Do employers encourage too much driving?
Posted: October 7, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic | Tags: employers, Graham Currie, Monash University, parking, subsidy, VECCI 7 Comments
Guess who is at fault in bicycle-car smashes in The Netherlands?
Monash University’s Professor Graham Currie is quoted in The Australian (6 October) as arguing that employer subsidies for staff car parking should be removed:
When buildings go up in cities, the parking component is about 37 per cent of the total cost. Is that cost passed on to the people who use it or borne by society as a whole? I can tell you it’s the latter because most car commuters don’t pay their own parking; their employers do. The costs of this ‘free parking’ flows through into the price of goods and services, so we are all in effect subsidising the car owners who drive into the city. Traffic congestion in Australian cities is unlikely to diminish because so many car commuters don’t pay their own parking bills
The Victorian Employer’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VECCI) has hit out at Professor Currie, arguing that many employers offer subsidised parking as a way to woo workers to city jobs where it is otherwise inconvenient or untimely to use another transport method, like the train or bus:
The way to lessen inner city congestion is not to restrict choice but to increase it – making it more attractive to travel on trains, trams, buses or to walk/ride. Ultimately employers should retain the freedom to offer whatever incentive it deems it requires to lure the best calibre of workers to its business.
I don’t buy VECCI’s line about not restricting choice, but I agree entirely that employers and their staff should generally be free to negotiate whatever lawful remuneration packages they want. However I think it’s an entirely different matter if those packages are underwritten by tax payer subsidised car use. Read the rest of this entry »
Is big-box bad for the Modern Family?
Posted: September 25, 2010 Filed under: Activity centres, Cars & traffic | Tags: activity centre, Big box, Bunnings, Costco, Modern Family, retail, shopping, Slate, Witold Rybczynski 15 Comments
Click to go to slideshow
Professor of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania, Canadian-American architect Witold Rybczynski, has this interesting slide show at Slate titled Ordinary Places. He subtitles it “rediscovering the parking lot, the big-box store, the farmers market, the gas Station” and observes:
At first glance, the big-box store doesn’t foster sociability. The no-frills environment sends the message that “we are doing everything possible to keep our prices down,” and the assembly-line atmosphere encourages speed and efficiency.
Everyone is absorbed in the serious business of finding what they’re looking for, a task the long, identical aisles don’t make easy. This is the exact opposite of shopping-as-entertainment that characterizes most malls.
He’s not the only one to characterise big-box retailing this way, but why on earth would it really matter if a big-box store does or “doesn’t foster sociability”? Read the rest of this entry »
Do we spend too much time commuting?
Posted: September 23, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic, Public transport | Tags: commuting, Jenny Sinclair, Richard Florida, Trip times 10 Comments
Time spent commuting to work, Melbourne
I’m currently reading a new book by writer and journalist Jenny Sinclair, When we think about Melbourne: the imagination of a city. This fascinating book sets out to discover what makes Melbourne unique and, according to the cover blurb, ultimately concludes that it’s all in our collective imagination.
I’m only a little way into the book but a comment she makes – just an aside really – caught my attention and sent me scurrying to the spreadsheet. She’s strolling through Victorian era parts of Melbourne when she’s:
reminded that there’s another (Melbourne), in which workers with affordable houses in Sunbury or Hoppers Crossing have no choice but to drive for hours every day to get to their jobs
This passage reminded me of Richard Florida’s recent claim that commutes in the US are so long they’re injurious to health. I made the point in this post that Florida’s methodology is flawed and time spent commuting in the US is actually relatively short.
But what about Melbourne – is Sinclair’s understanding that many Melburnites “drive for hours” to get to work correct? Read the rest of this entry »
What’s wrong with (green) cars?
