Great article Tristan, you forgot to quote Tim Fischer who said that there is less resistance from an iron wheel rolling on an iron rail than rubber being burnt off on a bitumen road.
A simple way to increase outer suburban public transport patronage is to revamp those timetables that have buses leaving the railway station just as the express train is scheduled to pull in thus forcing commuters into an hour long wait for the next bus or a 6 km walk home. Where connecting buses run at more than 20 minute intervals after 6pm there should be more car parking provided at the railway station.

Oh and lose those super tram stops, they restrict traffic to one lane and reduce visibility. Stop playing games and put on more rolling stock.

Dear friends;

I've noticed that there's very little traffic going on in OLO comments today... Are there still lots of readers out there? Just wondering - because of course when you have work published - you like to provide debate and make people think. To provoke discussion, ideas etc - makes one feel that the work of writing is worthwhile.

take care, most sincerely,

Tristan

Public transport is so much of a joke and, sadly, our own party should be doing far more. Kennett killed the great idea of a rail line to the airport to satisfy his city link mates but such a service would significantly reduce carbon emissions, slash traffic and make life so much easier for travellers and visitors alike
Connies on our trams would ensure that more than the current 10% of passengers actually pay for the service, help people who need help to get on and off and reduce the lout influence
Increased and improved services would make travel better... and the reasons are so many I will not list them on this occasion
So the question becomes one of why aren't these things being done? Whose benefit is it to keep things as badly as they presently are?

some european cities use 'public use' bicycles to get around town, capital cities here could do this.

better yet, about half of the cars on the road could be replaced by motor scooters, right now. a commuter car could be put on the road inside 3 years that will carry 4 people at a max speed of 80 klicks and consumption rate about a third of current small cars.

long term solutions need technological solutions, but the main problem in the short to medium term is political: politicians can not act for fear of losing their positions.

that's the price humans pay for letting politicians run the place. i wish ozzies weren't terrified of democracy, as continuing passivity is likely to ruin the planet past repair.

One way of increasing the use of public transport is to make it free.
Hasselt a town in Belgium has done this and it is very successful.
Working on the assumption that you won’t get people out of their cars without providing a comprehensive public transport system, Hasselt transformed its two line bus service to a nine line service, taking in every district in the city, and committing to a half-hourly service during the day and a night bus that took in every stop in the city. This increased to a 15-minute service during rush hour.
And here comes the exciting bit -to ensure that take-up was as large as possible, they made the services free.

Well, the papers went mad. The world called them crazy. And the people went on the bus. On day one -1 July 1997 -passenger numbers rose from the usual 1000 to 7832. And numbers didn’t slump once the novelty wore off, they just kept increasing. These days, the increase in bus passengers is touching on 1,000 per cent.

The cost is always something people ask. In fact, the council was in deep debt in the mid-90s and the radical re-think was partly prompted by the fact that they just couldn’t afford a new ring road. Improving the bus service and making it free was cheaper. In 1998, it worked out as costing (euro)22.63 per household. Since then, it has more than paid for itself by attracting so much new commerce to the city that the council’s debt has gone and taxes are down.
Funnily enough, it still has a high level of car ownership; it’s just that people drive them much more rarely these days.
There is a similar scheme in a city in South America called CURITIBA.
The other way to encourage more use of public transport is to introduce a congestion charge as London has done and number of other cities are considering.

PRESERVATION OF DEMOCRACY DEPENDS ON OIL CONSERVATION

FOR Victoria, peak oil is a serious risk-management problem, so the objectives of the east-west links study should be based on the assumption that frugality and the conservation of oil are essential for the preservation of a democratic way of life and avoidance of mass unemployment. In 2000, Australia's production of crude oil and condensate satisfied nearly all its needs but by 2012, 80% may be imported.

The threat comes from world crude oil production peaking between 2008
and 2012, which will increase imported crude oil prices, perhaps to $US200 a barrel. This will cause permanent oil shortages, necessitating fuel rationing, and requires serious consideration of the future cost and availability of oil. People living in outer-urban and rural areas will be the most disadvantaged, and within a year or so the wellbeing of most other people will be under threat.

In July crude oil reached $US147 a barrel. In Sir Rod Eddington's report, he has assumed that the price of oil in 2020 will be between $US35 and $US90 a barrel. Not only that, but the estimates of future greenhouse gas emissions are all based on estimates using these low oil prices to calculate emission levels. Sir Rod's assumption that oil could be so cheap 12 years from now is why the priorities are wrong in his report.

The need is to reduce oil consumption by decoupling the growth in oil consumption from the growth of gross domestic product much faster than Sir Rod believes is necessary.
Victoria needs a crash program to reduce single-occupant car use, increase the use of high-occupancy public transport, walking and cycling and many other measures to free Australia from oil dependence by 2020. The last thing we need is a road tunnel to generate more car trips.
Alan Parker, Sorrento

Tristan Ewins: "I've noticed that there's very little traffic going on in OLO comments today... Are there still lots of readers out there?"

