traffic congestion

Anyone that lives in Sydney or Melbourne will have experienced the crippling rise in congestion on our transport networks first hand. Morning and evening peaks now run for hours, traffic is forever thick on the weekends, and the time taken to travel from point A to point B now takes longer than ever. Article originally published at https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/05/mass-immigration-grinds-big-cities-to-halt/

Over the weekend, The Australian confirmed what we living in the big cities already know: commuting is fast becoming a nightmare:

The number of vehicles travelling in Australian cities
has grown almost tenfold in the past 70 years and, with exponential
population growth not being met with adequate road infrastructure
upgrades, traffic speeds are crawling to a standstill…

Last year, a report from the Committee for Economic Development of
Australia said congestion could cost the nation more than $50 billion in
lost productivity by 2031 unless addressed.

The latest congestion bill was $16.5bn in 2015.

Congestion levels on major arterial roads are at a high, with most
cities suffering much slower travel times and lower average speeds than
previously recorded…

Sydney, which last year was named the nation’s most congested city by
peak transport body Austroads, has seen significant reductions in
average speeds even since 2011. The population of Greater Sydney has
risen by almost 300,000 people during that time, reaching almost five
million…

Melbourne is growing by 2000 new drivers each week, with more than
200,000 vehicles travelling across the West Gate Bridge between the CBD
and western suburbs each day…

Between 2006 and 2013, speeds on Melbourne’s major arterial roads
have slowed by an average of 13km/h, with speeds on the West Gate
Freeway entry ramp from Williamstown Road slowing to half the speed
limit of 100km/h during morning peak hours…

The primary culprit is pretty obvious for those that care to look:
the explosion in population growth, which has seen Melbourne add one
million people over the past 12 years (a 27% increase) and Sydney add
821,000 people (a 20% increase):

In October last year, Infrastructure Partnerships Australia (IPA) released a report that used Uber driver information to measure “road network performance” in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth to drill down into average travel times at different hours of the day.

The results were based on the following number of drivers in each city:

And found that “efficiency” pretty much followed the level of population growth:

In Melbourne, which is the population ponzi king, travel times have
worsened materially, followed by Sydney, which has also experienced
strong population growth. Brisbane only experienced a minor worsening in
travel times. Whereas in Perth, where population growth has cratered,
travel times have actually improved.

The Bureau of Infrastructure and Regional Economics has also forecast soaring costs of congestion, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, over the next 15 years:

The underlying driver of this population growth and rising congestion
is the ‘Big Australia’ mass immigration program being run by the
federal government and supported by the three major political parties –
the Coalition, Labor and The Greens.

While net overseas migration (NOM) has fluctuated as long-stay
temporary migrants have come and gone, the fact remains that Australia’s
immigration settings are set at turbo-charged levels and are projected
to remain so for decades to come, thus maintaining Australia’s
population growth at around 400,000 people a year – equivalent to adding
a Canberra to Australia’s population:

Underpinning this high NOM is Australia’s permanent migration program, which is currently 200,000 a year, comprising:

• 128,550 Skill stream places (of which half includes skilled migrant’s family members);
• 57,400 Family stream places;
• 308 Special Eligibility stream places; and
• 13,750 Humanitarian places.

This permanent migration program was ramped-up massively from the early-2000s, as shown in the next chart:

Accordingly, in the 16 years to 2016, Australia’s net overseas
migration (NOM) rocketed to an annual average of 200,000 people a year –
almost triple the historical average of around 70,000 people a year.

As shown in the next chart, which comes from the Productivity Commission’s (PC) recent Migrant Intake into Australia
report, 86% of immigrants lived in the major cities of Australia in
2011, whereas only 65% of the Australian-born population did:

Moreover, “of the immigrants living in capital cities in 2011, most
lived in either Sydney or Melbourne, with 1.5 million residents of
Sydney and 1.3 million residents of Melbourne born overseas”. Thus,
immigration is having a particularly big impact in Australia’s two
largest cities, which are already suffering the worst housing
affordability and congestion in Australia.

The situation is set to deteriorate even further, too, with
Australia’s population expected to grow to around 40 million mid-century
under current settings, driven almost exclusively by mass immigration:

And because of this mass immigration, Sydney’s population is
projected to grow by 87,000 people per year (1,650 people each week) to
6.4 million over the next 20-years – effectively adding another Perth to
the city’s population:

It’s even worse in Melbourne, whose population is projected to
balloon by 97,000 people per year (1,870 people each week) over the next
35 years to more than 8 million people – effectively adding 2.5
Adelaide’s to the city’s population over this time period:

It’s common sense that ramming 80,000 to 100,000 extra people into
Sydney and Melbourne each year will create immense pressures on housing,
infrastructure, congestion, and overall livability.

Even former Treasury secretary Ken Henry gets it, last year sounding the alarm that rapid population growth has overrun infrastructure and housing in the big cities:

“My observation in Sydney, in Melbourne, today is that
people already think – with very good reason – that the ratio of
population to infrastructure is too high,” he said.

Australia will need to construct a new city every year as big as
Canberra or Newcastle to accommodate the expanding number of people, he
said. Or, every 5 years,

Australia would need to build an entire new city from scratch for 2
million people; or an entire new city as big as Melbourne every decade.

Without such action, there will be more congestion, longer commute
times to work and increasing problems with housing affordability…

Where is the national plan to cope with this mass immigration? How
will Australia’s governments and businesses ensure that incumbent
Australians’ living standards will not be eroded by the associated
pressures on infrastructure, housing, the environment, and the dilution
of Australia’s fixed mineral endowment, which is a key driver of our
wealth and living standards?

Residents of Sydney and Melbourne, in particular, know that their
living standards will be smashed if mass immigration is allowed to
continue. Therefore, reducing immigration back to the long-run average
of 70,000 people annually, as advocated by the Sustainable Australia party,
is becoming critical. This would see Australia’s population stablise at
around 32 million mid-century, rather than the current projection of
around 40 million.

