Transport and Liveability - Again

This one isn't quite as in-depth as "Move Over, PTUA!" because a lot of it is the same anyway.

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Location: Melbourne Date: A POSSIBLE FUTURE

Melbourne's population and urban fringe have swelled massively due to a rural drought-fuelled exodus and climate change refugees seeking a new home after rising sea levels swallowed their lands. Many of the city's residents live beyond the reach of the overcrowded train network in outer-suburbs facing high unemployment.

Rising petrol prices are eating up more and more of the family budget, causing a drop in spending and a slump in retail and other economic activity. Attempts to fill the oil shortfall with other fossil fuels have fed rampant climate change and poured a noxious cocktail of pollution into the air. Respiratory disease has climbed inexorably, alongside cancers and tuberculosis.

With limited transport alternatives, and the price of running a car out of reach, many people are isolated from jobs, education and recreation - resulting in a loss of community and increased crime rates. Nearby a roadside billboard proudly declares - "Visit Vancouver: the world's most liveable city".

Melbourne is on the sea. If rising sea levels have swallowed other lands, they'd swallow a lot of Melbourne too.

Location: Melbourne Date: AN ALTERNATIVE FUTURE

A tree-lined street is filled with the sounds of native birds and children playing. Nearby the main street is lined with offices, shops and cafes. Despite rising oil prices, households have kept a lid on their transport expenses thanks to quality public transport and safe cycling facilities. Instead their disposable income is spent on goods and services at local shops.

You've just missed a tram, but chat happily to a neighbour at the tram stop, comfortable in the knowledge that another tram will be along shortly. Once aboard the trip to the local train station is quick and unimpeded by traffic.

After buying a newspaper and waiting a couple of minutes on the platform, you see the Flinders Street train arriving on time with adequate seats to ensure a comfortable journey into town. Out of the window you see cyclists using the many bike paths that run next to the railway.

You emerge from Flinders Street Station into a vibrant city teeming with pedestrians. There are few obese people in the crowd as active lifestyles are the norm - resulting in a drop in other illnesses including depression. Joining the local crowd are foreign tourists and our country cousins taking a trip to the city from one of the many regional train lines spreading to the far reaches of the state.

A headline in your newspaper grabs your eye - "Melbourne dubbed world's most liveable city yet again".

Native birds are eaten by foxes. Transport won't solve that problem.

Children playing are preyed on by paedophiles. Transport won't solve that problem either.

Just because the wait is short doesn't mean you chat happily to your neighbour. Transport is nice but it's not nirvana.

How can there be few obese people in the crowd if they have all that petrol money to spend on junk food?

What are the regional commuters doing at Flinders Street? Country trains go to Spencer Street.

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Introduction

Melbourne sits at a crossroad. The evidence of climate change is mounting and extreme weather is making headlines - droughts, storms and record temperatures. The world is also facing skyrocketing oil prices and a finite supply. Governments are faced with policy choices on energy, transport and a host of other areas that will affect our futures and those of our children.

Which of the two potential futures listed above will they choose? For residents of Melbourne's outer suburbs, the nightmare may become a reality if urgent action isn't taken.

Transport and Liveability: The Path to a Sustainable Victoria outlines some of the keys areas that will determine the liveability of Melbourne in the future:

Environment: Rapidly expanding motor vehicle use is generating large amounts of pollution and greenhouse emissions and covering more and more land in asphalt.

Health: Our car-reliant city encourages sedentary lifestyles with a host of serious health implications. The accompanying air pollution is responsible for more deaths each year than road crashes.

Housing: Motorised transport is often the largest single consumer of energy for a household, and the resulting financial drain is harming home affordability.

What, petrol is so high people can't afford to buy a house??? I'd say the price of houses has more to do with it.

Safety: Despite relatively safe roads by international standards, over-reliance on car use, along with inadequate attention to the safety of other road users, is costing the lives of many Victorians each year. Similarly, pedestrian-hostile public spaces are failing to prevent crime.

Participation: Inadequate public transport is trapping many elderly and disadvantaged Victorians in their homes, preventing them from participating in the economic and social life of the state.

