New Clearways on Sydney Road

Today the new clearways came into operation on Sydney Road. I won't try and describe their operation (I will leave that dog's breakfast to Vicroads) but I do want to offer a brief critique of the policy, Keeping Melbourne Moving.

Keeping Melbourne Moving is about extending clearway times on key routes heading to the CBD. Many of these routes are as well as arterials, are also tram routes and local roads. The rationale presented is that we need to relieve congestion on these routes to make it easier for public transport to operate.

The problem with this rationale is that the policy fails to address this point. Looking at Sydney Road in Brunswick all this policy does is further alienate on street parking along the road (not entirely bad in my book) while doing nothing to separate trams from private motor vehicle traffic.



The policy argues that by limiting parking this will speed up tram/bus journeys. This might be the case in the short term but with all these this it is what happens after the short term effects dies down?

All Keeping Melbourne Moving does is expand road space. All the available evidence suggests that expanding road space does not increase traffic flow in the medium to long term. All it does is stimulate demand - that is encourage more people to drive.

So eventually the roads will fill up and our trams and buses will become stuck in traffic once again.

There are better options, which include giving trams and buses designated rights of way during clearway times, addressing the real issue of parking on public transport routes, but those are harder and more difficult.

In the meantime we are stuck with a half way house of a policy. There are tentative steps in the right direction but it could do as much harm as good.