Abuse, MPs and the cross city tunnel

Response to Herald Sun article on a cross city tunnel

Abusing opponents of a cross city tunnel is no substitute for an considered evidence based approach to public policy.

MPs Seitz, Haermeyer and Somyurek have done the community a disservice with their submissions to the East-West inquiry, which read more as a rant then submissions to a government review.

Public policy should be made on evidence, and decisions to distort traffic patterns, to threaten the liveability of the inner north, and invest massive amounts of capital into another road need to be backed up by substantive opinion, not ideological tracts like that delivered by Seitz, Haermeyer and Somyurek.

With 127 submissions published, it is safe to say that very few pro cross city tunnel submissions have offered evidence to back the contention that there is an east-west traffic crisis. What they have revealed is that solutions to Melbourne’s congestion is not as simple as building another road, it requires more sophisticated multi-modal solutions – solutions that will be more challenging and politically onerous then the simplistic garbage served up by Seitz, Haermeyer and Somyurek.