Category: value for money

The cost of rushed projects

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 22/04/2022
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“Nineteen-story Box Hill tower wins planning approval in path of Suburban Rail Loop. Taxpayers look set to fork out for a multimillion dollar land acquisition bill after a 19-storey hotel was given approval to be built in the path of the Suburban Rail Loop”.KIERAN ROONEY AND MATT JOHNSTON, Herald Sun April 19, 2022.

How could this happen to the State’s largest infrastructure project which has not been fully costed but may cost well in excess of $120 billion? A lay person might be tempted to suggest that someone has been very cunning, very stupid or even corrupt. More likely this is the result of system failure that was bound to happen with a mega project such as this that has been rushed without extensive planning. Whatever the cause it should not have happened and would not have happened if the project had been thoroughly evaluated, planned and developed along traditional lines with the appropriate checks and balances that had been employed in earlier times.

But this may only be the start of many problems that are becoming apparent with this project. Transport experts have already expressed concern about planning and design of station precincts and integration with other elements of the transport network. This will be critical if the SRL is to deliver the quality of service necessary to encourage people to use it in sufficient numbers to justify the huge expense of this project. Often it is the quality of design and attention to detail that determines the outcome and already there are worrying signs of shortfalls in this area.

But the more important question is whether this project can be justified at all. The first question that must be asked is the extent to which this project improves Melbourne’s transport outcomes for the transport system as a whole, and if this is the case whether there are more cost-effective ways of doing this. System improvements are rarely achieved by a single project such as this. It invariably requires multiple actions in many areas – not just the rail network, the need to respond to a rapidly changing world and the environmental imperative to achieve zero emissions by 2035 at the latest.

This project achieves none of the above. The project is an addition to the existing rail network and will provide some integration with the public transport service which caters for only a small proportion of Melbourne’s transport task. The impact on public transport patronage is tiny and is confirmed by the SRL Business Case below.

Greater Melbourne
Weekday trips in 2056	No SRL	With SRL	Difference
Private vehicle	26,803,000	26,197,000	-606,000
Public transport	3,294,000	3,530,000	+236,000
PT share of motorised trips	10.9%	11.9%	+1.0%
SRL boardings		433,700	+433,700

Weekday trip-km in 2056
Private & public together*	252,003,000	249,070,000	-2,933,000
Average km per trip	8.4	8.4
* trip-km are not broken down between private and public

These numbers take into account land use changes the SRL will ‘induce’ in each SRL station precinct. The overall effect is to increase PT’s share of motorised travel by 1% Melbourne-wide. Better integration of the public transport system is necessary but can be achieved much more quickly and cost effectively in other ways.

The SRL will do nothing to address systemic problems that already exist within the transport network as a whole which includes all modes of transport. Any environmental impact will not be realised for many years by which time social, economic and environmental conditions will have necessitated significant changes to the transport task and the way people travel. Given its lack of flexibility there is a high risk this new project will become a stranded asset leaving a legacy of debt that will become an increasing burden for future state governments and the broader community.

The most appropriate transport strategy today is one that focuses on actions and projects that achieve rapid reductions in greenhouse emissions. This requires many actions across the transport network applied to all modes of travel. This will be denied by the SRL which will take the lion share of funding leaving very little for anything else. All of these issues should have been addressed in a feasibility study that should have been carried out before any commitments were made. In this case a rough, back of the envelope assessment should have been sufficient to eliminate it as a worthwhile project.

Tags careless planning

advocacy climate change value for money

Getting our Priorities Right

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 30/03/2022
No Comments on Getting our Priorities Right

Rising fuel prices are a signal to reduce travel – drive less often, over shorter distances and do so more efficiently. It is a message any responsible government should be repeating as part of its commitment to reduce greenhouse emissions and should be promoting opportunities to make this transition as easy as possible for all travellers.

The message from the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 in November 2020, a bit more than a year ago was absolutely clear – if humanity is to have a future on this planet it must reduce emissions quickly starting now. It is difficult to think of an issue of greater priority.

Tags fuel prices

advocacy public policy sustainability governance best practice value for money

Desperate Need for Proper Process

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 29/03/2022
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The federal treasurer’ announcement of major capital spending on more transport infrastructure projects was criticised correctly by Marion Terrill (The Age Tuesday 29 March) because they were not supported by a business case. But one should also ask where is the plan, how do these projects fit within it and perhaps even more fundamentally what is the future that the plan is based on?

These are fundamental questions that should be addressed in any investment appraisal – it is simply a matter of proper process which is often thrown out the window at election time. It is the last question ie the future we must plan for that is of most concern because it is rarely addressed with the rigor it deserves and is invariably based on business as usual scenarios.