Posted: September 15, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic, Energy & GHG | Tags: congestion, electricity, embodied energy, green cars, traffic 13 Comments
Optical illusion slows traffic in Vancouver
Earlier in the week I argued that public policy needs to recognise that climate change and peak oil are the least compelling reasons for investing in public transport (Public transport: time for a new paradigm?). There are far more convincing reasons, I argued, such as providing universal mobility and an alternative in congested conditions.
One of my key points was that cars will almost certainly be the dominant mode for many decades to come. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that there are potential substitutes for oil and that travellers will not easily give up the advantages of on-demand mobility.
It will also take considerable time to move our cities to a more transit-friendly urban form and improving public transport to the point where it can “take over” from the car will be enormously expensive. Of course there are also alternative uses competing for investment and attention, like education and health.
I argued that we should therefore give high priority to making cars green i.e. work toward vehicles powered by renewable energy sources with low carbon and pollution. Some people say that even cars powered by zero carbon electricity will nevertheless have enormous negative impacts. Whether that’s right or not, we don’t realistically have a choice – at least in the medium term – because the transformation from car-dependent cities to transit-dependent cities will be long and arduous.
However it is true that green cars will still present serious challenges. Read the rest of this entry »
Public transport: time for a new paradigm?
Posted: September 12, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic, Planning, Public transport | Tags: Cars, energy efficiency, Public transport, sustainability 22 Comments
Sorry for the hoary cliché but I really do think it’s time for a new way of thinking about public transport.
Much of the debate on transport in cities is too simplistic. All too frequently it’s reduced to a simple nostrum: “replace all car travel with public transport”. I think it’s more complex than that and, to use another cliché, requires a more nuanced approach.
Let me be clear from the outset that there are compelling reasons why we need to invest more in public transport – for example, to provide mobility for those without access to a car. Another reason is to provide an alternative to roads that are becoming increasingly congested.
But I’m not convinced that the reason most commonly advanced – to overcome the environmental disadvantages of cars – is all that persuasive. Here’s why. Read the rest of this entry »
Is commuting (very) bad for you?
Posted: September 8, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic | Tags: commuting, creative class, Edward Glaeser, health, Richard Florida 6 Comments
Let me say from the outset that I’ve long been sceptical about some of the methods used by Richard Florida, celebrated author of The Rise of the Creative Class. And I’m not the only one – this review of his book by Edward Glaeser is written with a velvet glove but packs an iron fist.
So it’s not surprising I’m unimpressed by Commuting is very bad for you, written by Florida for last month’s issue of The Atlantic. He gets it completely wrong and provides a lesson in the dangers of only seeing what you want to see.
Florida seizes on a survey of 173,581 working Americans which he claims shows that those with longer commutes suffer higher levels of back pain, higher cholesterol and higher obesity. It also shows, he says, that commuting takes a toll on emotional health and happiness – those who commute more worry more, experience less enjoyment and feel less well-rested.
Commuting by car is so bad it’s up there with smoking:
“commuting is a health and psychological hazard, not to mention the carnage and wasted time on our over-clogged roads. It’s time to put commuting right beside smoking and obesity on the list of priorities for improving the health and well-being of Americans”.
The trouble is the data he cites doesn’t support these conclusions. A proper reading of the two tables from his article (I’ve reproduced them above) indicates there’s very little relationship between commute time and health. Read the rest of this entry »
Will providing better transit be enough to cope with city growth?
Posted: September 6, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic, Public transport | Tags: congestion pricing, private transport, Public transport, road pricing, transit 9 Comments
Policies on Public Transport and Private Transport - you can't have one without the other
It might seem counter-intuitive, but you can’t increase public transport’s share of travel significantly unless you simultaneously do something about cars. Yet this simple relationship is usually ignored by governments and lobbyists alike.
Back on 23 August I looked at the question of how our cities could grow larger but still be liveable. Public transport has a vital role in meeting this challenge, but the task is daunting. Notwithstanding current overcrowding on the train system, public transport’s share of all motorised travel is only around 11% in Melbourne and a little higher in Sydney.
