Second Sunday Coffee Concert at Belconnen Arts Centre

Today's free Second Sunday Coffee Concert at Belconnen Arts Centre in Canberra was by The Bison Embassy. This featured indie-folk pop with three vocalists, electric piano, flute, ukelele and percussion (unusual combination but it worked). The arts centre provides a pleasant place to sit, listen to music, look out on the lake and have a coffee (but you have to get espresso before the concert, due to the noise).

Bus rapid transit for Australian cities

After a tour of the New Belconnen Bus Stations in Canberra I was reading the Wikipedia entry on "Bus rapid transit". The idea is simple: use buses for a rapid transit system, by providing stations, and dedicated roadways where possible. This is cheaper and easier than putting in rail lines and is almost as efficient.

One limitation is running buses in tunnels. Unless complex and expensive hybrid or electric buses are used, the there will be emissions from the bus engine, requiring ventilation. But it occurred to me that newer buses will have less emissions and so will require less ventilation in tunnels (I edited the Wikipedia entry to point this out).

Another point is that road tunnels are designed mostly for cars, which will emit much more pollution than buses, per person carried. Also engineers designing the tunnels have to assume that the cars are old and not well serviced and so will be emitting more pollution than the latest regulations allow. In contrast a tunnel just for buses can be designed specifically for the latest emission standard and the bus fleet monitored to check they meet the standard. So less ventilation will be required, and for short tunnels, not mechanical ventilation at all.

New Belconnen Bus Stations in Canberra

The Westfield Bus Station and Belconnen Community Bus Station come into operation at the Belconnen Town Centre in Canberra on Monday 15 November 2011. During the Belconnen Community Festival, yesterday, an Action bus was providing free tours of the new stops, so I took the tour.

The Westfield Bus Station is built on the western side of the newly expanded Westfield Belconnen building (aka "Belconnen Mall"), with a convenient door to the shops. The station will have an ACTION information office and cafe (both yet to be fitted out). The bus stops appear to be at ground level, but are built up over what was previously a cutting (presumably there are shops and/or car parking beneath). The shops in the new section of the mall have not yet opened, with access provided to the old section. Even so this should be a convenient way to access the western end of the mall.

The Belconnen Community Bus Station is built on the site of the demolished (and not missed) Belconnen Bus Interchange. The previous interchange was built like a railway station, with one long island platform down the middle and bus bays on either side. There were pedestrian bridges for access from either end. While in theory this made the interchange safe and convenient for passengers, it meant a long walk if you wanted to get to the community centre right next to the interchange (you had to walk to the end of the platform, over the bridge and then back up the hill). The new interchange has the buses in the middle and platforms on either side. This requires some passengers to cross the road (traffic lights are provided) but the platforms are at ground level and accessible from several points on either side. One issue will be that with many buses using the station, it may be inconvenient for pedestrians to cross the road. A fence has been built to discourage those wishing to cross at other then at the lights, but the fence would not appear to meet pool fence standard AS1926.1 2007 and the average teenager is likely to be able to vault over it.

The MyWay contact-less smart card ticketing system was installed on the bus used for the tour ( but the tour was free). The new ticket system is being fitted to all busses, with the old magnetic stripe reader ticket machines relocated to make room (the old units look a little battered compared to the new equipment).

When the new MyWay system will be in use is unclear. In July the ACT Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope, announced this was due to commence in the second half of 2010, but ACTION are now advising "early 2011". Such smart card systems have had problems in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. But Canberra is using the more successful system used in Perth ("SmartRider"). The hardware used appears to be the Parkeon Wayfarer 200 Electronic Ticket Machine and Parkeon Astreo Contactless Smart Card Validator. The Canberra system should be easier to implement, as there are no trams, ferries or trains to use the system, just buses.

Op Swap Recycling Belconnen

Scott Walker, from the ANU Environment Collective, has provided these details of the Op Swap and Recycling Drop Off on 13 November 2010, in Canberra:

ACT otherWISE GIANT OP-SWAP AND RECYCLING DROP-OFF

Belconnen Community Festival Saturday 13 November, 10am-5pm
Margaret Timpson Park, 35 Benjamin Way, Belconnen

ACT otherWISE is pleased to invite you to our GIANT OP-SWAP and RECYCLING DROP-OFF on Saturday 13 November. The event is part of the Belconnen Festival and is a registered National Recycling Week event.

