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The Forum > Article Comments > Trafficking in illusions > Comments

Trafficking in illusions : Comments

By Jeremy Gilling, John Muscat and Rolly Smallacombe, published 4/5/2007

Perhaps it’s time for a novel thought. Let’s reduce congestion by building more state of the art roads.

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This article calls for more dollars to be put into road building to combat Sydney’s increasing traffic congestion. What a waste!

Adelaide has one quarter the population of Sydney and, all things being equal, should have one quarter the congestion. Adelaide would have one fiftieth the congestion of Sydney.

Sydney has passed its optimum size. The place is far too big. Like a sink it will continue to suck in a disproportionate share of the state’s resources and away from all the towns in NSW which surround it – most of which are struggling to remain viable.
Posted by healthwatcher, Friday, 4 May 2007 9:14:53 AM
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While the answer to congestion in cities like Sydney and Melbourne might simply be the immediate building of twenty lane freeways and stategically placed off ramps and associated roadways (Government finance provided from a tall black hat), both Sydney and Melbourne are like black holes in space. They continue to drag in all around them, sucking in foriegn people, land and small farming communities. Even those twenty lane freeways will eventually become clogged, all things being equal. However, all things are certainly NOT equal. Haven't you boys ever heard of "peak oil"?
Those monolithic monuments to mans excessive population growth and accompanying greed will look bloody ridiculous arcing across the skyline with hardly a car using them by 2020.
Wildcat.
Posted by Aime, Friday, 4 May 2007 11:19:32 AM
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Notice how these guys have not costed their new roads solution. New roads are still a "cost of congestion" that is built into the cost of doing business and governing the entire state.

The most expensive road to date has been the Tugun Bypass at the southern end of the Gold Coast, at $73 million/kilometre. This outlay is a direct consequence of increased population in the SE Qld corner and their need to "escape" their lot from time to time. New roads in Sydney will cost the same.

Just one km of this road will fund 2 lanes of bitumen over 2000km of regional roadways. They already have the roads, they just need the bitumen. As the BTRE study indicates, each new resident in Sydney will cost an extra $6,000 a year in congestion costs, on top of the normal $6,000 per capita cost of delivering State level services to a NSW citizen.

The same new settler in a new provincial state capital will actually improve the economics of existing infrastructure.

The only realistic and affordable option is to minimise new settlers in the major cities and maximise decentralisation. Effective decentralisation has only ever been achieved when associated with devolution of governance. Anything less is pure window dressing.

State Government is 15% of GDP. And unless the third of this 15%, that is head office overhead expenditure, is shifted to new, fully self governing provincial state capitals, then money, jobs and costs will continue to be concentrated in the existing state capitals. And they will continue to get bigger, uglier and less sustainable.

The metropolitan voters who elected the current state governments all desperately want their representatives to focus on fixing their own pressing problems. And the last thing regional voters need is urban politicians imposing half baked solutions on regional problems they simply do not understand.

It is in everyone's interest to form the new regional states that were always intended by those who designed our federal constitution.
Posted by Perseus, Friday, 4 May 2007 12:09:00 PM
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Maybe these are only small measures, but I think they might be effective:

1. Enforce the keep left rule. Governments are keen to fine speeders, but what about the clowns who get in the right lane and do twenty below the limit? They infuriate me.

2. Related to that, enforce the speed limit in both directions. If you're too scared to do within 10km/h of the speed limit (in any lane), then you shouldn't be on the road. You're a bloody menace to the rest of us trying to get anywhere.

3. Raise the speed limits. There are far too many 60km/h zones on roads with several lanes each way that just crawl (especially when comvined with 1. or 2. above).

