What about the "events and incidents" involved in using Sydney's City Rail system?! Late trains, cancelled trains, missed trains, trains replaced by buses, rude staff, confusing or non-existent annnouncements, nasty fellow commuters reeking of B.O and/or conducting loud and innane mobile phone conversations....the list goes on!!...surely this can't be any better for one's psychological and mental health!

The primary way for governments to encourage people to leave their cars at home is to provide a reliable, cost effective public transport system as a viable alternative. I don't know about elsewhere in Australia but that is certainly not the case in Sydney and untill it happends you can use whatever arguments or platitudes you like to extol the virtues of public transport but they will fall on the deaf ears of frustrated commuters

Before people can be brought back to public transport it must be made to pay. This would best be done by installing a poker machine in each second carriage. If that doesn't work you could operate a brothel in the ones in between.

I’ll tell you what’s “capable of producing powerful feelings”. PARENTS, Hang on to your kids on the platform these hols.

The other night at an uncrowded Central station the train door closed suddenly. I was in the train and my young son was not. Yes it happens – it happened in an instance. He tried to get the platform guard to have the train doors opened while I bashed on the doors from the inside. Several seconds passed then unbelievably the train began to move. I can tell you that the memory of the anguish on my son’s face as he ran along the platform with me captive in the train is the stuff nightmares are made of.

When I returned on another train and found my son waiting on his own I approached the guard who watched all of this take place - and admitted so. He lectured me that my son and I should be together and he claimed that the train cannot be stopped once it moves, regardless of a child in distress!

I have been using the public transport system precisely for the reasons highlighted in this article. My letter of complaint should by now be in the hands of the guard’s employer. I will in future use the car.

Your story is ridiculous hutlen, unfortunately if the moron that let that train go is fired there are probably 10 more CityRail morons out there to replace him! good on your son for being sensible and waiting where you'd left him or god knows what would have happened with the wierdos that hang around Central station at night! (is he really young?)

As a daily train commuter (reluctantly but with no option as I don't drive) nothing suprises me anymore when it comes to CityRail staff, Several times I have seen them swear at and abuse people in the foulest terms, just for having the audacity to ask what the delay was or when the next train would (finally)arrive. They blank out the indicators at the stations, fail to make announcements and expect paying customers to sit at train stations and wait...and wait...untill a train damn well feels like coming. They sit in ticket booths and chat to each other while ticket queues streach round the corner and people miss their trains waiting in line. As I leave Central station in the morning I see about 15 of them lounging round at the exit smoking and drinking cups of coffee (and I see them again on my way back)...They never seem to be doing anything useful to earn their taxpayer dollars. We've all heard of the coordinated "sickie days" train drivers pull.

And yet the rail unions keep telling us it's the government and the infrastructure rather than rail employees that are to blame for the state of CityRail...I don't know, but I also work in customer service and if I did my job like they do theirs I'd be out on my ass! Maybe if these deadbeats got fired and their closed shop was dismantled CityRail's problems would be magically solved

Many drivers relish the period of solitude, free from family and work pressures, offered by the journey to work in their own car. They are free to make their own decisions, solve their own problems, and enjoy the pleasures of car control. Barns misses the point: demographic shift will soon see a quarter of the population aged 65 and over. Global warming, the tipping point in oil production and the measures needed to contain atmospheric pollution will constrain access to oil based have unforeseeable effects on passenger transport. Expect hybrid and fuel cell technology in mainline buses; Dial-A-Ride services to counter social isolation and exclusion; more home based workers; more community based solutions. Access to personal transport is a public health issue. Older people isolated from their community risk the effects of social, physical and mental inactivity: all the chronic conditions - diabetes, arthritis, cardio-vascular disease and depression, obesity, fractures from falling - all the main vectors of health costs. But who cares?

