COMMENT: congestion band-aid treatment

Last week, yet another report was released in Melbourne with recommendations on how to help ease chronic congestion on the Victorian capital's road network.

The 76-pager from Infrastructure Victoria, an independent body which advises the government on infrastructure matters, includes a suite of recommendations “which are practical, low cost, could be delivered quickly, and build on existing measures that have proven effective”.

These include expanding off-peak public transport fares, increasing carpark levies, overhauling bus services, establishing a public transport fare-setting regime, and improving road connectivity.

Another recommendation was to “encourage government to think differently about how it invests in and manages the transport network”. We’re in 2018 and still making that recommendation. No wonder we are in a parlous state.

And whacko! Infrastructure Victoria’s research has used a new approach to transport modelling called the ‘Melbourne Activity-Based Model’. Of course, it provides new insights into travel demand patterns and movement, for which we all have to be eternally grateful.

There has also been community research undertaken to explore people’s travel behaviours and attitudes towards driving in the peak period. To find out what? That people don’t enjoy jerking along at 20km/h on a major thoroughfare, using three times more fuel than what they should be? Honestly...

The recommendations made by Infrastructure Victoria to ease traffic bottlenecks are all very honourable, of course, but does anyone seriously believe these measures are going to make a meaningful impact on how people move around in the Victorian capital as population growth goes through the roof?

The kinds of numbers that Infrastructure Victoria trots out in its report are laughable: off-peak public transport fares could shift around 3000 people from cars to public transport, and off-peak fares could also shift around 3000 people out of the peak.

And the existing car parking levy is estimated to have removed around 3900 vehicles from the road every morning.

And Melbourne’s population growth? Since 2011, at least 70,000 people have been added to the Victorian capital’s overall population every year, and up to 280,000 in one year alone. Just a couple of months from now, (June 2018) the number of denizens bunking down nightly is projected to hit five million.

And we’re crowing about moving 3000 people from cars to public transport – that’s like fixing a Band-Aid to a sinking ship. It’s small fry and is only going to make an infinitesimal difference to traffic flow and congestion.

And of course cyclists get a look in, with “high-quality” infrastructure capable of accommodating 4600 of them per hour. I’m chuffed.

Honestly, with a city the breadth of Melbourne, will cycling ever become a feasible way for most people to get to work? If governments and infrastructure gurus continue to believe that, then we are doomed.

Which leads me to... motorcycles. It takes me about 55 minutes to get home from Richmond, in the heart of Melbourne, to a small town 72km north of Melbourne – door to door. In a car, at the equivalent peak time, that’s a two-hour (sometimes plus) journey. On public transport, it’s about 90 minutes door to door, depending on fluid connections.

However, there’s not one mention of motorcycling in the Infrastructure Victoria report. The independent body says that its recommendations are practical, low cost and can be delivered quickly. Whose idea of quickly are we talking about?

According to Infrastructure Victoria, by 2030 time spent on congested roads in Melbourne is going to be 20 per cent worse, but do we have a timeline on when the pain might not increase?

Of course not, and it will probably never happen if regulators don’t start at least considering powered-two-wheelers as an integral part of any congestion-busting plan. Instead, they pretend they are not there – and by extension of that the whole congestion debate is myopic, irresponsible and ham-fisted. A sham.

Only three years ago, the VicRoads boss spectacularly overlooked motorcycles as a potential congestion beating solution in a newspaper interview, instead recommending moving house, public transport, walking or cycling.

A 2012 study in Belgium suggested that if just 10 per cent of private cars were swapped with motorcycles in high-traffic-flow areas, commuting time could drop by as much as 40 per cent.

But still motorcycles don’t even get a look in – how can authorities do that when all they do is take aim at the discipline across a number of levels? But if we reduce off-peak fares on public transport, that’s good policy...

Unless there is a seminal change of direction, we are knackered. Undeniably.

Of course, the Melbourne experience can be substituted for almost any Australian city….

To read the full report, click here.