I can’t say I’m much of a follower of Australian politics so please forgive me if I don’t get the various intricacies right but it is definitely going to be interesting to see what happens with transport over the coming years now that Tony Abbott has been elected prime minister. In case you also haven’t been following the goings on across the ditch, back in April Abbott caused a bit of a stir when he said:
“The commonwealth government has a long history of funding roads.
“We have no history of funding urban rail and I think it is important that we stick to our knitting and the commonwealth’s knitting when it comes to funding infrastructure is roads.”
This was particularly a concern as many of the major projects on Infrastructure Australia’s priority list have been rail projects in all of the major cities. Further while ruling out funding for rail projects he was also promising government funds for some motorway projects that in some cases hadn’t even been assessed which sounds eerily similar to what our government has done with the RoNS.
Of course just like in New Zealand and elsewhere in the western world travel demand in Australia is changing, especially amongst young people and one of the key differences is that the mainstream media are starting to pick up on the trends which is something we haven’t really seen here (perhaps we will have to wait for the census results to come out).
Sydney’s 20-somethings are fast ditching their cars for public transport, previously unpublished figures show, revealing the trend is widespread in the city.
An analysis of new travel figures from the Bureau of Transport Statistics shows the generational shift to public transport is not confined to well-serviced inner areas but also in outer Sydney, where public transport is more patchy.
The transformation in travel patterns, experts and surveys say, is likely caused by the cost and inconvenience of maintaining a car but also the widespread use of mobile devices, which are more attractive on public transport.
Ten years ago, people aged 21 to 30 in Sydney drove themselves on about 53 per cent of all trips on an average weekday. That share fell almost eight percentage points to 45.5 per cent in 2011-12.
Among people aged 31 to 40, the ”mode share” of driving trips fell from 64.2 per cent to 60.2 per cent in the decade. Sydney residents in their 40s and 50s are also driving less but the trend is not as pronounced and residents in their 60s and 70s are, on average, driving slightly more.
”The whole value proposition of a car is not what it used to be for young people,” said Garry Glazebrook, of the University of Technology, Sydney.
”It’s not the ticket to freedom it once was … And, in the inner suburbs, it is almost a menace because you can’t find somewhere to park.”
One of the interesting things about New South Wales is they actually have a whole department dedicated to producing transport statistics and if you go to the article the image below is also interactive.
But the trends are causing people in the media to ask if the government should be so quick to write off rail projects.
Here is another position Abbott will hopefully discard as retrograde and redundant – his insistence that the federal government should pay for motorways only and not for public transport.
For a party that professes allegiance to free-market principles, the Liberals are curiously insensitive to market demand for transport.
The ”market” – in this instance, moving people around – is clear. Commuters are trying to avoid using a car if they can help it. Saturday’s Herald report documented a steep rise in public transport use in Sydney, along with a slump in the rate of growth of car use. In the past decade, car use in Sydney rose by half the rate of population growth. Trips by train increased by twice the rate of population growth.
The trend is more pronounced among younger people. Inner west residents in their 20s are twice as likely to catch a train on an average weekday than was the case a decade ago. So, too, are twentysomethings living in St George or Sutherland or Fairfield or Liverpool. The trend is not confined to the inner city.
When politicians in multiple countries continue to ignore the trends that are happening and that have been going on for some time now you really need to question what is driving it. Is it adherence to ideology, being caught in the grasp of the powerful road lobby groups or a combination of the two?
I’m sure one senator the government can rely on for support in the road building plans is the one from the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party who managed to win a seat in the elections.
It seems that for the time being at least, unless something changes it appears both countries are going to struggle when it comes to getting some good urban transport solutions.
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Federal funding has already been pulled from the Tonsley line duplication in Adelaide.
North Hobart rail and the Melbourne Metro look unlikely too.
The only new railways will go from mines to ports for the benefit of resource companies owned by foreign multinationals. and rich magnates, neither of who will pay much tax on their profits now that they have bought the prime minister.
It is ideological and Abbott does have a very small brain. The Australian Liberals are peas in a pod with the Nats here. I have no idea why anyone votes for either of them on either side of the Tasman.
So it will be at least another 3 years wasted for them, but at least we can put the brakes on our gold plated roads projects in 2014.
Well Malcolm Turnbull seems to at least partially be up with the play. How many MPs from either the Nats or Labour actually catch PT?
Quite agree. Unfortunately, it rather looks to be the case that a significant proportion of the populations in both countries might be considered to fall within the ‘turkeys looking forward to Christmas because that nice Mr Murdoch/Fairfax/O’Reilly/Key/Abbott told them it was a lot of fun’ category.
“Further while ruling out funding for rail projects he was also promising government funds for some motorway projects that in some cases hadn’t even been assessed which sounds eerily similar to what our government has done with the RoNS”
Also eerily similar to what Len Brown did when he promised to build the CBD rail tunnel, rail to the airport, and rail under the harbour to Albany without preparing a business case first. And eerily similar to any other election promise ever made.
There was a CRL busness case though…..
After he promised to build it. Which is what Abbott is being criticised for doing.
There had been earlier studies in which the CRL was concluded to have been a good idea. Other aspects like the route and some of the early benefits of the project had been worked out about a year before the election and the business case was well under-way during the election period. It was publicly released only a month after Len was elected so it wouldn’t surprise me if he ended up having some inside info as to what the result might end up being allowing him to push harder on it.
But I do agree that it is easy to promise things in an election and not deliver.
Well at the end of the day, spending and investment on transport are political decisions.. If they were entirely economic thence re would already be a $600 m Auckland cycle network.
