Some Federal Election Issues

Compiled and written by the AITPM Newsletter editor, David Brown.

Labor will hold an Inland Rail Inquiry

The Labor Party has committed to holding an inquiry into the integrity and efficacy of the route selection process and financing arrangements of the Inland Rail project, if it is elected to government.

Issues include

Farmers and their representative, The New South Wales Farmers Association, have strongly condemned the lack of transparency of the route selection process.
The Guardian on-line news service previously reported that the wealthy Queensland family, the Wagners, had directly lobbied for the route change so that the line would link up with their privately-owned airport. The Guardian also said “The government’s preferred route was announced in 2010, following a vast study considering more than 50,000 options. But a section running through Queensland’s Darling Downs region was changed in 2017, infuriating farmers and landowners who suddenly found their properties would be affected”.
Rail Express reported that Labor’s Anthony Albanese, speaking on the Alan Jones radio program, said “The CEO of the Australian Rail Track Corporation delivering this project, John Fullerton, conceded to us in Senate estimates that [Inland Rail] wouldn’t produce a return,” Albanese said. “So what [the Coalition] are doing is counting the Australian Rail Track Corporation’s balance sheet as a whole, in order to defend this equity injection into the project.”
Farmers have been told that they will benefit from the rail line but many are sceptical.

A few points to consider:

It should be noted that Alan Jones has a bitter attitude to the Wagners. He was successfully sued by the Wagners over comments he had made on other issues.
One of the Wagners did speak at our 2016 National Conference and gave a thoughtful history of building an airport without government support.
Building a rail line that does go near the airport, on face value, seems a good idea. Farmers having their properties affected is also a significant impact.
There are many generalities about why a rail line is good but there are many things that need to be done (and funded) to make the most value.
An inland rail is often argued on statements of faith about what different transport systems will or will not do. Specifically achieving these benefits needs to be professionally (not politically) analysed.
With technology making great strides, do we need a rail system or just a guided corridor for all sorts of vehicles? Could such a corridor be self-funding?

Station car parks? Are they the best value-for-money?

In the recent federal budget, the Coalition government announced a Commuter Car Park Fund, of $500 million.

Four authors from the University of Melbourne recently wrote an article for The Conversation questioning the value of building commuter car parks.

The issues they raised include:

1. Car parks typically cost $10,000 for a surface space and $68,000 for a space in multi-level structures. So if you built one multi-level for every five at ground level, $500 million would give you 30,000 spaces

2. Assuming an optimistic 1.5 people per car, 30,000 spaces represents 4% of the current number of people traveling to work by public transport. There argument is that there are cheaper ways to get 45,000 people to work.

3. They cite “Vancouver’s 99 B-Line bus service moves 56,000 passengers a day at a cost of less than C$14 million ($A14.7 million) a year.”

4. Better land use around train stations. “Alternatives like direct and frequent buses could liberate space around our suburban train stations.

Government Advertising

An AITPM member sent in a photo of a Government ad which is really a political ad paid for from the public purse. Both major parties have done it. Do we really need transport being used as a political football, particularly when the photo looks such as scene of destruction? (The aerial photo is the St Peters Interchange construction as part of Sydney’s Westconnex project.)

One AITPM member commented:

“When I first saw the ad (full page in colour) in my local newspaper I thought it looked horrendous and highly insensitive. I immediately thought of the class of developers who see any construction as good and have little or no understanding of other values.

“Over the years in my career I did come across a number of construction people who thought the value of a tree is just the labour cost of its removal. But there are other people in our society too. If I remember correctly a large tree near the Opera House was saved during the Sydney Harbour Tunnel construction at a cost of $300K (or was it only $100K?). The cost figure was on a wall poster that Dick Smith printed.

Related 2003 tree article: “On the boulevard of broken trees”

Very Fast Trains?

As I understand it, Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party promised some voters fast rail that travels 300 kilometres from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane CBDs in less than an hour. This would cover the Sydney to Canberra trip. I have tried to contact the UAP but they have not returned my communications.

The satirical television program “Utopia” has noted that very fast trains only run in election years.

There are certainly those who support high-speed rail and those who are fervently opposed. Alan Davies, who writes as The Urbanist for Crikey, recently published an article titled “Why is east coast High Speed Rail still being taken seriously?”.

My concern is that this project will be considered based on grand dreams, whims and political expediency rather than careful analysis.

PS I have used the above photo as it is available without copyright from Wikimedia Commons.

Electric Vehicles

The debate, from all sides, about electric cars in 2030, seems more about “us and them” politics, than what is happening in the real world.

By 2030 all major manufacturers will have the choice of electric vehicles, powered by batteries or hydrogen, across their range. But, if desired, there will still be petroleum models.

Information and different ownership systems will mean we can more easily understand and choose our best transport options, day-to-day.

The reason for the need for electric cars is much more than just global warming. We must reduce our desperate dependence on foreign oil and make fewer people sick through local pollution.