Author: Roger Taylor

Why is “Advocacy” so Important

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 30/11/2020
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Some might think our governments are elected to govern for all of us in the community interest and there is no need for community advocacy. The reality is governments tend not to lead but lag in response to community concerns etc and rely heavily on community feedback and respond to pressure from a wide range of interest groups. These interests range from genuine public interest – often for the “many” to naked rent seeking self interest of a few. It is an environment in which there is strong competition for ideas and too often it is the few who are winning.

This concern applies in all areas of government today and at all levels. It certainly applies in transport. Transport for Melbourne believes the starting point for effective advocacy is a thorough understanding of the issues – how the transport operates – as a system, reasonable expectations of it based on accepted standards of best practice, where it is failing, reasons for suboptimal performance, actions that can be taken to address this and actions to overcome forces blocking change.

Transport for Melbourne tends to focus on broader principles and strategic opportunities for change. If change is to occur it has to take place at this level and become embodied in government policy and strategic plans supported by appropriate funding. But this requires a change in government mindset. First priority must be to change this mindset. But this requires community pressure for change which in turn requires a change in the community mindset.

Successful advocacy therefore requires action at both levels and it needs people to champion its cause. To be effective It also needs to be conducted in a way that is understood by people from a wide range of backgrounds, recognizing there is no single simple message that makes sense for everyone. It also requires attention to detail on specific projects and a capacity to raise issues, communicate them in the public interest and provide a unified response by advocacy groups.

This is a role that has been taken up by Transport for Everyone (T4e). TfM was instrumental in T4e’s establishment in 2017. It is now an incorporated body with its own Charter and representatives from a number of advocacy groups including TfM. The list is growing with increased standing at a political level. Details of T4e are included on this web site under publications, and includes a link to its own blog. This will provide readers with a broader coverage of transport issues, typically at a more detailed level.

What are the prospects for success? History suggests a high level of success on important issues. Women’s rights, Same sex marriage, abortion, tobacco, early development child development and many more indicate there is every prospect for change if the community feels strongly enough and committed enough to force change it can happen. Our view is transport has such profound social, economic and environmental implications it is important to get it right. If this was sufficiently well understood communities throughout Australia will stand up and demand change.

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Zurich – a model of transport excellence

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 23/11/2020
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A model that provides valuable lessons that could be adapted and applied in Melbourne – if we had the mindset to do so.

Zurich is Switzerland’s largest city. The municipality has approximately 409,000 inhabitants, the urban agglomeration 1.315 million and the Zürich metropolitan area 1.83 million. Zurich is consistently ranked as one of the most liveable and sustainable cities in the world. Ranking criteria include life expectancy, safety, education, hygiene, health care, culture, energy consumption, greenhouse emissions, green space, recreation, political-economic stability, public transport and access to goods and services. The city is also recognised for a number of sustainable achievements in investment efficient and renewable energies, a sustainable public transport system and a willingness to increase public awareness of environmental issues.

Its public transport has been accepted as a model of excellence for many years. The population use public transport more than twice as much as the populations of most other cities – only Hong Kong has higher usage rates. The Zurich Transport Authority provides a public transport system that services the entire Canton not just within the city of Zurich itself but to outlying townships/villages within the Canton covering an area of 1840 sq km.

Zurich’ public transport system is serviced by train, trams, buses and ferries. It is structured around a set of radial rail and tram lines intersected by many bus routes which are generally circumferential providing a web for multidirectional transfers.

The network is clearly defined and designed for a wide range of travel needs – not just to and from work or school, it enables people to travel anywhere almost any time within the Canton including outlying villages. But whilst the design of the network is important it is the way it is operated that makes Zurich so outstanding.

A number of principles have been adopted that ensures its success.

It has a simple and stable interconnected network with a structure and timetable that is easy to learn and understand, that is quick and convenient to use, based on repeatable easily remembered service frequencies of 7.5’,15’ and 30’. This largely eliminates the need for timetables on most lines – although these are provided nonetheless.
High frequency services are provided throughout the day and evening which are quick and reliable.
These are important factors but the key principle is acceptance that many, indeed probably the majority of travelers will need to transfer between services to access their selected destination, so easy transfers and coordination of timetables are essential.

