Liveable for how long?
Not only is the federal government to give $1 billion towards building the western half of the East West Link without a shred of a business case (unless we count the Eddington Report’s 45¢ return in the dollar), Victorians are to be slugged with an extra year of tolls so that Transurban can add more lanes to the Tullamarine Freeway.
And it is all designed to funnel more drivers into Melbourne, choke the inner city with traffic and undermine the natural advantage of, and community preference for, public transport.
Have we given up on the whole idea of a liveable city? Road-building merely feeds the congestion monster. Furthermore, expenditure on big roads in Melbourne dwarfs all proposed public transport initiatives by an order of magnitude, and comes at the expense of schools, hospitals and regional development.
Tony Morton, Public Transport Users Association