Okay, it's easier to deal with people who are speeding than it is to do something about people who chronically under-speed, but I'd still like to see this addressed. It's my number one issue with driving.
Posted by shorbe, Friday, 4 May 2007 12:31:55 PM
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The solution to any traffic congestion is to remove the intersections that create the jams and gridlock in the first place.
These solutions have been presented to all the States and Territories of Australia and are mired in political pass the buck syndrome or the response received failed to look outside the square.
At www.ubtsc.com.au there are models of a number of intersection designs that allow the motorist to enter and exit any intersection without stopping!
The Lane Cove Tunnel that cost $1.1 Billion bypassed 17 sets of traffic lights at intersections. This is a very expensive bypass that will do nothing to ensure smooth uninterrupted traffic flows.
It is just another road that eventually will be just as congested as the present roads today. We calculate that we could have made between 70 to 100 Liquid Flow Intersections for the same expenditure.
Needless to say we are concentrating on taking our concepts and designs overseas were we are receiving a better response.
An initial response from the USA, Dept of Transportation that stated that our technology has " a number of succesful practices for addressing traffic congestion related to infrastructure"
Jozef Goj CEO UBTSC Pty Ltd
Posted by Jozef Goj, Friday, 4 May 2007 1:52:35 PM
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Couldn't agree more Shorbe. I'd also add to your list the old buggers that pull out in front of you when you're the only car for two blocks, then proceed to putt along 10-15 K's under the limit.
I'm forced to travel 30k's each way to and from work through a rural area. Yesterday, I came up to a ute that was travelling at just 75kph on a 100kph road and in misty weather conditions with no lights on at all. A quick glance as I finally found a safe place to pass revealed an old coot gripping the steering wheel for grim death and staring over the wheel with outstretched neck, mouth open, etc. I know we're facing an period of ever expanding older drivers on the road and whilst I fully understand that their licence is sometimes their only means of independence, I just wish they would realise that just maybe they're "past it."
An old friend of my late fathers use to drive from a rural location to a small rural township to do the weekly shopping by following the white line on the side of the road. Yep! One day he rammed into the back of a stationary log truck which had broken down. Damned near killed himself and his wife.
The golden rule for people should be.....if you're not capable of driving somewhere near the speed limit, then it's time to hand in your licence. You may not have had an accident your entire driving career, but I'll bet you have, or are about to cause the odd one or two.
Wildcat.
Posted by Aime, Friday, 4 May 2007 1:58:18 PM
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A few quibbles with the article. First "Sydney’s freeway and orbital motorway networks are integrated systems". The M5 East and the M2 are already at (or beyond) capacity. The opening of the M7 boosted traffic on the M2 by 14%, http://www.transurban.com.au (sorry full URL too long) with more to come with the opening of the Lane Cove Tunnel. They might be integrated, but they are already inadequate.

Secondly, "since 2000–01, Sydney's inner- and middle-ring suburbs have accounted for more than half the new dwellings in the city" with 60-70% of future urban growth expected to be accommodated in existing suburbs http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/soe/soe2006/chapter2/chp_2.1.htm#2.1.42 The authors' fixation on urban release areas ignores the realities on the ground.

Thirdly, Houston's traffic, despite Demographica's cheeleading, is amongst the worst in America http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2004/09/06/daily9.html Building roads doesn't seem to have fixed the problem there does it?

Having said all that, I don't disagree with the idea of extending the M4. I just don't see it solving Sydney's traffic woes.

Thanks for your post Shorbe. So traffic congestion is caused by slowpokes is it? Why don't you just put a big bullbar on the Mack and ram the blighters? I haven't had as big a laugh for weeks. Keep up the good work.
Posted by Johnj, Friday, 4 May 2007 2:14:30 PM
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The policeman who attended the first recorded traffic accident in the US involving a motor vehicle stated "We must ensure this never happens again". Sound familiar?

Study and monitor all you want, it's still human beings behind the wheel. Is that not the way, remove them from behind the wheel?

Congestion? Take a decongestant, move to the country.
Posted by RobbyH, Friday, 4 May 2007 3:03:17 PM
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Apologies here. Rolly. Is that you? From Alice Springs? Must be. Good to see you alive and kicking if it is mate. Memories.
Posted by RobbyH, Friday, 4 May 2007 3:04:59 PM
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There was one reasonable point to make (at the end, about completing Sydneys m4), but you blew all your credibility trying to dress your opinions as fact.

You claim Londons Congestion Charge isn't a success, that must be why New York is introducing one, see http://www.channel4.com/4car/news/news-story.jsp?news_id=16068
or
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=145589&version=1&template_id=43&parent_id=19
“I understand the hesitation about charging a fee. I was a skeptic myself. But I looked at the facts, and that’s what I’m asking New Yorkers to do,” Mayor Bloomberg said. “The fact is, in cities like London and Singapore, fees succeeded in reducing congestion and improving air quality.”