Because as it stands, Australia cannot possibly hope to build enough
infrastructure to supply a Canberra-worth of new residents each and
every year for decades to come, which is what we are facing under
Australia’s current mad immigration settings.

unconventionaleconomist@hotmail.com

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/05/mass-immigration-grinds-big-cities-to-halt/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20MacroBusiness&utm_content=Daily%20MacroBusiness+CID_0683edbddf0347c08ac55cebbe0f4573&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=Mass%20immigration%20grinds%20big%20cities%20to%20a%20halt

Sustainable Australia says the Turnbull Government has no chance of making good on the Prime Minister’s announcement that he wants to build so called “30 minute cities”, where everything people need is within a 30 minute commute. Sustainable Australia’s Senate candidate in NSW, William Bourke, says that the Prime Minister’s vision of a congestion free future is delusional, while immigration continues to run at record levels.

Mr Bourke says, “The Prime Mister’s plan has three parts, each as preposterous as the next.

“First, he wants to pay a group of bankers $50 million to tell him what to build, and where.

“Then, he wants to borrow another $5 billion for new road and rail projects. That’s on top of the almost $500 billion of government debt racked up over the last 8 years.

“And thirdly, he wants to make the grandchildren pay off that additional debt, by raising the $5 billion by selling 30 year bonds, which will be honoured by a future generation of taxpayers, long after the PM is gone.

Mr Bourke says it is absurd for the Prime Minister to suggest that the government could build its way out of a congestion trap, and borrow its way out of a debt crisis.

“Sustainable Australia says there is only one way to fix congestion. It is decent public transport and a lower immigration intake of 70,000 per year, back from the current high of 200,000 per year.

“The truth is our high population growth is the real reason for our daily traffic jams, and overcrowded trains, buses and trams.

“If we want an Australia that is better, not bigger, then we need to lower immigration”.

View Sustainable Australia’s “30 minute cities” Video Here:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/VoteSustainable

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/VoteSustainable

Everyone knows that that the Coalition Government (now in caretaker mode) led by Denis Napthine has already signed the contracts for the infamous East West Link Toll Road in advance of the election this Saturday. What the public may not appreciate is that the East West Connect, a consortium contracted to carry out the construction of the biggest infrastructure project ever seen in Victoria, has already commenced work on the project in Royal Park. Last week teams of EWC surveyors moved in and commenced marking trees for removal in the vicinity of the planned tunnel entrance over the Ross Straw Field in Royal Park West as well marking what appears to be a construction road up Brens Drive, through the State Netball and Hockey Centre carpark and north on to the area of Royal Park designated by Linking Melbourne Authority for a construction camp and carpark.

Julianne Bell Secretary of PPL VIC comments:

“Our State wide coalition of 80 groups, plus a huge network of supporters for public transport not tollroads were outraged by the effrontery of Napthine and his cohorts to have started construction of the East West Link Toll Road in advance of the election and before the legal challenge to the project by the Cities of Yarra and Moreland is heard in the Supreme Court in mid December 2014. Last week our lawyers wrote to the contractors asking that work stop pending the legal hearing. They haven’t stopped work and it looks like they wont. Despite denials by EWC that trees are being marked out, we are afraid there will be a wholesale clearance overnight of indigenous/native vegetation in West Royal Park which pre dates white settlement and which has never suffered any real disturbance. This is the only remnant vegetation site left in Melbourne as far as we know. It is also habitat for an endangered species – White’s Skink.”

Meantime, for over a week, opponents of the East West Link have gathered daily in Royal Park to express their opposition to the project and to protest over the fact that the Coalition has given the go-ahead to work before the case comes up before the Supreme Court. The State Netball and Hockey Centre management believes the line delivered by EWC that there will be no interference with Brens Drive or with the Centre carpark.

There appears to have been a blanket ban by the media on reports that East West Connect has started project work in Royal Park. Shock jocks on 3AW and ABC 774 have refused to discuss the subject or newspaper letters editors to include comments.

Our groups call on the Labor Opposition, if elected this Saturday to govern, to put an immediate protection order on Royal Park to ensure that East West Connect desist from any further work in the Park or on the SNHC site.

Contact: Julianne Bell, Secretary, Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. and Spokesperson Royal Park Protection Group Inc. Mobile: 0408022408

Moreland residents seeking to divert funds for the East West Toll Road and Tunnel into public transport initiatives will gather together with groups and individuals from across Victoria for Saturday's 1pm Trains Not Toll Roads rally outside the State Library at La Trobe and Swanston streets.

This is Moreland Council's second endorsed rally for public transport and residents supporting the Moreland Community Against the East West Tunnel (MCAT) campaign will underscore the 24-hour noise threat the project poses to endangered animals at the Melbourne Zoo and the denuding of Royal Park through the loss of more than 5,200 trees.

"There are so many better uses to be made of $8 Billion that would actually get vehicles off the road by putting people onto public transport," said MCAT spokesperson Moreland Cr Sue Bolton. "In Moreland alone, a small percentage of those dollars could extend the Sydney Road and Melville Road tram lines, install dual rail tracks north of Gowrie Station, build additional bike paths and improve bus services including into areas where there are none."

Cr Bolton said that Moreland supporters would be gathering at 12.30pm by the library sculpture at La Trobe and Swanston streets and include a reprise by children in costume and their parents who participated in the Children's March for the Animals to Melbourne Zoo on 4 May.

For additional information contact:
Moreland Council: Councillor Sue Bolton, mobile 0417 583 664
Moreland Community Against the Tunnel (MCAT): Michael Petit, mobile 0417 354 169

This story follows on from "The Aussie version of creation" an illustrated story which is circulating widely by email, author unknown. [If you are the author, please let candobetter.net know and they will acknowledge your work.] I copy it here to give the context in which the story of blokes arose, but I have updated the story with changes to conditions in Aussi Paradise.

The Aussie verson of creation.

In the beginning God created day and night.
He created day for footy matches,
going to the beach.....

And BBQ's.......

He created night for going prawning, sleeping

and BBQ's,

On the Second Day, God created water....
for surfing, swimming
and BBQ's on the beach,

On the Third Day God created the Earth to bring forth plants to provide malt and yeast for beer
and wood for BBQs,

On the Fourth Day God created animals

and crustaceans for chops, sausages,
steak and prawns for BBQ's
On the Fifth day God created a Bloke to go to the footy, enjoy the beach, drink the beer and eat the meat and prawns at BBQ's, and God saw that it was good.

