The Gold Coast light rail project provides an opportunity to study the scale of property value gains arising from new transport infrastructure.
AAP/Dave Hunt
In coming decades many oil and gas platforms will have to be retired. Rather than being dismantled, they could be given a new lease of life as artificial reefs, helping industry and the environment.
Partially demolished houses in the Vila Autodromo favela, with the Olympic Park in the background.
Ricardo Moraes/Reuters
An architect rides through the streets of Rio amidst a cacophony of drills and jackhammers. He wonders: Is it worth it? What will the legacy of all this construction be?
High-speed rail is now a well-established technology and Australia needs it, as long as the project ticks all the boxes needed to deliver both private and public benefits.
‘Adaptation’ will help deal with the next decade or two of global warming. But what about key energy or transport links that are expected to last a century?
By persuading some drivers to travel a different route or at a different time, congestion charges can dramatically improve the flow of traffic.
AAP/Andrew Brownbill
Bigger cities increase wages, output and innovation, but also problems of congestion and pollution. Congestion charges can minimise these problems by dramatically improving traffic flows.
By increasing their numbers within the government, the Nationals were the surprise success story of the election, with a very locally focused campaign.
Changing a centuries-old format will take some big thinking.
vittoriocarvelli/DeviantArt
With the one-city format no longer viable, an Olympics expert proposes a radical new vision for the format of the Olympic Games. It actually makes a lot of sense.
Three more years for Malcolm Turnbull and the Coalition.
AAP/David Moir
Fron Jackson-Webb, The Conversation; Michael Courts, The Conversation y Emil Jeyaratnam, The Conversation
Before Australians go to vote on Saturday, The Conversation’s editors have assembled a guide to 11 key policy areas that could swing the vote.
A lack of differences in major policy areas such as agriculture and trade means local project funding – for roads, boat ramps and the like – reinforces the adage ‘all politics is local’.
AAP/Alan Porritt
On the big national policies affecting non-metropolitan Australia, such as agriculture and trade, the major party differences are minor. That’s why the election focus turns to local projects.
Despite Malcolm Turnbull’s enthusiasm for public transport, the Coalition tends to favour road projects over rail.
AAP/Lukas Coch
The Coalition, Labor, and the Greens are making substantial commitments to projects that not only lack proper business cases, but are not even on the Infrastructure Australia priority list at all.
Reinforced concrete is everywhere. But unlike plain concrete, which can last for centuries, reinforced concrete can deteriorate in decades as the reinforcing bars succumb to rust.