Category Archives: Melbourne and suburbs

Media releases, Melbourne and suburbs, Melbourne east

Eastern Freeway rail corridor is what merits protection

Protect Hamer legacy of provision for rail in freeway median: PTUA

According to the Public Transport Users Association there is only one aspect of the Eastern Freeway that merits heritage protection, and that is the unique design features included by the Hamer Government to ensure a train line could be easily installed in the corridor.

The statements come in response to a proposal by the Victorian Department of Transport to seek heritage protection for the section of the freeway between Hoddle Street and Bulleen Road. This part of the road was built in the 1970s and made provision for a planned train line to Doncaster and Templestowe. [1]

Responding to the largely cynical reaction to the proposal, PTUA President Dr Tony Morton noted there was some substance to the Department’s claims. “This section of road certainly has some unique features to its construction. The median reserve is particularly wide by comparison with others, including more recent sections of the Eastern Freeway, and all the overpasses are built as long single spans. But all these features were included so as to protect a reservation for rail.”

The ability to provide for rail was essential to any heritage claim for the road, Dr Morton said.

“That does make the latest proposal rather bizarre in the context of the North East Link. Not because it forecloses anything in the future, but because the Department is seeking to protect exactly what it’s about to destroy.”

As part of plans for the North East Link, the government proposes taking the median reserve for extra car lanes, and providing dedicated bus lanes on the road’s edge at additional cost. “This makes a travesty of a half-century of planning,” said Dr Morton. “The idea of protecting the reserve is that the effort and cost for a public transport corridor has already been invested, to make future rail construction an easier decision. As far as Bulleen at any rate, everything has been done already except physically laying the tracks.”

“In a city of five million people and growing, we’ve got to be protecting all opportunities that exist to boost the most space-efficient and high-capacity mode of transport we have, which is suburban rail. Instead, we’re taking a corridor already provided and handing it over to the least space-efficient form of transport, for reasons that are entirely unclear – the inner city has no more capacity to absorb cars and trucks.”

“If the Andrews Government has any consistency they would rethink now and protect the rail corridor.”

Dr Morton also scoffed at the suggestion the heritage proposal was solely aimed at forestalling a future East West Link road. “The one thing that ought to stand firmly in the way of the East West Link is it doesn’t provide any economic benefit exceeding the huge cost of construction – even when assessed on traditional tools that experts criticise as exaggerating the benefits of new roads. A heritage order by itself would never stop a project that stands up on its merits.”

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[1] The Doncaster rail line is still shown on Public Transport Victoria’s website as part of their Network Development Plan (PDF filename indicates it was updated in 2016)

Federal funding, Media releases, Melbourne and suburbs

Rail cash welcome, but for Melbourne’s sake we need a plan

The $10 billion pledge by Federal Labor toward Melbourne’s Suburban Rail Loop is a massive vote of confidence in restoring Melbourne’s reputation as a liveable city and responding to the climate emergency, but the size of spending underscores the urgent need for a coherent, community-led transport plan, according to the Public Transport Users Association.

The PTUA was “dumbfounded” at the Coalition’s determination to back the East West Link, a project that had already lost their State colleagues two elections, and that “even transport models originally designed for the express purpose of justifying big new roads” found would only return 50c of economic benefit for every dollar spent. The Coalition could better demonstrate its traditional economic credentials by throwing its weight behind suburban rail and bus projects, the PTUA said.

“Our public transport system needs to be ready to accept millions of additional passengers just in the next decade as the city grows and becomes less car-dependent,” said PTUA President Dr Tony Morton. “That demands action at all scales, from big city-shaping infrastructure to reform of local bus networks.”

At the same time it’s vital to ensure a robust economic, social and environmental case for proceeding with major initiatives, Dr Morton said. “Infrastructure investment is both necessary and popular. But because of that, politicians are motivated to assume any amount of spending on capital works is a good thing, and blow vast sums of money on the wrong projects.”