Two methods are used for coordinating transfers
high frequency connections
pulse or timed clock face times for lower frequency services – a Swiss innovation that probably provided a break-through in public transport thinking.

High and reliable travel speeds for all modes of travel are essential to compete with the car but they are critical to guarantee connections and provide a timetable for the network as a whole.

This is achieved by

simplifying routes, making them as straight and direct as possible
making transfers as easy as possible at the connection points and
providing priority on roads to trams and buses, and it is this factor that really underpins its success.

Ernst Joos, former Deputy Director Zurich Transport Authority provides three messages concerning Zurich’s transport policy.

First message

If you ask the inhabitants of a town which transport policy should be followed, the citizens will not choose the car. They are much more intelligent than politicians and other opinion leaders would believe and have higher values than merely standing still in a traffic jam.

Second message

The future of urban transport policy lies not in expansion but in the intelligent use of the existing traffic areas. The objective of ensuring mobility for people when travelling in work and shopping and during leisure time requires imaginative urban traffic management based on modern information technology.

Third message

With regard to urban transport policy, economy and ecology are by no means contradictory. Zurich is living proof of the fact that a transport policy which promotes public transport at the expense of private motor transport results in considerable economic development of the city.

On the Zurich Model Joos writes

“Readers will no doubt expect a representative from well-to-do Switzerland to present a solid and correspondingly expensive answer to city traffic problems. However I am going to disappoint you. Zurich’s transport policy is worthy of attention because:

It is not spectacular but efficient
It costs little and protects the environment
It imposes self-restraint on politicians but the population accepts and participates in it.”

Tags Zurich

climate change government policy public forum

The future we must plan for. Online event, Friday 4 December

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 17/11/2020
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Online event, Friday 4 December 1.30pm to 4.30pm

The global environment is changing rapidly. This can be seen very clearly in the natural environment in the
form of resource depletion, environmental degradation, pollution and species loss as well as climate change
and global warming.

These changes are all measurable and present profound challenges for the way societies live and the values,
principles and structures that support them including the economic system and functioning of institutions and
government.

Governments need to plan for the future but the starting point must be a realistic understanding of the scale
and dimensions of these changes, what is driving them and their likely impacts. This will be the subject of this
forum.

This subject has profound implications for societies throughout the world. It will be of critical interest to
policy and decision makers in business and all levels of government as well as the broader community.

Speakers

David Karoly is Leader of the Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub in the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program, based in CSIRO. He is also an honorary Professor at the University of Melbourne. He is an internationally recognised expert on climate change and climate variability. Professor Karoly was a member of the National Climate Science Advisory Committee which delivered its final report “Climate Science for Australia’s Future” in 2019. During 2012-2017, he was a member of the Climate Change Authority, which provides advice to the Australian government on responding to climate change, including targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. He has been involved in the Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2001, 2007, 2014 and 2021 in several different roles. He was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2019 and was awarded the 2015 Royal Society of Victoria Medal for Scientific Excellence in Earth Sciences.

Will Steffen is an Earth System scientist. He is a Councillor on the publicly-funded Climate Council of Australia that delivers independent expert information about climate change, an Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University (ANU); Canberra, a Senior Fellow at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden; and a Fellow at the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, Stockholm. He is the chair of the jury for the Volvo Environment Prize; a member of the International Advisory Board for the Centre for Collective Action Research, Gothenburg University, Sweden; and a member of the Anthropocene Working Group of the Sub-committee on Quaternary Stratigraphy. From 1998 to mid-2004, Steffen was Executive Director of the International GeosphereBiosphere Program based in Stockholm. His research interests span a broad range within climate and Earth System science, with an emphasis on incorporation of human processes in Earth System modelling and analysis; and on sustainability and climate change.

Robyn Eckersley is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Melbourne. She has published widely in the fields of environmental politics, political theory and international relations, with a special focus on the ethics, politics and governance of climate change. She is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (since 2007) and she received a Distinguished Scholar Award by the Environmental Studies Section of the International Studies Association in 2019.

