Boosting for Fringe Dwellers

Bob Birrell, and People and Place do it again.

a report published in Monash University's People and Place journal warns that building apartments along tram routes would result in chaos on Melbourne's roads.

Only a small proportion of people living in those apartments would catch public transport, say the report's authors, Bob Birrell from Monash University and David McCloskey and Rose Yip from research agency Pathfinder Solutions.

Their contention is that Professor Rob Adams plan to get more housing along rail, tram and high frequency bus corridors is doomed to failure because only one fifth of people in suburbs like Brunswick use public transport.

Anyone who has any interest in sustainable and equitable transport knows that public transport is only half the story.

Just looking quickly at the state suburb of Brunswick (3056) and those who used only one method of travel to work we find that yes, 52 percent of people did use a car to get to work. 29 percent used public transport. but 10.3 percent rode a bike and 6.1 percent walked.

It seems to me that People and Place ignore the role of cycling and walking in the journey to work equation.

It is true to say that building on public transport corridors isn't the whole answer. But neither is it true to say that linking jobs to public transport (or vice versa) is the whole answer.

We need both.