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Melbourne Transport |
Common Urban Myths About TransportMyth:
Roads and public transport complement each other - they don't compete
Fact:
Roads and public transport are in direct competition: each additional trip
by car is one trip not taken by public transport, and vice versa. Likewise,
investment in big new roads will only undermine public transport use, while
investment in public transport can help take traffic off the roads.
Public transport advocates and planners have spent a great deal of effort explaining the way in which public transport modes like trains, trams and buses work best when they are combined into a network, with modes complementing one another rather than operating as competing fiefdoms. Because of the 'network effects' unleashed, improvements to bus services actually lead to more patronage on trains as well, and vice versa.
The road lobby, in the same have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too spirit that gave
us balanced transport, has attempted to apply
this same argument to public transport and cars.
People are tempted to accept this argument also because we are naturally drawn to avoiding conflict. After all, if the organisation charged with promoting private car use says it doesn't oppose public transport, surely that's a good thing? So what if lots of new roads get built, as long as there's some support for public transport too? Many of us have seen car dependence enacted as policy for so long that we try to make the best of a bad situation, proclaiming (like the curate in the old cartoon) that actually, parts of it are excellent! The notion of 'integrated' or 'balanced' transport is enduringly popular for just this reason. This myth has also emerged in a big way in the Eddington 'East-West Needs Assessment' of 2008, the most significant recommendations of which are a $9 billion road tunnel and an $8 billion rail tunnel in inner Melbourne. Not only does Eddington hold to the RACV line that the road and rail tunnels will not compete with one another: he actually urges the two be done in combination and that there is a special benefit to doing so.
Yet what does it really mean to claim that roads and public transport are 'complementary'? It could only mean that building roads actually promotes public transport use - in the way better buses promote travel by train - or at the very least, that building roads has no effect on the amount of travel by public transport, relative to the amount of travel by car. But of course this is nonsense: build a freeway, and people respond by making more car trips, including trips they may previously have made by public transport. This we know from common sense, and also from the evidence: every freeway built to date has filled with new traffic, often within just a couple of years, and led to a decline in public transport's share of travel. The decline in public transport mode share with the opening of new roads has been seen most clearly where the road runs parallel to an existing train line. When the Mulgrave and South Eastern Freeways were linked in 1988, figures from The Met showed that 20% of peak passengers on the Glen Waverley line had shifted to using their cars within weeks of the road being opened. So while in 1987 there were seven inbound peak-hour expresses on the Glen Waverley line, by 1995 the drop in patronage had reduced this number to two, and today there is just one. But aside from the localised effects of particular roads, the shift away from public transport can also be seen in Melbourne-wide figures. The graph below, from the 2007 Victorian Budget papers, shows public transport's share of motorised trips in Melbourne since CityLink opened in 2000. The graph shows mode share declining in each of the next four years - a decline that was only arrested when an increase in petrol prices and CBD employment from 2005 caused train patronage to increase significantly. Even then, mode share in 2006 remained below the level in 1999.
The 2008 Budget papers show the recent upward trend has not continued: in 2006-07 mode share dropped again from 8.8 to 8.6 percent of motorised trips. Notably, the 2008 graph seems to have tried to obscure this fact by expanding the vertical axis and doing away with the gridlines:
The failure to increase mode share stems from government policy that continues to favour car travel and to marginalise public transport for anything other than peak hour CBD travel. In other words, there is no 'network effect' between cars and public transport: just a 'zero-sum game', where more travel of one sort means less of the other. Freeway-building doesn't assist public transport (not even buses, as another page explains), and good public transport is designed to reduce traffic, not just be a sideshow to continued growth in car use. To see why road lobby talk of 'complementary' modes really is about spin rather than substance, one only has to consider what happens in practice when a proposal involves a clear trade-off between public transport users and motorists. Take for example the RACV's contradictory stance on bus lanes in Springvale Road (which are estimated to save bus passengers up to 15 minutes in travel time, but will mean one less car lane each way). On the one hand, the RACV is quite happy to suggest the idea when it suits, to argue the 'complementary' benefits of reduced congestion due to Eastlink:
This support, however, evaporates as soon as there is a serious push to establish full-time bus lanes on Springvale Road.
Then there is the proposal floated by Melbourne City Council, for a modest reduction in the cycle times on traffic lights in the CBD from 90 to 80 seconds, to make them less hostile to pedestrians and trams. Since only 19% of visitors to the CBD come by car, this would be of benefit to the vast majority of people (including those who drive in, once they leave their cars and go about their business on foot). Yet the RACV has opposed this too!
So despite all the rhetoric about not subscribing to a 'cars versus public transport' argument, the road lobby will still plead for their own special interests against sustainable transport initiatives if they see any potential downside for car travel. In reality, the only non-hypocrites on this side of the debate are the old-school road lobbyists, who would prefer that nothing be given to public transport at all, and aren't worried about who they offend. While they still deny there is actual competition between public transport and roads, they rightly scoff at the idea that they could be mutually reinforcing:
Ultimately it is a very simple question of what kind of transport future one wants for Melbourne: should it be based primarily on cars and freeways, or should there be a substantial role for public transport, walking and cycling (even if there's still a lot of car travel as well)? Neither direction is set in stone: the road lobby realises this, and tries to steer policy so that the road future remains likely. To change this ultimately means realising that Melbourne has enough big roads, and that any more will simply stand in the way of the future that most Melburnians actually want.
The reason the RACV doesn't openly fight tooth and nail against public transport is simple: it doesn't need to. The odd bus lane aside, government commitments to public transport in Victoria have never got anywhere near the level where it poses a threat to private car use. Should it ever come to pass that public transport in Victoria achieves the level of policy support now seen for roads - with the mode split closer to 50-50 than the present 91-9 in favour of cars as a result - it would be a very different road lobby that would be happy with this state of affairs! © 2007 Public Transport Users Association Inc. (PTUA), Victoria, Australia. ABN 83 801 487 611. Last modified: 5 June 2008
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