Panel members

Adam Bandt MP

Sally Capp Lord Mayor City of Melbourne

Chair Roger Taylor, Chair Transport for Melbourne

best practice models of excellence public transport service value for money

Transport models of excellence

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 16/11/2020
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Transport models of excellence

What are they and why don’t we learn from them?

This is a question I asked frequently when I worked for the Public Transport Corporation many years ago. There are number of cities we could learn from. Many of these have been confronted with similar problems to Melbourne and achieved far better transport outcomes in the process. Some are now accepted as models of best practice.

These cities vary in population, size/area, and structure, support people with different cultures and can be seen in most continents of the world. Principles and practices used by these cities are well understood. Many attempts have been made to introduce transport experts from them to policy makers in Melbourne but have consistently failed – mainly for political reasons. Whilst these cities now have to cope with disruption and longer- term impacts of covid and will also have to adapt in restructured carbon neutral economy they are better placed than most to do so and will continue to provide valuable lessons that can be applied in Melbourne. I will discuss some of these cities over the coming weeks.

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Public Transport – Considerable Scope for service improvement

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 09/11/2020
No Comments on Public Transport – Considerable Scope for service improvement

If we are serious about running a train service why do we replace them so often with buses?

There was a time when ensuring train services never failed their passengers was top priority. Sadly that is not the case today. Too often passengers wait forlornly for trains that arrive late or never show up. Often the service is replaced with a bus. If that is not bad enough, customer advice provided for stranded passengers on such occasions is frequently poor or even misleading so it is too late to make alternative arrangements.

Too bad if you are an elderly person for whom toilet facilities and refreshments and the need to stretch your legs periodically during the course of the journey are important, particularly for long country journeys which become considerably longer if they are replaced by a bus. Too bad for other passengers who use their bike as a link mode for suburban or country journeys and cannot carry them on the bus – leaving them stranded in the middle of their journey. Too bad if the delays result in a missed appointment or missed connections at the other end. And the list goes on and on. Little wonder our trains and public transport system generally is regarded by many as irrelevant or as a poor man’s service and why so many people prefer to travel by car – or even by bike these days.

There is no good reason why this should be the case. It is a mindset issue. Successful businesses understand if they want to stay in business in a competitive environment the customer must be “king”. Whilst it is true that public transport is classified, and rightly so as an essential community service it is a service that exists in a very competitive travel market and there is no reason why it should treat its passengers so poorly. Poor service also has serious financial implications. If the government wants to improve the financial bottom line it must increase revenue from the fare box but that will not happen unless passengers are treated far better than they are today.

Whilst it is true that much of the problem stems from antiquated infrastructure and equipment in need of upgrading or replacement, the result of neglect and underfunding, it also stems from changed attitudes and works practices, and in some cases even lack of expertise. The system needs to be maintained to a standard where breakdowns don’t occur but carried out in a way that does not affect passenger service.

In earlier times capital infrastructure and much of the essential permanent way maintenance works were carried out at night after the last train and before the first train the following morning. Works gangs became very skilled at working in these situations. Too often these days train lines or line sections are routinely shut down – often for extended periods of time to carry out this work and buses used to replace trains. Not only does this degrade the service for passengers on the line but it destroys the networking functioning of the system as a whole and the ability to travel by making connections with other trains, trams or buses.

It is difficult to imagine a shop owner putting up a notice in the shop window to advise customers the shop is closed during the trading period for shop repairs or maintenance. The shop owner would be out of business in no time. Melbournians pay for our public transport and have every right to demand better service. There are no easy solutions but there are opportunities to improve the service quickly and cost effectively simply by changing attitudes and work practices.

Tags State Government

governance public transport service value for money

Understanding Transport – it is about service

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 02/11/2020
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One of the reasons transport outcomes have been so poor in Melbourne is a fundamental misunderstanding about transport itself, particularly amongst politicians who tend to think of transport and solutions necessary to improve transport outcomes in terms of infrastructure.