Just the other day I had cause to drive from Lismore to Brisbane to deliver a friend to the airport. The amount of trafiic clogging the roads from the Gold Coast to Brisbane and reverse was astounding. The increase in cars and trucks on the Freeway in the ten years since I lived in the Sunshine State was unbelievable. The polution was noticable by sight, taste, and smell.
Public transport, primarily train travel will reduce this over- uasage of not only roads, but fuel costs and traffic accidents, (slight and fatal,) which costs the tax payers more and more each year.
Noticably most every car I saw on the road carried 1 person.
Oil Reserve is an oxy-moron.
Sooner or later the government must make private transport more unpalatable for people.
I know if there was safe, reliable and inexpensive rail travel from Lismore to Brisbane, I would use it at least once a month.
But there isn't, so I'll stay off the roads and enjoy the fresh air of the Northern rivers.

Perhaps the best public commuter system in the world is the Japanese rail system. It moves people quickly and efficiently and is popular.

It is interesting to note that the Japanese rail system has been almost entirely private in ownership since 1987. It offers a model to the world on what management can achieve when politics does not dictate operating procedure.

To make the railways work we should look to Japan and consider privatisation Japanese style. Although we certainly should not privatise along the lines of the failed British model with its multiple levels of forced ownership separation and verticle tier price controls

Given that Oil is in decline, and the first signs of this are a rise in pricing. The next step must then be a period of rationing. Living in a provincial region in Qld, there is very little in rail or even bus transport, so unless programs to rectify this looming problem are soon implemented we are going to be caught short.
But surely we could glean a better idea by studying 3rd world systems in regard to a preview of a time of shortages and the strategies used to overcome these problems.
This of course does not take into account, for a time of conflict which is another sign of shortages.

I'm not sure that you can just substitute cars with public transport, in our sprawling suburban cities. Cars give the flexibility that allows us to manage our busy lives: people, after work, pick up their kids from school, take them to sports training or music lessons or whatever, and while they're there, do some shopping .... lots of trips are multi-functional and multi-directional.

I used to commute to work by train until the system was electrified with new sealed railcars, which were too crowded and stuffy; so I tried the buses, which were hopelessly unreliable. Here in Perth we've also seen some horrific, brutal attacks on people waiting at suburban train stations. So now I drive into the city and pay a small fortune to park - but it allows me enough time to have a swim before work (I take my life in my hands and ride my bike to the beach), do the shopping on the way home ....

I would like a lot more spent on public transport, and on proper cycleways, and happy to see that money come from a higher fuel excise, but there are other steps we could take to reduce pollution: why not a real incentive for people to have small, efficient cars? why is the car registration for a Landcruiser not 5 times that of a Corolla? In other countries they have strict emission controls for vehicles - we don't have them in WA. The traffic lights are ridiculously unsophisticated - we could do a lot better at keeping traffic flowing.

"Let's get serious about public transport"

I think "public transport" should first get serious about itself - from what I see "public transport" is the epitome of poor performance, wasted opportunity and a millstone around each and every community which attempts to provide it.

It consumes huge amounts of private resources in the pretence of providing a fourth rate monopolistic "service" (ha) - when it decides (regardless of what any timetable might say).

Its single benefit is to provide sheltered workshop employment for the cognitively challenged – I guess it is better than having them destitute – at least it provides, at a price, a diversion for otherwise wasting minds.

If we took the resources presently frittered away on “public transport” and directed them into better road ways for those of us whose licences, taxes and registration fees presently subsidise everyone else ride in “public transport” we would all be better off including too the public transport users who presently expect us to subsidise them in what seems to be a filthy, defective, unreliable and in some cases plain dangerous form of penury.

When “public transport” can either “compete” on a level playing field or better still actually “pay for itself” then “public transport” will have something to offer the consumers / users it pretends to service but simply running round with a begging bowl and demand for public and private funding is arcane, non-sustainable and morally reprehensible.

Let's be clear, there is absolutely no direct link between a transport service's efficiency and its ownership - only a difference in management capability. If we had a government courageous enough to put effective management in place, and then arm them with the same tools that private companies have, industrial-relations-wise, there would be an immediate and permanent improvement. And no need to sell out to private enterprise at all.