The standard recipe for increasing transit’s share of travel is to offer a better product. This is popularly thought of as more trains and more light rail (only occasionally more buses).
It usually involves providing some combination of greater route coverage, higher frequencies, longer operating hours, faster speeds, better connections, more information and higher levels of comfort and security.
Improving quality seems a self-evident solution. After all, the area of the city with the best public transport offering – the CBD – is also the area where public transport scores best against the car. For example, 43% of all motorised work trips to the inner city in Melbourne are made by public transport and this study suggests the figure for the CBD is probably upwards of 65%.
This strategy works – but only up to a point. Consider, for example, the Melbourne inner city municipality of Yarra. It has a pretty high standard of train and tram services, yet 86% of all motorised weekday travel by residents of Yarra is still made by car (or 74% when walking and cycling are also included). Read the rest of this entry »
Why do major infrastructure projects fail?
Posted: September 2, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic, Infrastructure, Public transport | Tags: Clem 7, Clem Jones Tunnel, infrastructure failures, Infrastructure financing, Matt O'Sullivan, Midtown Tunnel, Peninsula Link, Public transport, Rivercity Motorway, roads 15 Comments
Selected road and rail infrastructure projects (data from The Australian)
It was reported this week that the new Clem Jones Tunnel in Brisbane (known as the Clem7) is in diabolical financial trouble due to traffic levels that are well below those forecast.
Fewer than 30,000 vehicles a day are using the tunnel even though tolls were halved from 1 July (now $2 for a car). This compares with a forecast of 60,000 on opening, rising to 100,000 after 18 months. The operator of the tunnel, Rivercity Motorway, posted a $1.67 billion loss for the year to 30th June.
Clem7 joins a growing list of infrastructure projects funded on the basis of overly optimistic forecasts of initial usage. These include Sydney’s Lane Cove and Cross City tunnels, the Brisbane and Sydney airport trains, Melbourne’s Eastlink, and the 2,250 km Freightlink rail line connecting Adelaide and Darwin.
The Age’s Matt O’Sullivan is gob-smacked that Clem7’s transport consultants could have forecast traffic levels higher than those on New Yorks Midtown Tunnel, given that Brisbane’s population is a quarter of the City of New York’s:
“Yet traffic forecasters predicted that thousands more motorists would use the new Clem7 tunnel under the Brisbane River every day than another four-lane artery in New York linking Queens with central Manhattan.
“Running under the East River, the two-kilometre Midtown Tunnel has had about 80,000 vehicles passing through it each day. And it has been that way for much of the 70-year-old tunnel’s life. Half a world away in the Sunshine State, well-paid traffic forecasters had predicted that 91,000 vehicles daily would use the Clem7 by now and, by late next year, more than 100,000”.
What strikes me immediately is that this is not a sensible comparison. It’s highly likely the Midtown Tunnel is at capacity and probably has been for a very long time. Read the rest of this entry »
Which portfolio should the Greens take?
Posted: August 30, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic, Energy & GHG | Tags: Climatechange Summit, Climateworks, electricity, The Greens, Victorian Transport Plan 5 Comments
Climateworks - click to enlarge
It’s a commonplace in politics, as it is in most things, that it’s better to focus limited resources on a few objectives than to spread them thin over a broad front.
So I’m therefore more than a little surprised that the Greens in Victoria, fresh from winning the Federal seat of Melbourne, are reportedly going to demand the Transport portfolio if they control the balance of power at the next State election (here and here).
If true that strikes me as a curious demand. There are doubtless complex political issues around why the Greens would even want a Ministry, but in terms of the scope for improving the environment it seems to me that Energy would be a more logical choice than the Transport portfolio.
There are a number of reasons for this view.
First, as this report prepared for the 2008 Victorian Climatechange Summit shows, electricity is a far larger generator of CO2 emissions than the transport sector. In Victoria, 64% of all carbon emissions are generated by the residential, commercial and manufacturing sectors. Almost all of this carbon is emitted from coal-fired power stations.
