Let's can the tram (till October, at least)

btw I am not condemning anyone for being old.

Go to a Greens Party meeting and they are not young either, just more numerous than the tiny but loud CanTheTrammers.

The difference is that the Greens elders still retain their farsighted vision. Not the short term selfishness of their opponents, who love to talk about their concern for their grandchildren but want to leave them not just a huge mess but all the expense of attempting to clean up the mess. Mr Fluffy on an astronomic scale.

gooterz said :

[Tuggeranong’s Median Age of people according to ABS in 35, which is younger than Inner South Canberra (39) younger than Woden & Weston Creek (40). Tuggeranong is on average just four years older than the youngest area in ACT – Gungahlin (31). You obviously have plenty of false ideas about Tuggeranong residents as evidenced by your previous posts, it might be worthwhile to head down to Banks and take over an hour to get a bus to Civic or realise that your kids can’t get a bus to their new school after their old one was closed.

In short Rubaiyat, it’s time to live up to your own mantra and back up your comments with some evidence.

Here are the “young” CanTheTramers:

https://thepoliticalact.wordpress.com/2016/03/09/small-turnout-for-anti-light-rail-protest/

You have made my point about those condemning themselves to the remote suburbia that has trashed this “garden city” to the point where they seem afraid to venture out in what is left of it in fear of the cars they themselves demand be the sole means of transport.

gooterz said :

bigred said :

No_Nose said :

Masquara said :

The biggest unfunded expense has to be for health, accidents and deaths as well as the unfunded liabilities for environmental damage.

Wrong. Any costs related to road associated deaths or injuries and damages are covered by compulsory TPD insurance and comprehensive insurance. To infer that the rate paying members of society are burdened with these liabilities is just sensationalism. If you were hit by a car and ended up Calvary hospital, I doubt the bill would be sent to the ACT government. That is why we have insurance, continually more expensive insurance at that. If a pedestrian were to be hit by a bus, bicycle or a tram however, then tax payers would certainly fund their medical expenses.

Actually he is right. Firstly compulsory third party only covers the 3rd party in an accident, not yourself. So have a bad accident and even using you theory only half is covered.

However point two it is actually a liability insurance not medical insurance. What it covers is if you and I had an accident caused by me, you could sue me for damages for loss of income, damages, or on-going out of pocket medical expenses (rehabilitation and the like) but what it does not cover is the hospitalisation and the initial treatment, nor any expense that medicare, eg the taxpayer would otherwise cover. So again his statement about motor vehicle injury being ‘unfunded’ is pretty spot on.

Usually, if there is a negotiated settlement with any CTP provider, the costs of health care (including hospitalisation, ambulance etc) related to the accident which is provided by the commonwealth are deducted and paid back to the commonwealth by the CTP provider at the time of settlement so the claiment is never left out of pocket.

I repeat again, OUT OF POCKET healthcare is covered. IN PATIENT healthcare is not.

If it was then the yearly charge would be a bit higher than the $700 odd we in the ACT currently pay.

bigred said :

No_Nose said :

Masquara said :

The biggest unfunded expense has to be for health, accidents and deaths as well as the unfunded liabilities for environmental damage.

Wrong. Any costs related to road associated deaths or injuries and damages are covered by compulsory TPD insurance and comprehensive insurance. To infer that the rate paying members of society are burdened with these liabilities is just sensationalism. If you were hit by a car and ended up Calvary hospital, I doubt the bill would be sent to the ACT government. That is why we have insurance, continually more expensive insurance at that. If a pedestrian were to be hit by a bus, bicycle or a tram however, then tax payers would certainly fund their medical expenses.

Actually he is right. Firstly compulsory third party only covers the 3rd party in an accident, not yourself. So have a bad accident and even using you theory only half is covered.

However point two it is actually a liability insurance not medical insurance. What it covers is if you and I had an accident caused by me, you could sue me for damages for loss of income, damages, or on-going out of pocket medical expenses (rehabilitation and the like) but what it does not cover is the hospitalisation and the initial treatment, nor any expense that medicare, eg the taxpayer would otherwise cover. So again his statement about motor vehicle injury being ‘unfunded’ is pretty spot on.

In 2012-2013 there were under 30,000 motor vehicle accident victims presented to EDs in Australia, whilst over 50,000 heart attack cases were admitted to hospitals. This is out of a total 6million plus hospital cases. To say it is a huge problem is a bit of an understatement, I mean half a percent is not a big figure is it? But when one gets emotional about an issue, it becomes such a BIG issue.

bikhet said :

For a good laugh view General Motors’ “New Horizons”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cRoaPLvQx0

“Cars smoothly merging in to 50, 75, 100 mph traffic!” ROTFL!

No mention of the dead urban centres they caused, horrendous noise, pollution, morbidly obese population living so far away from work that they spend hours getting there and back every day, certainly not the massive expense to build the ever more congested roads eating up and dividing the land, and never ever mentioning the unfunded deaths, life long injuries (particularly to children) and the ultimate global damage.

Just think autonomous in front of every mention of “car”.

For a good laugh view General Motors’ “New Horizons”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cRoaPLvQx0

“Cars smoothly merging in to 50, 75, 100 mph traffic!” ROTFL!

No mention of the dead urban centres they caused, horrendous noise, pollution, morbidly obese population living so far away from work that they spend hours getting there and back every day, certainly not the massive expense to build the ever more congested roads eating up and dividing the land, and never ever mentioning the unfunded deaths, life long injuries (particularly to children) and the ultimate global damage.

bikhet said :

MERC600 said :

bulldog600 said :

Actually no, I wouldn’t support extensions elsewhere, except the Parl triangle and Kingston to the railway station.

The reason being the Flemmington Road and Northborne Ave corridors, PLUS the triangle and the Kingston developments are the only parts of Canberra that have the density to justify it.

Mentioned many times before but to Woden or Belco, unless Adelaide Ave and Belconnen way were turned in on themselves no chance of getting the density required to justify it. And Tuggeranong, never ever ever for the same reason.

So, does this confirm that the ACT Labor/Green’s Gov’t “plan” to roll out the tram further than that is a lie – as well as unaffordable ? I would think so.

I don’t know if it is a a lie, I just don’t agree it would be viable. I am not the government nor speak for the government.

Whereas on the Flemmington Road and Northborne Ave corridor I have always stated it is the only route where it is viable (plus extensions to the triangle and Kingston). Not hard to understand and is what I have always said.

Just because a tram may go past your front door doesn’t mean you will use it, especially in Canberra which was designed for cars.
Has anyone done a survey on how many people along Flemington Road intend to use the tram?

That is quite a desperate argument really.

And YES Canberra WAS designed for cars, that is the 1960/70’s NCDC failure I spoke about before. The times have changed and they need to change. Our reliance, and note I said reliance not need for cars needs to reduce and transit corridors and higher density urban living is one way to do that.

So, what you are really saying is no, there wasn’t a survey undertaken.

bj_ACT said :

Masquara said :

JC said :

For those that support the tram? would you still sport the Labor party If light rail extensions were proposed for the rest of Canberra in future elections to win those seats?

Actually no, I wouldn’t support extensions elsewhere, except the Parl triangle and Kingston to the railway station.

The reason being the Flemmington Road and Northborne Ave corridors, PLUS the triangle and the Kingston developments are the only parts of Canberra that have the density to justify it.

Mentioned many times before but to Woden or Belco, unless Adelaide Ave and Belconnen way were turned in on themselves no chance of getting the density required to justify it. And Tuggeranong, never ever ever for the same reason.

I understood that the original idea of the tram was to get cars of the road; population density wasn’t a factor.
Then this “value added” notion of development along the corridors was added.
Please clarify what you are trying to say.

You understood wrong. The idea is to tighten up Canberra to reduce sprawl and to put in place a non-polluting transport system that obviates more heavily trafficked, noisy and polluting roads before it is too late.

Every city as it grows increases density, it is already well under way, and builds mass transport systems to get people down the main routes.

This totally novel problem has NEVER occurred before, and the solution has NEVER been implemented before!

I just came back from Broken Hill. That was a real eye-opener. It is a city with obvious problems and inevitable changes. Yet what was painfully apparent, and was explained by locals, is what it really suffers from is having an old population with old people’s thinking that condemns even the most minor and obvious solutions out of hand. They are their own worst enemies. Tuggeranong is our Broken Hill.

You keep saying Tuggeranong is full of old people, but on average it’s younger than a lot of other parts of Canberra. Tuggers probably has far more young people than where you live.

Tuggeranong’s Median Age of people according to ABS in 35, which is younger than Inner South Canberra (39) younger than Woden & Weston Creek (40). Tuggeranong is on average just four years older than the youngest area in ACT – Gungahlin (31). You obviously have plenty of false ideas about Tuggeranong residents as evidenced by your previous posts, it might be worthwhile to head down to Banks and take over an hour to get a bus to Civic or realise that your kids can’t get a bus to their new school after their old one was closed.

In short Rubaiyat, it’s time to live up to your own mantra and back up your comments with some evidence.

bigred said :

No_Nose said :

Masquara said :

The biggest unfunded expense has to be for health, accidents and deaths as well as the unfunded liabilities for environmental damage.

Wrong. Any costs related to road associated deaths or injuries and damages are covered by compulsory TPD insurance and comprehensive insurance. To infer that the rate paying members of society are burdened with these liabilities is just sensationalism. If you were hit by a car and ended up Calvary hospital, I doubt the bill would be sent to the ACT government. That is why we have insurance, continually more expensive insurance at that. If a pedestrian were to be hit by a bus, bicycle or a tram however, then tax payers would certainly fund their medical expenses.

Actually he is right. Firstly compulsory third party only covers the 3rd party in an accident, not yourself. So have a bad accident and even using you theory only half is covered.

However point two it is actually a liability insurance not medical insurance. What it covers is if you and I had an accident caused by me, you could sue me for damages for loss of income, damages, or on-going out of pocket medical expenses (rehabilitation and the like) but what it does not cover is the hospitalisation and the initial treatment, nor any expense that medicare, eg the taxpayer would otherwise cover. So again his statement about motor vehicle injury being ‘unfunded’ is pretty spot on.

Usually, if there is a negotiated settlement with any CTP provider, the costs of health care (including hospitalisation, ambulance etc) related to the accident which is provided by the commonwealth are deducted and paid back to the commonwealth by the CTP provider at the time of settlement so the claiment is never left out of pocket.

MERC600 said :

bulldog600 said :

Actually no, I wouldn’t support extensions elsewhere, except the Parl triangle and Kingston to the railway station.

The reason being the Flemmington Road and Northborne Ave corridors, PLUS the triangle and the Kingston developments are the only parts of Canberra that have the density to justify it.

Mentioned many times before but to Woden or Belco, unless Adelaide Ave and Belconnen way were turned in on themselves no chance of getting the density required to justify it. And Tuggeranong, never ever ever for the same reason.

So, does this confirm that the ACT Labor/Green’s Gov’t “plan” to roll out the tram further than that is a lie – as well as unaffordable ? I would think so.

I don’t know if it is a a lie, I just don’t agree it would be viable. I am not the government nor speak for the government.

Whereas on the Flemmington Road and Northborne Ave corridor I have always stated it is the only route where it is viable (plus extensions to the triangle and Kingston). Not hard to understand and is what I have always said.

Just because a tram may go past your front door doesn’t mean you will use it, especially in Canberra which was designed for cars.
Has anyone done a survey on how many people along Flemington Road intend to use the tram?

What people say they will use now will likely vary once the tram is in and they find out how convenient it is. I would certainly use it if it went past my door. But then, unlike some, I use buses, even though I must walk a few blocks to catch one. It’s a little light exercise that doesn’t hurt me. I will likely also occasionally use the tram, even though I don’t live near it.
I saw plans by Walter Burley Griffin that had a tram (on the south side of the lake) running close to where I live. That would be very nice.

