This month, Rail Tram and Bus Union members in NSW gifted the public free train travel as part of their industrial action against the tightarse Tory State Government. In so doing they showed us that maybe public transport should be free. We already pay for it.

Uber moved fast and broke the taxi industry. AirBnB has done the same to the rental property market. Lime and their competitors are certainly moving fast, but the thing they might end up breaking is our cities.

I’d never experienced women-only passenger cars before, though they are regularly proposed for Australian cities for the same purpose they have in Mexico, along with many other countries such as Israel, Japan, India, Egypt, Brazil and Malaysia – that is, to reduce the incidence of sexual assault and other violence against women occurring in public spaces by physically distancing men. Women-only sections on public transport are intended to keep us free from violent behaviours such as catcalls, groping, stalking, bashing and rape simply by segregating men.

Nunca había vivido vagones exclusivamente para pasajeras, aunque sí son frecuentemente propuestos para ciudades australianas con el mismo propósito que tienen en México, junto con muchos otros países como Israel, Japón, India, Egipto, Brasil, y Malasia: es decir, de reducir la incidencia del abuso sexual y otros tipos de violencia en contra de las mujeres que ocurren en público, al alejar a los hombres de ellas. Secciones en el transporte público exclusivamente para mujeres pretenden protegernos de las conductas violentas, tales como los piropos, la manoseada, el acecho, los ataques violentos, y la violación, al simplemente segregarnos de los hombres.

I turn the situation obsessively, calculating routes and modes and travel times, but the result is always the same. I’m spending almost as long travelling to work as actually working. I’ve heard it said that Melbourne is a most liveable city, but how can that be? Travel between regional towns and centres, and the city, has stretched to unbelievable lengths for what is a twenty-first century, first-world context. The median cost of rent has jumped to over $400 a week in Melbourne.