On the Sixth Day God saw that the Bloke was lonely and needed someone to go to the footy, surf, drink beer, eat and stand around the barbie with.

So God created Mates, and God saw that they were good Blokes.

On the Seventh Day God looked around at the twinkling barbie fires, heard the hiss of opening beer cans and the raucous laughter of all the Blokes. He smelled the aroma of grilled chops and sizzling prawns and
God Saw that it was good .. ...

Well..... Almost good.....

He saw that the Blokes were too tired to clean up and needed a rest.
So God created Sheilas to clean the house, to bear children, to wash, to cook and to clean the Barbie, and then God saw that it was not just good....

It was Bloody Awesome!

IT WAS AUSTRALIA !!!!!

The Story of blokes, continued - by Quark

And that was pretty good for a while for most blokes and the sheilas didn’t mind it much either. They used to quite like BBQs in the back yard as it saved on washing up and the blokes did most of the work anyway. But as time went on, the back yards disappeared and so, fewer blokes could have BBQs with their mates and sheilas.

The blokes who couldn’t have bar-b q-s became quite aggro as they felt cooped up which is natural as they had been created as BBQ loving creatures.

The other thing that changed was that the sheilas could no longer spend all their time looking after children, cooking, cleaning "barbies" etc. as they had to go to work to help pay off the mortgage on the apartments sans backyards.

This, they were told by the newspapers, was the way it was going to be for all blokes eventually in Australi-bloody –a and that they could no longer expect to have back yards with "barbies".

This cut to the quick of blokes lives and affected their mental and physical health. Whilst blokes always had beer guts, they were starting to have more than that and to be actually obese from all the fast food they had to eat on account of the sheilas no longer having time to cook.

The other problem for blokes was that whilst they used to love going to the footy, they also liked to kick a footy around with their mates. This became harder as the local footy grounds and playing fields disappeared under masses of town houses. The blokes became quite sad but they did not know quite what they were sad about as they still had their beer even though the barbies had gone.

The blokes had really enjoyed surfing, swimming and fishing as the sea and rivers had been created for this purpose. But around the same time as the back yards disappeared the blokes started to have trouble parking their utes at the beach.

A whole lot of signs started appearing at their favourite places saying they only had two hours for a day of surfing and swimming and, what’s more, they had to pay for the privilege!

This made the blokes furious because they used to be free to do what they bloody well liked in Australi-bloody –a.

Then these blokes got older and got a bit used to not getting their own way. They started reminiscing with their mates instead of trying to do all these blokey things. A new lot of blokes cropped up who never knew that you could have a day at the beach and not have to worry about parking.

These blokes were different and seemed happy to sit in cafés with drinks that you would expect sheilas to like such as cappa –bloody chinos and café –bloody- lattes whilst playing with their mobile bloody phones which were not created by God, unlike the sea and the plants for the malt and the yeast for the beer and the sheilas and the crustaceans.

And the other bloody fly in the ointment for the blokes was that, whilst they used to have plenty of time for surfing and swimming and fishing after work and on their “sickies”, most of these blokes, one by one, lost their bloody public service jobs or permanent sort of cushy jobs even in the private sector and had to go onto contracts. This bloody meant that they were even working when they weren’t being paid in the time that they would have been surfing and swimming! What’s more they didn’t get “sickies” or if they did they didn’t have time to take them or they’d lose their jobs!

The blokes who virtually had owned the bloody place no longer seemed to! It was as though the place that had belonged to all blokes to enjoy and do as they bloody well pleased now belonged to a few blokes that they didn’t even know and who seemed to live in castles somewhere and even had houses overseas or owned whole islands. They were not regular blokes. The regular blokes sort of lost their "blokiness" when they were put in this position. They started to agree with the blokes they didn’t know who now seemed to own the bloody place. Maybe the blokes thought this was the way for them to own the place again…

Meanwhile what was happening to the sheilas? Well the sheilas never thought they owned the place unless they were rich sheilas, but that didn’t matter because the sheilas could go where they pleased and it was as good as owning the joint. So when the backyards disappeared around the same time as the parking signs went up at the beach and the blokes lost their cushy jobs with ‘sickies”, the sheilas who had got equal pay to the blokes a few decades earlier also lost their cushy jobs with “sickies” and found themselves on contracts.

Just as the blokes were stuck at work when they could have gone swimming, so were the sheilas. The sheilas still had to have the babies but other sheilas were hired to look after lots of babies while the sheilas who had the babies went to work to pay the mortgage for the apartment or the house with not even enough land for a BBQ.

The blokes and the sheilas had to race to the child care centre before and after work to drop off and pick up the babies. Life for both blokes and sheilas became a balancing act to maintain a life without BBQs, surfing and swimming.

But most blokes and sheilas were very appreciative of the large flat screen teles that were the centerpieces of all living rooms in Australi-bloody- a.

It had all happened so insidiously, the blokes didn’t realise. And that’s the story of blokes.

Radio interview with the thinking person's politician, Kelvin Thomson, on the impacts of population growth and the policies that keep pushing it up in Australia.

Elliot says there is not a great deal state governments can do about population growth, but suggests that the Fed Gov should look at immigration numbers. Kelvin agrees with him and makes other points, perhaps choosing not to disagree with the interviewer whose knowledge is probably deficient.

Candobetter.net wants readers of this article to realise though that State Governments all have websites dedicated to attracting immigrants from overseas. The reader should also understand that housing and land development, water and power - all the things that population growth is inflating - are almost entirely the responsibility of state governments. There are growth lobbies dedicated to influencing state governments and parliaments on just these issues. These growth lobbies are shored up and given authority by the mainstream media - Murdoch and Fairfax - which both own property.dot.coms marketing Australian property to the world. The ABC, our public media, apes these attitudes.

Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. (PPL VIC)

Media Release Wednesday 8 May 2013

Yesterday saw Premier Denis Napthine announce funding for the East West (Road) Link in the State Budget. Thus he has condemned Melbourne to future gridlock and has put on hold improved public transport in the form of urban rail to Doncaster, Tullamarine, Rowville and South Morang. PPL VIC together with many inner city community groups and Yarra Council has, over the past two years, been campaigning for “Trains Not Toll Roads “.

Julianne Bell Secretary of PPL VIC explains: “This morning, ABC radio 774 listeners were staggered to hear the Treasurer, Mr Michael O’Brien, say that the “tunnel” would link Hoddle Street and CityLink but there would be no access/exits for commuters to the city where much of the traffic off the Eastern Freeway is headed. This was the plan for a truck bypass of the city proposed by the Eddington Review of 2008. (The East West Link proposal was scrapped by the Brumby Labor Government.) Community groups such as PPL VIC were alarmed over information supplied by Linking Melbourne Authority, the project “proponent”, at a community briefing held on 3 April 2013 that the 4 lane roadway will not be in a tunnel (as the Treasurer maintains) for the entire 18 kilometre length. Some sections will be in the form of an aerial roadway or constructed by open cut methods. Consequently we fear for the future of our heritage streetscapes, our gracious treed avenues, for Royal Park and for the institutions located in the park – the Royal Children’s Hospital, the Melbourne Zoo and the State Netball and Hockey Centre.”

Rod Quantock, Acting President of PPL VIC takes a long term view:

“The squandering of our common wealth on an unnecessary road link is to be condemned. The car is not the answer for the future, a future that, in light of CO2 pollution, peak oil and over-population, requires new ways of living, working and moving. The CSIRO has predicted petrol prices could be as high as $8 per litre by the end of this decade. Who will use this road then? Who will use it when predicted days of 50 degrees centigrade plus bend and buckle it? Who will use it when an extra 2 million people clog the city's arteries? It is time for our craven leaders to stand-up to the road lobbies, to show leadership and foresight and a commitment to the well-being of future Melburnians. It is time to back public transport.”

PPL VIC and inner city community groups together with the Coalition of Transport Action Groups will continue to oppose the East West Link and to lobby for improved public transport, in particular urban rail lines to Doncaster and Tullamarine. We will be taking the message to candidates in the next State Government election.

Media:
Julianne Bell PPL VIC Secretary Mobile: 0408 022408
Rod Quantock PPL VIC Acting President 0438 862079

Once again members of the Victorian and Tasmanian Branch of Sustainable Population Australia braved the usual dreadful hot conditions at the Sustainable Living Festival in Melbourne, which has just come to an end.

 

Candobetter supports SPA's message and admires SPA Victoria.  We salute them for their almost single handed contribution to opening debate in Victoria on population numbers.

Jill Quirk, the President of the Victorian Branch, has shown great skill in bringing together various conservation and environment organisations, as well as planning activists, together on the issue of population growth.

It is hard to imagine that only a few years ago most environmental and planning activists actually could not see the connection. Although they could see the connection between development and loss of ammenity, democracy and natural environment, they still believed the government's dishonest pretention that population growth in Victoria was falling. They did not understand what was pushing overdevelopment and they often did not realise that their local problems were repeated not just in other suburbs, but in other states, all across Australia.

Despite some attempts to silence debate from bullies who claim affiliation with Right to Life, the Socialist Alliance and the (non-incorporated) Refugee Action Alliance and seem to work to the advantage of developers and government, it has become possible to educate more people on what is actually happening, as our government tries to engineer our population and deprive communities of natural ammenity and citizens of reasonable rights to enjoy their property.

It is through the experience of trying to stop forced population engineering for commercial purposes that only bring benefits to a very narrow minority that more and more people are realising that effective democracy in Australia is an illusion.  We may be able to talk, but we have little or no means to organise and act.

Here is yet another example of why big business and governments want more population growth - they can always milk it for money while you and I pay for it. With the right press, this can even appear helpful, although it's really just the opposite. "To reduce congestion, imagine the government charged by the kilometre," says David Hensher of the University of Sydney. "The hip pocket must be where road pricing reform commences. The call for a congestion charge is getting louder and more frequent in many countries, as major metropolitan areas experience increasing levels…" Growth doesn't pay for itself - you do.

Roads to hell paved with bad ideas presented as good intentions

"To reduce congestion, imagine the government charged by the kilometre," says David Hensher of the University of Sydney. "The hip pocket must be where road pricing reform commences. The call for a congestion charge is getting louder and more frequent in many countries, as major metropolitan areas experience increasing levels…"

Mark O'Connor writes that this strikes him as a an ingenious idea that might make good financial sense, but not much sense in other ways.

Why can't Australia have stable cities like other people?

It's still a way of palliating (for a time) rather than solving the underlying problem. Why can't we have stable cities, like Europe does, rather than ones that are forever outgrowing their roads? and their parks, sewers, power and water infrastructures, water supplies,and perhaps even in time their food supplies? Why is Australia growing at more than three times the average for advanced countries, paying baby bonuses to encourage more births, and pushing up immigration again despite Gillard's promise to get us off the Big Australia path?

There seems to be no limit to the deterioration in our quality of life that our leaders, and some planners will propose, sooner than concede there must be limits to population growth.

Here are some of the things we are regularly asked to give up

Urban green space

Houses with gardens

Affordable houses

The right to drink water that has not come from a sewer

Koalas

Abundant and varied birdlife

Land on which to run a pet

Land on which to have a clothes line

Affordable meat.

Roads without traffic jams

The last three city plans...

The chance for Australian school leavers to be trained and to find jobs

Resource security

A city that would not have to be quickly surrendered in war if its main highways for food-trucks were cut by missile strike. (e.g. Sydney)

Power-security

Freedom from the risks of nuclear power.

Continuing public ownership of profitable utilities and public lands

And now it seems we must add:

Freedom to drive without a mileage toll.