> “These denser, ad hoc travel patterns can’t be serviced by public transport.”
Public transport is not the only alternative to one-car-per-traveller (bikes, walking, taxis, carpooling..), and you have no evidence anyway that a mix of bus+tram+train can’t provide the service, no city in Australia has ever really tried.

>”And the state can’t afford a transport network that is anywhere near as efficient and convenient as car use.”.
But we can afford to spend billions on new freeways, never mind the ongoing costs of road toll, pollution, obesity, wars for oil, etc etc.

> "These activists are really concerned about property values".
Article begins by saying traffic is Sydneys 2nd obsession after property prices, and finishes by attacking road opponents for being .. normal; clever. Do you have real research to back that up or is it just vindictive opinion?

Poor effort, but what can you expect of people who still push The Great Global Warming Swindle (on The New City website), despite the scientists unfortunate enough to appear in that fiction suing its maker for misrepresentation.

Most interesting thing about the site is not obvious, if http://castironbalcony.media2.org/?p=289 is correct its actually (right wing) union funded.. Joe Hill wept.
Posted by Liam, Friday, 4 May 2007 5:45:24 PM
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I recently discovered a transcript of a meeting from Sussex Street that sheds light on the creation of “The New City” blog.

“Comrades, there’s an election coming up, and we need to do something about Sydney’s transport.”
“Yeah, too right, the traffic’s a shambles, took me hours to get here from East Lindfield.”
“My driver had trouble too.”
“Apparently Sparkles can’t get the trains to run on time.”
General laughter
“Yeah well, why don’t we just blame the Libs?”
“Might I remind you comrade that as we’ve been in power for 24 of the last 30 years the punters might not buy that?”
“O well. Blame little Johnny?”
Sounds of half-hearted agreement
“Don’t think that’ll float either.”
Sounds of shuffling feet and tapping pens
“I know brothers, why don’t we start up one of those astro… astro something web things”
Sounds of head-scratching, long silence
“Oh, you mean an Astroturf operation on the web.”
“A what?”
“You know, set up a blog and blame….blame someone.”
“Who?”
Silence
“I know!! We’ll blame the self-serving latte drinking inner-city greenies.”
“Talking about ‘self-serving’ sounds a bit dangerous to me.”
Silence
“Well, Miranda Devine might be dumb enough to swallow that. And the Daily Telegraph.”
“Good work comrades, who can we get to front this show?”
“Well, Jeremy Gilling sent a love letter to Miranda Devine.” http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/05/1031115910448.html
“Rolly Smallacombe’s been doing good work in my electorate office” http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LA20051012050
“Yeah, and I’ve heard good things about John Muscat.”
Sounds of quiet rumination
“Brothers, I can see a small credibility problem”
“Mmm yes, three inner-city party hacks with no qualifications blaming…. inner-city lefties for Sydney’s problems.”
Long silence
“Well, just get them to spout a pile of neo-conservative twaddle. Then no-one’ll notice they’re our boys.”
“Brothers, I think that wraps it up. Drink?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
Posted by Johnj, Friday, 4 May 2007 5:45:46 PM
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Johnj: I didn't claim it was the sole cause of congestion, or even one of the major causes. However, it stands to reason that if every lane is occupied at the front by people doing 60km/h in an 80km/h zone then (leaving out traffic lights and other such delays), it will take one third longer to get anywhere than it should.

Obviously, it's likely that there are other factors, but this is still a problem.

Aime: I used to live in the country. The old guy in a ute (or worse, towing a caravan) is the bane of anyone's existence. Worse are those who do 80km/h until there's an overtaking lane coming up (which is usually a very short one), at which point they speed up to 100km/h, forcing you to either drop back (at which point, they drop back to 80km/h) or speed up to well over the limit. I never could figure that mentality out.
Posted by shorbe, Friday, 4 May 2007 6:36:45 PM
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“Let’s reduce congestion by building more state of the art roads.”

NO!!

The LAST thing we should be doing is spending many millions of dollars on new roads or major upgrades. Let’s do practically anything but that!