Transport is a service industry and transport choices are made by businesses and people on the basis of service and options available to travel or move goods and services in a competitive market. People’s travel needs are diverse. In this sense there are many market segments but for the most part these needs can be defined in terms of convenience, safety, timeliness, comfort, journey time and for some in terms of cost/price and efficiency.

Most Melburnians drive their car by force of habit or lack of choice but many will walk, cycle or use public transport if these alternatives are attractive enough to meet their needs. In many situations these alternatives could be viable travel options for many more trips. They certainly are in many other cities, and will become increasingly important as people look for more travel options in a post covid world.

But as we have already seen the covid world is not business as usual and some of these options are also under pressure and present new challenges for government, particularly for public transport. Travel cost will become increasingly important if we enter an extended period of recession or depression. Depressed conditions also have implications for government as traditional sources of funding such as fuel excise, GST etc and even parking revenue come under pressure forcing State and local governments to look at new ways to fund transport services, infrastructure maintenance and renewal works which will inevitably be passed on to travelers and the broader community.

If politicians are serious about creating more travel options ie to compete with the car for more trips they need to approach this with a service focus. There are no simple or single fixes however. It will require a comprehensive service strategy and investment plan to match. Some service issues require infrastructure investment but many won’t. In situations where infrastructure investment is required it must be well targeted to ensure it supports the service plan.

Unfortunately much of the investment in Melbourne’s transport today, particularly for personal travel is on infrastructure without any reference to people’s service needs and invariably without a proper plan. Most of it is on monumental infrastructure projects that are focused more on creating jobs than addressing service needs and promoted for political purposes or by others with a vested interest in the outcomes. If we want to improve transport outcomes this thinking will need to change.

Tags State Government

advocacy government policy indigenous sacred sites

More Destruction of Sacred Sites – here in Victoria

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 30/10/2020
No Comments on More Destruction of Sacred Sites – here in Victoria

Destruction of sacred sites in the Pilbara caused international outrage and one would have expected governments at all levels in Australia to take extra precautions to ensure this is not repeated. Regrettably has not been the case. Here in Victoria the state government is proceeding with a highway project near Ararat that will result in the destruction of trees, including an ancestor tree which have been held sacred by indigenous people for centuries.
This action has, understandably caused significant community concern and outrage. As Senator Thorpe said, quoting from the Age October 28, 2020 “they (the Andrews government) are destroying our cultural heritage and likened the tree’s removal to Rio Tinto’s destruction of the Juukan Gorge in western Australia.

This project raises fundamental matters relating to procedures and proper process of a governance nature which has concerned TfM for some time. All projects must be designed to address essential needs in the most cost-effective manner and subjected to a rigorous environmental impact assessment. There will always be a number of options and these should be ranked and compared to a base case (essentially do nothing). If safety is the prime consideration, as the premier insists, are several ways in which this can be addressed but the project must always be implemented in a way that works within constraints – one of which is the need to protect sacred sites.

At the very least this could be addressed by imposing speed restrictions at critical sections of the route. This is standard procedure yet is clearly not part of the state government’s “solution”. It is also likely that these kinds of measures could be implemented at a fraction of the cost or minimal cost compared to the cost of this project. With respect to safety the accident rate is average for rural highway, not worse. The 11 deaths is a fake. This applies to Ballarat to Stawell, 123 km, for 5 years, not the 12.4 km stretch in question. We are advised the project only qualifies for federal funding on the basis of a 110 kph speed limit. In other words the project has been scaled up to qualify. Taking this into account the plaintiff developed an alternative route ‘the northern option’ which doesn’t impact the trees which regrettably the minister refuses to consider. In short this has become a politically driven project carried out without proper consideration of local interests or concerns or the need to carry it out in the most cost effective manner. Unfortunately this heavy handed approach to transport problems is typical of the approach used by this state government for many of its projects and is reflected in its “Big Build” program.