No_Nose said :

Masquara said :

The biggest unfunded expense has to be for health, accidents and deaths as well as the unfunded liabilities for environmental damage.

Wrong. Any costs related to road associated deaths or injuries and damages are covered by compulsory TPD insurance and comprehensive insurance. To infer that the rate paying members of society are burdened with these liabilities is just sensationalism. If you were hit by a car and ended up Calvary hospital, I doubt the bill would be sent to the ACT government. That is why we have insurance, continually more expensive insurance at that. If a pedestrian were to be hit by a bus, bicycle or a tram however, then tax payers would certainly fund their medical expenses.

Actually he is right. Firstly compulsory third party only covers the 3rd party in an accident, not yourself. So have a bad accident and even using you theory only half is covered.

However point two it is actually a liability insurance not medical insurance. What it covers is if you and I had an accident caused by me, you could sue me for damages for loss of income, damages, or on-going out of pocket medical expenses (rehabilitation and the like) but what it does not cover is the hospitalisation and the initial treatment, nor any expense that medicare, eg the taxpayer would otherwise cover. So again his statement about motor vehicle injury being ‘unfunded’ is pretty spot on.

MERC600 said :

bulldog600 said :

Actually no, I wouldn’t support extensions elsewhere, except the Parl triangle and Kingston to the railway station.

The reason being the Flemmington Road and Northborne Ave corridors, PLUS the triangle and the Kingston developments are the only parts of Canberra that have the density to justify it.

Mentioned many times before but to Woden or Belco, unless Adelaide Ave and Belconnen way were turned in on themselves no chance of getting the density required to justify it. And Tuggeranong, never ever ever for the same reason.

So, does this confirm that the ACT Labor/Green’s Gov’t “plan” to roll out the tram further than that is a lie – as well as unaffordable ? I would think so.

I don’t know if it is a a lie, I just don’t agree it would be viable. I am not the government nor speak for the government.

Whereas on the Flemmington Road and Northborne Ave corridor I have always stated it is the only route where it is viable (plus extensions to the triangle and Kingston). Not hard to understand and is what I have always said.

Just because a tram may go past your front door doesn’t mean you will use it, especially in Canberra which was designed for cars.
Has anyone done a survey on how many people along Flemington Road intend to use the tram?

That is quite a desperate argument really.

And YES Canberra WAS designed for cars, that is the 1960/70’s NCDC failure I spoke about before. The times have changed and they need to change. Our reliance, and note I said reliance not need for cars needs to reduce and transit corridors and higher density urban living is one way to do that.

bulldog600 said :

Actually no, I wouldn’t support extensions elsewhere, except the Parl triangle and Kingston to the railway station.

The reason being the Flemmington Road and Northborne Ave corridors, PLUS the triangle and the Kingston developments are the only parts of Canberra that have the density to justify it.

Mentioned many times before but to Woden or Belco, unless Adelaide Ave and Belconnen way were turned in on themselves no chance of getting the density required to justify it. And Tuggeranong, never ever ever for the same reason.

So, does this confirm that the ACT Labor/Green’s Gov’t “plan” to roll out the tram further than that is a lie – as well as unaffordable ? I would think so.

I don’t know if it is a a lie, I just don’t agree it would be viable. I am not the government nor speak for the government.

Whereas on the Flemmington Road and Northborne Ave corridor I have always stated it is the only route where it is viable (plus extensions to the triangle and Kingston). Not hard to understand and is what I have always said.

Just because a tram may go past your front door doesn’t mean you will use it, especially in Canberra which was designed for cars.
Has anyone done a survey on how many people along Flemington Road intend to use the tram?

Masquara said :

The biggest unfunded expense has to be for health, accidents and deaths as well as the unfunded liabilities for environmental damage.

Wrong. Any costs related to road associated deaths or injuries and damages are covered by compulsory TPD insurance and comprehensive insurance. To infer that the rate paying members of society are burdened with these liabilities is just sensationalism. If you were hit by a car and ended up Calvary hospital, I doubt the bill would be sent to the ACT government. That is why we have insurance, continually more expensive insurance at that. If a pedestrian were to be hit by a bus, bicycle or a tram however, then tax payers would certainly fund their medical expenses.

Masquara said :

Having had property in Sydney I can also vouch for the impact cars and roads have on assets. You can massively slash the value of property affected by traffic. Residential properties close to public transport on the other hand get a massive boost.

In Canberra there is no difference between being close to public transport and being close to roads, because they are both interlinked and you cannot have one without the other. Major arterial roads here are separated from housing by reserves, dirt mounds and even tall noise barriers. Where can you buy a house that fronts a multi lane 80km/h zone? Nowhere. Unimproved land values show no such correlation either, but instead they are valued on the size of the block. Of course the suburbs nearer to town centers and shops are more valuable, but public transport, or access to it, has no bearing on housing cost in Canberra. Apples and oranges.

Masquara said :

The autonomous car website is unfortunately impenetrable making wild and extremely improbable assumption to come with unbelievable conclusions, without showing the full figures and calculations.

Sounds just like the Capital Metro and A.C.T Light Rail websites….
But how can you judge the figures on a technology that hasn’t even been put into use on a mass scale? Before it has even been trialed and results have shown its viability, you put it in the same basket as current transport models. You talk about Canthetrammers being scared of committing to something “new” such as the tram, but you are just as frightened of newer, evolving technology such as driver-less vehicles. At least autonomous cars can be introduced gradually as society can afford to purchase it, voluntarily as it is adopted through individual choice. The tram imposes a massive cost burden on everyone, including future generations, with no say on its implementation. The biggest drawback with Trams is their lack of flexibility and reliance on road transport to get passengers to and from the tram corridor. As you have said yourself, it will not reduce automobile ownership, so the environmental and financial benefits are not so clear cut.
Buses will still be needed to ferry passengers around the suburbs, transporting them for even shorter distances than before, carrying fewer passengers than before, which will not make their efficiency or running costs any prettier than other models. Autonomous cars can eliminate the need for both trams and buses, putting public transport costs directly back into the purse of the consumers instead of the tax payer.

Masquara said :

JC said :

For those that support the tram? would you still sport the Labor party If light rail extensions were proposed for the rest of Canberra in future elections to win those seats?

Actually no, I wouldn’t support extensions elsewhere, except the Parl triangle and Kingston to the railway station.

The reason being the Flemmington Road and Northborne Ave corridors, PLUS the triangle and the Kingston developments are the only parts of Canberra that have the density to justify it.

Mentioned many times before but to Woden or Belco, unless Adelaide Ave and Belconnen way were turned in on themselves no chance of getting the density required to justify it. And Tuggeranong, never ever ever for the same reason.

I understood that the original idea of the tram was to get cars of the road; population density wasn’t a factor.
Then this “value added” notion of development along the corridors was added.
Please clarify what you are trying to say.

You understood wrong. The idea is to tighten up Canberra to reduce sprawl and to put in place a non-polluting transport system that obviates more heavily trafficked, noisy and polluting roads before it is too late.

Every city as it grows increases density, it is already well under way, and builds mass transport systems to get people down the main routes.

This totally novel problem has NEVER occurred before, and the solution has NEVER been implemented before!

I just came back from Broken Hill. That was a real eye-opener. It is a city with obvious problems and inevitable changes. Yet what was painfully apparent, and was explained by locals, is what it really suffers from is having an old population with old people’s thinking that condemns even the most minor and obvious solutions out of hand. They are their own worst enemies. Tuggeranong is our Broken Hill.

bulldog600 said :

Actually no, I wouldn’t support extensions elsewhere, except the Parl triangle and Kingston to the railway station.

The reason being the Flemmington Road and Northborne Ave corridors, PLUS the triangle and the Kingston developments are the only parts of Canberra that have the density to justify it.

Mentioned many times before but to Woden or Belco, unless Adelaide Ave and Belconnen way were turned in on themselves no chance of getting the density required to justify it. And Tuggeranong, never ever ever for the same reason.

So, does this confirm that the ACT Labor/Green’s Gov’t “plan” to roll out the tram further than that is a lie – as well as unaffordable ? I would think so.

I don’t know if it is a a lie, I just don’t agree it would be viable. I am not the government nor speak for the government.

Whereas on the Flemmington Road and Northborne Ave corridor I have always stated it is the only route where it is viable (plus extensions to the triangle and Kingston). Not hard to understand and is what I have always said.

JC said :

Masquara said :

I understood that the original idea of the tram was to get cars of the road; population density wasn’t a factor.
Then this “value added” notion of development along the corridors was added.
Please clarify what you are trying to say.

You are confusing me with someone else I am afraid. I am not anti car*, I see the value of them, I am however pro public transport.

Re your comment about density, again search the boards and I have been clear that population density is important. However the bit you fail to take in is the density that is important is that of the service corridor NOT the ACT as a whole, which is the barrow you push to justify your narrow minded view.

And re the Flemmington Road/Northborne Ave corridors even the earliest plans for light rail, which if I recall where when Kate Carnell (Liebral Party) was in charge, incorporated the Flemmington Road corridor as a high density commuting corridor. So not sure what your on about inferring development of this corridor is a last minute thought to justify light rail. The whole thing was designed as a commuting corridor!

In fact I think the corridor and the length of time said corridor has been discussed kind of shows that this was not some last minute brain fart, but has been reasonably well planned for a number of years including being started by a Liebral government. Indeed Flemmington Road (the newer bit) itself has since inception been planned as a high density commuting corridor and the median strip left wide enough to accommodate light rail.

JC said :

Masquara said :

I understood that the original idea of the tram was to get cars of the road; population density wasn’t a factor.
Then this “value added” notion of development along the corridors was added.
Please clarify what you are trying to say.

You are confusing me with someone else I am afraid. I am not anti car*, I see the value of them, I am however pro public transport.

Re your comment about density, again search the boards and I have been clear that population density is important. However the bit you fail to take in is the density that is important is that of the service corridor NOT the ACT as a whole, which is the barrow you push to justify your narrow minded view.

And re the Flemmington Road/Northborne Ave corridors even the earliest plans for light rail, which if I recall where when Kate Carnell (Liebral Party) was in charge, incorporated the Flemmington Road corridor as a high density commuting corridor. So not sure what your on about inferring development of this corridor is a last minute thought to justify light rail. The whole thing was designed as a commuting corridor!

In fact I think the corridor and the length of time said corridor has been discussed kind of shows that this was not some last minute brain fart, but has been reasonably well planned for a number of years including being started by a Liebral government. Indeed Flemmington Road (the newer bit) itself has since inception been planned as a high density commuting corridor and the median strip left wide enough to accommodate light rail.

So, what is causing the congestion that the light rail project is going to alleviate?

Actually no, I wouldn’t support extensions elsewhere, except the Parl triangle and Kingston to the railway station.

The reason being the Flemmington Road and Northborne Ave corridors, PLUS the triangle and the Kingston developments are the only parts of Canberra that have the density to justify it.

Mentioned many times before but to Woden or Belco, unless Adelaide Ave and Belconnen way were turned in on themselves no chance of getting the density required to justify it. And Tuggeranong, never ever ever for the same reason.

So, does this confirm that the ACT Labor/Green’s Gov’t “plan” to roll out the tram further than that is a lie – as well as unaffordable ? I would think so.

Masquara said :

I understood that the original idea of the tram was to get cars of the road; population density wasn’t a factor.
Then this “value added” notion of development along the corridors was added.
Please clarify what you are trying to say.

You are confusing me with someone else I am afraid. I am not anti car*, I see the value of them, I am however pro public transport.