In comparison, all passenger transport in the State – by both car and public transport – generates 14% of Victoria’s total carbon emissions. The transport of freight is responsible for another 5%. Comparable figures are also published in The Victorian Transport Plan.
So on the face of it there’re potentially much bigger gains for the environment from clean energy production than there are from clean transport. Read the rest of this entry »
Will a carbon tax double the price of petrol?
Posted: August 3, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic, Energy & GHG | Tags: carbon price, Cleaner Car Rebate, CSIRO, ETS, Harry Clarke, John Quiggin, Mandatory Emission Standards, petrol, Tony Abbott 5 Comments
Possible future petrol prices under different oil market/carbon price scenarios (CSIRO)
Tony Abbott made a surprising claim on Sunday that a $40/tonne carbon tax would increase the retail price of electricity by 100%. Fortunately, John Quiggin has ‘done the maths’ on Abbott’s assertion and points out that it would result in a much lower increase in the retail price to households – around 20%.
So let’s look at the likely effect of a carbon tax on the price of petrol. This CSIRO report, Fuel for Thought, estimates that a $40/tonne emissions permit would only increase the retail price of petrol by 10 cents per litre. So the additional cost of the $23/tonne carbon price touted by the Greens would seem to be no more than the weekly fluctuations in price at my local servo!
That’s hardly a great big new tax. But what’s important from a policy perspective is that a price on carbon of this order isn’t really going to have a significant effect on what we drive and how we drive. Read the rest of this entry »
Mandatory CO2 emissions – will Julia do enough?
Posted: July 26, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic, Energy & GHG | Tags: Australian Transport Council, BITRE, Cash for Clunkers, Cleaner Cars Rebate, Emission standards for cars, Julia Gillard, Vehicle Fuel Efficiency Working Group 2 Comments
Projected average CO2 emissions of the whole light vehicle fleet under a range of CO2 emission targets for new vehicles
With all the brouhaha about ‘cash for clunkers’, the mainstream media seems to have completely missed analysing a new initiative that was also announced on Saturday by the Prime Minister – mandatory CO2 emission standards for light vehicles.
Prime Minister Gillard committed the Government, if re-elected, to an obligatory average emission standard for new light vehicles of 190 g/km from 2015, and 155 g/km from 2024. This represents a 14% reduction on the 2008 level by 2015 and 30% by 2024.
This is the sort of initiative I’ve argued for before (here and here) as it recognises the reality that light vehicles (i.e. cars, SUVs, vans) will be around for a long time yet and something therefore needs to be done fast to make them more environmentally responsible.
It’s a pity the Government took the spotlight away from this worthwhile initiative by simultaneously announcing the deeply flawed ‘cash for clunkers’ scheme.
Yet the Government’s take on mandatory emissions is far from perfect. In fact it verges on feeble. The standards announced by the Prime Minister are well short of the European CO2 emissions standard, which is currently 160 g/km and by 2015 will be 130 g/km (see here). Read the rest of this entry »
Is Cash for Clunkers a great big new mistake?
Posted: July 24, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic | Tags: carbon emissions, Cash for Clunkers, Cleaner Car Rebate, Julia Gillard, President Obama, Prime Minister 10 Comments
Clunker - 1992 Nissan Pulsar
Did Julia Gillard read my post last Thursday arguing that she should take action in the election campaign to improve the fuel efficiency of Australia’s cars? Possibly not, but I wish now I’d left in the sentence saying that whatever happens, please don’t make the same mistake as President Obama and bring in a poorly-designed “cash for clunkers” program!
Now the PM has announced today her own Cash for Clunkers initiative (here and here) with the ostensible purpose of saving one million tonnes in carbon emissions (this is not an annual saving but the total over the life of the scheme).
The scheme will be financed by cutting back other programs, including the solar and carbon capture and storage programs, and the renewable energy bonus scheme (see here).
