A review of all public road and rail projects worth $20 million or more and completed since 2001 reveals a 21% cost overrun. Worryingly, costs of bigger projects blew out more often and by more.
I was a federal environment official for 13 years. Streamlining approvals for big infrastructure projects is a big environmental risk, unless it’s done properly.
Smaller projects are better for delivering broad, long-term value to communities across the country, reducing inequality and cutting emissions, as well as quickly providing jobs and economic stimulus.
When land central to the identity of locals is reshaped, so is the political landscape.
Nikita Sud
Big development projects can mean the loss of a community’s identity and connection to their past.
Commuters at Epping train station board replacement buses during work on the line for the Sydney Metro, the biggest of all the promised projects.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
The major parties are promising projects costing tens of billions of dollars, with a surprisingly large overlap between them. Yet only two have been endorsed by infrastructure authorities.
In rankings of Sydney railway stations with the most passengers and fastest growth, Bankstown line stations are way down the list.
Dan Himbrechts/AAP
Every major transport study since the 1970s has identified Sydney’s western rail corridor as the priority for an upgrade. The latest patronage figures confirm that’s where the need is greatest.
Around the world, government officials fail often at implementing policy and public sector projects. Here’s why.
(Shutterstock)
Research around the world shows a consistent pattern of failures in public sector policy and project implementation. Yet we continue to embark upon implementation built on bias and faulty logic.
Former Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is eminently qualified to lead the World Bank.
EFE-EPA/EPA/Gian Ehrenzeller
Whichever party wins, Victoria’s new government will have promised the biggest transport infrastructure project in Australian history. So what are the promises and are they backed by proper assessment?
Federal and state governments have put their hands up to fund airport rail links before we have even seen business cases.
David Crosling/AAP
Billions of taxpayer dollars are committed before all the evidence for, and against, infrastructure projects is in. As well as missing business cases, basic rules of economic modelling are broken.
Victorians who opposed the East West Link before the November 2014 election would have felt not much had changed when the new government announced the West Gate Tunnel in March 2015.
Courtney Biggs/AAP
Transport infrastructure has such an impact on what kind of city we become that more democratic planning is long overdue. But public consultation is typically limited and focused on design issues.
The Venezuelans now rushing across the border to seek refuge in Brazil join millions of Brazilian migrants who’ve been displaced within their own country.
Nacho Doce/Reuters
Robert Muggah, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)
Since 2000, 8.8 million Brazilians have been displaced by disaster, development and crime, new data shows. Now Venezuelan migrants are pouring into the country. Still, Brazil has no real refugee plan.
A resident of New York City Housing Authority’s Chelsea-Elliot Houses.
AP Photo/Mary Altaffer
Lawrence Vale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Since the 1990s, the supply of deeply subsidized housing has decreased as the US population and need for housing have increased. Trump’s proposed cuts to HUD won’t help.
The national broadband network promised by the incoming Rudd government was politicised from the start.
Lukas Coch/AAP
The highly politicised nature of the NBN has led to a lack of transparency that makes it even harder to fix the mess that has been made of this vital national infrastructure.
Southport station, Nerang Street, soon after the light rail began running in 2014.
Matthew Burke
The light rail project pushed up property values within 800 metres of the stations by over 30% from 1996 to 2016. Gains on this scale offer a potential source of finance for public transport.
Public goods come in many forms, from highways to magnificent mountains.
Road sign via www.shutterstock.com
The U.S. owes much of its prosperity to investment in public goods like highways, parks and schools. Trump’s budget poses a threat to these goods, which have already been on the decline.
Politicised projects that steamroll proper process are giving transport planning a bad name.
www.shutterstock.com
Politicised transport projects that flout proper process lead to hostility between residents and governments, and give planners a bad name.
Federal Urban Infrastructure Minister Paul Fletcher and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull are eyeing value capture as a way to fund projects, but how will they sell a new tax to voters?
Paul Miller/AAP
Consider these home truths: value capture is a tax, it would need to apply to the family home and deciding which areas it covers would be politically contentious. A broad-based land tax is simpler.