Implement congestion charges. Introduce occupancy charges inversely proportional to the number of people in a vehicle. Maximise incentives to use public transport, bicycles…and feet. Stop national immigration.

Peak oil is just around the corner. Fuel prices are set to rise inexorably, which will force people to become as frugal as they can be with their cars. So instead of building bigger roads, let’s plan for this and have the public transport systems ready to handle massive increases in demand.

It is time to put every red cent that is earmarked for new roads directly into preparations for the peak oil scenario, when the whole transport (and economic) regime is going to be very different.

Put these millions directly into sustainability issues. For goodness sake, don’t waste it on new roads.
Posted by Ludwig, Saturday, 5 May 2007 4:19:05 AM
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'building more/better roads' has been tried. the only benefit was to the road building company, or none.

congestion is easy to fix: legislate cars off the road. replace with bicycles, motor scooters, and buses. (help gw a lot as well)

oh, you don't want to ride a bicycle, motor scooter, or bus? then lie down, kick yer heels, and cry: won't!
Posted by DEMOS, Saturday, 5 May 2007 2:02:18 PM
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Shorbe, I mostly find that it's not the time I spend at 60km/h that slows down my commute so much as the time I spend at 0km/h. I'll certainly keep out of your way if I see you dashing past in the Mack. My car will be the unwashed Camry wagon doing 50km/h in the left lane, with the NIMBY stickers on the tailgate.

Quoting from the article "in the 1980s Houston, Texas had the worst traffic congestion in the United States but reduced it by 45 per cent after building more road capacity." It would appear that these clowns can't even read a table properly, as well as being too lazy to put a proper link in. The correct link is http://www.publicpurpose.com/hwy-tti20011986.pdf and it shows that traffic congestion declined 2.1% between 1986 and 2001 (NOT 45% fellas). The table also shows that in 1986 Houson was a traffic-choked mess and in 2001 it was......a traffic-choked mess. Building roads cured Houston's traffic? Looks more like building more roads created more traffic. just like all those do-gooding latte-loving inner-city greenies predicted. Don't you hate that?

I had a bit of a look at The New City blog http://www.thenewcity.info and found it pretty unpleasant (and that was just the web design). It's not really a blog, as they don't allow comments, which given the level of invective they indulge in is probably just as well. The mixture of 1980s-era Hawke-speak and 1990s cliches (elites, latte, NIMBY etc etc) almost made me nostalgic. The irony of three Labor Party hacks, " a bureaucrat...a lawyer and ....a technician" who live in the inner-city endlessly banging on about inner-city elites is too priceless for words. These guys are beyond parody. If this is the kind of "thinking" going on the Labor Party, then The Rodent is safe for a very long time.

I note that Gilling, Muscat and Smallacombe bill themselves as co-authors of "Labor without class" by Michael Thompson. Pah! With this lot in charge it's more like "Labor without a clue", or maybe "Labor without a hope".
Posted by Johnj, Sunday, 6 May 2007 12:50:00 AM
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Johnj: Who says I speed? I try to stick as close to dead on the speed limit as I can. I see people getting pulled over by the cops every day, and I can't really afford a ticket. Hence, I try not to speed.

Part of the reason there's so much time spent doing 0km/h is because people drive too slowly (so I catch more red lights than necessary) and they're off with the pixies when the light (or arrow) does turn green, but it doesn't matter to them because they still get through, even if I don't. If people were more aware of what was going on around them, we might have fewer accidents and still get to places faster.

Again, I'm not making out like this would be some panacea, but it's part of the problem and solution.
Posted by shorbe, Sunday, 6 May 2007 1:21:24 AM
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C'mon Ludwig. Reduce immigration and stop the baby bonus. Less people = less congestion. Nah, that's too simple. We are Australians. We solve problems with complicated, high tech, super duper, billion dollar solutions. Just slowing population growth. That's too easy. It's more fun to do it the hard way.

What? You say it would also help with water, energy and greenhouse. Well that's an even better reason to keep the population growing as fast as possible. Then we can spend even more billions on difficult solutions. Lets get going. Yippeeeeee.
Posted by ericc, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 1:21:18 PM
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(:>0) !! !! !!
Posted by Ludwig, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 7:21:25 AM
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