If you want to catch a tram in Melbourne then you need a Myki, despite the fact you can’t buy one or top it up onboard the tram. In 2017 The Age highlighted the difficulty this can pose for intending tram passengers, in an article on myki “dead zones” – tram stops where the nearest place to top up your myki is at least a kilometre away. Coincidently I started work on an almost identical project years ago but never finished it, so what better time to polish it off?
Digital maps have taken over from traditional paper street directories and fold out maps, but it doesn’t mean the information made available to the reader is any better, if my recent experiences with Google Maps are anything to go by.
Despite my love of the Melway, there are some days when I can’t be bothered walking over to my bookshelf full of them and looking up a street, so instead I turned to the “electric street directory” that is Google Maps. However on this occasion, I was searching for a street so new I couldn’t find it on the map.
The other day the publishers of Melbourne’s Melway street directory boasted that their maps were more up to date than Google Maps, which reminded me of an experience I had the other month when trying to find my way in Footscray.