No-one can convince me that a business - any business - is inherently more efficient in the private than in the public sector. However, it is in the interests of the capitalist movers and shakers to promote this fiction so that they can take over the assets built up over the years using taxpayers' money and exploit them for the benefit of themselves and their shareholders

If we are not careful - and we certainly are looking at the problem from the wrong end of the telescope here - we will end up paying private enterprise every time we move, car, bus, rail, whatever. User pays is a fine concept, so long as you own the asset being used, and I'd rather not give any more of our common wealth away right now.

Lubs. Sorry for the late reply. No.

Solomon, Rego fees Qld: 6cyl Landcruiser $362.60 (+ CTP $700+ pa) 4cyl Corolla $256.90.

What you don't consider is that LC drivers pay big at the fuel station. A 100LC has a 145L fuel tank. John Howard and his mates love these vehicles because they know they make a fortune out of us. Wake up mate. We're getting ripped off every day. Not everyone is able to choose to drive a small, economical vehicle to work. You obviously live in your ideal little world, where you believe everything you say and do is right. Well guess what? There's not always a right or wrong way. What may be right for some may not be right for others and visa versa. We can't all ride on public transport (or ride our bike to the beach) or drive Corolla's either (or want to for that matter)! The large 4WDs cost $140+ to refuel (depending, of course, in what part of Australia we happen to be fortunate enough to reside). Some of us have to do this several times a week, out of necessity. We don't have your nice bitumen sealed roads to drive on which you complain about to your local council every time you get a pot-hole. We have to traverse roads which are completely filled with pot-holes and corrugation. Often the best (and safest) route to take is to go completely off road - try doing that in your Corolla. We have to deal with gravel roads, single lane roads, unfenced roads (cattle roaming onto roads), unmarked roads, you name it and you want to put OUR rego up! We are the ones subsidising YOU in the CITY. Think about THAT! Take notice mate, if you go out of your city, onto some single lane back roads, you will find it will be LC owners like myself who have the decency to get off the road and give the bloomin' lot to ungrateful blokes like you. Maybe next time you see a LC driver you should go up to him/her and say "Thanks mate, for helping to subsidise our roads.

With respect to Greg's article, I have recently commented favourably to friends on the regular bus service in the area I now live in for a large amount of my time. It appears to be very efficient, however, with my lifestyle, it is not appropriate for me. Although it may not seem much to city commuters, an hourly service is quite impressive where I live - from 6.30 am to about 10.30 pm. However, it is not always convenient or practical for everyone. Having travelled in many of our capital cities as well as overseas, I concede that our public transport system does need improvement.

Hi Hutlen, I feel for you greatly and am restraining myself from expressing my true feelings as to what I feel you should have "done" to THAT employee when you returned to the station. It is because of useless transport employees, like the one you encountered, that the lives of our children are endangered when they are travelling on public transport e.g. Daniel Morcombe. Surely there must be departmental policies transport employees must follow with regards to young children who are unaccompanied? It obviously needs to be addressed in the bus and train sectors of our public transport systems - whether or not policies etc. exist at present - they are not being applied.

Brightside,

My what a temper .... you missed the point, or I didn't make it clearly: yes, I live in the city, and I was talking about people driving 4WDs in the city. Wouldn't it be true that most 4wds in Australia are driven around cities and never leave a sealed road ?

I've read that the US car fleet, as a whole, has actually become less fuel efficient over the last 10 years as a result of the increased proportion of 4wd / SUVs. Presumably the same is true in Australia. And that is just plain stupid. You may claim a right to do whatever you want to do, but I would disagree - you have a responsibility to everyone else you share this planet with.

If people need to use 4WDs as part of their work they can claim tax deductions for them, and the fuel they use. I think if you're a primary producer there are further deductions you can claim. Surely we can come up with some improved system that would offer concessions to those that need to use 4WDs, but would still discourage people buying them for city use.

