There’s been a bit of noise this week about Victoria’s public transport system “struggling to cope” with the free travel initiative the state government rolled out. Channel 9 ran a story that had people clutching their pearls over crowded platforms and packed trains, and honestly? My first reaction was to roll my eyes so hard I nearly strained something.

Let me be clear about what actually happened here: people used public transport. A lot of people. Over Easter, over the school holidays, families and travellers jumped on trains to regional Victoria, folks headed into the CBD, and the network got a serious workout. And somehow, this is being framed as a disaster.

There’s a photo doing the rounds comparing the West Gate Freeway approach in 2004 versus today, and honestly, it’s sparked some interesting reflections about what we’ve actually achieved in two decades of infrastructure development. The punchline? Still just four lanes heading onto the Bridge itself, even with all the fancy new tunnel work.

Now, before anyone jumps down my throat, I’m not saying the West Gate Tunnel project was a complete waste. Far from it, actually. But there’s something deeply frustrating about spending billions on infrastructure that, at its core, still has the same fundamental bottleneck it had twenty years ago.

There’s something both predictable and oddly satisfying about watching certain parts of Melbourne turn into temporary waterways during a good storm. This week, Whiteman Street near Southbank became a rather impressive creek, complete with a tram dutifully ploughing through in the background like nothing was amiss. Someone cleverly watermarked their flood photo with “Murdoch Media” which gave me a proper chuckle – though I’ll admit it took me a moment to get the pun.

The other day, a fascinating discussion caught my eye about Melbourne’s “ghost suburbs” - those peculiar pockets of our city that technically exist on paper but seem to float in a strange liminal space between reality and urban legend. It got me thinking about how we define our neighbourhoods and the quirky ways our city has evolved.

Take Travancore, for instance. Most people think it’s just that one fancy apartment building near the IGA on Mount Alexander Road, but it’s actually a tiny pocket with a fascinating history of Indian-named streets. The suburb is a testament to Melbourne’s historical connections to India, named after the former princely state of Travancore. Yet most Melburnians would struggle to point it out on a map.