7 April 2009

Keep an eye out for route 88

| johnboy
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We can’t do bus services to the airport, but Chief Minister Stanhope has announced that his pet prison is going to be serviced by a new Route 88 to take visitors who lack cars out to the facility.

    “Staff and visitors will benefit from new ACTION bus services to the AMC departing daily from the Woden Bus Interchange including weekends and public holidays,” Mr Stanhope said.

    “The new bus services are part of the ACT Labor Government’s ongoing commitment to provide a quality public transport system that meets the community’s needs.”

    Route 88 departs from platform four at the Woden Bus Interchange at 8:26am, 12:40pm and 5:10pm. Return services depart from the AMC at 1.50am, 4.50pm, and 8.05pm.

    On weekends and public holidays Route 988 departs from platform four at 8.40am, 12.25pm and 5.10pm and returns at 11.35am, 4.35pm and 7.35pm.

I’ve got a shiny gold star and the pint of your choice for the first person who can get me a picture of one of these running.

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MrPC said :

If I were ACTION, I’d be more interested in carrying prison employees then people whose friends or relatives are prisoners.

Quamby Youth Detention & Belconnen Remand Centre have both always had bus services out to them. The new Bimberi also has a bus out to it. So why should AMC be any different. I wonder if the buses even end up going out to AMC empty?

If I were ACTION, I’d be more interested in carrying prison employees then people whose friends or relatives are prisoners.

Maybe they could create an “expresso” service with the route number 666 for the peak visiting periods..

Speaking of ACTION and the airport, the buses to AMC could be beefed up for near zero cost by running the Route 786 bus in there. The 786 runs 3 times in the morning peak from Tuggers to Snowtown and three times in the afternoon peak from Snowtown to Tuggers, via the Monaro Highway, right past the AMC. Trouble is there’s no bus stop on the Monaro Highway.

On a barely related note, it’s also a bit of a slap in the face of the ACT gay community to name a public facility after Alexander Maconochie, who was publicly in favour of punishing sodomites by flogging them. Granted the regulations and laws of the day permitted execution for sodomy, but still, why was it any of his business what two men did with each other consentually?

jessieduck said :

As Jerra is NSW Action won’t be go there- It suck balls that the ACT Government won’t subsidise Deane’s so that the boarder crossing becomes more cost effective.

Why should the ACT subsidise non residents who use the Canberra community for work, entertainment and many other services but make no direct contribution though taxes or rates or the share of GST from the Australian Government.

LOL, I don’t think we’ll be outing any RA members as Nazi’s just yet.

It’s a shame that ACTION can’t run to the airport. Apparently its because Snow and his cronies want to charge the government an arm and a leg to do it.

Put out a challenge to the photographers at ACT Bus, they’ll probably be able to snap some shots of the 88.

Uh tad – I mentioned that in post #8 – only you seemed to pick up the significance so I left it.

Are we hiding something from the rest of RA community ?

Yeah, yeah, I’m pretty sure there aren’t any neonazis in local govt as well…..

Ummm, thanks TAD.

My post probably makes no sense. Here’s the link re: Blood and Honour Nazi site re: other thread

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Blood_and_Honour_international_Neo-Nazi_network_messages_and_passwords%2C_Mar_2009

The references to “88” are Heil Hitler (H is the eight letter of the latin alphabet). Similarly references to “28” are Blood and Honour, and “828” is code for Heil Blood and Honour.

Get your kicks

On Route………88

Funny 88, wasn’t that Nazi shorthand for Heil Hitler (8th letter x 2) on the other thread?

88 (Heil Hopeless)

I think that Route 88 should be extended to Hume. However for that to work, ACTION would need to start the service before 7am. This is because most people in industry start work around that time.

maybe this could be a new tourist attraction ‘route 88’ like the US has ‘route 66’?

seriously though, and more on topic, are there going to be bike racks installed on the front of route 88 buses? for people who have to ride to woden to catch the bus from there?

Hells_Bells742:08 pm 07 Apr 09

Hehe Igglepiggle.. Should’ve mumbled that you were just out on day release. Or did their faces already suggest that? Oh and please be sure to tell us that story at some stage, sounds juicy.

Well as a service for NSW residents, I can’t see the ACT Government coming to the party (there’s unlikely to be many Canberrans using ACTION to avial themselves of the civic delights of Jerrabomberra).

Had to do a day trip to the forensic hospital at Long Bay prison as part of a student placement while I was at uni. Scary, but thats another story…
One of the funniest experiences in my life was getting on the bus at Central Station in Sydney, in my jeans, and asking in my best bogan voice for “half fare to Long Bay thanks”. The looks on the old duck’s faces on the bus were priceless!

caf said :

Surely if anyone is subsidising Deane’s to provide service to Jerrabomberrians it should be the Queanbeyan Council that they pay rates to, or their State government. Certainly not the ACT Government, anyway.

From what I understand it comes down to the ACT Government offering the subsidies. Deane’s is subsidised by the NSW Government for it’s local, NSW centric, services.

Surely if anyone is subsidising Deane’s to provide service to Jerrabomberrians it should be the Queanbeyan Council that they pay rates to, or their State government. Certainly not the ACT Government, anyway.

Hells_Bells7411:53 am 07 Apr 09

For sure we can agree on that Jessieduck. ACTION timetable planners have never had to get around on buses clearly.