Of greater concern however is the fact that the Environmental Effects Statement for this project is heavily flawed. Vic Roads admitted this in a public statement in which they stated they had significantly underestimated the number of trees that would be removed in the project when submitting its EES. This was recorded in the judgement in the Supreme Court in 4th June 2020. This evidence should have invalidated the EES and provided grounds to stop the project. Despite the EES being flawed, it was ruled that it was legal for the EES to be the basis of his decision to approve the route.

The implications of this judgement are profound. It raises serious concerns about the way the EES is conducted and opportunities for it to be manipulated and abused to suit political objectives. As it stands the EES is a faux process and the Minister has complete powers even if the EES is found to be faulty/flawed or plain wrong. It has major implications for all major projects including the West Gate Tunnel Project, North East Link and others in the government’s Big Build program. Clearly the law needs to be changed.

It has become increasingly clear that the prime motivation for this project is not safety but the desire to secure federal funding for a capital works project. The cost of this is high and much of it borne by the local community including the destruction of a sacred site. It has also created public outrage and further loss of government standing within the community. All of this would have been avoided if the government had applied proper processes and sound governance procedures in the first place and been open and honest in its dealings with the local community.

Tags destruction, indigenous, sacred sites

advocacy public policy sustainability governance freeways governance motorways public transport traffic congestion value for money

Does expanding motorways really reduce congestion?

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 26/10/2020
No Comments on Does expanding motorways really reduce congestion?

The short answer to this question is no, and they usually result in increased emissions.

The evidence is presented in the following article by Simon Kingham, professor University of Canterbury NZ which was published in The Conversation Au edition 7th October 2020

Historically, building more and wider roads, including motorways, was seen as a way of reducing congestion. This in turn is supposed to lower emissions.

Fuel efficiency is optimised for driving at around 80kmh and it decreases the faster you go above that. But with speed limits up to 110kmh, people are likely to drive above 80kmh on motorways — and this means building and expanding motorways will actually increase emissions.

Many countries, especially in Europe, are now looking to lower speed limits partly to reduce emissions.

New roads, new drivers

The most significant impact new and expanded motorways have on congestion and emissions is the effect on the distance people travel.

Historically, engineers assumed cars (and more pertinently their drivers) would behave like water. In other words, if you had too much traffic for the road space provided, you would build a new road or expand an existing one and cars would spread themselves across the increased road space.

Unfortunately, this is not what happens. New road capacity attracts new drivers. In the short term, people who had previously been discouraged from using congested roads start to use them.

In the longer term, people move further away from city centres to take advantage of new roads that allow them to travel further faster.

This is partly due to the “travel time budget” — a concept also known as Marchetti’s constant — which suggests people are prepared to spend around an hour a day commuting. Cities tend to grow to a diameter of one-hour travel time.

The concept is supported by evidence that cities have sprawled more as modes of transport have changed. For example, cities were small when we could only walk, but expanded along transport corridors with rail and then sprawled with the advent of cars. This all allows commuters to travel greater distances within the travel time budget.

Building or expanding roads releases latent demand — widely defined as “the increment in new vehicle traffic that would not have occurred without the improvement of the network capacity”.

This concept is not new. The first evidence of it can be found back in the 1930s. Later research in 1962 found that “on urban commuter expressways, peak-hour traffic congestion rises to meet maximum capacity”.

A considerable body of evidence is now available to confirm this. But, despite this indisputable fact, many road-improvement decisions continue to be based on the assumption that extra space will not generate new traffic.

If you build it, they will drive

A significant change occurred in 1994 when a report by the UK Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Appraisal confirmed road building actually generates more traffic.

In New Zealand, this wasn’t acknowledged until the Transport Agency’s 2010 Economic Evaluation Manual, which said:

[…] generated traffic often fills a significant portion (50–90%) of added urban roadway capacity.

Some congestion discourages people from driving (suppresses latent demand), but with no congestion traffic will fill road space over time, particularly in or near urban areas.

Interestingly, the opposite can also work. Where road space is removed, demand can be suppressed and traffic reduces without other neighbouring roads becoming overly congested.

One of the best examples of this is the closure of the Cheonggyecheon Freeway in the middle of Seoul, South Korea.