Dr Morton noted the Victorian Government originated the Suburban Rail Loop concept, but also wants to spend $16 billion on the North East Link tollway and a massively expanded Eastern Freeway. “The government’s boosting public transport, yet planning for people not to use it,” he said.

Governments are fatally conflicted, said Dr Morton, because of an over-reliance on ‘modelling’ not only to attempt to quantify benefits, but also to make implicit value-judgements about the kind of transport system a city like Melbourne ought to have.

“Transport models were created in the 1950s for the purpose of justifying freeway projects in US cities,” said Dr Morton. “It’s unlikely a single one ever lived up to what the model claimed, but it’s been rare for anyone to follow up claims versus reality after one is built So while we’ve learned that every big new road project generates new traffic and there are no long-term ‘congestion busting’ benefits, the models still fail to properly account for this.”

“Rather than have infrastructure fed to them by an algorithm, governments should have a plan – one based on an explicit choice. Do we want more people driving or more using public transport? Do we want to be like Los Angeles and Houston, or do we want to be more like Paris and Vienna? Do we accept the permanent and irreversible environmental damage big roads cause, or do we embrace life in a city that takes environmentally friendly alternatives seriously?”

“Currently, our governments still act as though only they, and not us, are entitled to answer that question.”

“Every opinion poll that put the options head-to-head has found a majority of Australians would prefer that public transport improvement have priority over new roads. Our politicians need to listen, stop spending billions on motorways, and start ensuring that every Melburnian has a genuine option of reliable, frequent, fast public transport in their suburb,” concluded Dr Morton.

Melbourne and suburbs, News, Regional

What year did your railway station open?

What year did your local station open? Before you were born? Probably before your grandparents were born! Our population is growing, and our public transport network needs to keep growing too.

Click here to view the map larger.

The rail network grew rapidly between 1854 and 1930… but since then almost nothing. Expansion of rail, tram and Smartbus services is far too slow for Melbourne’s huge population growth. No wonder the roads are congested!

Melbourne railway stations vs population growth

Join PTUA today to help the campaign for better public transport.

Ballarat, Media releases, Melbourne west

PTUA welcomes rail investment in Ballarat

The Public Transport Users Association has today welcomed the government’s announcement of the details of a $130m project to untangle freight and passenger services in Ballarat.

The project will largely separate freight and passenger trains west of Ballarat station, and upgrade the signalling system in the Ballarat area, to allow for more efficient movement of trains of all kinds.

PTUA Ballarat Branch Convener Ben Lever said it was important work that would complement other investments in freight and passenger rail.

“There are two big rail projects going on around Ballarat at the moment – the Ballarat Line Upgrade project for passenger trains, and the Murray Basin Rail Project for freight trains. These two projects intersect within urban Ballarat, so today’s announcement will help make sure there aren’t too many conflicts between freight and passenger movements.”

“It’s really essential that our passenger services can have a clear run so they’re not delayed by freight trains – but it’s also really important that freight doesn’t get overlooked. We need a strong rail freight industry that is competitive with the road freight industry, if we want to reduce the number of trucks on our roads, and get the safety and air quality benefits that come with it. This kind of infrastructure investment is a great step in the right direction.”

Mr Lever said the project will help allow for extra services to Ararat and Maryborough, and potentially for extension of trains to Dunolly.

“For the train to really be useful to people, it needs to run quite frequently. The Maryborough line in particular has always suffered from a lack of services, so we are definitely keen to see trains running more frequently on this line.”

Mr Lever also noted that the project may have benefits for the eventual return of direct passenger trains between Ballarat and Geelong.

“Although this seems to be flying under the radar of both the government and the opposition at the moment, in the medium term we will also need to see the return of direct passenger trains between Ballarat and Geelong, to connect Victoria’s second- and third-biggest cities to each other without the need for a lengthy diversion to Melbourne. This service would travel along the existing freight line that is part of the Murray Basin Rail Project, so any investment that helps sort out the path through urban Ballarat gets us one step closer to making it a reality.”

Media releases, Melbourne and suburbs

Magic numbers distort North East Link business case

Cost and benefit figures presented in the North East Link business case by the Victorian Government suggest a “massive shifting of the goalposts” in an effort to make the $16 billion project stack up, according to a preliminary analysis by the Public Transport Users Association.