Re your comment about density, again search the boards and I have been clear that population density is important. However the bit you fail to take in is the density that is important is that of the service corridor NOT the ACT as a whole, which is the barrow you push to justify your narrow minded view.

And re the Flemmington Road/Northborne Ave corridors even the earliest plans for light rail, which if I recall where when Kate Carnell (Liebral Party) was in charge, incorporated the Flemmington Road corridor as a high density commuting corridor. So not sure what your on about inferring development of this corridor is a last minute thought to justify light rail. The whole thing was designed as a commuting corridor!

In fact I think the corridor and the length of time said corridor has been discussed kind of shows that this was not some last minute brain fart, but has been reasonably well planned for a number of years including being started by a Liebral government. Indeed Flemmington Road (the newer bit) itself has since inception been planned as a high density commuting corridor and the median strip left wide enough to accommodate light rail.

JC said :

For those that support the tram? would you still sport the Labor party If light rail extensions were proposed for the rest of Canberra in future elections to win those seats?

Actually no, I wouldn’t support extensions elsewhere, except the Parl triangle and Kingston to the railway station.

The reason being the Flemmington Road and Northborne Ave corridors, PLUS the triangle and the Kingston developments are the only parts of Canberra that have the density to justify it.

Mentioned many times before but to Woden or Belco, unless Adelaide Ave and Belconnen way were turned in on themselves no chance of getting the density required to justify it. And Tuggeranong, never ever ever for the same reason.

I understood that the original idea of the tram was to get cars of the road; population density wasn’t a factor.
Then this “value added” notion of development along the corridors was added.
Please clarify what you are trying to say.

JC said :

For those that support the tram? would you still sport the Labor party If light rail extensions were proposed for the rest of Canberra in future elections to win those seats?

Actually no, I wouldn’t support extensions elsewhere, except the Parl triangle and Kingston to the railway station.

The reason being the Flemmington Road and Northborne Ave corridors, PLUS the triangle and the Kingston developments are the only parts of Canberra that have the density to justify it.

Mentioned many times before but to Woden or Belco, unless Adelaide Ave and Belconnen way were turned in on themselves no chance of getting the density required to justify it. And Tuggeranong, never ever ever for the same reason.

JC said :

For those that support the tram? would you still sport the Labor party If light rail extensions were proposed for the rest of Canberra in future elections to win those seats?

Yep!

Starting with the extension to Russell along Constitution Avenue which has enormous potential for redevelopment, and then a loop around Kingston, Manuka and Barton back to the City.

Anywhere at all that it works. If it doesn’t, don’t do it, but start on the urban plan that reigns in the senseless urban sprawl and creates transport corridors for the inevitable massive population growth of Canberra.

If you are obsessed with how long it takes you to get to work, IGNORING EVERYTHING ELSE, don’t make everything so far apart.

Seems blindingly obvious. Not just to me but many others as well.

For those that support the tram? would you still sport the Labor party If light rail extensions were proposed for the rest of Canberra in future elections to win those seats?

The light rail project fails the separation of powers or trias politica principle, which has been in use since ancient Rome. At the moment we seem to have a chief minister and other ministers making decisions about Canberra, its laws and investments directly. There seems to be little to no oversight other than general elections which happen every 4 years.

In setting up Capital metro to design and build light rail, they failed to give adequate scope for capital metro to actually look at any other option besides light rail. As evidenced by the 1billion + contract going to choice between only 2 contenders of the tender process.

Does Capital metro actually have the independence to say, nah I don’t think this is a cost effective use of the money or is it solely setup to construct an election promise under the guise of an ACT authority?

It can be seen time and time again with the MOU with the unions and the Labor staffer that allegedly leaked information to the unions.

If the ministers were true ministers they wouldn’t need any contact with the unions at all. Everything should be one step away from them.

To make things worse for the citizens of Canberra we have no local authority, we have only a combined local and state government, so with that less subjective testing of governance it would put greater need on having the separation of powers than the other states.

What is capital metros budget going to be for building the rest of the network as promised in the 2012 election?

Who will fix this mess?

montana said :

Grail said :

*yawn* stopping light rail is still a thing? Even after it’s been taken to elections, massive tranches of planning commenced and build contracts signed?

It’s happening. Come to terms with it.

It doesn’t matter that the government has a so called mandate, the Negligence on display, of ignoring a business case for the ACT BRT that is meant to provide $4 return on costs for every $1 spent, instead of only $1.20 for the light rail, to give you context of the difference, it is 2000% difference in return, for the same spend, with out increasing unimproved values along the corridor for speculators, that will never pay the tripling or quadrupling of the rates charged on the long term residents, owners and renters. it is pure arrogance for the Labor government to pretend they have a mandate, when they only formed government, because of the Greens member. so Yawn at the lack of intellectual depth in economics. and i think you have bought and sold, you gobbled it up hook line and sinker.

The much boasted payback of 1.2 is over the period of the contract, presumably 20 years. This 1.2 comes down to a 1% return per annum, far less than inflation, let alone a reasonable return on investment.

1.2 is a ratio. How have you managed to change it into something else over a period of time?

JC said :

Mike_Drop said :

pink little birdie said :

You, however, seem to be almost religiously against making the beneficiaries of the tram pay for it.

Strange that.

Extremely strange because I have said EXACTLY the opposite.

Repeatedly.

Every time I’ve asked whether you and other tram supporters would back a property levy along the tram route to capture some of the value uplift to pay for the tram, nothing but silence.

Maybe I’ve missed it and you can point out where you’ve agreed to such a proposal, maybe you’ve got an alternative idea that would have the same effect, maybe you can just confirm general support for the principle of user pays that you seem so keen to apply to car users?

7 posts from you today on this very thread, yet still no answer.

As I said, strange that.

dungfungus said :

Excuse me whilst I duck out to see my bank manager about all the trips to Disneyland, the iPhones, iPad, computers that I play games on and watch all the porn on, 150cm curved screen 3D TV in the new south facing air conditioned Macmansion with huge kitchen (despite I have no clue how to cook and eat at Maccas) with all the lights on all day that fills my block in Googong, and the 3 “family” 2 tonne black SUVs with all the air-con, bullbars and lying fuel consumption that I “need”.

When I get back we’ll pick up where we left off on the outrageous, irresponsible and unneeded government debt that has kept our terrible economy ticking over despite the GFC.

You forgot to include the ski chalets.

Let’s take the discussion forward based on both facts and concrete proposals for how to make our transport infrastructure better.

Got no argument with that.

I hope that isn’t the usual total ignoring of the bad urban planning and relentless pollution that are the real things needing fixing.

btw I haven’t responded yet to your post above because I am still trying to find all the missing data, that seems to be remarkably hard to find considering how many departments are supposed to be gathering and analysing it all.

eg Why is your report so out of date? and why does it have such gaping holes? No GST data for most of the years, no mention that the ACT does not collect tolls, the curious case of the missing $200 million GDE at that time, the curious misalignment of data between income/expenditure for Australia/States & Territories that makes it so hard to directly compare?

Grail said :

*yawn* stopping light rail is still a thing? Even after it’s been taken to elections, massive tranches of planning commenced and build contracts signed?

It’s happening. Come to terms with it.

It doesn’t matter that the government has a so called mandate, the Negligence on display, of ignoring a business case for the ACT BRT that is meant to provide $4 return on costs for every $1 spent, instead of only $1.20 for the light rail, to give you context of the difference, it is 2000% difference in return, for the same spend, with out increasing unimproved values along the corridor for speculators, that will never pay the tripling or quadrupling of the rates charged on the long term residents, owners and renters. it is pure arrogance for the Labor government to pretend they have a mandate, when they only formed government, because of the Greens member. so Yawn at the lack of intellectual depth in economics. and i think you have bought and sold, you gobbled it up hook line and sinker.

The much boasted payback of 1.2 is over the period of the contract, presumably 20 years. This 1.2 comes down to a 1% return per annum, far less than inflation, let alone a reasonable return on investment.

3. If trams are so useful & efficient why does Metro’s site state that trams will only run from (I think the figures are) 6.00 am till 7.00 pm? (metro’s FAQs). Trams are very efficient in peak hours when full (most people standing), but less efficient than a petrol car, let alone an electric car on “green power”. So we have this huge investment standing idle about half the time when weekends are taken into account.

CapitalMetro’s website has (like their case) been put together by ACT Public Servants who seem to struggle with most things.

the 0600 – 1900 seems so obviously wrong, I emailed and got this reply:

“Thank you for your enquiry about Canberra’s light rail.

The hours of operation are:

Monday – Thursday the light rail will run from 6am – 11.30pm
Friday from 6am – 1am
Saturday from 6am – 1am
Sunday from 8am – 11.30pm”

Your concern about misallocation of a huge investment standing idle is valid and needs to include this huge investment in cars that fills far too much roads, inefficiently, in peak hours, roads that are underutilised outside peak hours, and hundreds of thousands of vehicles that clutter up our cities a walloping 95% of the time, even worse with weekends taken into account.

When AND IF most people actually own and use electric or autonomous cars we will be able to determine the supposed environmental benefits of vehicles that consume 20x the energy to move their occupants, too far distances across Canberra’s urban sprawl. Whatever their fuel they will still cut off large parts of city, produce large volumes of noise (most car noise when not accelerating is tyre on road) and add to the problems of our indolent sit-down culture.

No mention of you “all alternatives proposal” (one! 😀 )?

Have you gone cold (as has Israel) on the tree penetrating fantasy Disney ride you pushed for so long?

Grail said :

*yawn* stopping light rail is still a thing? Even after it’s been taken to elections, massive tranches of planning commenced and build contracts signed?

It’s happening. Come to terms with it.

It doesn’t matter that the government has a so called mandate, the Negligence on display, of ignoring a business case for the ACT BRT that is meant to provide $4 return on costs for every $1 spent, instead of only $1.20 for the light rail, to give you context of the difference, it is 2000% difference in return, for the same spend, with out increasing unimproved values along the corridor for speculators, that will never pay the tripling or quadrupling of the rates charged on the long term residents, owners and renters. it is pure arrogance for the Labor government to pretend they have a mandate, when they only formed government, because of the Greens member. so Yawn at the lack of intellectual depth in economics. and i think you have bought and sold, you gobbled it up hook line and sinker.

But on the persistent logic (?) of the posters here everything government touches will cost twice as much.

So the BRT will cost over a $ billion to produce a rubbish outcome of more buses that are proven not to work, see our present declining PT usage, and like the Liberal’s Clayton’s NBN will end up a huge waste to change nothing and have to be replaced with the original proposal.

Amazing how hard the conservatives will fight to waste money their way. If posters really have to come up with convoluted incoherence, why not go use it on the NSW Liberal’s LR?

KentFitch asserted:
—
Latest comprehensive data I can find show that total road related revenue greatly exceeds total expenditure on roads:

https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2011/files/is_040.pdf

Total over last 3 years reported, 2006-09:
expenditure: $41.5b
revenue: $48.6b

So in terms of direct revenue and expenditure, roads more than pay their way, and indeed, at first blush road revenue seems to subsidise other government expenditure.

But the above amounts are a side-show compared to the real economic costs and benefits of transport infrastructure …
—

Then Rubaiyat wondered:
—
…
Where do you get $48.6 billion revenue from?

Selected taxes (fuel etc) registration and licence fees stamp duty FBT GST = $26.7 billion and I dispute GST as being valid, it is a general revenue component like everything else that GST is charged on. So really just $22.7 billion.
…
—

Then KentFitch replied:

See Table T6, page 6 of the BITRE report available here: https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2011/files/is_040.pdf

Add the “TOTAL REVENUE (GST and FBT not included)” for 2006-7, 7-8 and 8-9 (which are these3 figures in $millions, current prices at date of report: 16,433.1 16,591.7 15,585.9) to get $48.6 billion.