This is a copy of Kelvin Thomson's speech to the Annual General Meeting, Royal Park Protection Group Inc. Flemington Community Centre, 8 September 2012. Kelvin Thomson is a Federal Labor politician in the seat of Wills who stands out for his independent views on democracy and population in a government and opposition that seems depressingly unaware of the importance of these concepts and their effect on each other.
Note: Headings in this article are editorial additions by Candobetter.net

Australia's natural environment its greatest asset

There are many great things about Australia, but to my mind the greatest is the proximity we have to the natural world, to our physical surroundings. And for many people living in inner northern Melbourne, Royal Park remains a place where we still have that. It’s always held fond memories for me. I don’t have many fond memories of a fortnight spent in the Royal Childrens Hospital as a kid after I had my appendix removed, but the one consolation was looking down from my hospital window onto Royal Park and watching the bright orange Flame Robins which came in there in winter. Later on my brother and I learned a lot about native plants from the little native garden built around the Burke and Wills Memorial, and later again as a Melbourne University student I sometimes escaped to the native plant garden off Gatehouse Street. Royal Park has long been, and still is, a very special place. This afternoon I want to talk to you about Melbourne’s traffic mess – what causes it, and what the solutions are for it, and why the East-West Tunnel is not one of them.

Population growth the main cause of Melbourne's traffic problems

The key cause is population growth, which has exploded this century.

Melbourne has been growing at 200 people per day, 1500 per week,
75,000 each year. This brings with it numerous unwelcome consequences – electricity, water and council rates rising much faster than the rate of inflation (and I’ve got copies of a speech explaining how this works down the back for people interested in this issue), the loss of a say in planning decisions for ordinary residents and communities, loss of housing affordability for young people in particular, and pressure on open space and native wildlife.

But the consequence I want to zero in on this afternoon is traffic congestion. The 2001 Census recorded Melbourne at 3.3 million people. By the end of 2009 we got to 4 million; we are on our way to 7 million by 2050.

This of course leads to more car ownership.

There are now 500,000 more cars on Victorian roads than 10 years ago, with most being purchased by people living on Melbourne’s rapidly growing outer fringe. In 1991, Melbournians owned 1.8 million cars and by 2005, car ownership had jumped by almost 700,000 vehicles to
2.45 million. At the current rate of car possession per household, we will have an extra 1.1 million cars by 2036. Does anyone in this room seriously think moving in Melbourne is going to get anything but harder? 1 million extra cars! We get proposals for still more freeways to deal with all these cars but they don’t solve the problem; they just turn into toll roads that make motoring more expensive. Melbourne has one of the highest ratios of road space to population of any city, with Melbournians taking up more road space and generating more emissions per capita than Londoners. In 2007 there were an average 13.37 million trips a day in Melbourne, with 12 million of those taken by car. This increased car ownership and use in turn generates traffic congestion – Melbourne’s traffic mess.

A major problem lurking for our economy is the burgeoning cost of traffic congestion in our major cities. Building new communities and new roads on the urban fringes of Melbourne will lead to more congestion, traffic which will ultimately hurt our economy.

Congestion cost Australia $12.7 billion in 1995 and is envisaged to increase to $29.5 billion by 2015. In Melbourne, it cost $2.7 billion in
1995. Congestion costs equated to $840 per capita. It is estimated this cost will rise to $8 billion by 2015, and equate to $2100 per capita. Road congestion costs in Melbourne will reach nearly $3 billion a year by 2020 under the present regime, a cost borne by every business and household.

Infrastructure Australia's proposed tolls and taxes no solution

This morning I read the head of Infrastructure Australia saying that policymakers have to confront the challenges of traffic congestion. I agree with him that this is a major issue – I don’t think it gets anywhere near enough attention. The amount of time Melbourne drivers spend stuck in traffic, making our lives a misery and fuelling road rage, is a scandal. But where I part company with Infrastructure Australia is their proposed solutions – road tolls, a congestion tax on motorists who drive at peak times, allowing B triple trucks. These things won’t make life better for motorists, they will make things worse. But Infrastructure Australia’s candour about tolls means motorists can be very clear that if the East West Tunnel is built they’ll be paying tolls to drive on it – your weekly motoring bill will rise.

Economists and tycoons benefit from our sacrifices but still make us pay

I guess I will just have to add congestion taxes to the already long list of sacrifices that economists and business tycoons think we should make rather than rethink our addiction to population growth and GDP. They keep telling us that we are better off now than we were in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Really? When we had free roads, free education, cheap petrol, water and electricity, and ice was delivered by a man with a van and a smile, not by a drug dealer.

How to reduce population growth

As I have outlined in my 14 Point Plan for Population Reform, there is a better way. We can stabilize Australia and Melbourne’s population by reducing net overseas migration to the more sustainable levels we had in the 1980s, significantly reducing skilled migration, capping the Trans-
Tasman open door migration agreement with New Zealand, removing the baby bonus and increasing our foreign aid. This will reduce the pressures on our infrastructure and ease traffic congestion. Trying to build more infrastructure to keep up with population growth is a recipe for disaster – just like a dog chasing its tail, we will never be able to meet our infrastructure pressures until we stabilize our population levels. However until the happy day when Melbourne, Victoria and Australia embraces population reform, it is vital that we maintain the fight to protect our city’s liveability by protecting our city’s green wedges, open spaces, and preventing the constructing of more freeways, such as the East West Link Tunnel. Building more roads does not address congestion, it creates more congestion.

Baillieu Government makes unpopular East-West Tunnel its No.1 objective

In July this year I wrote to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Minister for Infrastructure Anthony Albanese, Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu, and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, following the announcement by Tony Abbott that a Liberal Government would contribute $1.5 billion towards an East-West Link Tunnel, and that Premier Ted Baillieu has now made it clear that the construction of an East-West Road Tunnel is his Government’s number one infrastructure priority, despite have no electoral mandate to do so.

Traffic sewers

In my letter I explained that inner areas of Melbourne, including the suburbs of Coburg and Brunswick which I represent, are experiencing increasingly high levels of motor vehicle traffic, and becoming traffic sewers. Constructing a new road tunnel with entry and exit points accessing inner city areas will significantly exacerbate traffic issues. Research has been conducted which shows minimal numbers of motorists actually undertake the total east-west journey on a daily basis, rendering the entire proposal seriously flawed.

