Tis an autumn for an election

I am running for election as a delegate to ALP State Conference from my local area. For the record I thought I might reproduce parts of my letter to ALP members here...

As you know over the past few years I have been a member of the Coburg branch executive, including secretary. Currently I am also a member of the party’s Transport Policy Committee.

Labor, being in power at all three levels of government, has a historic opportunity to change our nation for the better. We need progressive voices at state conference that will to provide a vital counter to conservative ideas and interests.

I have been endorsed by the Socialist Left, and if elected I will support progressive policies such as:

• Planning for a sustainable future, including the expansion of public transport and opposing unnecessary and expensive road projects
• More respect for unions from Labor governments – especially in the vital areas of education and health.
  
• Economic policies that are grounded in a desire to make poverty history.
• Support for diversity and multiculturalism within a framework of respect for human rights, equality for women and the rule of law;

I am committed to reporting back to the Coburg/Brunswick branch following each State Conference and taking up your issues at that forum.

Congestion & Rentseekers

Last night Carlo Carli, State Member for Brunswick, made a landmark speech to the Fabian Society in at Trades Hall.

His speech examines some of the myths about congestion and the power of the investment banks like Macquarie in distorting and directing the direction of infrastructure and transport policy in Victoria. Its a thought provoking speech from someone who from 2000 to 2006 years was at the heart of transport policy making in the Victorian Government.

The issues raised are deserving of debate in the community.

The speech is available here.

Pricing and transit

Pricing is back on the agenda again.

Melbourne already has a congestion tax - a misnamed congestion levy which is really a tax on long stay car parking spots. But the Brumby government continues to oppose going further. There are, to be fair, considerable problems with a London style congestion tax for Melbourne. For instance not all congestion is CBD based as this map shows.

Nevertheless Australian political leaders are frightened of congestion taxes and other forms of road pricing. But eventually they will have no other option. No city, anywhere, has been able to build its way out of congestion via freeways/tollways/tunnels etc. The best you can hope for is to manage it.

The lack of a London style congestion tax does not mean that other demand management techniques have not been tried in Melbourne. For well over a decade inner city council’s have initiated supply side solutions to congestion by way of road closures, traffic calming, parking meters and road space reduction. It is now harder to drive into the CBD and get a free park then it was in the 1980s. So we are getting price signals, but under the radar.

Its not true to say that nothing has been done. Most people completely underestimate the chaos caused by the particular type of liberal government public transport privatisation in the 1990s. In essence public transport in Melbourne lost the better part of a decade to management disorder and uncertainty. But now we have real dollars being spent on infrastructure and major dollars been spent on upgrading Melbourne’s appalling bus system. But this money will run out in 2010-11 and sustainable transport advocates need to come to grips with this challenge pronto.

Thats the good news. The bad news is that in Melbourne the roads lobby is attempting a policy pushback though getting a designated Roads Minister (we used to have a Tranport Minister), and trying to harass the government into committing to a new PPP - a cross city tunnel.

The folly of this is palpable. For not only is there little demand (something like 10-15 percent of traffic coming off the Eastern freeway wants to go west of the CBD), but it is an immense project and would require massive public subsidies. This would be in the order of not only tolls, but shadow tolls or toll gantry’s on existing “free” roads like the eastern freeway or hoddle street.

Put simply we have congestion management strategies in Melbourne, but they are largely from the bottom up. What is needed is greater support at government level to make them work and to defend them from a business lobby which is desperately seeking a big, new infrastructure project.

Public Transport Partnerships: An Evaluation

I have written an evaluation of Public Transport Partnerships for my Economics and Public Policy class at the University of Melbourne.

Its a Adobe Acrobat PDF and is available here.

Same old, same old

Yesterday's conference on the "Future of Public Transport in Melbourne" proved to be more about the past then the future.

Gordon Price was well worth listening to. He was engaging, informative and a rarity in players in urban transportation debates - not afraid to hedge his bets. As some have mentioned elsewhere he is very much an adherent of the urban formism school. "Geography is destiny" he said on more then one occasion yesterday, and he believes that land use is more important then than transport mode. As such he is a disappointment to the radical side of the current public transport governance debate, who would have been looking for an international expert such as Gordon to put all boots in.

The presentation and debate section of the conference was just downright annoying. There were three presentations by Paul Mees, Denis Cliche and Janet Rice, and all failed to do what a conference like this needs to do - reach out and explore positions.

1. Paul Mees gave his lecture (I missed part of it) arguing that the problems with public transport are due to private companies pursuing private interest. Paul believes that privatisation has cost Victoria $2 billion over 8 years. He also argues for the dismemberment of the Directorate of Public Transport, arguing that 150 staff do the job that could be done by 25 and that DPT has failed.
2. Denis Cliche's argument is that we should stop squabbling about governance and get on with the job of improving public transport service delivery and services. For him as CEO of Yarra Trams DPT has done a good job and the creation of a new transport bureaucracy is a second rate issue
3. Janet Rice did not buy into the governance debate, instead devoting her presentation to attacking Meeting our Transport Challenges.

There is a myopia about all players represented yesterday. All are devoted to their own quite extreme positions and seemingly can't get together to move forward.

A conference on public transport like yesterday could have worked if it brought a range of players in public transport together to plot ways of improving service delivery, government sector spending and implementation of infrastructure.

Instead it will be used as a rallying cry by the radicals such as Paul Mees, the PTUA and the Greens to unleash a civil war against the rest of the public transport lobby.

Such a waste.

The Future of Public Transport

Management that is.

There is a hysteria about the so called failures of public transport franchising. It may, or may not be justified. I am pretty agnostic on the whole issue, but moderate voices are getting shouted down by the zealots on both camps.

A conference is being held on the issue - only half a day which makes it nice and manageable. There are speakers from most sides of this debate, so I'm looking forward to the day. Maybe once the conference is concluded I will complete my thoughts on Connex.


The latest salvo on the issue was published in The Age today - expect the other side to respond in letters tomorrow.