When the busy road was removed from the city, rather than the traffic moving to and congesting nearby roads, most of the traffic actually disappeared, as Professor Jeff Kenworthy from Curtin University’s Sustainable Policy Institute notes.

This suppression of latent demand works best when good alternative ways of travel are available, including high-quality public transport or separated cycle lanes.

The short answer to the question about road building and expansion is that new roads do little to reduce congestion, and they will usually result in increased emissions.

Tags failure of governance, State Government, Victoria

advocacy public policy sustainability governance governance public transport traffic congestion value for money

Traffic congestion – Is it a problem?

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 19/10/2020
No Comments on Traffic congestion – Is it a problem?

Congestion is frequently raised as a huge cost in our cities and it is often promoted in fearful terms like the following : Cities afraid of death by congestion.

The first paragraph reads: “A plan to widen part of Interstate 10 in metropolitan Phoenix from 14 lanes to 24 lanes is the USA’s latest giant superhighway proposal designed to ease the kind of gridlock that some planners say could stunt economic growth.”

Similar messages are being conveyed to government by companies that have a vested interest in promoting similar outcomes in Melbourne. These include Transurban, engineering construction companies, the road lobby and others who have the government’s ear and are defining the transport ‘problem’ in their terms ie in terms of congestion and potential gridlock, and solutions being to build more, larger, and vastly expensive road projects, user pays solutions and public private partnerships promoted with very slick marketing. It also includes finance companies, superannuation funds and others looking for “rent seeking” opportunities.

The current political mindset has been described by Prof Graham Currie “as a negative spiral which focuses on congestion ‘solutions’ in which politicians claim we will solve congestion with big investment. Expectations are raised (despite the fact that congestions can never be solved), congestion gets worse leading to credibility loss , followed by a positive approach which admits congestion can never be solved but will address worst impacts with more big investment thereby lowering expectations and credibility gain because congestion outcomes are as expected”.

But is congestion such a bad problem anyway. Transport analysts such as David Metz in the UK have shown that congestion can have a positive function, that there is no such thing as free flow of traffic (at average 80kph) in a city the size of Melbourne, and that congestion points filter traffic on to narrow city streets preventing terminal gridlock.

This view is supported by Wesley Marshall and Eric Dumbaugh Wesley E. Marshall & Eric Dumbaugh, 2020. “Revisiting the relationship between traffic congestion and the economy: a longitudinal examination of U.S. metropolitan areas“, and their findings that ” current concerns about traffic congestion negatively impacting the economy may not be particularly well founded. “Our findings suggest that a region’s economy is not significantly impacted by traffic congestion.

In fact, the results even suggest a positive association between traffic congestion and economic productivity as well as jobs,”. “Without traffic congestion, there would be less incentive for infill development, living in an location-efficient place, walking, biking, and transit use, ridesharing, innovations in urban freight, etc,” “And if your city doesn’t have any traffic congestion, there is something really wrong.”

If we are to get better transport outcomes in Melbourne we need to change the current political mindset. Instead of thinking about congestion as a cost, we need to persuade government that traffic congestion is an indication that we are not using the transport system efficiently and encourage it to develop policies and strategies to make this happen.

This strategy also avoids the risk of stranded assets as the economy and transport environment change in a post covid world, when social and economic conditions remain depressed and there is greater environmental pressure for change.

Tags failure of governance, State Government, Victoria

advocacy public policy sustainability governance governance public transport traffic congestion value for money

Why Is Melbourne’s Transport System So Costly?

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 12/10/2020
No Comments on Why Is Melbourne’s Transport System So Costly?

This has been the subject of extensive research over many years and it is not possible to discuss it in detail in this blog, other than in general terms.

The main reason our transport system is so costly is that it promotes the least efficient modes of travel and transport ie motor vehicles for personal travel and most of the freight task (some of which could be transported more efficiently on rail). This in turn demands more infrastructure to support them and has been supported by city planning and development policies, particularly since WW2.