As the BITRE report clearly states, GST and FBT revenue raised from road transport is not included in these totals because a complete series of GST and FBT data was not available when the report was produced. If they were included however, they would represent an additional amount of somewhere between $17 – $24 billion over the 3 years. But even without GST and FBT, revenue raised from road transport exceeds direct expenditure on roads over this three year period.

Infrastructure Australia’s 2013 discussion paper “Road Pricing and Transport Infrastructure Funding: Reform Pathways for Australia” makes a case for reform of transport infrastructure funding and notes (2009-10 data):

“For example, the current approach sees road users charged some $20.4 billion in road related taxes and charges; but sees only $16.9 billion reinvested into roads and bridges.”

This report also notes that:

“The current [pricing model] entrenches inefficiency, because it does not
include a transparent mechanism to efficiently allocate capacity on
the existing road network. The excessive demand for capital city
motorways during the morning peak, and the under-utilisation of
these corridors during other times, is an everyday example of how
existing pricing arrangements fail to manage traffic demand”

Let me emphasise again: such figures are only part of the picture. I mention them because of several comments implying, in aggregate, that there is a financial subsidy for roads which cannot be supported by the well-documented and analysed financial facts, which hence open the authors of such claims and their arguments to ridicule and dismissal. That’s fine if you just want to rant to the similarly uninformed choir, but you’re going to be ignored, and hence you’re not going to change anything.

We don’t (thankfully, yet at least) make investment decisions on schools and hospitals and courts based on a simplistic analysis of direct revenue and expenditure. Our current transport infrastructure imposes huge not-so-obvious economic and social costs (at least $30b pa alone for health/safety) but also enables huge economic and social benefits.

Let’s take the discussion forward based on both facts and concrete proposals for how to make our transport infrastructure better.

Grail said :

*yawn* stopping light rail is still a thing? Even after it’s been taken to elections, massive tranches of planning commenced and build contracts signed?

It’s happening. Come to terms with it.

It doesn’t matter that the government has a so called mandate, the Negligence on display, of ignoring a business case for the ACT BRT that is meant to provide $4 return on costs for every $1 spent, instead of only $1.20 for the light rail, to give you context of the difference, it is 2000% difference in return, for the same spend, with out increasing unimproved values along the corridor for speculators, that will never pay the tripling or quadrupling of the rates charged on the long term residents, owners and renters. it is pure arrogance for the Labor government to pretend they have a mandate, when they only formed government, because of the Greens member. so Yawn at the lack of intellectual depth in economics. and i think you have bought and sold, you gobbled it up hook line and sinker.

I believe there is a happy medium for the light rail contract. you mention 2 ways to proceed being proceed with the contract or tear up the contract with a penalty. Being that the contract is locked tight, this doesn’t mean The ACT Government doesn’t retain the rights with in the contract, where by (in simple terms) amend the outcome of the works in the contract. To align it with the BRT business case that provides around 200mil in return on costs (Lower rates and taxes for territory residents). Cancellation is a political projection of strength in the contract negotiation, where as if we have a New Liberal Government after OCT the better way would be to re align the project for the BRT, ACT wide. this may end up becoming too much of a logistical nightmare for the contractor, and maybe they pull out instead of us, and the contractor, which is clearly a special interest relationship with labor will face financial penalty.

Excuse me whilst I duck out to see my bank manager about all the trips to Disneyland, the iPhones, iPad, computers that I play games on and watch all the porn on, 150cm curved screen 3D TV in the new south facing air conditioned Macmansion with huge kitchen (despite I have no clue how to cook and eat at Maccas) with all the lights on all day that fills my block in Googong, and the 3 “family” 2 tonne black SUVs with all the air-con, bullbars and lying fuel consumption that I “need”.

When I get back we’ll pick up where we left off on the outrageous, irresponsible and unneeded government debt that has kept our terrible economy ticking over despite the GFC.

rommeldog56 said :

This is what the hypocrites should be concerned about:

http://www.australiandebtclock.com.au

http://www.creditcardfinder.com.au/australias-personal-debt-reported-as-highest-in-the-world.html

Vastly greater than government debt, because Australians love blowing money they don’t have on negatively geared bloated Macmansions in far off suburbia with 3 cars for every man woman and child, because they “need” them.

…should be 3 cars for every 4 man woman and child.

This is what the hypocrites should be concerned about:

http://www.australiandebtclock.com.au

http://www.creditcardfinder.com.au/australias-personal-debt-reported-as-highest-in-the-world.html

Vastly greater than government debt, because Australians love blowing money they don’t have on negatively geared bloated Macmansions in far off suburbia with 3 cars for every man woman and child, because they “need” them.

Anyone one on this website, apparently so concerned about debt, who does not use credit cards, have or had mortgages or paid cash for their cars, or if they run a business not have overdrafts?

Or is it all chin music?

JC said :

dungfungus said :

dungfungus said :

carnardly said :

Perrin said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

HenryBG said :

Well said, Greg.
The Territory’s finances are on the edge of a precipice right now and any further cost blowouts on the light rail or the Constitution Avenue cock-up together with a drop in revenue could tip us over the edge.

The Constitution Ave upgrade is Federally funded and pray tell what is the cock-up?

The received the money in 2011 and started work in 2013.
It’s now 2016 and still not finished, that’s the cock-up.
Is it still within the budgeted amount? We don’t know, do we.
How will they get the trams to run on time with a track record like this?
Still waiting for your comment on the state of the Territory’s finances.

Where was I meant to comment on the finances? But AAA credit rating by S&P’s I would say things are not as bad as you make out and far far far from Greece.

You know who else thought that a AAA credit rating by S&P meant anything meaningful? Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, HBOS, Royal Bank of Scotland, Goldman Sachs, Wayne Swan.. It’s a long list.

You need to move on from the “Labor Handbook of Fiscal Irresponsibility 2009”. It’s been shown to be a dud.

All those organisations were up to their eyeballs in hiding the true risk of the debits to artificially keep the credit ratings to in turn continue to receive investments, back of course by the credit rating agencies.

Now unless you are saying the ACT Government (and Swan when Federal Treasurer) are cooking the books like those companies were, I don’t see the relevance to the comment. If the investments that the others had been peddling had been correctly assessed the GFC wouldn’t have happened.</b?

Actually most of them weren't "cooking the books". They were just drastically over-leveraged. But that's beside the point.

You said it yourself – if S&P had actually rated the investments correctly things might have been different. By they didn't – either due to negligence or incompetence (I suspect it was generous helpings of both). The relevance is obvious; the AAA ratings that the rusted-on Labor hacks keep bleating about don't mean a great deal considering the quality of the ratings given by S&P (and others) over the last 10 years. It's not a good measurement of performance.

Coincidentally, both the ACT and the federal government are getting very close to being up to their eyeballs in debt.

But isn’t debt when it is personal and corporate such a wonderful thing that we do not want to stop it by for example ending negative gearing, corporations and the stock market which are structured on debt?

Not that any Australian government has any problems with debt compared with the rest of the world, no matter how much some bleat on about it. It is a normal part of this economic cycle.

dungfungus said :

dungfungus said :

carnardly said :

Perrin said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

HenryBG said :

Well said, Greg.
The Territory’s finances are on the edge of a precipice right now and any further cost blowouts on the light rail or the Constitution Avenue cock-up together with a drop in revenue could tip us over the edge.

The Constitution Ave upgrade is Federally funded and pray tell what is the cock-up?

The received the money in 2011 and started work in 2013.
It’s now 2016 and still not finished, that’s the cock-up.
Is it still within the budgeted amount? We don’t know, do we.
How will they get the trams to run on time with a track record like this?
Still waiting for your comment on the state of the Territory’s finances.

Where was I meant to comment on the finances? But AAA credit rating by S&P’s I would say things are not as bad as you make out and far far far from Greece.

You know who else thought that a AAA credit rating by S&P meant anything meaningful? Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, HBOS, Royal Bank of Scotland, Goldman Sachs, Wayne Swan.. It’s a long list.

You need to move on from the “Labor Handbook of Fiscal Irresponsibility 2009”. It’s been shown to be a dud.

All those organisations were up to their eyeballs in hiding the true risk of the debits to artificially keep the credit ratings to in turn continue to receive investments, back of course by the credit rating agencies.

Now unless you are saying the ACT Government (and Swan when Federal Treasurer) are cooking the books like those companies were, I don’t see the relevance to the comment. If the investments that the others had been peddling had been correctly assessed the GFC wouldn’t have happened.</b?

Actually most of them weren't "cooking the books". They were just drastically over-leveraged. But that's beside the point.

You said it yourself – if S&P had actually rated the investments correctly things might have been different. By they didn't – either due to negligence or incompetence (I suspect it was generous helpings of both). The relevance is obvious; the AAA ratings that the rusted-on Labor hacks keep bleating about don't mean a great deal considering the quality of the ratings given by S&P (and others) over the last 10 years. It's not a good measurement of performance.

Coincidentally, both the ACT and the federal government are getting very close to being up to their eyeballs in debt.

Mike_Drop said :

pink little birdie said :

You, however, seem to be almost religiously against making the beneficiaries of the tram pay for it.

Strange that.

Extremely strange because I have said EXACTLY the opposite.

Repeatedly.

Every time I’ve asked whether you and other tram supporters would back a property levy along the tram route to capture some of the value uplift to pay for the tram, nothing but silence.

Maybe I’ve missed it and you can point out where you’ve agreed to such a proposal, maybe you’ve got an alternative idea that would have the same effect, maybe you can just confirm general support for the principle of user pays that you seem so keen to apply to car users?

Aragornerama said :

gooterz said :

dungfungus said :

…
And of course the users don’t pay nearly enough for their use. A large portion of road costs are cross subsidised by general rates, land sales and federal government grants. The piddly rego amount of $330 covers next to nothing. And mentioned it before but every trip made on the Majura parkway for the next 20 years is being subsidised to the tune of almost $1 for every trip made. And that is excluding maintenance and financing costs. Of course there are non cash savings elsewhere, and IMO on record saying it is a road that is necessary. But apply the same principles to light rail and you get endless howls of protest. All people see is a cost, not the direct and indirect cost savings and social benifits.

Latest comprehensive data I can find show that total road related revenue greatly exceeds total expenditure on roads:

https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2011/files/is_040.pdf

Total over last 3 years reported, 2006-09:
expenditure: $41.5b
revenue: $48.6b

So in terms of direct revenue and expenditure, roads more than pay their way, and indeed, at first blush road revenue seems to subsidise other government expenditure.

But the above amounts are a side-show compared to the real economic costs and benefits of transport infrastructure:

On the cost side:

1) The Australian Government also estimates:
“The annual economic cost of road crashes in Australia is enormous—estimated at $27 billion per annum—and the social impacts are devastating.”
https://infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/

2) The Australian Government in 2005 estimated the health impacts of transport emissions in Australia:
“The economic cost of morbidity ranges from $0.4 billion to $1.2 billion, while the economic cost of mortality ranges from $1.1 billion to $2.6 billion”
https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2005/files/wp_063.pdf

On the other side of the coin, an economist would balance these negative “externalities” with the many positives: how many lives saved by good road transport infrastructure, how many new markets opened by transport of fresh produce, how many hours saved by travelling by car rather than on foot.

So, what’s the net position?

wildturkeycanoe’s post (#123 8:02am 01 Jun 16) resonates with my life experience and those of almost everyone I know.