I think it’s fair enough for Len to stand on a ticket of supporting rail to the airport for example, and other candidates to oppose that. Whilst not exactly a referendum, let alone a binding one, the process does provide some legitimacy to the project, business case notwithstanding.
You could say, however much I think it’s a dumb idea, that the last election therefore provides some basis for building the Warkworth holiday highway. And so on.
Len Brown and Labour generally are apparently less “political” (politically dogmatic) than National in terms of their transport spending and investments. And more responsive to market / demographic trends (unlike the Australian coalition it seems). National seems to have lost the plot completely and is bent on taking a massive centrally planned, we-know-what’s-good-for-them spend-up approach..
Maybe more roads for more cars in the hope that the Australian motor manufacturing industry (subsidised) may last a little longer but their market share is falling and will fall even further when Ford goes!
I’m no fan of Abbott but the man was a Rhodes scholar so it’s a bit unfair to call him stupid. Outdated ideologically and owned by large business for sure though.
Roads scholar? 😉
Without sounding like I agree with Abbott, he is correct in saying rail transport is an area of the states (and always has been) and so is transport in general. For example, the federal government can’t build anything without state government consent. Quite often the 2 can’t agree on what to provide funding to.
The constitution gives the federal government considerable scope to build railways – it’s mentioned in three separate powers, including the building of railways, at federal expense, in any state, with that state’s permission. There’s no mention of roads at all…
In Australia all land tranport infrastructure, road and rail, is legally and constitutionally the responsibility of a state.
The Feds have contributed to declared national highways and rural roads since the 1920s. They have contributed to major urban road and rail projects on an irregular, project driven basis whic has never had reference to any rational long term transport plan.
Statements that the Feds should not be involved in urban public transport projects are an expression of the new government’s ideology, and are not based on any legal or rational division of responsibilities between the national and state governments.
Welcome Australia to a right wing government, both at state and federal levels.
Here’s the policy these two crazy governments need to get the kids driving; give each one a brand new car: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11125614
Interesting that he had put off though. When I was at school in the 90s I doubt there was one guy in the 1st XV who didnt have a licence and a car. It took Charles being an All Black and a free car to motivate him.
Times they are a changing!
It was remarkably cheap and easy to get a licence in the 1990s. I should know: that’s when I got mine. The total cost, including a couple of professional lessons and a defensive driving course to shorten the period on my restricted licence, was less than $200. Without the instruction it would have been well less than $100. The testing was farcical, too.
Well it is when I got mine as well, so what is the difference now? What costs does a young person face today?
If it is encouraging young people to think about transport in a different way, then I support the new system.
There’s a test for each stage, as opposed to graduating from restricted to full after a minimum period of time. The costs are much higher: $96.10, $137.00, $111.70, respectively for learner, restricted, full, for a minimum total cost of $344.80.
The learner test is no longer a set group of scratch-and-sniff possibilities which can be learned by rote but, rather, a randomised, computer-administered question set numbering into the hundreds (only 30 questions from the pool in any given session, though).
The restricted test is an hour long with 45 minutes of driving and has a failure rate well into double figures.
The “exit test” to get one’s full licence is 20 minutes of driving.
It also takes at least 18 months, with an advanced driving course to shorten the restricted period from 18 months to 12, whereas we could get our full licence in, from memory, 12 months with appropriate courses.
Oh, and you can’t start until you’re 16.
It’s a very, very different world to when we were teenagers.
While on a learner/restricted license also wouldn’t be allowed to drive such a powerful vehicle in some Australian states. There are also much more comprehensive logbook requirements, with 100-120 hours supervised instruction required.
Here is one of the reasons that central governments and Ministries like MoT don’t see the world like more local ones. They completely disconnect the local costs of their movement policies from their evaluations. The enormous parking cost of a private car only policy just never is considered by Cental gov. Let alone the vast waste of valuable land that Ak’s crazily overbuilt motorways are. Just think of the rating income foregone by the Ak Council because of our vast urban motorways; every inner city valley hosts a motorway except Queen St, and that one is car blighted because of a lack of alternatives.
Here is a much better, real world understanding of the problem and how to address it:
http://peninsulatransportation.org/palo-alto-city-council-to-consider-turbo-charging-vehicle-trip-reduction-strategy/
The Australian election results suggest that the imperative among voters was to ditch the Rudd Govt, rather than choose the Abbot Govt. Unfortunately many voters have a desire to kick a government when it is down, without much forethought as to what the alternative might be. Ignorance of issues, unquestioning acceptance of propaganda, adherence to ideology, voting with the emotions and not the brain – all these are reasons why elections go the way they do.
In New Zealand there is an added factor which is bolstering support for the present Govt. Rightly or wrongly, there is public distrust of the Greens, and of any Govt in which the Greens may have a handle on power. This distrust is borne partly out of ignorance, partly out of fear of any departure from “business as usual”, and partly out of concern at the perceived “whacky” element, typified by the likes of Tanczos, Locke and Bradford. Although these elements have since been purged, they linger on in voters’ memories as a dangerous facet of Green influence. There is a slice of the electroate which, while disliking National, will nonetheless vote for them (or else not vote at all), just so as not to be voting Green! Hopefully a Labour / Green win in 2014 followed by a period of sound and stable government will go a long way towards dispelling these prejudices. However any failure of Labour and Greens to present a united front could easiliy replicate exactly what has happened in Australia and ensure that National is either not ditched in 2014, or else brought back in 2017, in spite of widespread dislike for their policies.
And of course, transport seems to be an issue that most voters rarely think about. Especially rail transport!
This topic is covered by by this at the Conversation
http://theconversation.com/abbotts-transport-priorities-drive-australia-into-the-past-17988