🟠 Is our public transport heat-resistant?

Also including: A father and daughter who have carved out their own spaces in the local music industry

Matthew Sims
January 09, 2026

⏱️ The 105th edition of our newsletter is a seven-minute read.

Hi there 👋

Matthew Sims here, your reporter at the Eastern Melburnian.

🚃 When you jump on a train or a tram, it can be easy to just pull up a podcast on your phone or dive into a book and forget about the work and money that goes into maintaining Melbourne’s public transport system.

💰 As part of my research into how the city’s train and tram network deals with extreme heat conditions, this week I learnt Metro Trains spends about $12 million every week on maintenance and renewal works across the metropolitan rail network. That’s a lot.

☀️ This week’s heatwave is putting all of this work and maintenance to the test, as train and tram tracks become more susceptible to buckling and overhead power infrastructure can sag.

😎 With hot weather hitting the city, the fact that about one-third of trams still don’t have air conditioning systems points to an imbalance of priorities.

🌡️ Experts told me funding should be focused towards ensuring public transport is made to be more climate-resilient — and that might be the only way to get more people off already congested road networks.

Today we’re covering:

A look at how extreme heat conditions impact Melbourne’s public transport systems and why experts say more investment in making it more climate-resilient is important;
A chat with a father and daughter who have found a unique bond over their shared love of music.

“It is looking like … the most significant burst of heat for south-eastern Australia, particularly in terms of multiple days in a row of mid-40 temperatures, since the summer of 2019-2020.”

Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist Dean Narramore

WHAT’S ON THIS WEEK 🎟️

FRIDAY 09/01/26, 4-11.30PM | Knox City Rodeo
FRIDAY 09/01/25, 6-7PM | Live at the Library
SATURDAY 10/01/26 & SUNDAY 11/01/26, 6.30PM | Ozact’s The Tempest
SUNDAY 11/01/26, 2PM | Ricki Wood @ Hop Hen Brewing
TUESDAY 13/01/26 11AM-3PM | Aquarena Pool Party
EVERY WEEKDAY TO THURSDAY 15/01/26, 11AM-5PM | January Children’s Festival - SkyHigh Mount Dandenong
WANDIN EAST — EVERY DAY TO FRIDAY 16/01/26 | Cherry Picking @ Cherry Hill Orchards

📰 THIS WEEK’S HEADLINES

🚗 Condemned to car dependence? Experts call for a climate-resilient public transport network instead of more roads

With Melbourne currently in the middle of a heatwave, public transport for many is an easy way to get across town in relative comfort.

But Australia is only getting hotter – and the rising temperature’s impact on our public transport system is only going to increase.

Currently, around one-in-three trams operate without air conditioning in Victoria, while elsewhere hot days can cause heat-enforced speed restrictions on trains. Millions of dollars are spent every week on maintenance across the state’s public transport system – while investment into roads and tunnels for cars seems to take priority.

It begs the question: Just how well equipped is Melbourne’s public transport for a hotter climate?

A heatwave warning is in place for Melbourne until Saturday, with the temperature reaching as high as 42 degrees on Wednesday.

About a third of Melbourne’s tram fleet does not have air-conditioning, with speed restrictions also introduced on extreme heat days to reduce the strain on infrastructure, such as buckling tracks and sagging overhead power lines.

While network testing is underway to roll out 100 new G-Class trams, Public Transport Users Association spokesperson Daniel Bowen said the “progress on this has been slow”.

The Metro Trains system also has to adapt to the heat, spending about $12 million each week on infrastructure, trains and technology maintenance and renewal works.

Specific actions to reduce the impact of extreme heat conditions include painting the outside of signal boxes with heat-reflective paint and real-time temperature monitoring technology to accurately apply speed restrictions when the rail temperature surpasses 55 degrees.

Sweltering Cities executive director Emma Bacon joined members of her team on Wednesday to record the radiant heat on the ground at a number of Melbourne tram and bus stops with the maximum reading reaching 68.4 degrees.

“Our inadequate public infrastructure is exposing people to extremely dangerous temperatures on hot days,” Bacon told the Eastern Melburnian.

University of Melbourne Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning honorary senior fellow Dr John Stone said significant investment into road projects like the North East Link “makes it harder and harder for public transport to compete”.

“Most of the people in the suburbs are being condemned to car dependence,” Stone told the Eastern Melburnian. “Rather than huge expansions of our road network, we should be putting that money into making the public transport system a viable alternative.”

Stone said the key focus for the government should be shifting funding towards better maintenance and climate-resilient infrastructure.

"As we look to try and reduce the impact of the transport sector's greenhouse emissions, we do have to make public transport an alternative to the car and that means investing in service and in maintenance,” said Stone. “The returns on that, in terms of people's lives, are immense.”

Read the full story here.

Father and daughter bond over their love of music

Music is a way of life – and a passion – for Chris Maric and his daughter Aimee.

Watch our chat with them below.

SEEN THIS WEEK

Not since Black Summer:

The National Account reporter Archie Milligan took a dive into the statistics behind this week’s heatwave, Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist Dean Narramore saying parts of Australia will experience conditions not seen since Black Summer.

Watch the video below.

Thanks for catching up with us this week at the Eastern Melburnian. We hope you enjoyed this issue.

Cheers,

Matthew