President Obama at least had the excuse that his scheme was primarily a pump-priming exercise designed to lift consumer spending in the wake of the GFC. In our context however, Cash for Clunkers looks like seriously bad policy. Even on the skimpy detail released today, it is evident there are clear failings. Read the rest of this entry »
How bad is traffic congestion in Melbourne?
Posted: July 22, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic | Tags: Commuter Pain Index, IBM, traffic congestion Leave a comment
IBMs Commuter Pain Index
The Age reported earlier this month that Melbourne is second only to Stockholm for low traffic congestion according to a survey of 8,200 motorists in 20 cities.
The survey (here and here), which measured “commuter pain”, was undertaken by IBM, an active player in the international traffic management industry.
My experience of weekday traffic congestion in Melbourne is pretty limited but it is consistent with the survey’s finding. A couple of times a month I have a mid-week late afternoon meeting in South Yarra and finish up between 6pm and 6.30pm. I drive home up Punt Rd/Hoddle Street and then on to Heidelberg Rd.
The thing that always takes me by surprise on these trips is that the congestion is never as bad as I expect. In fact it has never yet taken me longer than an half an hour to get home and I rarely have the feeling that I’m “stuck” in traffic. Once you get past Victoria Pde it flows reasonably well in my experience.
I’m surprised because I always remember Eddie in Elliot Perlman’s novel, Three dollars, offering this advice: ‘Abby, my darling daughter, remember this: no matter where you are or what time of day it is – avoid Punt Road.’
But it’s dangerous to extrapolate from the personal to the general – many of the comments in The Age suggest my experience is atypical. Perhaps Punt Rd is much worse in the AM peak than in the afternoon or is simply not as bad as the freeways. Read the rest of this entry »
What should be done about cars?
Posted: July 21, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic, Energy & GHG | Tags: Cars, congestion, Julia Gillard, Public transport, road pricing, Tony Abbot, traffic 12 Comments
I’d like to see one of our political leaders steal a march in this election campaign by promising to do something about the environmental and ‘quality of life’ issues associated with car use.
Almost everyone recognises the weakness of our current car fleet in the face of climate change and peak oil, but no one seems to want to do much about it. Most of the focus is on expanding public transport and increasing urban density – at first glance this sounds good, but even on the most optimistic view cars are going to be the dominant mode in Melbourne for a long time yet.
For example, the Victorian Government set a target in Melbourne 2030 to increase public transport’s share of motorised trips to 20% by 2020 (it’s currently around 11%). The report of the Independent Public Inquiry into a Long-Term Public Transport Plan for Sydney, which was released earlier this year, aims to increase public transport’s share of all travel in Sydney to 25% over the next 30 years (currently around 16%) and walking and cycling’s to 10% (page 152)*.
Even if petrol prices suddenly went stratospheric, it would take decades to expand public transport ‘s capacity to a level where it could handle the majority of trips. And it would still have to compete for funding with other areas of serious need like health, education and social housing. This would be more complicated if dramatically higher petrol prices were accompanied by a severe contraction in economic activity. Read the rest of this entry »
Why is Gen Y driving less?
Posted: June 28, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic, Public transport | Tags: baby boomers, driving less, Gen Y, internet, Public transport 9 CommentsAfter growing consistently for many decades, car use is falling in developed countries (e.g. USA, Australia, Britain). A notable aspect of this decline is the fall-off in driving by young people.
New data from the US Federal Highway Administration (see here and here) shows that although they increased their share of the US population slightly over the period, those aged 21-30 accounted for only 14% of all miles driven in 2009, compared to 21% in 1995. Another study reports that in 2008 only 49% of 17 years olds had driver’s licenses compared to 75% in 1978.
There is now a sharp difference between Gen Y and baby boomers. A typical 58 year old in the US last year drove 11,607 miles, while the average 28 year old drove just 7,011 miles.
