I’m an IT project manager — twelve years in financial services, currently with a bank’s payments team. I grew up in Chennai, did postgrad in Sydney, and arrived in Melbourne in 2016 with my wife (who is a nurse) and our first child. We did three years in Tarneit, then moved to Mickleham in 2021 when the second baby arrived and the western commute broke us. I write about the lived reality of the outer-north growth corridor — the part of Melbourne that gets the most marketing brochures and the least honest reporting.
What I write about. The actual commute. Mickleham to CBD by car vs the Craigieburn line, logged for six months across a 2024–2025 sample. Why we left Tarneit and what that fixed (and didn’t). School-bus reality in Donnybrook and Mickleham — which routes actually run, which drop-offs are 700m from the listed stop, which routes the council quietly cancelled in February. The arithmetic of the developer-marketed “twenty-minute commute” vs what 7:08am on the Hume actually does to it.
How I work. Logbooks. I have a Google Sheet with timestamped door-to-desk times since November 2024 — every weekday, weather noted, incident noted. PTV claims sourced to the published GTFS feed; council claims to the council’s published service plan; estate-developer claims compared to actual delivered infrastructure with the open date. I do not accept invitations from estate-marketing firms, master-planned-community PR, or land-developer “media days”.
Where you’ll find me. Mickleham since 2021. Mickleham Recreation Reserve on a Saturday morning watching my eight-year-old learn cricket. Hume Anglican Grammar’s open days. The 7:08am Hume Highway northbound queue is, depressingly, where I do my best thinking.
Conflicts of interest. None. My employer (a bank) is unrelated to the property and estate-developer industry I cover. I have no relationship with any developer, master-planned-community sales agency, or estate-marketing firm. I have not bought or sold property since 2021 and disclose any future transaction.
Sample headlines I’d write:
- “Mickleham to CBD by car vs Craigieburn line: a six-month commute log”
- “Why we moved from Tarneit to Mickleham (and what that fixed — and didn’t)”
- “School-bus reality in Donnybrook: routes, wait times, and what the council won’t tell you”
Articles by Nikhil Srinivasan are based on his own commute logbook and PTV-GTFS or council-published data with the date cited. He has no relationship with any developer or estate-marketing firm.