Kevin you have either not given this much thought or the editor has savage your paper. Why should people who have to be physically at their place of work be penalized? Why should people who live in areas where there is no public transport be penalized? What about rural roads, or the fact that country people have to travel long distance much more regularly then our city friends.

Kevin, I like what you're on about, I very much like the idea of removing root causes of the headlong rush to lock in developers profits at the expense of the communities; I think you've hit one of the key drivers of waste fair and square between the eyes...HOWEVER, I just cant seem to understand how it could be made practical, or indeed applicable in most if not all circumstances...there are a lot of variables and I dont see any wiggle room for the variances which make up what we all call 'normal' usage. Its not yet 'humanised'....ie its 'good in theory'. Having said that....bloody good idea. Now lets hear what the rest of us can do to offer any practical ideas to make this sort of thing work. Over to you, people....

The comments so far illustrate that I have not got the points that I was trying to get over. The essential points are:

1. Providing a way of distributing capital for transport infrastructure to the public so that there are large number of people who have a say in the allocation of capital for infrastructure. This creates a market for the allocation of capital for transport infrastructure.

2. Rewards for people who behave in socially desirable ways.

How the rewards are allocated is largely unimportant as long as the behaviour that leads to rewards does not make the problem worse. Arguments such as - this is unfair or that is punishing someone - are missing the point. It doesn't matter whether it is fair or perfect - as long as it does not make the problem worse because we are trying to create a market and to have a market you have to have people deciding where to spend money and being given choices on what to do with it.

It is difficult to create a market on the consumption side because people do not buy "working from home". It is difficult to provide a market for transport because of the massive cost of building alternatives.

I would ask readers to think of the essential problem which is the allocation of capital to transport infrastructure and to changing the behaviour of people to take environmentally friendly alternatives. Think beyond the "prevailing wisdom" and see if it makes sense.

The path we are going at the moment does not work and we need a circuit breakers.

When it comes to infrastructure and public transport, I invite anyone to go to Kuala Lumpur and experience the 'Airport/Fast-Train/Hi Tech corridor' they have built. The only drawback is the obligatory dose of Pavarotti which invariable fills a few moments from the sound system (the private developer of the train link loves him).

But its AWESOME in terms of concept and experience. The idea of a major developed corridor (a nice straight line would be nice) populated by Office space on the front, then residential next and receeding into nice bush/green areas the further you go from the rail link.

Hmm.. lets think. If I didn't love the Pakenham/Warragul natural surroundings so much I'd suggest down there. but the Airport is on the wrong side of the city. So, we bore underground to avoid the conjestion of the City centre bottleneck area, and do a fast train and re-develop all the area near the Airport.

Good ideas, I like the fact that someone is thinking outside the square. I would be interested to see if the rational worked for the new Perth to Mandurah rail link, costed I think at 1.1 billion but no doubt will end up at 1.5. I am not sure why people want to travel all that way in the first place. In places like Perth the basic problem is sprawl. Its getting better but as some people have pointed out even if you have a decent bit of infrastructure, like a train, the baddies take it over and make it very unpleasant for everybody, patronage drops, all of a sudden the gov of the day gets cold feet, says its not making a profit want to shut it down. Just like the libs wanted to do to the Perth to Freo line. They lost office, Labour got rid of the old, slow diesel rattlers and hey presto people caught the train again. Will give the idea some more thought as I do my 30 minute commute to work, on my own down a lousy, dangerous country "highway"
Cheers Fred