“Comparing these new figures with those presented just 18 months ago by the government’s Infrastructure Victoria agency, you would hardly guess we’re talking about the same project,” said PTUA President Dr Tony Morton.

In late 2016, Infrastructure Victoria produced economic analysis for its 30 Year Strategy which assessed the “real capital cost” of the North East Link as $5 billion to $7 billion, including associated works on the Eastern Freeway and M80 Ring Road.

“That figure’s now fantastically out of date,” Dr Morton said. “Using the actual cost estimate of $15.8 billion and the benefit figure from Infrastructure Victoria, the benefit-cost ratio is barely 60 cents in the dollar.”

Yet the latest business case puts the ratio as $1.30 to $1.40 in the dollar, having arrived at this figure through what Dr Morton calls ‘creative’ methods.

“First, they’ve said only about $12.5 billion of the cost is for construction, the rest is for operating cost,” Dr Morton said. “Then they’ve claimed the whole cost can be reduced to around $8 billion through the device of ‘discounting’ future spending at 7% per year. It’s only by using this discounted value that they can get a BCR above 1.”

Discounting is a standard method to account for the fact that spending deferred to the future, or income received in the future, has a lower value in present-day terms. “If I have to spend $1000 but not for 12 months’ time, I can invest a smaller amount now, say $955 with a 5% return, to have the full $1000 when needed,” Dr Morton said.

“But you have to push spending a long way into the future to get this claimed reduction of nearly 50 per cent. It appears to us the government is using some financial magic to avoid booking a big part of the road’s cost until after it’s supposed to be open and operating – and paying no interest in the meantime.”

“The business case includes a cash flow profile for capital and operating expenditure, yet adding up the latter it comes to less than half the reported real operating cost. What accounts for the remainder – is it additional operating cost, or is it construction cost that’s being pushed out to the long term somehow?”

NEL Business case: Redacted information

“Too many details are redacted to be sure, but it looks suspiciously like the equivalent of buying a $600,000 house and pretending it only costs you $400,000 because the mortgage payments come later. This is dangerous logic for homebuyers, and at the very least we’re owed a better explanation when it’s all Victorians on the hook as taxpayers.”

“And as a method for reducing the economic cost of a public infrastructure project for evaluation purposes, it doesn’t pass the sniff test. The Metro Tunnel project has a longer construction timeline than the North East Link, and in its business case the reduction from discounting is a more realistic 24 per cent.”

Phantom benefits

The benefits claimed for the road come mainly from projected travel time savings, and are said to be worth nearly $11 billion in present-value terms. Yet evidence from half a century of road building indicates that any travel time benefits are short-lived and soon give way to worse congestion than before.

“This looks like the same fantasy-land thinking we’ve seen on every other road project,” said Dr Morton. “In that regard the East West Link assessment may have been more honest – at least that conceded the congestion benefits would be gone within a decade. This one seems to be claiming time savings will still be achieved 50 years into the future, something never seen before on planet Earth.”

Past road projects in Victoria have been unable to demonstrate the time-saving and other benefits claimed for them, according to reports by the Victorian Auditor-General and by academic researchers. A 2009 study of the Melbourne CityLink project by RMIT’s John Odgers found that contrary to the time savings forecast, the total time spent in Melbourne traffic in 2005, five years after CityLink opened, was already exceeding by 1.8% the figure projected for 2011 in the ‘do nothing’ scenario. The approach used to forecast the travel time benefits for projects including the North East Link has been criticised by modelling expert William McDougall in evidence to a 2017 Senate inquiry into tollroads.

