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When would you expect to see heavy traffic in Punt Road?

Weekdays in the mornings and evenings, certainly -- that's the usual rush hour.

What about weekends?  Don't us inner-city dwellers get a break from all those noxious gasses being expelled by stationary cars of a Saturday and Sunday afternoon?

No fear.

For six months of the year it is likely that there will be a weekend rush hour, focused around the times when football games begin and end at the MCG or Etihad Stadium (or whatever it's called right now).  Likewise in the summer, with cricket at the MCG and tennis in Flinders Park.

Frankly, I think there has to be a better way to manage traffic at regular sporting events in a way that improves the amenity of residents in the inner suburbs.  One way would be to build a major football ground in the middle-suburbs, but that was tried and Waverly Park is now a housing estate where once there was a large stadium with associated amenities such as parking and public transport links.

What appalls me is that the AFL is quite happy for people to travel in their cars to Jolimont and to pay a large fee for parking in the vicinity of the MCG when they arrive.  I think the preference for cars is a prime exampla of mindless corporate irresponsibility on the part of the AFL.  They have chosen to locate all their major football matches in the inner city, where there are major public transport links, and have done nothing to discourage their patrons from driving.  In short, the AFL needs to work with Metro to provide good park and ride facilities to avoid congestion in the inner city.

Here's how it might work.  Halve the amount of parking available in Yarra Park and the immediate area surrounding the MCG.  Hike prices up to the top of the market.  Enforce significant penalties to discourage parking in residential streets in East Melbourne, South Yarra, Richmond, Fitzroy and Collingwood.

Hire the carpark at the Caulfield Racecourse -- even if there is a meeting going on, the carpark is unlikely to be full.  Make a deal so that patrons park and receive a train ticket as part of the deal.

Metro should run express trains both ways every three minutes to Richmond making use of the platforms that are normally closed at the weekend.  There should be plenty of rolling stock available, given the poor frequency of services patrons are required to endure at the weekend.  The express journey should be around 12 minutes.  Trains could be shunted in the Jolimont railyards for the return trip, and there's a blind shunt at Caulfield for turning around at that end.

Similarly, parking facilities should be provided on the Epping and Hurstbridge lines -- perhaps the AFL could hire the Preston Market carpark and run express services from there to Jolimont, although it's not clear where trains would turn around at the Preston end.  The express journey from Preston to Jolimont would be somewhere around 15 minutes, assuming trains could maintain a good speed from point to point.

Likewise, for the north-west, patrons could park at the Flemington racecourse and a special train could be run from the station there to Richmond or Jolimont.

Getting patrons to the Etihad Stadium simply requires express trains to run into Southern Cross Station.

If the AFL is to continue to stage its events in the inner city, then it must work to provide better public transport links to the stations near its venues.  The present situation -- weekend traffic gridlock -- is completely unacceptable on environmental and social grounds.  The majority of people attending a football game accept the scientific argument about climate change, yet they support a corporation which blithely encourages the problem.