In April 2007 I made my first submission to the East-West Link Needs Assessment Study being conducted by Sir Rod Eddington, under the direction of the then Victorian Labor Government. In my submission I outlined how the Victorian population was forecast to increase from the then 4.8 million people to over 6.2 million by 2031, and that it is essential our state has access to the most efficient and effective transport services.

A plan for an additional road link between each and west Melbourne was first discussed by former Premier Jeff Kennett in the late 1990s, and ruled out in the Department of Infrastructure’s Northern Central Corridor Study in 2001. The central reason why the plan failed was because of its lack of utility, as the reality was the tunnel just wasn’t needed.

The findings from the Department of Infrastructure’s original study also outlined that the proposal was rejected at that stage because it was identified that the arterial network could adequately provide for existing east west movements between the Eastern Freeway and Ballarat and Geelong Roads.

East-West tunnel is unnecessary

The Department of Infrastructure also found the tunnel to be unnecessary because relatively little traffic actually crossed between the freeways. Congestion along the Eastern Freeway mostly came, according to their research, from peak hour commuters heading for inner Melbourne.

A lot of these reasons why the East-West Link Tunnel was not needed in the late 1990s are the same reasons why we don’t need it now.

At the time of making my first submission, in 2007, the tunnel was estimated by cost $10 billion. Yet recent reports suggest the tunnel will cost $5 billion, half the price despite being 5 years later. Think about it! Tackling congestion is not solved by building more roads. There is a variety of evidence which shows that increasing road capacity in congested road networks does not simply meet existing growth; it generates and induces more vehicle trips. As Kevin Costner said in “Field of Dreams”, “build it and they will come”.

I outlined a number of evidence based studies in my 2007 submission, including findings from a leading international study that traffic grows when roads are uncongested, but growth rates decline as congestion develops.

Citylink, Western Link, failed to deliver us from congestion

A local study conducted by the Department of Infrastructure in 1999 on the impact of traffic flows on the heavily congested Eastern Freeway since the construction of the Toll Free Western Link, found it “had no changes in the volumes on the Eastern Freeway”.

Before its opening, CityLink was hailed as the solution to Melbourne’s cross-city traffic problems. Although while many expected the big increase in road space to result in free flowing traffic, the reality has been that daily congestion plagues CityLink, with large numbers of single vehicle occupants dominating.

The findings of these leading international and local studies still ring true today – more roads result in more congestion. By simply increasing capacity and not trying to manage congestion we end up with more vehicle trips than would otherwise occur.

The Eddington Report of 2008 made 20 recommendations. Some had many commendable features – such as plans for a rail tunnel from Footscray to Caulfield; a rail link from Werribee to Sunshine; and the proposal for electrification to Sunbury. But I did not support the proposal for a $10 billion east-west road tunnel. It is not just a question of the money, though we all know how these road projects have an uncanny knack of blowing out to double, or more, their pre-construction estimates. It is a question of how such a controversial megaproject will completely soak up the time and energy of the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, of department officers and of engineers so that other projects simply get postponed.

East-West tunnel relies on speculative data

The demand projections in the East West Needs Assessment are speculative. The traffic forecast for a new road tunnel assumes a low toll price and fails to factor in toll avoidance. This is odd given the experience of the Cross City and Lane Cove tunnels in NSW, both of which massively underestimated toll avoidance and hence over estimated traffic flows.

Even with these assumptions the road tunnel only has a cost benefit of less than 0.74 which means for every dollar spent there will be less than
74 cents of benefit. In Sir Rod Eddington’s report to the UK Government he warned them to be wary of projects based on such speculative demand modeling. This advice should equally apply to the East West Needs Assessment study:

“There is no substitute for careful cost-benefit analysis based on robust economic evidence and there are many examples around the world of projects founded on speculative demand forecasts, which did not deliver their purported economic benefits. Further research would be needed to understand the potential scale of these latent demands and the benefits may well be speculative. There is certainly enough for government to be getting on with in the meantime, to tackle the more certain looming challenges of congestion and overcrowding, where intervention offers far more certain economic benefits. Prioritization of transport spending must mean focusing on those schemes where the economic benefits are more certain’."

No light at the end of the East-West tunnel

If the tunnel goes ahead, it will be inevitably at the expense of public transport infrastructure in the eastern suburbs and other areas of Melbourne outer suburbs. It is those projects that we really need to meet Melbourne’s transport needs. This is not anti motorist, or anti truckie. Indeed, I believe many truckies and motorists who have no choice but to use the roads would welcome an invigorated public network which reduced road congestion and shortened their travel times.

However despite the evidence that a road tunnel will worsen congestion, it appears Ted Baillieu has his heart set on getting the project underway. He announced in the Victorian Budget that the State Government would allocate $15 million towards an East-West Tunnel Study. This is a waste of money. It doesn’t bring the tunnel any closer. It’s a sham. There is simply no light at the end of the East-West Tunnel. Inner city residents have previously made it clear they do not want such a tunnel in their neighbourhood.

This costly useless tunnel will scar Royal Park

In July it was reported that drilling in Royal Park is to proceed, with the State Government plotting 13 drill sites in and around the park to investigate a possible route for the East-West Road Tunnel. The cost of this project was said two years ago to be $10 billion. Now it is said to be $5 billion, with the Federal Opposition saying they’ll find $1.5 billion for it. What will happen is that motorists will have to pay tolls to use it. Whatever the amount of public money involved, I believe the East-West Tunnel is the wrong priority.

It will not ease traffic congestion in Melbourne. For years we have been told that one more freeway would solve Melbourne’s traffic congestion problems. I supported CityLink, I supported East Line, I supported the Metropolitan Ring Road, I supported the Craigieburn By-pass. But it never works. As many studies around the world have shown, freeways generate new traffic and new trips.

Money in public transport would be better spent

It would be better to put public money into public transport. This will do more to help traffic congestion, more to contain carbon emissions, and more to help people who don’t drive cars, for example younger people, older people and people with disabilities.