“And yet, contrary to all we know from the past half century about new roads not reducing congestion, we’ve still got official documents like this one making all sorts of claims about time savings, congestion relief and faster travel, as though it’s forever 1970 and no-one knows any better,” Dr Morton said. “Almost nowhere else is there such a boneheaded insistence on doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Choices for the future

The PTUA is supporting a community campaign for further investment in rail infrastructure and frequent bus networks, to give people choices to avoid traffic congestion. “The government’s trying to greenwash this road with a new busway along the Eastern Freeway, to save all of two minutes between Bulleen and Clifton Hill. The business case calls it a 30% saving, which is misleading because it’s a percentage of the 6 to 7 minute travel time on the freeway, a very small part of the whole. Virtually all the serious delay to buses is between Clifton Hill and the city, and further out on suburban arterial roads,” Dr Morton said.

“We’d actually rather see the freeway median preserved for future rail services, and instead invest some serious money into priority for buses where they run slowest, and put some fair dinkum planning effort into a Doncaster rail line. That’s a recipe for real time savings with more ironclad evidence than any traffic model.”

“Meanwhile, every billion dollars the government spends on big roads just makes Melbourne look more like Los Angeles, and gets us closer to having Los Angeles style traffic. Should we really be spending $16 billion for this?”

Media releases, Melbourne and suburbs, Melbourne east

North East Link plans to kill off Doncaster rail forever

The Public Transport Users Association says that detailed design plans for the North East Link and its accompanying busway include taking over the median reserve for additional car lanes. This will ‘kill stone dead’ any long term plan for trains to run to Doncaster, according to the PTUA.

“What’s being proposed is a radical reorganisation of the road corridor between Clifton Hill and Bulleen,” said PTUA President Dr Tony Morton. “The wide median which has been set aside for a train line since the 1970s will be deleted and used for car lanes. This provides space for the bus lanes they want to put on the outside of the road – but the outside will never be suitable for rail due to conflict with entrance and exit ramps.”

The plan to remove the median appears in the map book accompanying the North East Link Detail Design. It adds to previously announced plans for a 16-lane road monster between Bulleen and Doncaster, resembling the superhighways seen in some US cities like Los Angeles or Houston.

Dr Morton said the plan to kill Doncaster rail not only ran contrary to the public’s clearly expressed preference – it also promised nightmarish consequences for the Doncaster region in the long term. “Rail is ultimately the only game in town when it comes to moving large numbers of people around a big city effectively,” he said. “Even the proposed buses won’t be future-proof, and will in time become slow and crowded just like the busway services in Brisbane today. Premier Andrews and his Roads Minister are essentially foreclosing the most space-efficient mode of transport for the least space-efficient. That’s not merely short-sighted, it’s bordering on spite for the people of Manningham who spent years campaigning for a train.”

The PTUA hears daily from bus users in the north east who suffer overcrowded, late, cancelled and defective services, Dr Morton said. “The Department of Transport signed a supposedly ‘innovative’ contract with private operator Transdev, which it appears leaves it powerless to enforce basic service standards on behalf of passengers. I can confidently say no-one who uses these buses today has any confidence in government assurances that buses can do the work of trains in 30 years’ time when Melbourne is the size of London or Paris.”

Instead, Dr Morton said, residents of Manningham and other suburbs were being sentenced to a congested Los Angeles future. “So the state spends $16 billion to build this 16 lane monster, and it fills up with 16 lanes of single-occupant car traffic. What do our amazing planners do then? The Americans have freeways 24 lanes wide and they’re still clogged. Freight can’t go anywhere because it’s stuck with all the cars. You don’t solve anyone’s transport problems – passengers or freight – until you give people real choices. And ultimately, in a city the size of Melbourne, that means rail.”

The PTUA has called on the government to publish the multimodal transport plan for Victoria required by its own legislation. “Let’s have it out in the open whether our government is softening us up to turn Melbourne into LA, when the long-expressed community view is we should be more like Vancouver or Vienna, with a strong role for public and active transport, especially rail, even though a lot of people will still drive cars.”

Eastern Freeway now vs planned

See also: The Age: Toll road to kill off future Doncaster rail: public transport group

Media releases, Melbourne and suburbs, Melbourne west

Show us a plan, and don’t neglect local services, says PTUA

The Victorian Government needs to show the public an integrated plan for moving people and freight. But the government also needs to match its busy infrastructure programme with a commitment to frequent local public transport service, the Victorian Transport Infrastructure Conference heard on Thursday.

