Covid has forced significant changes in our travel patterns. Some of these will become permanent so it is timely to reflect more broadly on our transport system, the way we use it and the extent to which it really meets our needs.
This was a question many people would have asked after returning from a holiday in Europe, Japan, Singapore, China and many other parts of the world where it was easy to get around at relatively low cost without the need for a car. There are many cities that we can learn from that have become accepted as models of excellence and It is not rocket science. Nor are we unique. Some of these cities are not unlike Melbourne and had been confronted with similar problems. Nor is It a matter of cost and whether we can afford it or not. We are a very wealthy city and we can, particularly when so much of the infrastructure necessary to achieve it is already in place. So what is stopping us from achieving from achieving world best practice?
There are several reasons for this and these will be discussed in a series of blogs over the next few weeks but the most fundamental reason is the absence of any desire to change. This is a mindset problem. If government had the mindset to develop a world class transport system it could do so and within a relatively short time. In fact the foundations could be laid within a parliamentary term. So what is this mindset and how do we change it?
The mindset is a collective one, comprising the government itself, the Department(s) that advises it and the community. Overall we seem very comfortable with our grossly inefficient transport system but oblivious to the extraordinary high cost it imposes on us.
Since WW2 much of our city and transport planning has been developed on the presumption that the motor car and road based transport in general will be the transport of the future and this has become embedded in our economy. But the high cost of this inefficient system – not just in economic but also in social and environmental terms is starting to catch up with us and covid is exposing many of the flaws in this strategy. This will be discussed in my next blog.