government who said at the hearing that the government would save $80 million by replacing trams with buses). McPherson accused the two bureaucrats of having an "ideologically based hatred of Melbourne's most popular form of public transport".
Kevin Healey from People for Environmentally Sustainable Transport also called for Reiher's dismissal. He told Green Left Weekly, "You can't have the senior public transport bureaucrat opposed to public transport. Obviously a tram (even with an inadequate fairway system) can move faster than a bus."
He added, "Reiher's comments were an indication of the government's attitude to people with disabilities. The same attitude would logically extend to older people, to the poor and to groups totally dependent on public transport. It is contrary to all urban, land use and transport planning logic. It also contradicts any commitment to greenhouse reduction."
The director general of the Public Sector Management Institute, Bill Russell, pointed out that many cities around the world are moving to trams, including cities in North America which had ripped up their tram tracks years ago in favour of freeways.
The PTC says it expects tram drivers to assist people with disabilities to get on and off the trams with the help of 100 roving helpers throughout the network.
The Met began driver-only operations on March 21 even though some driver-only trams still have no ticket machines and no warning was given to the travelling public.