I suspect there is. An article about something most people agree with doesn't seem to attract much in the way of comments. After all what can you say but "I Agree"?

If you want comments you have to personally insult some part of the readership. They will then call you an idiot. Others who agree with you will then call them idiots. Soon enough it will be on for young and old, and everybody will be having fun.

But an article saying we need more public transport? Who is going to disagree with that? You could of at least added a through away line mothers in 4WD's putting everyone else's kids in danger in the school car park, or perhaps parents being too paranoid nowadays to let the kids ride to school like they used to, or even how the average Australian's selfish insistence having their own 1/4 acre block makes public transport impractical.

Well, at least someone's still got a sense of humour. :-)

Tristan I think people are moving away from Online Opinion. I haven't figured out where they have moved to, although you could try
candobetter.org
roadtosurfdom
abc.net.au/unleashed
huffington post
I don't read articles about topics that don't interest me and always put my tuppen' worth on topics close to my heart even though I know the debate [sic] will be monopolised by the same old trolls.

Dear Billie;

I'd be interested in knowing whether or not this is true. (ie: that the OLO audience is 'moving away'. I know a couple of months there was a great controversy over an article which tried to rebut the climate change arguments... And that Clive Hamilton urged progressives to stop reading the journal.

That said - I think OLO had great potential - to fulfil a liberal pluralist and participatory mission. And I also remain thankful that for years OLO has given me an opportunity to be published - whereas many others - I feel - have treated me unfairly.

I don't read OLO every day - so there are other people who are better at judging than me...

But if people think that OLO has become unbalanced in its representation of radical, centrist, conservative or liberal ideas (and so on) - then I encourage such people to ensure their voices are heard... (rebutting trolls, submitting articles etc)

re:the websites you mention...I've heard of roadtosurfdom& unleashed... I submitted work to Unleased a while ago - so far no response... Also a limit of 1,000 words - which is difficult - but which could prepareme to be a columnist if ever the opportunity arises. (so long as I don't have to compromise my values)

I'll check all these out - but I hope that the progressive audience comes back to OLO - because its potential as a truly broad and inclusive forum of exchange - is important.

I don't think OLO is 'finished' really - after all it had such a large audience - and i'm not convinced this has totally evaporated.

But I think progressives should involve themselves to ensure they are included.

And I'd liek to see some research on OLO's readership base-numbers, political orientatione etc...

Please don't give up partcipating - your responses make me feel me effort is worthwhile.

take care, most sincerely,

Tristan

Tristan I think people are moving away from Online Opinion. I haven't figured out where they have moved to, although you could try
candobetter.org
roadtosurfdom
abc.net.au/unleashed
huffington post

I saw an brief article recently on a motor vehicle insurance cover which is kilometer based rather than time based.

You buy insurance from them to cover a certain distance rather than a period of time. That type of pricing has to help make public transport more appealing whilst reducing the cost of ownership for the trips we do need to make. Bring in the same for registration.

I assume that there is a fixed component and a per k component.

Renewal notices might be difficult.

Unfortunately I didn't keep the article.

R0bert

Hi Tristan,

I'm a relatively new user of this forum - and I really enjoyed your article and agree with it!

My only criticism is with your article is your citation of Wikipedia. Now I'm a huge fan of Wikipedia - however, I would never really on its statistics. Personally, I believe you should use the Wikipedia article as a starting point to find more reputable data sources. (Then again I'm pretty anal about referencing and citations as a researcher!)

thanks,
Sandeep

Not sure about the relative GHG friendliness of PT v private cars. There is research that shows that cars compare well with PT (particularly buses); see http://www.demographia.com/db-australghg.pdf

Tristan (and anyone else who is interested) please contact me (cscoxk at gmail.com) if you would like to be kept informed and perhaps contribute to ideas on a project we are about to embark upon. We are currently working on modelling the system and specifying it. We then intend to build the system and at the same time look for an transport authority who would allow us to implement the system.

The project is to construct an integrated on demand transport information system to include buses, trains, trams, minibuses and CAR POOLING.

Initially the system will be a simple Car Pooling system where we pay people to both ride in a pooled car and to drive a car with other passengers. The twist is that the money you receive for car pooling can only be spent on public transport. The money to pay people comes from the existing public transport subsidy. That is some of the subsidy to the transport system is spent first on pooled cars then it is used on the public transport. Even if meant that all the sales of public transport went through car pooling it means we could get almost twice the value in terms of transport miles from our public transport subsidy.

Our initial guesses are that the cost to run the system will be between 5 and 10% of the money put through the system and that it will make a significant reduction in the peak hour traffic.

Just writing to let subscribers to this thread know that there will be a follow-up article of mine being published tomorrow (Wed) in OLO...

This article will focus on welfare, industrial relations, water and private infrastructure - and the influence all these issues have on the cost-of-living crisis...

Hope to hear from you again tomorrow...

most sincerely,

Tristan