Airport operators enjoy the privileged position in Australian planning law of being able to decide their own futures. Their exemption from state planning rules threatens orderly planning and safety.
Reckless government investment decisions are sadly the norm when it comes to transport infrastructure. Three key checks on the decision-making process can help ensure taxpayers get value for money.
Roads versus public transport: for decades, these have been the battle lines in debates over transport in our cities. But a revolution in mobility is under way that will transform our thinking.
Transport infrastructure projects are conceived, planned and assessed in a way that makes it difficult to properly consider their major public health impacts.
Charging people to drive has been the dream of policy wonks – serving politicians tend to see it as political poison. So when federal minister Paul Fletcher raises it, that’s a step forward.
The Australian Automobile Association said that a new report showed that “the average Australian family is spending up to $22,000 every year to get around.” Is that accurate?
New technologies do not exist in a vacuum. To succeed, new transport technology needs to match the ways we want to move around cities and be accommodated by laws and regulations.
It’s a project that creates benefits for Melbourne’s western suburbs and the state as a whole. But the inner-city elite don’t like it and recent experience suggests their opinion holds sway.
Using elements of game play, we can create incentives for people to change how and when they make various transport choices in ways that enable the whole system to work better.
The budget paints a picture of higher debt, little relief for growing cities crying out for infrastructure investment, and no detail of how City Deals might work to fix this.
Infrastructure Australia’s latest report is substantial but, critically, it fails to incorporate the transport thinking needed to develop more compact cities that work better for everyone.
On average, people won’t accept a commuting time of more than an hour. As cities grow ever bigger, new road projects can’t achieve this, yet policymakers still rely on modelling that defies evidence.