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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.