Extreme weather events that have occurred over the last decade which are being repeated with increasing severity and frequency should remind all policy planners and governments that the world we must plan and design infrastructure for is rapidly changing. The future will not be business as usual and infrastructure projects progressed on this basis carry a risk of quickly becoming redundant. In this scenario we will soon be left with a lot of stranded assets (or remnants of stranded assets) and a mountain of debt that should have been spent on other areas of real need.

Tags proper process

advocacy public policy sustainability governance government policy motorways value for money

Roundabouts, overpasses, and carparks: Hauling the federal government back to its proper role in transport projects

by Marion Terrill for the Grattan Institute

Link to original article

Pork-barrelling wastes money, is unfair, and could be dramatically curtailed if the federal government stuck to its job of providing funding only for nationally significant transport projects.

Download the report

Download the chart data

At the last federal election only one of the Coalition’s 71 transport promises valued at $100 million or more had a business case approved by Infrastructure Australia, and for Labor, it was two projects of 61.

Federal pork-barrelling on transport projects favours electorally important states.

Queensland and NSW, where federal elections tend to be won and lost, consistently receive more, and Victoria less, than can be explained by population, population growth, size of the road network, share of passenger or freight travel, or what it actually costs the state government to run the transport system.

The federal government compounds this inequity by funnelling much more of its discretionary transport funding to the most marginal seats, such as Lindsay in Sydney, Higgins in Melbourne, Moreton in Brisbane, Hasluck in Perth, and Boothby in Adelaide.

The average marginal urban seat received $83 million from the federal Urban Congestion Fund, whereas the average safe Coalition seat received $64 million and the average safe Labor seat $34 million.

Politicians who insist on pork-barrelling are wasting taxpayers’ money, and the biggest losers are people who live in safe seats or states with few marginal electorates.

Politicians are not supposed to spend public money to promote their private interest, including their private political advantage. Avoiding such conflicts of interest would be more straightforward if the federal government stuck to its national role, and did its due diligence before spending public money.

Much of what the federal government spends on transport projects is outside the role that it has agreed with the states. The federal government is supposed to focus on nationally significant infrastructure on the National Land Transport Network; state and local governments are supposed to be responsible for locally-important roads and rail.

That hasn’t stopped successive federal governments since 2009 from funding nearly 800 roundabouts, carparks, and overpasses that are unconnected with the National Network.

Before approving any transport project, the federal government should have to consider and publish Infrastructure Australia’s assessment of the project, including the business case, cost/benefit analysis, and ranking on national significance grounds.

And whichever party wins government at the 2022 federal election should stick to its job: no more roundabouts, overpasses, or carparks, just nationally significant roads and rail on the National Land Transport Network.

Tags pork barrell

best practice bike climate change public transport traffic congestion value for money

Delimiting Electric Bikes

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 12/02/2022
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Whilst there is much talk about electric vehicles being the future for many of our transport needs most of the focus is on cars and larger vehicles which will continue to occupy the same road space and tend to promote business as usual. Far greater attention should be given to promoting small electric vehicles that take up less road space, have less material content and imbedded energy, demand less standby electricity and recharging infrastructure and promote behavioural change ie to travel less, less often and over shorter distances.

E-bikes are increasingly considered an ideal transportation mode as cities emerge from quarantine in the US and Europe. They are a growth industry. E-bike sales in Australia in 2020 were 60,000, ten times greater than electric cars (6000). Ridership is widely distributed and very popular amongst older people, including “grey nomads” and others who had ridden earlier. The e-bike is fun to ride. It encourages people to keep fit, ride more often and ride further but less intensively although they still use 70-75% of the energy used when riding a normal bike.

According to Allied Market Research “The global bicycle market was USD 65.43 billion in 2019. The global impact of COVID-19 has been unprecedented and staggering, with bicycles witnessing a positive demand shock across all regions amid the pandemic”. It is also believed sales could treble by 2030 with a CARA of 10.5% from 2030 to 2030. E-bikes have become increasingly flexible, offering a wide range of power and speed options that enables them to be used for a wider range of personal travel needs and become increasingly valuable as a cargo carrier, carrying loads up to 100kg. The Post Office likes them because they can carry heavier loads than electric or normal scooters.

Given such overwhelming benefits it is appropriate that governments at all levels support this trend and reinforce it with other incentives to get people out of their cars and remove restrictions that make it difficult to make the transition.

One of these restrictions is the limitation on the maximum speed supported by the electric motor, currently set at 25 kph and 250 watts. In Australia this limit was based on European standards adopted in 2009 but these have been updated (2017). Latest US standards allow 32 kph with an additional limit of 45 kph and larger power of 750 watts which enable it to be used to carry heavier loads as a cargo carrier. New Zealand has no speed restrictions but has a 300 watt power limit.