According to a presentation by Dr Tony Morton, President of the Public Transport Users Association, the government has put forward numerous multi-billion dollar transport projects, but has not explained what part they play in any strategic transport plan for the next half century.

“On the one hand, the government is building the Metro rail tunnel, which is equivalent to about three West Gate Bridges in carrying capacity and has massive potential to divert single occupant car travel from the existing West Gate Bridge,” Dr Morton said. “Yet at the same time it’s sinking billions of dollars into the West Gate Tunnel, which has barely one-sixth the capacity but is likely to induce more car travel into the city, swamping any benefit the Metro tunnel provides.”

Winning the West

“Melbourne’s West faces enormous challenges in the near term dealing with urban growth and the state’s worst pollution from cars and trucks, not to mention the historical neglect of public transport infrastructure and services. We really cannot afford to be adding to the horrendous traffic problems that already exist. In fact we ought to be doubling down on rail infrastructure to bring the West closer to what the Eastern suburbs already enjoy. It’s time to start planning Melbourne Metro Two.”

‘Metro Two’ is the name given to a rail tunnel connecting Newport station underneath the Yarra with Fishermans Bend and the City. It then extends north via Parkville to connect with the South Morang line, providing added capacity to the Mernda growth area and simplifying planning for a Doncaster rail line. Versions of the line appeared in the 2012 Rail Network Development Plan and in plans considered by Infrastructure Victoria. it was also raised favourably in evidence by Victorian rail planner Ed Dotson to a 2010 Parliamentary inquiry into rail services.

Freight needs should have special consideration as part of an integrated plan, Dr Morton said. “At present, freight is in a zero-sum game with single-occupant car traffic, and the cars are winning. This will happen as long as we build so-called ‘freight roads’ that are just going to fill up with cars. We need to be getting more freight back on the rails, taking advantage of the latest international experience with multimodal logistics. Meanwhile, road freight solutions must be well-targeted, designed and sized so as not to induce more car travel.”

Dr Morton also welcomed Wednesday’s announcement by the Federal Government of $5 billion toward a Melbourne airport rail link. “Ultimately the State government will be responsible for planning this,” he said. “If it’s not going to suffer the problems of other projects, it’s critical that it’s properly integrated with the suburban rail network, with complementary bus networks and with the Myki fare system, so it can cater for the widest possible spectrum of airport travel.”

Service Planning is Vital

Dr Morton explained that even the best big infrastructure would be of little benefit without a proper plan for frequent public transport down to the local level. “Having the rail network required to meet major transport needs also means looking at how people get to the stations,” Dr Morton said. “We seem far too focussed at present on making public transport something you drive a car to, which means every additional passenger costs between $15,000 and $50,000 for a car parking space even before you pay for the train.”

The cities with the best public transport in the world provide a range of options for local travel, led by excellent feeder bus networks, said Dr Morton.

“Governments unfortunately get spooked by the cost of running buses, yet we already spend some $600 million a year running buses that are often empty of passengers because we’re not actively trying to recruit them. Each $1 million of annual expenditure could, on official figures, provide a bus service every 10 minutes, 7 days a week, for a population of around 8,000 people in most Melbourne suburbs. And every extra passenger you get is paying a fare to help meet the cost of the service.”

“How much does it cost to provide parking for 8,000 cars? On current figures we’re hearing, anywhere between $200 and $350 million. Even for just a fifth of that population, it would cost more to finance a project like that than to just run a bus that can take people where they want to go all day long.”

“Melbourne and Victoria are crying out for strategic, sustainable transport planning that works for everyone,” said Dr Morton. “We can’t just take a scatter-gun approach and throw money at every politically expedient project. We need calm, careful consideration of our actual needs, for people and freight, for infrastructure and for decent services.”

