Can we build our way out of congestion

I say no to a cross city tunnel for Melbourne....

Together with Carlo Carli MP, I have written a submission to the Eddington Review on Melbourne's East-West transport needs.

Here is our executive summary....

• The East West Needs Assessment study, should it recommend increased road space, could damage not only public transport dominance in inner Melbourne, but also Melbourne’s liveability.
• An additional east west link, over and above the existing Monash-Westgate link, would be a misallocation of economic resources, costing up to and over $10 billion.
• Public transport is the dominant transport mode in inner Melbourne.
• Private and freight transport largely does not travel east-west from the Eastern freeway, rather it dissipates into the inner north and towards the CBD.
• There is capacity to increase rail’s share of the metropolitan Melbourne freight market, thereby relieving congestion in the inner suburbs and aiding economic efficiency.
• Current methods of imagining and measuring the costs of congestion are unrealistic and not useful for policy makers. Methodologies assume that free flow conditions beings about maximum efficiency –this methodology favours road space expansion over road space management.
• A more realistic measure places reliability, and managing congestion higher, recognising that increasing road space merely induces demand and is an intervention designed to increase the private car’s modal share, thus threatening the viability of public transport and the liveability of the inner city.
• A tunnel therefore is not neededand would be counterproductive threatening the liveability of inner Melbourne.
• Better solutions involve increasing the capacity and connectivity of public transport and rail freight to handle the transport task.
• Strategies that ensure more efficient use of road space would provide greater social benefit compared to the cost of a new link particularly once you add the full cost of externalities such as congestion around on and off ramps, down stream congestion in inner Melbourne, pollution emissions, parking costs, accidents, urban sprawl and other environmental costs.
• The future in Melbourne shouldnot be on spending billions on road building through our inner city but demand and mobility management and ensuring a more efficient modal share for both goods and people.