This problem is compounded when precious funds are wasted on infrastructure we don’t need or would not need if we operated our transport system more efficiently but must still be managed and maintained at considerable cost. Some of this infrastructure takes up valuable city space that could be used for other purposes, such as housing or community facilities including parks or growing food. Transport infrastructure – particularly roads and motorways also contribute to the “heat island” effect by elevating surface temperatures which increase stress, service disruptions and reduce liveability in cities – particularly during heat waves, the frequency and intensity of which is expected to increase in the future.

Melbourne’s transport is also costly because of the way we use it. Our transport fleet needs to be more efficient with a greater focus on fuel economy and operated in a way that minimizes pollution – air, noise and groundwater. We need to minimize impacts on human health; not just from pollution but also from accidents and fatalities. Transport related health impacts manifest themselves in a wide range of diseases: cardiovascular, neurological, respiratory, muscularskeletal diseases, and severe mental health impacts. Many of these the result of physical inactivity more likely to occur in car dependent societies such as Melbourne. There are environmental impacts as well and an imperative to reduce greenhouse emissions.

These costs are under reported and tend to be dismissed as the price we pay for progress but they have a profound impact – not just at a personal level but for the economy and livability of the city as a whole. Reducing them requires good governance in the form of sound policy, strategic intervention, appropriate regulation, and effective administration to make it happen. Some cities do a far better job managing them than Melbourne so there is considerable scope for improvement.

There are also costs which some economists and politicians exaggerate such as congestion and use it to justify major infrastructure works, particularly for building new motorways. This will be the subject of my next blog.

Tags failure of governance, inefficiency, State Government, Victoria

advocacy public policy sustainability governance governance public transport value for money

Beware China’s Belt and Road for Melbourne

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 06/10/2020
No Comments on Beware China’s Belt and Road for Melbourne

We have long argued that infrastructure investment must be justified in its merits – on the basis of need (our collective needs and affordability), and fitness for purpose in the most cost effective manner. Further, that the development of infrastructure programs and projects should be the responsibility of relevant government departments as part of a well prepared strategic plan. It should not be used as a political football for other purposes but unfortunately that is exactly what it has become, particularly in Victoria by becoming linked with China’s One Belt One Road (“OBOR”) project.

Premier Andrews has argued that this is a way to increase jobs. That in itself is inappropriate – there are far more effective ways to create jobs and as I have explained in earlier blogs, using it for this purpose always runs the risk of it being used for political purposes for poorly conceived projects developed in haste that we don’t need.

More important concerns have been raised (The Age 6th October 2020) however by Paul Monk, a former head of China analysis at Australia’s Defence Department about “OBOR” being used to subordinate us into China’s sphere of influence in a way that could impose unacceptable political and economic risks. In the same article Senator Patrick said the freedom of Information documentation revealed “an extraordinary case of a state government pursuing a shadow foreign trade policy, quite separate and independent from the federal government”.

Use of grand infrastructure projects to secure political advantage by major powers is not new. The US through the agency of powerful multinational corporations pursued this for decades, convincing poor countries to accept huge development loans to ensure they were forever in debt to US companies, but often ended up taking over strategic assets when promised benefits failed to materialize forcing these countries to default on their loans. Some political analysts believe China’s “OBOR” has similar objectives.

Whilst the Victorian economy may be more robust than many of the third world countries seduced by these schemes, it is vulnerable nevertheless. Business cases for the Victorian mega projects which would be candidates are expected to provide very poor returns and I have outlined this in earlier blogs. These returns, miserable as they may be will be further diminished as we enter a covid induced recession or worse and recovery may take many years. It may also expose us financially – not just for annual repayments which could be onerous but more so when the debt needs to be repaid. Political implications in this case could be profound. We believe these risks are unacceptable and the federal government has every right to be concerned.

Tags belt and road, china, failure of governance, State Government, Victoria

advocacy public policy sustainability governance governance public transport value for money

Why Is Melbourne’s Transport System So Poor And So Costly?

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 05/10/2020
No Comments on Why Is Melbourne’s Transport System So Poor And So Costly?

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.

Tags failure of governance, State Government, Victoria