Media releases, Melbourne east

Care urged on Rowville tram proposal: avoid rushing into half measures, says PTUA

The Public Transport Users Association has cautiously welcomed a proposal to develop a new tram line connecting Rowville to Caulfield railway station via Chadstone Shopping Centre. But the PTUA is concerned the project could leave the community worse off in the longer term by precluding a conventional train line along Wellington Road.

“The previous government’s network plan envisaged a regular rail link between Huntingdale and Rowville as the appropriate long term option for this corridor,” PTUA President Dr Tony Morton said on Tuesday.

“There was also a strong view on Infrastructure Victoria’s citizen jury in 2016 that this would be imperative in the next 15 years,” he said.

“We similarly believe conventional heavy rail is the only option in the longer term if we’re to see any significant mode shift to public transport to deal with our traffic problems. It’s difficult to see any other option providing a competitive travel time for longer journeys.”

The proposed line will run parallel to the Dandenong train line between Caulfield and Oakleigh before heading east. It will not include the existing interchange at Huntingdale station.

“There are some advantages to this proposal, especially for local travel,” Dr Morton said. “With a tram, you can have stops both at the University and at the Synchrotron up the road, but you probably wouldn’t get a train to stop at both. And it certainly delivers on the need for an improved public transport connection to Chadstone.”

“At the same time, the key risks for the project are speed and interchange capacity. Without serious attention to traffic priority, it’s not going to hold a candle to train travel as soon as you’re going more than a few stops. And the interchange at Caulfield needs to cater for potentially hundreds of people at a time without getting stuck in queues – our system’s historically been quite bad at this kind of thing.”

At present, a journey from Monash University bus interchange to Flinders Street Station can be done in 40 minutes (10 on the 601 bus and 25 on the train, assuming an average 5 minute connection). “For a tram connecting at Caulfield to match what the bus and train can do currently, it would need to achieve a 30kph average speed – which means it has to be faster than the existing 75 tram along Burwood Highway, and even faster than the Gold Coast Light Rail which is probably best-in-class in Australia for traffic priority right now.”

“Meanwhile of course, if we ever got the train the community’s been asking for, the whole trip could be cut from 40 to 30 minutes,” Dr Morton said. “That is the longer term opportunity for the whole high-tech precinct we’d be worried about losing.”

Dr Morton said the PTUA would continue to press for an integrated long-term plan for transport in the south-east, which would need to be adequately ‘future proof’.

“We’ve seen all the reports this week that public transport is slowing down and becoming less reliable,” he said. “And that’s not only trains – trams and buses are as bad or worse. That’s a direct consequence of the State not future-proofing their transport plans – where they’ve had plans at all – and not building in adequate capacity ahead of the growth that everyone could see coming decades ago.”

Media releases, Melbourne west

Public transport users call for Westgate submarine

The Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) has called for the introduction of a passenger submarine linking the bayside western suburbs of Melbourne with the CBD instead of the controversial Westgate Tunnel.

“There’s clear demand for improved public transport in Melbourne’s west,” said PTUA’s maritime spokesperson Daniel Morton. “A passenger submarine can deliver this with minimal new infrastructure.”

Previous attempts to run passenger ferries have confronted problems such as rough waters causing cancellations and delays [1], and speed limits making for slow journeys along the Yarra River section of ferry routes [2].

“A submarine would overcome the problems facing surface vessels by travelling below the water’s surface, and leave valuable sea lanes open for freight transport,” said Mr Morton.

“A submarine would also be less affected by low clearances on some of the numerous river crossings [3] already in place from the west of Melbourne that everyone forgets about whenever they say we need a ‘second’ river crossing.”

Mr Morton also pointed out that the future reach of a submarine network would benefit from rising sea levels due to carbon emissions from transport. “To start with the submarines would only serve Port Phillip Bay and the Yarra River, but future routes could extend to Elwood, the Westgate Tunnel corridor and other low-lying parts of the city.”

Mr Morton said the PTUA was optimistic the submarine plan would float given the government’s reluctance to invest in proven transport options for the west. “With very low service levels for trains and buses in the west, and virtually no trams, an unproven distraction is just the thing to capture the public’s imagination. Meanwhile the government can continue generating more motor vehicle traffic with massive motorway projects instead of providing genuine alternatives.”