Mobility: Excessive focus on roads in transport planning is failing to address congestion and the cost of transport in an age of rising oil prices.

Employment and income: Inadequate public transport is making commuting more stressful and more expensive than it needs to be, and siphoning wealth away from local communities.

If commuting is difficult that will actually encourage people to work/shop locally - the very opposite of "siphoning wealth away from local communities".

Education: Inadequate public transport is a barrier to education for many young people, and is also exacerbating obesity levels among children.

Completely wrong. People go for whatever uni places they can get and work out how to get there afterwards.

Melbourne's claim to being one of the world's most liveable cities is at risk, with the loss of the title to Vancouver and many of our main competitors showing a strong commitment to shifting the focus of transport policy away from cars and towards people.

This report concludes with a range of key actions that Government must take to keep Melbourne near the top of the world's liveability league ladder.

More structured thinking would be good too. The thinking behind that page was about as rational and structured as a dose of LSD.

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1. What is liveability?

Melbourne's ranking as the world's most liveable city - recently lost to Vancouver - has generated widespread awareness of liveability in Victoria. Public understanding of the concept, however, has generally been vague. The term liveability is often used interchangeably with quality of life and well- being, although these are imperfect substitutes. The very root of the word liveable - life - is a fundamental quality of nature and implies sustainability. Whilst the most obvious form of sustainability is environmental sustainability, consideration of liveability must also recognise social sustainability and hence fairness, as well as economic sustainability.

Nice poetry. Where's the facts, backed up from a recognized authority such as Macquarie Dictionary?

Most attempts to measure liveability group indicators under broad categories such as:

 Environment

 Health

 Housing

 Safety

 Participation

 Mobility

 Employment and income

 Education

Further reading: Sun, Y. (2005) Development of Neighbourhood Quality of Life Indicators. 2 City of Melbourne - City Ranking and Liveability. 3 George, J. (2005) Liveability Sustainability or Liveability Schmiveability.

Next come 19 pages of descriptions of the problem, which I can't be bothered wading through.

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Delivering liveability In order to ensure Melbourne's future liveability, the Bracks Government must:

Action 1: Make major investments in public transport infrastructure

Two thirds of Melbourne does not currently have easy access to the rail network. This must be rectified by making major investments in public transport infrastructure. These should include rail extensions to Rowville, Doncaster and South Morang and electrification to Baxter and Sunbury. Public transport interchanges should be constructed in growth suburbs and at major activity centres. The government is to be congratulated on the reintroduction of passenger rail services to Ararat and Bairnsdale, and should upgrade the track to allow the reintroduction of rail services to other regional centres such as Leongatha and Mildura.

Compared with any of those, the extension to Sydenham is tiny, in terms of additional catchment. But even so, since the extension patronage on the line has grown so much that extra infrastructure has to be installed to carry the passengers.

This comes at a cost - North Melbourne Junction (the complicated arrangement of track which allows trains from North Melbourne to get to Upfield, Broadmeadows and Footscray without colliding) and Flinders Street platform 5 (the only one available for North Melbourne services) are at or above capacity.

To cater for the patronage which would be generated by any one of those extensions would require massive capital works - a new platform at Flinders Street and some strategically placed flyovers (like the one at Burnley). The disruption to regular services caused by these works would be terrible.

On the other hand, rail is the only way of providing adequate transport to those areas. What's the solution? There isn't one.

Action 2: Establish a single budget for all transport modes A single budget should be established for all transport modes including roads and public transport. Funds should be invested as needed for the greatest social, economic and environmental benefits.

That's what we have already.

Action 3: Redesign Melbourne's public transport system Melbourne's public transport system should be redesigned into a functioning integrated network, offering regular services across the entire metropolitan area. A lean, accountable public agency, modelled on the Zurcher Verkehrsverbund, should manage our public transport and make all strategic, policy and timetable decisions. Private operators should merely deliver the service. Tram routes should be extended to better integrate with the train network and a 10 minute minimum service frequency should be provided on all metropolitan tram and train lines. Frequent bus services should be provided until midnight, seven days a week Greater synergy between active and public transport should be sought by improving bicycle parking facilities at train stations and other transport interchanges, and pursuing options to facilitate greater use of bicycles in conjunction with public transport 11.