Public transport infrastructure is one of the great unmet needs of our time. Ever since the car took off in Australia, post-war public transport infrastructure has failed to keep pace with suburban growth. In Melbourne, there is a strong public transport infrastructure of train and tram lines out to Melbourne’s city limits circa 1950, but beyond that there is precious little. The million Melbournians who live beyond Melbourne’s 1950 city limits have to drive cars in order to leave their suburbs. Those who commute to the city or other parts of Melbourne to work face long, expensive and tiring trips to and from work every day. Taking their cars through the inner suburbs turns many inner areas into traffic sewers, doing nothing for the quality of life in inner Melbourne. Public transport currently plays a minor role in how this city gets around. Cars account for 91% of passenger kilometers, up from 89% in the mid 1970s, while public transport takes 9%, down from 16% in the mid 1970s.

Serious problems linked to automobile dependency

Serious economic, environmental and social problems are linked to automobile dependency. Economically, car dependence is not good for cities as auto cities have the highest ratio of total transport costs as a proportion of city wealth. The cost of car over a lifetime is $750,000. If a family uses one less car it could save this money for superannuation or spend it on other areas of the economy. I support the proposal for the construction of the Regional Rail Link, a
50 kilometre railway connection from west of Werribee to Southern Cross Station which will link the Melbourne-Geelong railway from west of Werribee to Southern Cross Station via the Melbourne-Ballarat railway.

It is public transport projects like these that should be the priority for connecting our already sprawling city, instead of more roads and freeways.

PUblic transport especially needed on urban fringes

Almost half of all new housing expected in Melbourne over the next decade will be built on the urban fringes where there is little access to public transport. A recent parliamentary report found that only in 100 residents in some of Melbourne’s outer suburbs used only public transport to get to work.

There is a great deal of evidence which shows that when services are improved, more people use them. In 1991 a trial involving improving train services on the Sandringham line from every 20 minutes to every
15 resulted in a one-third increase in passengers. The Mont Albert tram line was extended to Box Hill in 2002 and as a result patronage on the far end of the tram line increased by over 60% between 2000 and 2004. Similarly, the extension of the St Albans suburban train line to Sydenham led to a 30% increase in patronage for the entire line between
2000 and 2004. Suburban train services were extended from Broadmeadows to Craigieburn in 2007, resulting in a significant increase in train frequencies to Craigieburn station. Within the first 12 months of the new service, patronage through Craigieburn station grew threefold. The evidence clearly suggests that if we provide more options for people living on Melbourne’s urban fringe to travel, they will use them. We must do everything we can do to reduce car dependency and the solution lies in better public transport services.

Carbon emissions

Then there is the question of carbon emissions. One of the greatest challenges facing the 21st century is the challenge of climate change. We cannot tackle climate change by building more roads. By all means let us build more transport infrastructure – let’s be a nation of builders – but let it be public transport infrastructure – trains, trams and buses. We cannot build out way out of congestion. We have been trying it for years and it does not work. Time and time again we have seen that increasing road capacity in congested road networks generates and induces more vehicle trips. US studies have shown that those US cities with a decent rail system have fewer congestion problems than cities which do not have a decent rail system. Professor Ross Garnaut’s paper on transport and urban planning included an issues paper which found that building new roads may make Australia’s greenhouse emissions from transport issues worsen. He noted that the provision of road infrastructure may induce growth in passenger car use by reducing the competitive advantage of public transport.

Melbourne Railway projects ready to go

There are plenty of worthy urban public infrastructure projects ready, willing and able to go. In Melbourne, the Eastern Transport Coalition incorporates the councils of Greater Dandenong, Knox, Manningham, Maroondah, Monash, Whitehorse, and Yarra Ranges.

Its chair, Councillor Mick Van de Vreede, has said that, following the Eddington study, it is clear that we need a transport plan for the rest of Melbourne and, in particular, the eastern suburbs. He is right, and the sorts of projects that plan could end up giving effect to are a rail service along the Eastern Freeway corridor from Victoria Park to Doncaster; a heavy rail connection from Huntingdale station to Rowville, along the median of Wellington Road to Stud Park shopping centre; or duplication of the Belgrave and Lilydale lines beyond Ringwood station, with the addition of a third track in a number of locations along the Belgrave and Lilydale lines. There are also some good ideas for improving public transport access to Monash University.

I believe the Doncaster project is a no brainer. Doncaster is an important commercial and civic hub in Melbourne’s north east, and the City of Manningham is the only metropolitan Melbourne municipality without train or tram services. A report by Curtin and RMIT university transport experts in July found a railway line in Doncaster could be built for $840 million, and linked to the proposed Metro rail tunnel for an extra $300 million. It would then be likely to transport around 100,000 passengers per day, the same number of vehicles it is claimed will use the East West Tunnel, which comes with a price tag of at least $5 billion! The Doncaster Railway should go down the Eastern Freeway median, just as Perth’s highly successful Mandurah railway line runs for most of its length along the median of the Kwinana Freeway. It carried 19 million passengers last year, more than it was initially projected to carry by
2020.

Conclusion

The evidence is clear. Our rapid population growth is putting unprecedented pressure on our public infrastructure, especially roads. And the evidence is also just as clear, building an East-West Tunnel will simply fuel congestion, at the expense of investing in genuine forms of sustainable transport including public transport and cycling. We have a responsibility to protect the livability and amenity of our beautiful city, so that future generations, our children and grand-children, are handed over a city in as beautiful condition as the one our parents and grandparents gave to us.

Kelvin Thomson MP Federal Member for Wills

By upwards engineering population growth, the Victorian and Australian Governments are showing disregard of "ultimate deprivation" and leaving "future generations with the task of rationing energy, oil and food..."

Today, Friday, 18thth November, 2011, Sustainable Population Australia, Victorian Branch president, Jill Quirk has condemned Victorian Planning Minister Matthew Guy's recently announced approval of a development at Clyde North of up to 6600 houses covering more than 400 hectares to expand the population by 18,500.

The previous Victorian Government's ‘Victoria in the Future’ (VIF) projections estimated that Casey could reach a population of 370,000 by 2026 which is larger than the present city of Canberra.