The 25 kph limit is outdated and unnecessarily restrictive, particularly for commuter use and longer distance travel and reduces its attractiveness as an alternative to the car. It also creates a significant speed differential between the bike and motorised traffic around it which increases the risk of an accident. The 25 kph limit has also increased the temptation for bike owners to delimit the motor allowing it to maintain power at higher speeds, which increasing numbers of people are doing enabling them to travel illegally and unsafely at excessive speeds, sometimes powered up to 70 kph or more.

A small increase in the powered speed limit to 30-32 kph would eliminate much of this abuse, and it is argued this should be implemented as quickly as possible. Concerns about the impact of higher-powered speeds on shared pedestrian/bicycle paths can be addressed by the imposition of speed limits. A 10 kph limit already exists along South Bank (10 kph) and applies to all bikes, powered or unpowered. A 20 kph limit may be appropriate along many sections of metropolitan shared pedestrian trails, particularly those that are heavily trafficked.

Of greater concern however is the need to improve the safety of the road network itself. This has been widely discussed over many years and there are many actions that can be carried out to achieve this. The costs are very low compared to those spent on major road infrastructure projects and can be carried out system wide very quickly. The return on investment (using a triple bottom line business case) is many times greater than other road projects, and is supported by treasury modelling from NSW and Queensland which is expected to be confirmed in March this year.

Safety is an important issue and highlights the need for bicycle education at schools and a broader road safety campaign to create a bicycle culture that promotes courtesy and respect for others as well as greater understanding of safety issues. The target audience must be the entire community, including all road users – motorists, cyclists and pedestrians alike.

Delimiting bikes should be a top priority and should apply to all bikes, powered or unpowered. Many of impediments to cycling can be addressed quickly and cheaply but it requires system change but there is no single solution. Melbourne could easily become the cycling capital – the Copenhagen of the south and achieve this very quickly. It just needs the mindset and commitment by government to make it happen.

Tags electric bikes

public transport service train value for money

The Sunshine Rail ‘Super Hub’ Debacle

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 19/04/2021
No Comments on The Sunshine Rail ‘Super Hub’ Debacle

As reported by Timna Jacks in The Age 11^th April, after much hype by the State government to redevelop Sunshine Station as a “super hub” that would in the words of the Premier “include retail, housing, all sorts of different options .. that can create one of those brand new spaces — a real boom for this area from economic activity” –that would fuel an economic boom in the working-class suburb, state and federal governments have now removed references to Sunshine station being a “super hub” and councillors have been advised that Sunshine and Albion stations would be “relegated to secondary priority”.

Council is most unhappy ofcourse as are developers who have called for more transparency on plans along the rail corridor, where nine major developments are being proposed, including nearly 2500 residential units, two hotels and $230 million in construction activity.

So perhaps all the fantasy and hype was simply another dream without foundation based on business as usual projections, creating the illusion that government was getting on with the job. it is time to take a reality check and look at some of the lessons that should be learnt from all of this.

There is little doubt the impact of Covid has been profound and will have lasting impact although the extent remains unclear and it has yet to run its course. In the short term we might expect some recovery but what are the prospects for the longer term? Despite government declarations that covid has been a one in a hundred year event, we must expect more events like this in an increasingly uncertain world, and that these will be driven increasingly by environmental change and the social and economic impacts that follow.

It is critical that government planning reflect this otherwise we will see more and more examples like this in which local communities are deceived by grand plans that at best will be short lived, a waste of money and do little to enable communities to adapt to the changing world around us.

Fortunately the Sunshine Hub is a relatively small project and is dwarfed by mega infrastructure projects in the government’s Big Build program, all of which assume business as usual to continue within current planning horizons. Few have a soundly based business case. A business case for airport rail has been under way since 2018 and was supposed to be released last year, but is not yet complete. The largest, the Suburban Rail Loop has yet to be accurately costed and no business case has been carried out for it, but this has not stopped this government committing to it and already committing hundreds of $millions to it. The financial risk associated with all these monumental projects is huge. It is time the business case for all projects in the Big Build program are properly evaluated at the outset before any commitment is made for them to proceed. Once approved, all projects must be subject to proper planning and development processes before undertaking any works. It seems proper process has been abandoned on these projects.

Tags debacle, disaster

best practice models of excellence public transport service value for money

Zurich – a model of transport excellence

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 23/11/2020
No Comments on Zurich – a model of transport excellence

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

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
No Comments on Transport models of excellence

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.

governance public transport service value for money

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
No Comments on Understanding Transport – it is about service

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 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