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1. The Age 16/6/2014 – Ferries to Melbourne’s west ‘not a priority, not viable’

2. ABC 12/5/2016 – Commuter ferries for Melbourne’s west to sail next week

3. PTUA: Myth: There’s only one river crossing from Melbourne’s West

Media releases, Melbourne and suburbs

Victoria’s transport planning crisis: Put the public first and end partisan brawling over big infrastructure, says PTUA

The Public Transport Users Association has called for a public interest ‘circuit breaker’ to end the crisis in major infrastructure planning.

The call comes amid the scuttling of Transurban’s controversial West Gate Tunnel project by the Legislative Council, which the PTUA says is merely the latest manifestation of a planning crisis in Victoria reaching back more than a decade.

“Historically, large infrastructure projects in Victoria have proceeded with essentially bipartisan support, in accordance with some kind of plan and with all the required statutory approvals,” said PTUA President Dr Tony Morton. “Governments could also generally claim to have an electoral mandate for these projects, as Jeff Kennett certainly claimed for CityLink in 1996.”

“The problem governments have faced more recently is that to gain this kind of support, a major project has to both stack up on triple-bottom-line criteria, and reflect the wishes of the community,” Dr Morton said. “Yet of late there’s been a deplorable tendency for governments to announce huge, multi-billion dollar projects with dubious benefit-cost analyses, then scramble to sign contracts and start construction with unforeseen haste, as though they fear not getting an election mandate and want to force it as a fait accompli instead. We saw exactly that with the East West Link, and now we see it with the West Gate Tunnel. It’s little wonder these projects turn into ugly partisan brawls, that alarm Victorians at the betrayal of public trust involved.”

Dr Morton pointed to a December 2017 public letter to the Premier from 28 urban transport and planning experts, documenting their own concerns with Victoria’s planning crisis and with the West Gate Tunnel project in particular. This followed a submission by transport modelling expert William McDougall to a Senate inquiry on tollroads in July 2017, citing serious concerns with the way major road projects are assessed.

The PTUA also points to a ‘striking disconnect’ between the approach taken to the West Gate Tunnel and the Metro rail tunnel. “The Metro tunnel has been studied almost to death over three election cycles,” Dr Morton said. “But while some details can be argued over, there’s really little doubt there’s a public mandate to get on with it and there’s huge benefit for Melbourne’s west in particular. This rail tunnel will move three times as many people as the West Gate Tunnel without breaking a sweat.”

PTUA also believes similar support would exist for the original West Gate Distributor project that Labor took to the 2014 election. “As we have said all along, this project was designed to solve a problem, which was to get trucks out of residential streets. It does it at a cost one-tenth that of the West Gate Tunnel, and without putting more trucks in other residential streets, or overwhelming central Melbourne with more car traffic contrary to 30 years of planning strategy. And the government can even claim a mandate for it!”

“Changing direction is never easy. We know the road lobby really wants to be in charge of transport planning again like they were last century. But the public has different ideas now: most Aussies don’t accept that the only way to get cities to work is by turning them into Los Angeles. So the road lobby, and those who make money whenever traffic gets worse, has fallen back on the ‘market-led initiative’ process, which is basically a licence to subvert proper planning.”

To get Victoria out of the present crisis, the PTUA has renewed its call for a planning ‘reset’ on explicit public-interest criteria. “We could start by tasking Transport for Victoria with the creation of the Transport Plan actually required by Victorian legislation,” Dr Morton said. “It ought to be publicly tested in accordance with the Act, on triple-bottom-line criteria, informed by a well-supported view on what kind of city we want to be. And it needs planning experts, community groups and local councils to be actively involved in its construction, and not subject to veto by faceless men in Collins Street who answer only to the road lobby.”

“In the meantime, Premier Andrews and Minister Donellan can get those good people back to work in Yarraville building the original West Gate Distributor project,” said Dr Morton. “It’s still there in the West Gate Tunnel plans, does the job the public needs and already has community support.”