No food at the Infill

“Due to government growth policies, we are risking future food security by destroying prime agricultural land for new housing estates. As one of Australia’s most fertile and valuable agriculture areas, Casey should be preserved for the vital role of food production. Casey has a favorable climate, topography, fertile soils, supportive transport and recycled water infrastructure. With climate change, limited arable soil and oil depletion, Australia needs markets close to cities as Casey is to Melbourne.” said Ms. Quirk

Dangerous Government engineering of population growth in Victoria

“The push for ever more population growth by governments and business is denying us the chance of an environmentally sustainable future. The apparent lack of real long term thinking with regard to population and the emphasis on the electoral cycle from our politicians will leave future generations with the task of rationing energy, oil and food, and untangling the transport gridlock. The Victorian government should now concentrate on providing reliable transport services to the existing outer suburbs rather than seeking to swell these areas with anther million people by 2025.”

“Instead of planning and policies based on growth and the disregard of ultimate deprivations, we need policies based on realistic appraisals of our long term needs, a sustainable population, and sustainable economy” said Ms Quirk.

Further comment: ph. Jill Quirk, President Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian branch) 0409742927.
(The patrons of Sustainable Population Australia are Patrons: Hon Bob Carr, Dr Paul Collins, Prof Tim Flannery, Prof Ian Lowe, Dr Mary E White.)

Citizens in Australia’s major cities are becoming increasingly unhappy about what they perceive as the escalating deterioration in their quality of life - traffic congestion, overloaded public transport, unaffordable housing for young people, increases in the costs of basic services and overcrowding. There is little doubt that recent election results and unfavourable opinion polls are partly an expression of this dissatisfaction. (Article first published on On-Line Opinion, where you may also currently make comments.)

First published as an Online opinion article by Tony Recsei - 23 August 2011

Citizens in Australia’s major cities are becoming increasingly unhappy about what they perceive as the escalating deterioration in their quality of life - traffic congestion, overloaded public transport, unaffordable housing for young people, increases in the costs of basic services and overcrowding. There is little doubt that recent election results and unfavourable opinion polls are partly an expression of this dissatisfaction.

‘Save Our Suburbs’ believe that these adverse trends are the result of high-density policies that have been imposed onto communities by state governments. Due to the misleading misinformation that has accompanied these policies, the public may not fully realise the connection between these policies on the one hand and deteriorating standard of living on the other. It is only when one sweeps the propaganda veil aside that one realises how shallow, trivial and sometimes downright deceptive the spin has been.

We should start out by making it clear that we have no issue with anyone that prefers living in a high-density area or with the free market construction of buildings to fulfill this preference. The issue we have is with the enforced imposition of high density housing upon the bulk of Australians that don’t want it.

The premise behind this government totalitarianism is that high-density living is better for the environment. They say that people will use their cars less and that greenhouse gas emissions will be greatly reduced. While these two propositions sound very much like commonsense the unfortunate fact is that the data does not bear them out. An idealised Melbourne study currently being quoted assumes that people, no matter where they live, will drive to the central business district daily. This is a completely unrealistic assumption. Only 9.9 per cent of employment in Melbourne is in the CBD. The majority of destinations for most people in the suburbs lie close to where they live and they do not in fact make daily trips to the CBD.

To get a better understanding we should look at the Australian Conservation Association’s Consumption Atlas, which shows greenhouse pollution per person in each postal code. The underlying research shows that the actual travel energy used by dwellers in inner Sydney suburbs is more than those in the outer suburbs, even when air travel is excluded.

When domestic energy is added to travel energy, the energy total for people in the inner suburbs is 22 per cent more than those living in the outer suburbs. This is because of energy needed in high-rise buildings for communal lifts, scores of individual clothes driers and ever-present security lighting in foyers and garage spaces.

While we do concede that private transport generates somewhat higher greenhouse gas emissions than public transport, the difference is not nearly as much as people think. Greenhouse gas emissions per passenger kilometre on Sydney City Rail are 105 gm. The figure for the average car is 155 gm. It is much less for modern hybrid vehicles, being a mere 70 gm.

Furthermore, a study of Melbourne areas shows that the people squeezed into newly converted dense areas did not use public transport to any greater extent and there was little or no change in their percentage of car use compared to living in the previous low-density.

In fact, traffic congestion increases whenever high-density policies are imposed wherever you are in the world. Any slight increase that may occur in the proportion of people using public transport is overwhelmed by the greater number of people squeezed into that area. The resulting congestion causes higher fuel consumption and dangerous exhaust emissions. The authorities fail to admit that many people still require their cars for getting to the many workplaces, sporting facilities, and relatives and friends homes not easily reached by public transport and for transporting items that are impractical or illegal aboard public transport such as weekend recreation equipment and the family pet.

High density advocates claim that high-density saves money. This is palpable nonsense. We are all acutely aware that high-density policies have resulted in a dramatic rise in the price of housing, due to the government enforced infill policy causing land scarcity, thereby locking out an entire generation of young people from the housing market. We are also conscious of substantial rises in the cost of services such as electricity, water and sewerage due to the incredibly inefficient modifications required to increase capacity in areas originally designed for lower densities.

A tragic and often overlooked failure of high-density policies is the adverse effect on human health, especially mental health. There is a considerable body of peer-reviewed research proving the link between density and ill health. An article published on 23 June 2011 by eleven authors in the prestigious scientific journal, Nature, states that the incidence of schizophrenia in city dwellers is double that of people living in less crowded conditions. This article has received worldwide media attention. In view of the serious mental health situation existing in our society, those forcing high-density onto communities that do not want it, should hang their heads in shame.

We reiterate that we have no issue with those of us that preferliving in a high-density area or with the free market construction of buildings to fulfill that limited demand. What we object to, is having draconian high density policies based on demonstrably faulty premises forced upon the 83 per cent of people that Australian research shows prefer to live in a free-standing home.

This is especially so when the result is maddening traffic congestion, more greenhouse gases, a creaking and overloaded infrastructure, the young and disadvantaged unable to afford their own home and poorer health outcomes.

Dr Tony Recsei has a background in chemistry and is an environmental consultant. Since retiring he has taken an interest in community affairs and is president of the Save Our Suburbs community group which opposes over-development forced onto communities by the New South Wales State Government. You can find the Youtube site here; and the blog here.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=12504

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