What can a "lean, accountable public agency" do that Metlink can't?

If private operators merely deliver the service, without any incentive to improve their service, they will cut costs by cutting corners - on cleaning, maintenance, or even just customer service. All the KPIs and contracted minimum services in the world won't stop them from finding somewhere else to do a bad job if it saves money.

Bike parking facilities at stations have just been improved massively. Haven't you noticed the blue steel boxes?

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Action 4: Give public transport vehicles priority

Road-based public transport should be freed from the growing traffic congestion which is slowing it down and making it less attractive to would-be users. Trams and buses should be provided with priority at traffic signals and with road space to ensure travel times that are competitive with private cars. This will encourage motorists to switch modes and thereby reduce congestion.

Trams and buses will never have journey times competitive with private cars. They have to stop to pick up and set down passengers; they are larger and heavier and therefore don't accelerate as fast.

Action 5: Improve safety and accessibility of public transport

Public transport infrastructure needs to be upgraded for easier and safer use. There needs to be an accelerated introduction of low floor vehicles and upgrades of bus and tram stops, train stations and pedestrian walkways.

Staffing levels should be boosted for both customer service roles and transit police across the system and across all hours of operation. All passengers should be able to travel with the expectation of a safe journey and the strong likelihood of having their ticket checked. Recruitment practices and training should be strengthened for enforcement staff to enhance the travel experience for all passengers and minimise physical confrontations.

Have you any idea what has already been done on these lines?

Action 6: Seek greater support for sustainable transport policies across all tiers of Government

Transport and land-use planning should be closely integrated to ensure coherent policy outcomes given the strong relationships between land-use and travel.

The State Government should also engage with local councils to ensure public transport priority and accessibility measures can be undertaken without inconveniencing public transport users or pedestrian amenity.

The State Government should continue to advocate for reform of Commonwealth tax policies that encourage additional traffic, such as Fringe Benefits Tax provisions, or that provide import tariff advantages to classes of vehicles that have inferior fuel efficiency or safety performance, such as four wheel drives.

The Government should also continue to advocate for the broadening of Commonwealth funding mechanisms such as AusLink to include public transport improvements and incorporate more rigorous social and environmental considerations in funding criteria.

The State Government should implement measures to encourage greater use of active and public transport by members of parliament, their staff and across the public sector. Such measures would allow the Government to lead by example in reducing both traffic congestion and transport energy consumption.

Politicians are elected by the people. The people don't want that kind of policy. Face it, it's the truth.

Action 7: Restructure country bus services

The Government should better utilise available resources by fully integrating school buses and community transport with metropolitan and regional public transport systems. This would create more extensive and higher frequency intra-and-inter- regional networks of passenger services.

Talk to a few people who live in the country and then come back.

Action 8: Make roads safer for all users

The safety of pedestrians and cyclists should be improved by increasing the provision of facilities such as cycle lanes, paths, traffic islands and more responsive traffic lights.

The safety of motorised and non-motorised road users alike should be enhanced by embarking on a widespread program of bicycle-and-bus-friendly traffic calming works.

The understandable fears of the parents of school children should be addressed by implementing a state-wide program to expand the walking and riding school bus programs to all schools.

Where does the space come from? There are a lot of streets which aren't wide enough to put a bike path down.

Action 9: Stop the roll-out of new freeways and major urban road projects

The Government's target of shifting 20 per cent of motorised journeys onto public transport by 2020 means that there will be less traffic in 2020 than there is now. Therefore the Government can safely cease the construction of major roads for the next 15 years. A similar moratorium on freeway construction in Vancouver has seen the city anointed as the single most liveable city in the world ahead of Melbourne. While some local roads in the urban fringe may need improvement, good quality public transport and provision for walking and cycling would minimise the impacts of traffic congestion in these areas.

Again, the people elect the politicians so the politicians bow to the people's will.