Neither the GFC nor the recent escalation of petrol prices fully account for these changes because the decline in driving preceded these events. So what is driving Gen Y to abandon what has traditionally been one of the great rewards of coming-of-age?
The explanation usually advanced is that the internet has enabled electronic communication to substitute for face-to-face contact. As I’ve pointed out before, however, reputable researchers conclude the exact opposite – electronic communication increases the demand for face-to-face contact more than it substitutes for it. Read the rest of this entry »
Is 13 storeys right for Coburg?
Posted: June 20, 2010 Filed under: Architecture & buildings, Cars & traffic, Population | Tags: activity centre, Bell St, Coburg, Coburg High School, Hampton JV (Coburg), Housing Commission, National Rental Affordability Scheme, NRAS, Panel, public art, social housing 5 CommentsWhether you like the look of this building or not, I think the Panel has done a good job in recommending the rezoning and permit pretty much as proposed by the proponent. This is the kind of development Melbourne needs in order to increase densities in established areas (click image below; and here’s another one).
The proposal is for a mixed use development on the old Coburg High School site in Bell St near the intersection with Sydney Rd. It’s a large landmark site of around 1.2 hectares, fronting Bell St in the north, Bridges Reserve in the west and established housing on the other frontages.
It is within the Coburg Principal Activity Centre and will provide 520 residential units spread over 8-13 storeys along the non-residential frontages, stepping down to three storeys where it faces existing housing. It also includes some commercial uses on the Bell St frontage.
The units are very small and therefore relatively affordable (although that’s not the same as value for money!). Around three quarters are proposed to be studios and one bedroom apartments, with a minimum internal floor area of 40 sq m and 44 sq m respectively. The remainder are two bedroom units (minimum 65 sq m). These tiny sizes are around the average for inner suburban apartments – see here.
The project must provide at least 20% of the units for social housing under the planning scheme. However the proponent proposes around half of the units will be allocated to a recognised social housing provider under the National Rental Affordability Scheme.
The Panel’s reasons for supporting the project can be read here. While I endorse their overall direction, I have misgivings about some of their conclusions. Read the rest of this entry »
Free download!!: transport model of NYC
Posted: June 5, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic, Public transport | Tags: Balanced Transport Analyzer, Charles Komanoff, New York 1 Comment
According to the New York Time’s Freakonomics Blog, the Balanced Transport Analyser “is a spreadsheet that models in intricate detail the daily flow of all transit – public, private, wheeled and bipedal – in New York City”. According to Wired, “over the course of about 50 worksheets, the BTA breaks down every aspect of New York City transportation—subway revenues, traffic jams, noise pollution—in an attempt to discover which mix of tolls and surcharges would create the greatest benefit for the largest number of people”.
It calculates “how new fees and changes to existing tolls affect traffic at different times of day and calculates which costs are borne by city dwellers and which by suburbanites. It calculates how long it takes passengers to dig for change and board buses. And it allows any user to adjust dozens of different variables—from taxi surcharges to truck tolls—and measure their impact. The result is a kind of statistical SimCity, an opportunity to play God and devise the perfect traffic policy”.
The Balanced Transport Analyzer was created by Charles Komanoff. The complete model can be downloaded here.
Will cars destroy Preston Market?
Posted: June 4, 2010 Filed under: Activity centres, Cars & traffic, Planning | Tags: gentrification, parking, Public transport, retail, Victoria Market 4 CommentsThe biggest threat to Preston Market is cars.
I got thinking about this after I had lunch there last Friday. As always, I was taken in by the mad rush and vitality of the place and the sense that much of it is still essentially the same as it was when it started. I was surprised to learn that it’s a relatively young institution, having only been established in 1970 (although Preston proper is considerably older – it was connected to Flinders Street by rail in the 1920s and experienced a major population boom in the 1950s).
