Author: Philip Mallis
September 2025 update on the North East Link
As construction of one of the world’s biggest road projects continues unabated, I have been doing my best to document its progress. The $26 billion new North East Link tollway and associated widening of the existing Eastern Freeway is scheduled to be finished by 2028. Its massive scale is difficult to overstate. The 10 kilometres…
SATS Premier Lounge at Terminal 3 in Changi Airport, Singapore
This is one of a series of posts about a recent trip and my experience flying in business class for the first time. For an aviation enthusiast like me who’s been on many different flights, all in budget or economy, this was an incredibly exciting opportunity and one that I’ll never forget. Before you ask,…
How to use the Tangier airport bus
I recently returned from travelling through North Africa and Western Europe. It was an amazing trip that will be the subject of several blog posts – starting with this one! I chose this rather niche topic to start because it is hard to find reliable information online. Many of these posts will be similar to…
On the YouTube social media ban
Recently the Commonwealth Government announced that YouTube will be included in the proposed social media ban for people aged under 16. To be clear, this only applies to accounts. You will still be able to watch videos without being logged in. Although this does restrict the ability to view some videos that require you to…
Intermodal cross-platform interchanges
I was motivated to write this post after a recent trip to the Gold Coast in Queensland. There, as in many other places, they use what are called cross-platform interchanges – something that is mysteriously absent in Melbourne. Put simply, this is where you can get off one public transport vehicle and move to another…
A privacy breach that’s impossible to stop
One would think that stopping someone else’s personal information being constantly sent to you would be an easy thing to fix. Worryingly my recent experience has disproved this hypothesis. Last year I started receiving letters at my home addressed to somebody who doesn’t live here. These are invoices and notices from a well-known toll road…
Melbourne’s public transport and the Grand Prix
Love it or hate it, the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix is an event that has more implications for public transport than almost any other in Victoria. Now that it is over for 2025, I am going to talk about how it worked, what went well and what I think needs to improve. Overall the…
The history of Balwyn’s Beckett Park
Beckett Park is one of my favourite open spaces in Boroondara. Together with the adjacent Maranoa Botanic Gardens (which deserves its own post), it’s a wonderful green area on top of one of the tallest hills in the neighbourhood. Establishment and naming The place where it is today was formerly open scrub and grassland. Before…
The Box Hill Bus Station escalator saga
Access to any public transport stop or station is arguably the most important aspect of its operation. The frequency or attractiveness of your services doesn’t matter if nobody can actually get there. With this in mind, I and many thousands of other people have been dealing with an extremely frustrating situation at Box Hill over…
The new temporary Doncaster Park and Ride
Last month I wrote about the closure of the Doncaster Park and Ride bus interchange from 12 January 2025 until an unspecified date in 2028.. This is being done to make way for a temporary on-ramp for cars using the Eastern Freeway. Afterwards I visited Doncaster Park and Ride the day after it closed to…