I would like nothing more than to believe in the transformation of Canberra transport based on a tram. But I’m an engineer, and just as wishes and day-dreams don’t stop buildings and computer networks collapsing, the ill-conceived tram cannot, by Capital Metro’s own analysis, make a net improvement or meet the needs of the vast majority of travel on Canberra by wildturkeycanoe, or me, or the people I know such as these: http://canberraautonomouscars.info/#motivation – people without ski-lodges, Canberra Grammar uniforms on their clothes-lines, people who attract the scorn of the misanthropes and snobs for “waddling” into Mcdonalds, people who dont get-off on blaming the victims and those born in circumstances less fortunate than themselves.

If you are serious about doing something to avoid the huge social and economic costs imposed by current transport in Canberra and elsewhere, I appeal to you to forgo the smugness of promoting simplistic approaches rooted in ideology and ignorance which all available evidence shows are bound to fail, but to look at alternatives with a open mind,and start by reading the references here: http://canberraautonomouscars.info/#related so that as a society we are better equipped to shape the coming revolution in transport to meet our community needs rather than those of the corporation.

The vast majority of that supposed income is tax and excise which a) goes to the federal government and b) does not go to paying for roads.

In the ACT there are according to the ABS there 283,572 vehicles registered in the ACT. Assuming an average rego cost (of course the actual rego cost not including CTP) of $330 that is about $85m a year. Whilst of course that incomes goes to consolidated revenue, that is the only payment made by motor vehicle owners for the construction and upkeep of roads. Taxes and excess don’t count.

Oh and on the expense side of roads your documents and links conventialy leave out the health care costs of motor vehicle accidents and the like. So yeah paints this nice rosey picture. But fact is motor vehicle use is heavily cross subsidised.

Again I don’t disagree, roads are needed, maybe not as many or as complex, but then again public transport is very much needed too and something different to what we have that isn’t working. If comparing one against the other they need to be done on equal an equal footing, which is clearly not happening going by the anti shrill in this overly melodramatic debate.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/9309.0

Conversely

There’s an important figure in there. Our registration charges for motor vehicles total $85million a year for 283,500 cars. The annual average running figure (which no doubt will blow out with a bit of union action) for the tram is $64million for 13,000 commuters at best. Not comparing apples and apples, but it’s important to realise that the annual tram cost is not that far short of all the money we pay for motor vehicle registration…and that’s not including the enormous capital cost.

pink little birdie said :

You, however, seem to be almost religiously against making the beneficiaries of the tram pay for it.

Strange that.

Extremely strange because I have said EXACTLY the opposite.

Repeatedly.

madelini said :

Aragornerama said :

gooterz said :

dungfungus said :

…
And of course the users don’t pay nearly enough for their use. A large portion of road costs are cross subsidised by general rates, land sales and federal government grants. The piddly rego amount of $330 covers next to nothing. And mentioned it before but every trip made on the Majura parkway for the next 20 years is being subsidised to the tune of almost $1 for every trip made. And that is excluding maintenance and financing costs. Of course there are non cash savings elsewhere, and IMO on record saying it is a road that is necessary. But apply the same principles to light rail and you get endless howls of protest. All people see is a cost, not the direct and indirect cost savings and social benifits.

Latest comprehensive data I can find show that total road related revenue greatly exceeds total expenditure on roads:

https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2011/files/is_040.pdf

Total over last 3 years reported, 2006-09:
expenditure: $41.5b
revenue: $48.6b

So in terms of direct revenue and expenditure, roads more than pay their way, and indeed, at first blush road revenue seems to subsidise other government expenditure.

But the above amounts are a side-show compared to the real economic costs and benefits of transport infrastructure:

On the cost side:

1) The Australian Government also estimates:
“The annual economic cost of road crashes in Australia is enormous—estimated at $27 billion per annum—and the social impacts are devastating.”
https://infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/

2) The Australian Government in 2005 estimated the health impacts of transport emissions in Australia:
“The economic cost of morbidity ranges from $0.4 billion to $1.2 billion, while the economic cost of mortality ranges from $1.1 billion to $2.6 billion”
https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2005/files/wp_063.pdf

On the other side of the coin, an economist would balance these negative “externalities” with the many positives: how many lives saved by good road transport infrastructure, how many new markets opened by transport of fresh produce, how many hours saved by travelling by car rather than on foot.

So, what’s the net position?

wildturkeycanoe’s post (#123 8:02am 01 Jun 16) resonates with my life experience and those of almost everyone I know.

I would like nothing more than to believe in the transformation of Canberra transport based on a tram. But I’m an engineer, and just as wishes and day-dreams don’t stop buildings and computer networks collapsing, the ill-conceived tram cannot, by Capital Metro’s own analysis, make a net improvement or meet the needs of the vast majority of travel on Canberra by wildturkeycanoe, or me, or the people I know such as these: http://canberraautonomouscars.info/#motivation – people without ski-lodges, Canberra Grammar uniforms on their clothes-lines, people who attract the scorn of the misanthropes and snobs for “waddling” into Mcdonalds, people who dont get-off on blaming the victims and those born in circumstances less fortunate than themselves.

If you are serious about doing something to avoid the huge social and economic costs imposed by current transport in Canberra and elsewhere, I appeal to you to forgo the smugness of promoting simplistic approaches rooted in ideology and ignorance which all available evidence shows are bound to fail, but to look at alternatives with a open mind,and start by reading the references here: http://canberraautonomouscars.info/#related so that as a society we are better equipped to shape the coming revolution in transport to meet our community needs rather than those of the corporation.

The vast majority of that supposed income is tax and excise which a) goes to the federal government and b) does not go to paying for roads.

In the ACT there are according to the ABS there 283,572 vehicles registered in the ACT. Assuming an average rego cost (of course the actual rego cost not including CTP) of $330 that is about $85m a year. Whilst of course that incomes goes to consolidated revenue, that is the only payment made by motor vehicle owners for the construction and upkeep of roads. Taxes and excess don’t count.

Oh and on the expense side of roads your documents and links conventialy leave out the health care costs of motor vehicle accidents and the like. So yeah paints this nice rosey picture. But fact is motor vehicle use is heavily cross subsidised.

Again I don’t disagree, roads are needed, maybe not as many or as complex, but then again public transport is very much needed too and something different to what we have that isn’t working. If comparing one against the other they need to be done on equal an equal footing, which is clearly not happening going by the anti shrill in this overly melodramatic debate.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/9309.0

Conversely

Considering the commonwealth and state governments as a whole, as the BITRE analysis shows, more revenue was raised by taxes (and excises) on transport than was spent on roads over the last three year period for which I can find comprehensive statistics. Commonwealth and state revenue almost entirely goes into a pool from which expenditure is drawn, so it is incorrect to say direct transport related revenue doesnt pay for direct expenditure on roads. The BITRE figures suggest transport related direct revenue raising and expenditure are roughly in balance. But given the huge externalities, this almost doesnt matter, any more it matters whether, say, university fees match university expenditure, because the externalities from roads and education (and health) completely swamp the direct revenue and expenditure.

I am arguing the opposite to the view that this provides the whole picture – see my links to commonwealth government publications which suggest the most obvious negative “externalities”, accidents and transport-induced health problems, have an annual cost of around $30b, perhaps more.

I am in fact suggesting that as a society we pay a very high indirect price for our transport infrastructure. But a rational, as opposite to idealogical assessment must be balanced by the positive externalities: Australia’s GDP is around $1600b. Without getting bogged down in a pointless distraction of “what is GDP anyway, and why is more better?”, have a guess at what % of that GDP is enabled by the current road infrastructure. Or to put it another way, if that road infrastructure was removed, would our standard of living (for which GDP per capita is an extremely rough proxy) fall by 2%? 5%? 10%? 50%? 80%?

Whatever figure you choose my help you evaluate the balance of positive and negative externalities of road spending. You may well decide that we are better off with fewer roads and less spending on them, but please justify your choices and cost the alternatives.

BTW, 43% of ACT revenue is received as a grant from the Commonwealth. Why am I wrong to think your link to the ABS stats on motor registrations is a non-sequitur? If your argument is “we have too many cars”, I completely agree with many implications of that assertion, such as “our health and safety costs associated with cars are higher than now than they need to be in the future” and “our congestion and urban degradation costs associated with cars and parking are higher than now than they need to be in the future” and “the appalling environmental costs of cars are higher than now than they need to be in the future”. To which I add “the public and private cost and inconvenience of personal mobility is higher than now than it needs to be in the future”.

But we are where we are. Our challenge is to imagine and implement a better future. One way is to build-out an extensive tram network fed by (hopefully) electric buses. Your values will prioritize how you value door-to-door, on-demand, 24×7 mobility and how much spending on education and health you wish to divert to that approach. Personally, I am neutral as to the technology used – I don’t care if I can get to where I need to go by foot, bus, tram, bike, private car, shared autonomous car, segway, magic carpet. I would prefer not to have my own capital tied up in a ton of metal sitting idle in a garage – I’d prefer not to have a garage. Like most people, I have a set of other preferences that overlap and conflict, such as housing, and for example, my housing preferences are typical: http://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/109_what_matters_most.pdf

Still no explanation of how you doubled the supposed income from roads.

Last data I can source for 2014 imports:

http://dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/trade-investment/australias-trade-in-goods-and-services/Pages/australias-trade-in-goods-and-services-2013-14.aspx

Crude Petroleum $21.590 billion

Refined Petroleum $19.203 billion

Passenger motor vehicles $17.834 billion

TOTAL: $58,627 billion/year in 2013-14

Australia’s Trade Deficit over the last year seasonally adjusted was $43.7 billion/year. It remains almost perpetually in the red.

In 2013-14 we were still manufacturing and exporting motor vehicles, that is about to end. Expect a dramatically worse result.

In 2012 Australia imported over 85% of its oil, a long term trend projecting to over 90% today.

Over a third of our oil, 37%, is imported from the Middle East and is financing instability, and muslim extremism which we are then going to war to combat.

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/mf/5368.0

The last figures I can find (2012) for fuel oil in 2102, it was costing 1.7% of Australia’s GDP.

Australia is supposed to maintain a 90 day stock of fuel oil but only maintains half that and now refines practically none of it. We can not even fly our defence helicopters if our imports are cut.

So there are many reasons to reduce our dependence on oil and vehicles using oil, not just the environmental that many here choose to ignore.

Been out of contact for a while so my comments come a bit late. I will not try to repeat previous items, wastes space & reading time quite often, but will make some general points.

1. The ACT Labor perry did not have a mandate to start building the tram line in his term. Their policy was to spend $30M on planning in this term & to get tenders called etc ready for signing IN THE NEXT TERM OF OFFICE. Interestingly our efficient editor found an original copy of Labor’s pre election policy & also found that the on line version available now has been changed AFTER the election, hardly a mandate.

2. The govt did not investigate all options, i.e. did not follow due diligence, before choosing trams.

3. In the case of Sydney a consultant found that the new Sydney tram line will cause an additional 1.14 fatalities per year, Metro’s EIS addressed this & stated that it is likely that there will be a small but real increase in accidents after light rail is in use.

3. If trams are so useful & efficient why does Metro’s site state that trams will only run from (I think the figures are) 6.00 am till 7.00 pm? (metro’s FAQs). Trams are very efficient in peak hours when full (most people standing), but less efficient than a petrol car, let alone an electric car on “green power”. So we have this huge investment standing idle about half the time when weekends are taken into account.

4. Autonomous cars will almost certainly arrive, whether public or private. But they will not be very useful for commuting journeys, they are on the same roads as conventional vehicles (a small improvement is possible due to being able to travel closer together, but not much). They would however be a potential boon to kids & elderly who cannot drive for short distances including to transport nodes & eliminate the need for a second car. They will however make trams far less viable (that old due diligence again).