Initially, I was wondering if the Market is vulnerable to the increasing gentrification in the area, but then I realised Victoria Market has withstood demographic changes in the inner city reasonably well. Sure, it’s pretty middle class now but the deli and meat sections at Vic Market are unsurpassed in Melbourne. So while gentrification of Preston Market will undoubtedly diminish its authenticity – and that is the vital ingredient for some customers – it will not necessarily undermine its viability.
Which brings me to the threat to the Market posed by cars – not too many cars, but too few!
I saw a flyer issued by the Market parking manager to stall holders advising of a new parking scheme. I don’t know when it commences, but rather than fine parkers who stay beyond the initial free two hour period (one hour near Aldi), the new arrangement will charge them $1 for each additional hour. How that will work financially for the parking operator is a puzzle (how will they administer it cost-effectively?), but it’s their money. Read the rest of this entry »
What if you were the Premier?
Posted: May 27, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic, Education, justice, health, Public transport | Tags: Alcohol, Cars, Melbourne, Premier, prohibition, Public transport, road pricing, Victoria 3 CommentsImagine you’ve just been elected Premier. You carried the electorate on a simple but radical two-promise platform: (1) to prohibit alcohol and (2) to shift all travel out of cars and onto public transport.
The Party is solidly behind you. Members agree that both alcohol and cars are bad for the individual and bad for society. You’re lauded as a reformer.
But you’ve not long been in office before you discover just how entrenched car use is in your largest city. Just 10% of trips are made by public transport and 90% of households have at least one car. Less driving would make the community better off but you quickly discover how much people like doing things that are bad for them and bad for others. You have a stiff drink.
For all their talk about sustainability, your predecessors knew the electorate loved cars. The former Premier talked-the-talk about public transport and even threw a few paltry dollars its way, but at the end of the day she didn’t do anything that would come between voters and their cars.
Eager to get started, you begin your quest to reduce car use by investing massively in public transport. You mortgage the State budget for the next 50 years in an endeavour to provide high quality, metro-style public transport across the entire city. Travellers without access to a car, like school children and tourists, think you’re God. CBD workers think you’re Gary Ablett. But you fail to notice that most of them either don’t vote or don’t live in marginal electorates. Read the rest of this entry »
Is the Lord Mayor’s new parking charge a ‘money grab’?
Posted: May 19, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic | Tags: City of Melbourne, Donald Shoup, equity, George Costanza, Hoddle grid, Lord Mayor, Melbourne Business Council, parking, parking meter, Robert Doyle, VECCI 5 CommentsThe Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Robert Doyle, has bought himself a heap of trouble with Council’s decision to impose a flat $4 charge for parking in the CBD from 7.30 pm to midnight (see here, here, here and here).
The new fee will apply to 3,000 on-street metered parking spaces that are currently free at night. It will raise an estimated $1.9 million in revenue to be used for general Council purposes. Council is expecting to earn a similar amount from fines associated with the new policy.
While some people think it will encourage greater use of public transport, others say it will have a severe impact on restaurants, movies and shows and is just a naked grab for money. Another criticism is that public transport is too unsafe at night and finishes too early to provide a satisfactory alternative to driving. Others vow they’ll stop visiting the CBD and go elsewhere.
I find the reaction extraordinary. In my view Council’s action is understandable – any time you have a scarce resource that is under-priced there are bound to be some perverse and inefficient outcomes. Melbourne is a 24/7 city – the streets of the CBD are frequently heavily congested at night, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights. Charging for parking at night makes sense.
The Melbourne Business Council however is concerned that people coming in to the CBD to see Fame or Sir Ian McKellen in Waiting for Godot will now have to pay for parking. VECCI is worried about the impact on restaurants, small bars and theatres. But who shells out $100 plus for tickets to a show or dinner and quibbles over $4 for parking? On the contrary, I expect patrons will feel they’re better off if it loosens up parking options a bit. Read the rest of this entry »
The Melbourne Urbanist 