3.3 Frankston and the Outside World

Buses and Parking

These concerns were directed at outsiders speeding through Frankston or the holiday-makers coming to the area and wanting a scenic drive. By the time of the Second World War local traffic generated as many problems, especially in demands for better local bus services and better parking. In 1938 for example, because of the popularity of Mt. Eliza, Mr Dyson of Peninsular Motors was granted a license to link Frankston, Seaford and Cranbourne with a new bus service.9

Other services followed immediately after the war (one of the longest the Peninsula Bus Service Route linking Frankston-Balnarring-Merricks Nth Red Hill-Higgins Corner-Flinders).2 At the same time demands grew for an early- morning "workers" buses to take new residents to the Frankston train station.3 The Shire Council began to tackle the problem of parking and attempted to enforce a local traffic code, raising the ire of one local entrepreneur who wrote that in trying to park legally in Frankston:-

"by the time a local businessman has measured all the distances … it is time to go home and walk or use Mr Clapp's train - which is probably what the government wants. The result is he does not use petrol nor wear out the tyres of his car [and so] workers lose their jobs".4

Frankston became increasingly wedded to the motor car in the later-1930s. Whereas in the 1920s the major problem appeared to be managing through traffic, after the war the problem was how to control cars around Frankston, particularly in the commercial centre. The railways were still a major form of transport after the war, but it seemed to many that the real interest of the Railway Commissioners lay in places closer to the centre of the city. In 1946 Council was informed that there were no funds to rebuild the Frankston Railway Station (dubbed a "Noah's Ark" by one councillor).5

The Railway Standing Committee on Electrification looked at extensions through Frankston. But much on the interest in the local railway went into schemes for a "scenic" railway through Frankston around Mt. Eliza and following the coast to Mornington and Stony Point.6 While those further down the Peninsular thought the railway a valuable improvement, in Frankston several residents preferred the money spent on a new hospital and better roads and residents of Mt. Eliza were up in arms about the loss of the waterfront to a railway.