5. As for “living in the past”, the first tram in Australia was in Hobart in 1893, long before cars or buses, which in most cases made them obsolete long ago. The need back then was to get rid of horse manure which was choking the cites, 500tons per day in Melbourne in 1900. We don’t need a solution to the horse manure problem now!

Mordd said :

bigred said :

Mysteryman said :

dungfungus said :

Rollersk8r said :

And you can’t argue about the capital cost of roads. Tram or no tram you still need a road infrastructure in a city for, you know, ambulances, deliveries, fire engines, police (I can just see them catching a 30minute ride from Gunghalin to the City to respond to crime) and people who actually have multiple destinations, families…..and real lives.

It is a very valid argument. You are indeed correct roads are needed, however our roads end up (eventually) being designed for peak load despite only carrying peak load maybe 10 hours a week in each direction. So with increased use of public transport, rail in particular you may not need as many main roads (for example calls for a road from Gungahlin around the back of Watson and Ainslie), or for them to be 4 lane dual carriageways. So it is something that very much needs to be considered in the big picture view.

And of course the users don’t pay nearly enough for their use. A large portion of road costs are cross subsidised by general rates, land sales and federal government grants. The piddly rego amount of $330 covers next to nothing. And mentioned it before but every trip made on the Majura parkway for the next 20 years is being subsidised to the tune of almost $1 for every trip made. And that is excluding maintenance and financing costs. Of course there are non cash savings elsewhere, and IMO on record saying it is a road that is necessary. But apply the same principles to light rail and you get endless howls of protest. All people see is a cost, not the direct and indirect cost savings and social benifits.

Correct roads are needed, incorrect light rail isn’t.

You just saying so does not make it so, despite the mondo-centric obsession.

Well try this one for size:
“the quickest way to go broke is to buy something you don’t need with money you haven’t got”
(no prizes for guessing what I am referring to)

Cars and freeways.

dungfungus said :

dungfungus said :

carnardly said :

Perrin said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

HenryBG said :

Well said, Greg.
The Territory’s finances are on the edge of a precipice right now and any further cost blowouts on the light rail or the Constitution Avenue cock-up together with a drop in revenue could tip us over the edge.

The Constitution Ave upgrade is Federally funded and pray tell what is the cock-up?

The received the money in 2011 and started work in 2013.
It’s now 2016 and still not finished, that’s the cock-up.
Is it still within the budgeted amount? We don’t know, do we.
How will they get the trams to run on time with a track record like this?
Still waiting for your comment on the state of the Territory’s finances.

Where was I meant to comment on the finances? But AAA credit rating by S&P’s I would say things are not as bad as you make out and far far far from Greece.

You know who else thought that a AAA credit rating by S&P meant anything meaningful? Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, HBOS, Royal Bank of Scotland, Goldman Sachs, Wayne Swan.. It’s a long list.

You need to move on from the “Labor Handbook of Fiscal Irresponsibility 2009”. It’s been shown to be a dud.

All those organisations were up to their eyeballs in hiding the true risk of the debits to artificially keep the credit ratings to in turn continue to receive investments, back of course by the credit rating agencies.

Now unless you are saying the ACT Government (and Swan when Federal Treasurer) are cooking the books like those companies were, I don’t see the relevance to the comment. If the investments that the others had been peddling had been correctly assessed the GFC wouldn’t have happened.

Hey JC, how are you going in supplying the cost of relocating services under Northbourne Avenue and the cost of electrical headworks for the electrical power supply?

Aragornerama said :

gooterz said :

dungfungus said :

…
And of course the users don’t pay nearly enough for their use. A large portion of road costs are cross subsidised by general rates, land sales and federal government grants. The piddly rego amount of $330 covers next to nothing. And mentioned it before but every trip made on the Majura parkway for the next 20 years is being subsidised to the tune of almost $1 for every trip made. And that is excluding maintenance and financing costs. Of course there are non cash savings elsewhere, and IMO on record saying it is a road that is necessary. But apply the same principles to light rail and you get endless howls of protest. All people see is a cost, not the direct and indirect cost savings and social benifits.

Latest comprehensive data I can find show that total road related revenue greatly exceeds total expenditure on roads:

https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2011/files/is_040.pdf

Total over last 3 years reported, 2006-09:
expenditure: $41.5b
revenue: $48.6b

So in terms of direct revenue and expenditure, roads more than pay their way, and indeed, at first blush road revenue seems to subsidise other government expenditure.

But the above amounts are a side-show compared to the real economic costs and benefits of transport infrastructure:

On the cost side:

1) The Australian Government also estimates:
“The annual economic cost of road crashes in Australia is enormous—estimated at $27 billion per annum—and the social impacts are devastating.”
https://infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/

2) The Australian Government in 2005 estimated the health impacts of transport emissions in Australia:
“The economic cost of morbidity ranges from $0.4 billion to $1.2 billion, while the economic cost of mortality ranges from $1.1 billion to $2.6 billion”
https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2005/files/wp_063.pdf

On the other side of the coin, an economist would balance these negative “externalities” with the many positives: how many lives saved by good road transport infrastructure, how many new markets opened by transport of fresh produce, how many hours saved by travelling by car rather than on foot.

So, what’s the net position?

wildturkeycanoe’s post (#123 8:02am 01 Jun 16) resonates with my life experience and those of almost everyone I know.

I would like nothing more than to believe in the transformation of Canberra transport based on a tram. But I’m an engineer, and just as wishes and day-dreams don’t stop buildings and computer networks collapsing, the ill-conceived tram cannot, by Capital Metro’s own analysis, make a net improvement or meet the needs of the vast majority of travel on Canberra by wildturkeycanoe, or me, or the people I know such as these: http://canberraautonomouscars.info/#motivation – people without ski-lodges, Canberra Grammar uniforms on their clothes-lines, people who attract the scorn of the misanthropes and snobs for “waddling” into Mcdonalds, people who dont get-off on blaming the victims and those born in circumstances less fortunate than themselves.

If you are serious about doing something to avoid the huge social and economic costs imposed by current transport in Canberra and elsewhere, I appeal to you to forgo the smugness of promoting simplistic approaches rooted in ideology and ignorance which all available evidence shows are bound to fail, but to look at alternatives with a open mind,and start by reading the references here: http://canberraautonomouscars.info/#related so that as a society we are better equipped to shape the coming revolution in transport to meet our community needs rather than those of the corporation.

The vast majority of that supposed income is tax and excise which a) goes to the federal government and b) does not go to paying for roads.

In the ACT there are according to the ABS there 283,572 vehicles registered in the ACT. Assuming an average rego cost (of course the actual rego cost not including CTP) of $330 that is about $85m a year. Whilst of course that incomes goes to consolidated revenue, that is the only payment made by motor vehicle owners for the construction and upkeep of roads. Taxes and excess don’t count.

Oh and on the expense side of roads your documents and links conventialy leave out the health care costs of motor vehicle accidents and the like. So yeah paints this nice rosey picture. But fact is motor vehicle use is heavily cross subsidised.

Again I don’t disagree, roads are needed, maybe not as many or as complex, but then again public transport is very much needed too and something different to what we have that isn’t working. If comparing one against the other they need to be done on equal an equal footing, which is clearly not happening going by the anti shrill in this overly melodramatic debate.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/9309.0

Conversely

Considering the commonwealth and state governments as a whole, as the BITRE analysis shows, more revenue was raised by taxes (and excises) on transport than was spent on roads over the last three year period for which I can find comprehensive statistics. Commonwealth and state revenue almost entirely goes into a pool from which expenditure is drawn, so it is incorrect to say direct transport related revenue doesnt pay for direct expenditure on roads. The BITRE figures suggest transport related direct revenue raising and expenditure are roughly in balance. But given the huge externalities, this almost doesnt matter, any more it matters whether, say, university fees match university expenditure, because the externalities from roads and education (and health) completely swamp the direct revenue and expenditure.

I am arguing the opposite to the view that this provides the whole picture – see my links to commonwealth government publications which suggest the most obvious negative “externalities”, accidents and transport-induced health problems, have an annual cost of around $30b, perhaps more.

I am in fact suggesting that as a society we pay a very high indirect price for our transport infrastructure. But a rational, as opposite to idealogical assessment must be balanced by the positive externalities: Australia’s GDP is around $1600b. Without getting bogged down in a pointless distraction of “what is GDP anyway, and why is more better?”, have a guess at what % of that GDP is enabled by the current road infrastructure. Or to put it another way, if that road infrastructure was removed, would our standard of living (for which GDP per capita is an extremely rough proxy) fall by 2%? 5%? 10%? 50%? 80%?

Whatever figure you choose my help you evaluate the balance of positive and negative externalities of road spending. You may well decide that we are better off with fewer roads and less spending on them, but please justify your choices and cost the alternatives.

BTW, 43% of ACT revenue is received as a grant from the Commonwealth. Why am I wrong to think your link to the ABS stats on motor registrations is a non-sequitur? If your argument is “we have too many cars”, I completely agree with many implications of that assertion, such as “our health and safety costs associated with cars are higher than now than they need to be in the future” and “our congestion and urban degradation costs associated with cars and parking are higher than now than they need to be in the future” and “the appalling environmental costs of cars are higher than now than they need to be in the future”. To which I add “the public and private cost and inconvenience of personal mobility is higher than now than it needs to be in the future”.

But we are where we are. Our challenge is to imagine and implement a better future. One way is to build-out an extensive tram network fed by (hopefully) electric buses. Your values will prioritize how you value door-to-door, on-demand, 24×7 mobility and how much spending on education and health you wish to divert to that approach. Personally, I am neutral as to the technology used – I don’t care if I can get to where I need to go by foot, bus, tram, bike, private car, shared autonomous car, segway, magic carpet. I would prefer not to have my own capital tied up in a ton of metal sitting idle in a garage – I’d prefer not to have a garage. Like most people, I have a set of other preferences that overlap and conflict, such as housing, and for example, my housing preferences are typical: http://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/109_what_matters_most.pdf

dungfungus said :

carnardly said :

Perrin said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

HenryBG said :

Well said, Greg.
The Territory’s finances are on the edge of a precipice right now and any further cost blowouts on the light rail or the Constitution Avenue cock-up together with a drop in revenue could tip us over the edge.

The Constitution Ave upgrade is Federally funded and pray tell what is the cock-up?

The received the money in 2011 and started work in 2013.
It’s now 2016 and still not finished, that’s the cock-up.
Is it still within the budgeted amount? We don’t know, do we.
How will they get the trams to run on time with a track record like this?
Still waiting for your comment on the state of the Territory’s finances.

Where was I meant to comment on the finances? But AAA credit rating by S&P’s I would say things are not as bad as you make out and far far far from Greece.

You know who else thought that a AAA credit rating by S&P meant anything meaningful? Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, HBOS, Royal Bank of Scotland, Goldman Sachs, Wayne Swan.. It’s a long list.

You need to move on from the “Labor Handbook of Fiscal Irresponsibility 2009”. It’s been shown to be a dud.

All those organisations were up to their eyeballs in hiding the true risk of the debits to artificially keep the credit ratings to in turn continue to receive investments, back of course by the credit rating agencies.

Now unless you are saying the ACT Government (and Swan when Federal Treasurer) are cooking the books like those companies were, I don’t see the relevance to the comment. If the investments that the others had been peddling had been correctly assessed the GFC wouldn’t have happened.

gooterz said :

dungfungus said :

…
And of course the users don’t pay nearly enough for their use. A large portion of road costs are cross subsidised by general rates, land sales and federal government grants. The piddly rego amount of $330 covers next to nothing. And mentioned it before but every trip made on the Majura parkway for the next 20 years is being subsidised to the tune of almost $1 for every trip made. And that is excluding maintenance and financing costs. Of course there are non cash savings elsewhere, and IMO on record saying it is a road that is necessary. But apply the same principles to light rail and you get endless howls of protest. All people see is a cost, not the direct and indirect cost savings and social benifits.