Wouldn’t be an easy job though, but those times offered for 88 were mind bogglingly weird. We might love our family/friends in gaol and all that but who would want to spend the many hours they would have you wait for buses at a gaol anyway. Extremely unhelpful looking for weekday workers too, unless they are on some weird times. The weekend one looked a little better.

well named route – probably almost always be two fat ladies on the bus at any given time…

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy11:47 am 07 Apr 09

Yep, it basically means that if you live in Jerra, public transport isn’t an option.

As Jerra is NSW Action won’t be go there- It suck balls that the ACT Government won’t subsidise Deane’s so that the boarder crossing becomes more cost effective.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy11:34 am 07 Apr 09

A bit OT, but is there a service that runs direct from Jerra into either the City or Woden?

You can catch a Deanes in to the city, but takes about 2 hours and 9 bucks each way!

Well, now that we are all in agreement that I can be a little upstart sometimes; can we also all agree that Action has stuffed up another opportunity to get a bus timetable right?

jessieduck said :

I wasn’t trying to sound like a pompous git- I just think if TP 3000 wants to “take on johnboy” he should try a bit harder to form coherent sentences.

“Don’t make no sense” is how us young people talk. It’s whack.

lol.
Hey don’t paint all us “young people” with the ‘inability to speak proper english’ brush.

Hells_Bells7411:16 am 07 Apr 09

Lol fair enough.. Who am I to argue whack.

I wasn’t trying to sound like a pompous git- I just think if TP 3000 wants to “take on johnboy” he should try a bit harder to form coherent sentences.

“Don’t make no sense” is how us young people talk. It’s whack.

Hells_Bells7411:09 am 07 Apr 09

jessieduck said :

TP 3000 half your sentances don’t make no sense… Do a review before you post next time….

One more thing.. if you are telling people to review their work, perhaps you should try it too. Because, if it ‘don’t make no sense’ you might want it to make sense then. Sentances? I would rather read a sentence.

neanderthalsis, why do they need a bus service? perfectly good helicopter hangar next door…

Hells_Bells7410:38 am 07 Apr 09

Oh hang on. A review over what he’s written. Sorry my bad. See hard to get the written word to work for everyone all the time.

Hells_Bells7410:36 am 07 Apr 09

jessieduck said :

TP 3000 half your sentances don’t make no sense… Do a review before you post next time….

What did I miss, TP3000 made almost perfect sense to me? Unless you count “as if have a weekend bus book” which maybe should’ve read “as it has a weekend bus book”

I don’t think doing reviews would help anyone’s twist of words most probably accidental.

Skidbladnir said :

My bad, they do say they’re for staff too…

Those do look strange to be useful for anybody working a shift roster, though.

and impossible for day staff who need to clock in a full 7.5 hour day with an OH&S prescribed lunch break…

My bad, they do say they’re for staff too…

Those do look strange to be useful for anybody working a shift roster, though.

neanderthalsis10:16 am 07 Apr 09

Skidbladnir said :

So why are they scheduling six buses for drive out there and back on Mondays?

Maybe they were planning shuttle runs for the escapees on a monday.

TP 3000 half your sentances don’t make no sense… Do a review before you post next time….

funny that route 88 comes out at the same time a defence employee is outed as a nazi sympathiser.

The services doesn’t look like they want any of the staff catching buses to work- you can’t catch an 8.26am bus to work and leave at 4.50pm- given that it will take 20 minutes to get there it’s not a full work day! STUPID! I doubt many Action schedulers actually catch buses to work or they would think about these sorts of things.

Also, some people might not want to be out there for over three hours- why such long return journeys??

George said :

Reflects Labor’s priorities.

For years Labor failed to schedule bus routes to the airport but in weeks of opening we have a service to the prison.

The timetable was already organized when Network 2008 was released, as if have a weekend bus book, 988 has been printed in there. The main reason for not running into the airport of the Canberra Airport Group who have awarded the contract to Deanes. But have let ACTION get away with having services on the edge of the airport (Majura Park, BBP & Fairbairn Park). As far as I am aware, there was an ACTION bus out to the airport (1998 if my memory serves me correct), but the bus would always be full from the airport to City,which meant no one else could use the service.

I’ll take you on johnboy, but you should make it harder. By saying one of these services running, with a passenger inside. As the 82 to the Youth Gaol runs empty up there.

Hells_Bells7410:05 am 07 Apr 09

Johnboy, are the pics requested so you can see this bus empty over and over again for a while?

From the release:
…ACTION bus services to the AMC departing daily…

From the website:
“To visit a prisoner at the AMC you must book the visit at least 24 hours in advance…
There are no visits on Mondays. Visits on the other six days of the week can be made…

So why are they scheduling six buses for drive out there and back on Mondays?

(And Stanhope’s media office maintains form, typo on 11.50am means they’re running buses in the wee hours of the morning)

It’s not this service I object to.

It’s the way other services are declared to be too hard, despite huge need for them, and then one comes along which the boss likes the look of and suddenly nothing is impossible after all.

pft. so prisoners can have visits from the family who need to catch buses. Seems fair to me.

Reflects Labor’s priorities.

For years Labor failed to schedule bus routes to the airport but in weeks of opening we have a service to the prison.

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