HOW WILL THE SWAP WORK?
Bring clothes, shoes, books, magazines, CDs, DVDs, small appliances, kitchen bits and other portable items to the swap site for registration between 10am and 12pm.

Items will be sorted and you will given a number of tokens equivalent to the number of items presented. Special items may attract additional tokens. Swapping will begin at 12:15pm when you surrender your tokens for items.

If you cannot make the registration period, you can still bring and swap items throughout the day, but please only do this if you must.

If you cannot attend, but would still like to contribute, you can drop your items off at the Conservation Council ( 17 Childers St Acton - next to Street Theatre) – there is a box just inside the front door. You can drop your items in Belconnen by arrangement.

There is no minimum on what you can donate, but the general rules are that the item must be in good condition and someone must be able to carry it. If you are unsure whether an item is appropriate, please get in touch first.

DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DONATE?
Not a problem - bring a donation to help cover the costs of the event

PRIZE DRAW
You will receive an entry into the prize draw for every item you contribute either on the day or beforehand. The prize includes food vouchers and green goods.

HOW WILL THE RECYCLING DROP-OFF WORK?
Bring the following for free recycling by us;

• mobile phones and accessories
• cameras and accessories (film and digital cameras)
• printer and toner cartridges
• batteries (single use and rechargeable)
• wine and champagne corks (natural and synthetic)

We are unable to collect other forms of e-waste such as televisions, appliances and computers because of the costs involved. We can provide you with advice on how these resources can be recycled.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
We need volunteers to make the event a big success! If you would like to volunteer for an hour or two on the day, please get in touch as soon as possible.

MORE INFORMATION
If you have questions or would like more information, please contact ACT otherWISE Project Officer Scott Walker by email on otherwise@consact.org.au or leave a message on (02) 6229 3211

ACT otherWISE is part of a national ‘otherWISE’ initiative working with young people and their communities towards a more sustainable Australia . Check out our webpage for more information: http://www.actotherwise.or g/

For more information about the Belconnen Community Festival, visit the festival webpage: http://www.bcsact.com.au/inner.php?cat_id=10&cat_name=Festival

Steampunk Interactive Performance

Last night I attended preview of the play "True Logic of the Future" by Boho at the Belconnen Arts Centre, in Canberra. This combined live performance, video and audience participation for an entertaining and thought provoking evening. The pay opens 21 August, during the Ultimo Science festival at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.

The play is set in a post-apocalyptic near future, where climate change has overwhelmed democratic government and computer logic is used to make hard decisions as to who will live and die. The set looks like a Victorian era drawing room, apparently in reference to William Stanley Jevons, Victorian era economist and logician. The three actors, Cathy Petocz, Jack Lloyd and David Finnigan are dressed in Victorian era costume and they (and we the audience) are invited to work out what is going on. But this seems really to be an excuse for using a steam-punk aesthetic. The characters, while in Victorian era consume, use devices such as a 1880 style WiFi plate camera and a computer console in the style of pipe organ, which is inspired by Jevons' 'Logic Piano' paleo-computer.

The play seems prescient, with its themes of desperate political expedients to address climate change, given the the Australian prime minister was deposed suddenly a few weeks ago for failing to address climate change.

Performances were flawless, despite the difficulty of working in an interactive environment which tended to distract from the actors. The use of video, including real time images from a WiFi camera disguised as an old plate camera was clever. The use of video reminded me of Peter Greenaway's "Prospero's Books". The play also has echos of Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia. That play also features issues of technology, mathematics and a fluid use of time. Perhaps the producer should consider a video game version of the work.

The location of the play made it more poignant, being a few hundred metres from some of the government institutions mentioned. Many of the audience seemed to be from government and were able to identify with the play (I overheard a discussion advocating the centralisation of Government IT in the foyer before the performance which might have been part of the script).

But the themes of authoritarian versus humanistic government in the face of a failure to address climate change, would seem to be likely to be just as relevant in NSW when the play opens during the Ultimo Science festival at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.

ps: In the past I have found that with such plays, life starts to imitate art. In 1994 I attended Arcadia in Sydney. A few days later I was visiting Oxford and caught up in the architecture and academic environment described in the play.

In 1996 I attended Bertolt Brecht.'s "The Life of Galileo" at the Sydney Opera House. The set had a Apple Mac laptop on Galileo's desk, drawing parallels between censorship of Galileo's work and modern Internet censorship. Around the same time I appeared before Senate inquires into Internet censorship, where the IT profession was essentially assumed to be guilty until proven innocent.