Latest comprehensive data I can find show that total road related revenue greatly exceeds total expenditure on roads:

https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2011/files/is_040.pdf

Total over last 3 years reported, 2006-09:
expenditure: $41.5b
revenue: $48.6b

So in terms of direct revenue and expenditure, roads more than pay their way, and indeed, at first blush road revenue seems to subsidise other government expenditure.

But the above amounts are a side-show compared to the real economic costs and benefits of transport infrastructure:

On the cost side:

1) The Australian Government also estimates:
“The annual economic cost of road crashes in Australia is enormous—estimated at $27 billion per annum—and the social impacts are devastating.”
https://infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/

2) The Australian Government in 2005 estimated the health impacts of transport emissions in Australia:
“The economic cost of morbidity ranges from $0.4 billion to $1.2 billion, while the economic cost of mortality ranges from $1.1 billion to $2.6 billion”
https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2005/files/wp_063.pdf

On the other side of the coin, an economist would balance these negative “externalities” with the many positives: how many lives saved by good road transport infrastructure, how many new markets opened by transport of fresh produce, how many hours saved by travelling by car rather than on foot.

So, what’s the net position?

wildturkeycanoe’s post (#123 8:02am 01 Jun 16) resonates with my life experience and those of almost everyone I know.

I would like nothing more than to believe in the transformation of Canberra transport based on a tram. But I’m an engineer, and just as wishes and day-dreams don’t stop buildings and computer networks collapsing, the ill-conceived tram cannot, by Capital Metro’s own analysis, make a net improvement or meet the needs of the vast majority of travel on Canberra by wildturkeycanoe, or me, or the people I know such as these: http://canberraautonomouscars.info/#motivation – people without ski-lodges, Canberra Grammar uniforms on their clothes-lines, people who attract the scorn of the misanthropes and snobs for “waddling” into Mcdonalds, people who dont get-off on blaming the victims and those born in circumstances less fortunate than themselves.

If you are serious about doing something to avoid the huge social and economic costs imposed by current transport in Canberra and elsewhere, I appeal to you to forgo the smugness of promoting simplistic approaches rooted in ideology and ignorance which all available evidence shows are bound to fail, but to look at alternatives with a open mind,and start by reading the references here: http://canberraautonomouscars.info/#related so that as a society we are better equipped to shape the coming revolution in transport to meet our community needs rather than those of the corporation.

The vast majority of that supposed income is tax and excise which a) goes to the federal government and b) does not go to paying for roads.

In the ACT there are according to the ABS there 283,572 vehicles registered in the ACT. Assuming an average rego cost (of course the actual rego cost not including CTP) of $330 that is about $85m a year. Whilst of course that incomes goes to consolidated revenue, that is the only payment made by motor vehicle owners for the construction and upkeep of roads. Taxes and excess don’t count.

Oh and on the expense side of roads your documents and links conventialy leave out the health care costs of motor vehicle accidents and the like. So yeah paints this nice rosey picture. But fact is motor vehicle use is heavily cross subsidised.

Again I don’t disagree, roads are needed, maybe not as many or as complex, but then again public transport is very much needed too and something different to what we have that isn’t working. If comparing one against the other they need to be done on equal an equal footing, which is clearly not happening going by the anti shrill in this overly melodramatic debate.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/9309.0

Conversely

gooterz said :

dungfungus said :

…
And of course the users don’t pay nearly enough for their use. A large portion of road costs are cross subsidised by general rates, land sales and federal government grants. The piddly rego amount of $330 covers next to nothing. And mentioned it before but every trip made on the Majura parkway for the next 20 years is being subsidised to the tune of almost $1 for every trip made. And that is excluding maintenance and financing costs. Of course there are non cash savings elsewhere, and IMO on record saying it is a road that is necessary. But apply the same principles to light rail and you get endless howls of protest. All people see is a cost, not the direct and indirect cost savings and social benifits.

Latest comprehensive data I can find show that total road related revenue greatly exceeds total expenditure on roads:

https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2011/files/is_040.pdf

Total over last 3 years reported, 2006-09:
expenditure: $41.5b
revenue: $48.6b

So in terms of direct revenue and expenditure, roads more than pay their way, and indeed, at first blush road revenue seems to subsidise other government expenditure.

But the above amounts are a side-show compared to the real economic costs and benefits of transport infrastructure:

On the cost side:

1) The Australian Government also estimates:
“The annual economic cost of road crashes in Australia is enormous—estimated at $27 billion per annum—and the social impacts are devastating.”
https://infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/

2) The Australian Government in 2005 estimated the health impacts of transport emissions in Australia:
“The economic cost of morbidity ranges from $0.4 billion to $1.2 billion, while the economic cost of mortality ranges from $1.1 billion to $2.6 billion”
https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2005/files/wp_063.pdf

On the other side of the coin, an economist would balance these negative “externalities” with the many positives: how many lives saved by good road transport infrastructure, how many new markets opened by transport of fresh produce, how many hours saved by travelling by car rather than on foot.

So, what’s the net position?

wildturkeycanoe’s post (#123 8:02am 01 Jun 16) resonates with my life experience and those of almost everyone I know.

I would like nothing more than to believe in the transformation of Canberra transport based on a tram. But I’m an engineer, and just as wishes and day-dreams don’t stop buildings and computer networks collapsing, the ill-conceived tram cannot, by Capital Metro’s own analysis, make a net improvement or meet the needs of the vast majority of travel on Canberra by wildturkeycanoe, or me, or the people I know such as these: http://canberraautonomouscars.info/#motivation – people without ski-lodges, Canberra Grammar uniforms on their clothes-lines, people who attract the scorn of the misanthropes and snobs for “waddling” into Mcdonalds, people who dont get-off on blaming the victims and those born in circumstances less fortunate than themselves.

If you are serious about doing something to avoid the huge social and economic costs imposed by current transport in Canberra and elsewhere, I appeal to you to forgo the smugness of promoting simplistic approaches rooted in ideology and ignorance which all available evidence shows are bound to fail, but to look at alternatives with a open mind,and start by reading the references here: http://canberraautonomouscars.info/#related so that as a society we are better equipped to shape the coming revolution in transport to meet our community needs rather than those of the corporation.

Odd:

“Joint presentation of the government road-related expenditures with motor vehicle revenues in this information sheet does not imply that there is any direct linkage between revenue and expenditure.”

Where do you get $48.6 billion revenue from?

Selected taxes (fuel etc) + registration & licence fees + stamp duty + FBT + GST = $26.7 billion and I dispute GST as being valid, it is a general revenue component like everything else that GST is charged on. So really just $22.7 billion.

The biggest unfunded expense has to be for health, accidents and deaths as well as the unfunded liabilities for environmental damage.

Having had property in Sydney I can also vouch for the impact cars and roads have on assets. You can massively slash the value of property affected by traffic. Residential properties close to public transport on the other hand get a massive boost.

The autonomous car website is unfortunately impenetrable making wild and extremely improbable assumption to come with unbelievable conclusions, without showing the full figures and calculations.

Looks like every other global warming denier website I’ve ever seen.

bigred said :

Mysteryman said :

dungfungus said :

Rollersk8r said :

And you can’t argue about the capital cost of roads. Tram or no tram you still need a road infrastructure in a city for, you know, ambulances, deliveries, fire engines, police (I can just see them catching a 30minute ride from Gunghalin to the City to respond to crime) and people who actually have multiple destinations, families…..and real lives.

It is a very valid argument. You are indeed correct roads are needed, however our roads end up (eventually) being designed for peak load despite only carrying peak load maybe 10 hours a week in each direction. So with increased use of public transport, rail in particular you may not need as many main roads (for example calls for a road from Gungahlin around the back of Watson and Ainslie), or for them to be 4 lane dual carriageways. So it is something that very much needs to be considered in the big picture view.

And of course the users don’t pay nearly enough for their use. A large portion of road costs are cross subsidised by general rates, land sales and federal government grants. The piddly rego amount of $330 covers next to nothing. And mentioned it before but every trip made on the Majura parkway for the next 20 years is being subsidised to the tune of almost $1 for every trip made. And that is excluding maintenance and financing costs. Of course there are non cash savings elsewhere, and IMO on record saying it is a road that is necessary. But apply the same principles to light rail and you get endless howls of protest. All people see is a cost, not the direct and indirect cost savings and social benifits.

Correct roads are needed, incorrect light rail isn’t.

You just saying so does not make it so, despite the mondo-centric obsession.

Well try this one for size:
“the quickest way to go broke is to buy something you don’t need with money you haven’t got”
(no prizes for guessing what I am referring to)

dungfungus said :

…
And of course the users don’t pay nearly enough for their use. A large portion of road costs are cross subsidised by general rates, land sales and federal government grants. The piddly rego amount of $330 covers next to nothing. And mentioned it before but every trip made on the Majura parkway for the next 20 years is being subsidised to the tune of almost $1 for every trip made. And that is excluding maintenance and financing costs. Of course there are non cash savings elsewhere, and IMO on record saying it is a road that is necessary. But apply the same principles to light rail and you get endless howls of protest. All people see is a cost, not the direct and indirect cost savings and social benifits.

Latest comprehensive data I can find show that total road related revenue greatly exceeds total expenditure on roads:

https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2011/files/is_040.pdf

Total over last 3 years reported, 2006-09:
expenditure: $41.5b
revenue: $48.6b

So in terms of direct revenue and expenditure, roads more than pay their way, and indeed, at first blush road revenue seems to subsidise other government expenditure.

But the above amounts are a side-show compared to the real economic costs and benefits of transport infrastructure:

On the cost side:

1) The Australian Government also estimates:
“The annual economic cost of road crashes in Australia is enormous—estimated at $27 billion per annum—and the social impacts are devastating.”
https://infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/

2) The Australian Government in 2005 estimated the health impacts of transport emissions in Australia:
“The economic cost of morbidity ranges from $0.4 billion to $1.2 billion, while the economic cost of mortality ranges from $1.1 billion to $2.6 billion”
https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2005/files/wp_063.pdf

On the other side of the coin, an economist would balance these negative “externalities” with the many positives: how many lives saved by good road transport infrastructure, how many new markets opened by transport of fresh produce, how many hours saved by travelling by car rather than on foot.

So, what’s the net position?

wildturkeycanoe’s post (#123 8:02am 01 Jun 16) resonates with my life experience and those of almost everyone I know.

I would like nothing more than to believe in the transformation of Canberra transport based on a tram. But I’m an engineer, and just as wishes and day-dreams don’t stop buildings and computer networks collapsing, the ill-conceived tram cannot, by Capital Metro’s own analysis, make a net improvement or meet the needs of the vast majority of travel on Canberra by wildturkeycanoe, or me, or the people I know such as these: http://canberraautonomouscars.info/#motivation – people without ski-lodges, Canberra Grammar uniforms on their clothes-lines, people who attract the scorn of the misanthropes and snobs for “waddling” into Mcdonalds, people who dont get-off on blaming the victims and those born in circumstances less fortunate than themselves.

If you are serious about doing something to avoid the huge social and economic costs imposed by current transport in Canberra and elsewhere, I appeal to you to forgo the smugness of promoting simplistic approaches rooted in ideology and ignorance which all available evidence shows are bound to fail, but to look at alternatives with a open mind,and start by reading the references here: http://canberraautonomouscars.info/#related so that as a society we are better equipped to shape the coming revolution in transport to meet our community needs rather than those of the corporation.