No Solomon, I don't have a temper. I just know how to get your attention. In future, I suggest you be more specific - & think before you type. I wanted to show you how your comments can affect other people although you only apparently intended it to affect those 4WD users in the city.

As far as primary producer's are concerned, they are only reimbursed the GST & EOY taxes like anyone else in business. Qld has the Qld Fuel Subsidy Scheme (available to the general public at retail outlets), but PPs who have their fuel delivered in bulk don't receive it unless they go through hefty paperwork (particularly if they also purchase fuel from retail outlets) often making the claims unviable (because you have to advise all fuel purchases made from retail outlets). The other deductions you talk about are the ATO Diesel Fuel Rebate Schemes (Off Road and On Road) only applicable to trucks, tractors, harvesters, stationary engines etc (not applicable to 4WDs).

I don't claim a right to do whatever I want to do, just that not everyone has the opportunity to do what they would like to do. No-one else in this country is more aware of the damage being done on a daily basis to our precious Australia than PPs. PPs look in every aspect of their daily routines to limit the use of fuels, water, fertilizers, chemicals to preserve Australia and the planet.. but it is the PP who is always persecuted FIRST because the PP is an easy target. PPs can't afford to waste fuel - profit margins are too small as it is. If the PP doesn't look after his/her land and environment he/she will have nothing to farm the next season and therefore no crop, no income, no food on the table, say goodbye to life on the land. If you don't look after the land, it can't look after you.

Your final suggestion has merit. However, I can't see that happening. That is why they removed Sales Tax Exemption and brought in GST. PPs are worse off with GST.

Brightside,

No, your abusive post didn't "get my attention" - I logged on, to read the comments, not even knowing it was there.

Surely the value of this site is that people respond to ideas with ideas: this thread started off with someone pointing out the pollution etc from cars and advocating a move to public transport. I agreed there is a problem, suggested public transport will never suit everyone's needs, and proposed some things we could do to address the problem - encourage people to move to more efficient vehicles, invest in better traffic management etc.

If you wanted to contribute by adding that we have to remember that people in the country need to use 4WDs, fine. No abuse necessary. But you don't seem to have any ideas for addressing the problem. I could threaten your view of PPs by moving on to the topic of land clearing, rising salt etc but that's not the topic of this thread. The problem, Brightside, is how to deal with the bad effects of our current use of vehicles - any ideas ?

Hi Solomon, Well they breed them softer in the city than I thought. I wasn't "abusing" you. From the comments I have read in the forum I would say people "abuse" Greg Barns - which are of a totally
different tone.

You asked for suggestions. You have been looking at the consumer. Wrong.

You need to go to the "core" of the problem. The manufacturer of the vehicles. The manufacturer of the engines. The biggest problem is they have too many SHARES or other interests in the fuel companies so they are reluctant to do the RIGHT thing. Ethanol has come a long way, but the manufacturers & govt will tell you otherwise. You need to lobby the govt to force the manufacturers to "fine-tune", if you like, the engines that are suitable for 85% ethanol to be imported into the country. The manufacturers need to be given a time limit within which to comply. After such time, they will not be allowed to import vehicles into our country.

They are the ones who need to be accountable. They should also be encouraged to design substitute engines/engine parts for existing vehicles - with emphasis to be placed on the larger vehicles to start with. As larger vehicles in the cities appear to be the major concern, these could be the first to be targeted for modification. Owners of these vehicles could be given $ incentives (perhaps those who take up the offer within the first two years receive e.g. 70% rebate, after 5 years only 10% rebate).

Don't be fooled the ethanol stocks are out there and the technology exists. Govt just doesn't want to know about it because it is making too much money out of fuel. It's all political. They would rather import oil than produce Ethanol from sugarcane grown from our own soil. By the way, I'm not a cane grower.

You might find these sites interesting:-
www.ethanol.org
www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/