To ensure the success of public transport improvements, the road system must not be allowed to undermine them. The construction of freeways and of radial arterial roads should halt. Toronto’s inner suburbs have prospered over the last 25 years without a single new road project: the same should apply to Melbourne and other Victorian cities. Rather, we should see an emphasis on traffic calming and pedestrianisation schemes to improve the environment for residents, public transport users, other pedestrians and cyclists.

Cars - here to stay

The elimination of the car is both unlikely and unnecessary. No matter how good the public transport service, lots of local travel (such as grocery shopping) will still be carried out largely by car. People will still take drives in the country.

Everyone knows the car can provide unsurpassed mobility and convenience - provided not too many people try to take advantage of this at the same time. All that is needed to relieve our traffic problems is to shift a significant minority of car trips (about one in five) from the car to walking, cycling or public transport.

Indeed, many of the trips currently made by car (such as long trips to or from Melbourne’s CBD, or other common destinations) can be better catered for by public transport anyway. This is because public transport, unlike cars and trucks, displays “returns to scale”: it costs a lot just to keep running, so the more passengers it carries the more cost-effective it is.

Reasons not to build freeways

From a public transport perspective, freeways are bad because they encourage people to abandon public transport in favour of their cars; the subsequent loss of patronage leads to declining service, which further discourages passengers. Eventually the only people left on public transport are those who have no choice; public transport has become the “mode of last resort”.

Freeways have their own problems, however, quite apart from concerns over public transport. In particular, freeways make existing traffic problems worse by encouraging more traffic onto the roads. Increased traffic brings with it increased pollution, noise, congestion and trauma, which spills over into the arterial road network (since freeways are no more capable than railways of linking all trip origins with all destinations). Each year in Victoria around 350 people are killed in road crashes; it is estimated that a further 300-400 die prematurely from the effects of air pollution resulting from car and truck use.

Finally, road projects are a drain on the public purse. The costs of building and maintaining roads and treating crash victims far exceed the revenue collected from road users in registration, insurance and petrol levies. Comparable public transport initiatives have lower up-front and ongoing costs if done properly.

Traffic calming

Traffic calming means improving the quality of the environment by slowing down traffic and giving more priority to walking, cycling and public transport. Streets are made safer and more enjoyable. Traffic calming is based around the principle of maximising mobility within a liveable city created by reducing the undesirable side effects of mobility.

Once a first-class public transport system is in place, it becomes acceptable for the community to constrain car use, to reduce danger, pollution and congestion. However, in order to achieve the full benefits of traffic calming it is necessary to apply the principles to all roads within an area, including arterial roads. It is ultimately counterproductive to suppose that car use can be constrained in one place by increasing it in another, as has been the case so far in Melbourne, where road engineers pretend that outer-suburban freeway traffic never ventures onto congested inner-city roads.

Parking restraint

Restraint on car parking is an important method by which car use can be constrained in the interests of public transport, the community and the environment. Parking limitations in the central city need to be strictly enforced and extended to inner suburbs and district centres. We oppose attempts to increase central-city car parking. Though intended to draw people into the city, such policies will ultimately destroy it.

Urban form

In the longer term, better planning will support public transport by ensuring that major employment and activity centres are built around public transport nodes. This will further reduce the need for people to use their cars for personal travel.

Updated: March 2007