Rollersk8r said :

dungfungus said :

Mordd said :

madelini said :

farout said :

I would like to see the cost-benefit analysis for making all ACTION buses free of charge.
Lower income earners are more likely to use public transport and are very price-responsive. This would get heaps of cars off the road and better utilise an existing asset. The revenue per fare would decrease, but total revenue would also increase – by a lot.

Poor people don’t drive (according to former treasurer Joe Hockey), so they must already be using public transport. So making it free would just be giving a handout to the poor would it not? So keep charging, they have no other option anyway. Call it a poor tax and then give cuts to companies and high income earners. Common sense really.

We can’t do that, it’s unfair.

Instead we need to build a ridiculously expensive transport system that will only be used by a tiny percentage of the population and will give windfall benefits to mostly well-off, inner-city property owners while asking them to pay almost nothing for it.

Makes much better sense.

“ridiculously expensive transport system”?

Isn’t that cars/roads? The only thing that will be more expensive than private cars will be Uber/Autonomous Cars.

Or if you really want to blow money, taxis and limos. Now you know they make sense! ROTFL!

Oh, can you point me to my comments supporting the construction of ridiculously expensive roads used by a tiny minority of people that aren’t funded by those users?

What’s that? No you can’t?

Situation normal it seems, carry on…..

Let’s ignore that the question was what is the most “ridiculously expensive transport system”, not how it is funded:

http://www.uspirg.org/reports/usp/who-pays-roads

http://www.frontiergroup.org/reports/fg/do-roads-pay-themselves

http://www.frontiergroup.org/reports/fg/who-pays-roads

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/05/debunking-the-myth-that-only-drivers-pay-for-roads/393134/

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/driving-true-costs/412237/

https://erikhare.com/songs-poems/cost-of-roads/

It may be America but the same phenomena exists here of drivers thinking they pay a whole lot more than they do because they never do the sums, they just go “Oh I’m paying tax on gas and registration therefore that MUST be…, oh damn maths is so hard! Fudge it!”

The truly irrational part is that the nonsense arguments against public transport pit single partially funded cars, discounting major (not to be counted) costs as “essential”, against whole of cost public transport (also essential), ignore that for families it is not SINGLE cars, it is MULTIPLE cars to move them around.

There are in fact 3 vehicles for every 4 people (man. woman and child) in Canberra. That is your “ridiculously expensive transport system”.

Cars/freeways as a “ridiculously expensive transport system” have only existed relatively recently in history. Civilisation existed without them right up to the mid-twentieth century where rising incomes made them possible and there was a foolish notion that this planet has infinite resources and burning huge quantities of carbon has no consequences.

Talking maths and real costs is going to make most people here just change the subject to something less difficult that they can deal with: Feelings. Feelings which have been managed by saturated advertising and marketing to associate cars not with getting from A to B but with social standing and sex appeal. Mostly for men, although women get their heads played with by the fallacious “safety” of large heavy 4WDs (that run over small children “safely”).

The size of a vehicle is a dog eat dog survival of the fittest notion, but as the accident near our house showed, the 4WD crumpled like a wet paper bag in an accident with an old Cortina, just like every other modern car has been designed to. But the size of the 50% overweight gas guzzling 4WD cars is part of the buying the delusion.

You are not just shuffling back and forth from work, you are a “Farmer dragging kilometres of fencing”, an “Intrepid outdoorsman, towing grateful dopes out of sticky holes, their cow like eyes looking up to you in undying admiration” and that most useful “need”, “Relocating meteorites up impossibly steep hills, where they belong”.

In other words the whole car thing is giving the dopey Walter Mittys of this world their daily fantasy whist stuck fuming in the traffic, that in their heart of hearts they “know” is not really “normal”.

It must be that damn invisible writing again, I have no idea who or what you are responding to but it clearly isn’t anything I’ve written.

Firstly, see the above comments, roads are an integral part of life, you literally cannot replace them with non road forms of public transport, although I’d love to see your suggestions of how that could be achieved.
Deliveries, emergency services, urban services, how exactly do you supply them without roads?

People have clearly voted time and time again that they require road services as essential. You may not like that but it’s fact.

Secondly, this is what I wrote before you went off an a mad diatribe against a strawman of your own mind:

“Instead we need to build a ridiculously expensive transport system that will only be used by a tiny percentage of the population and will give windfall benefits to mostly well-off, inner-city property owners while asking them to pay almost nothing for it.”

The question isn’t which is the most expensive transport system, It’s which is the most expensive that provides the least benefits to the wider community?
Which is the most expensive that gives windfall benefits for a tiny minority of the popultation paid for by other people?

I’m perfectly OK with making road users pay more for their road use, to pay for its construction and maintenance. If they want it, they should pay for it.

You, however, seem to be almost religiously against making the beneficiaries of the tram pay for it.

Strange that.

The size of a vehicle is a dog eat dog survival of the fittest notion…

That is that damned spull chicker at work, it should be “survival of the fattest”.

Mysteryman said :

dungfungus said :

Rollersk8r said :

And you can’t argue about the capital cost of roads. Tram or no tram you still need a road infrastructure in a city for, you know, ambulances, deliveries, fire engines, police (I can just see them catching a 30minute ride from Gunghalin to the City to respond to crime) and people who actually have multiple destinations, families…..and real lives.

It is a very valid argument. You are indeed correct roads are needed, however our roads end up (eventually) being designed for peak load despite only carrying peak load maybe 10 hours a week in each direction. So with increased use of public transport, rail in particular you may not need as many main roads (for example calls for a road from Gungahlin around the back of Watson and Ainslie), or for them to be 4 lane dual carriageways. So it is something that very much needs to be considered in the big picture view.

And of course the users don’t pay nearly enough for their use. A large portion of road costs are cross subsidised by general rates, land sales and federal government grants. The piddly rego amount of $330 covers next to nothing. And mentioned it before but every trip made on the Majura parkway for the next 20 years is being subsidised to the tune of almost $1 for every trip made. And that is excluding maintenance and financing costs. Of course there are non cash savings elsewhere, and IMO on record saying it is a road that is necessary. But apply the same principles to light rail and you get endless howls of protest. All people see is a cost, not the direct and indirect cost savings and social benifits.

Correct roads are needed, incorrect light rail isn’t.

You just saying so does not make it so, despite the mondo-centric obsession.

carnardly said :

Perrin said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

HenryBG said :

Well said, Greg.
The Territory’s finances are on the edge of a precipice right now and any further cost blowouts on the light rail or the Constitution Avenue cock-up together with a drop in revenue could tip us over the edge.

The Constitution Ave upgrade is Federally funded and pray tell what is the cock-up?

The received the money in 2011 and started work in 2013.
It’s now 2016 and still not finished, that’s the cock-up.
Is it still within the budgeted amount? We don’t know, do we.
How will they get the trams to run on time with a track record like this?
Still waiting for your comment on the state of the Territory’s finances.

Where was I meant to comment on the finances? But AAA credit rating by S&P’s I would say things are not as bad as you make out and far far far from Greece.

You know who else thought that a AAA credit rating by S&P meant anything meaningful? Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, HBOS, Royal Bank of Scotland, Goldman Sachs, Wayne Swan.. It’s a long list.

You need to move on from the “Labor Handbook of Fiscal Irresponsibility 2009”. It’s been shown to be a dud.

dungfungus said :

Rollersk8r said :

And you can’t argue about the capital cost of roads. Tram or no tram you still need a road infrastructure in a city for, you know, ambulances, deliveries, fire engines, police (I can just see them catching a 30minute ride from Gunghalin to the City to respond to crime) and people who actually have multiple destinations, families…..and real lives.

It is a very valid argument. You are indeed correct roads are needed, however our roads end up (eventually) being designed for peak load despite only carrying peak load maybe 10 hours a week in each direction. So with increased use of public transport, rail in particular you may not need as many main roads (for example calls for a road from Gungahlin around the back of Watson and Ainslie), or for them to be 4 lane dual carriageways. So it is something that very much needs to be considered in the big picture view.

And of course the users don’t pay nearly enough for their use. A large portion of road costs are cross subsidised by general rates, land sales and federal government grants. The piddly rego amount of $330 covers next to nothing. And mentioned it before but every trip made on the Majura parkway for the next 20 years is being subsidised to the tune of almost $1 for every trip made. And that is excluding maintenance and financing costs. Of course there are non cash savings elsewhere, and IMO on record saying it is a road that is necessary. But apply the same principles to light rail and you get endless howls of protest. All people see is a cost, not the direct and indirect cost savings and social benifits.

Correct roads are needed, incorrect light rail isn’t.

For the lazy (there are the odd few here) who won’t read those links because they are from such left wing publications as Fortune, drivers cover just a tad more than half the costs of roads.

Rollersk8r said :

dungfungus said :

Mordd said :

madelini said :

farout said :

I would like to see the cost-benefit analysis for making all ACTION buses free of charge.
Lower income earners are more likely to use public transport and are very price-responsive. This would get heaps of cars off the road and better utilise an existing asset. The revenue per fare would decrease, but total revenue would also increase – by a lot.

Poor people don’t drive (according to former treasurer Joe Hockey), so they must already be using public transport. So making it free would just be giving a handout to the poor would it not? So keep charging, they have no other option anyway. Call it a poor tax and then give cuts to companies and high income earners. Common sense really.

We can’t do that, it’s unfair.

Instead we need to build a ridiculously expensive transport system that will only be used by a tiny percentage of the population and will give windfall benefits to mostly well-off, inner-city property owners while asking them to pay almost nothing for it.

Makes much better sense.

“ridiculously expensive transport system”?

Isn’t that cars/roads? The only thing that will be more expensive than private cars will be Uber/Autonomous Cars.

Or if you really want to blow money, taxis and limos. Now you know they make sense! ROTFL!

Oh, can you point me to my comments supporting the construction of ridiculously expensive roads used by a tiny minority of people that aren’t funded by those users?

What’s that? No you can’t?

Situation normal it seems, carry on…..

Let’s ignore that the question was what is the most “ridiculously expensive transport system”, not how it is funded:

http://www.uspirg.org/reports/usp/who-pays-roads

http://www.frontiergroup.org/reports/fg/do-roads-pay-themselves

http://www.frontiergroup.org/reports/fg/who-pays-roads

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/05/debunking-the-myth-that-only-drivers-pay-for-roads/393134/

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/driving-true-costs/412237/

https://erikhare.com/songs-poems/cost-of-roads/

It may be America but the same phenomena exists here of drivers thinking they pay a whole lot more than they do because they never do the sums, they just go “Oh I’m paying tax on gas and registration therefore that MUST be…, oh damn maths is so hard! Fudge it!”

The truly irrational part is that the nonsense arguments against public transport pit single partially funded cars, discounting major (not to be counted) costs as “essential”, against whole of cost public transport (also essential), ignore that for families it is not SINGLE cars, it is MULTIPLE cars to move them around.

There are in fact 3 vehicles for every 4 people (man. woman and child) in Canberra. That is your “ridiculously expensive transport system”.

Cars/freeways as a “ridiculously expensive transport system” have only existed relatively recently in history. Civilisation existed without them right up to the mid-twentieth century where rising incomes made them possible and there was a foolish notion that this planet has infinite resources and burning huge quantities of carbon has no consequences.

Talking maths and real costs is going to make most people here just change the subject to something less difficult that they can deal with: Feelings. Feelings which have been managed by saturated advertising and marketing to associate cars not with getting from A to B but with social standing and sex appeal. Mostly for men, although women get their heads played with by the fallacious “safety” of large heavy 4WDs (that run over small children “safely”).

The size of a vehicle is a dog eat dog survival of the fittest notion, but as the accident near our house showed, the 4WD crumpled like a wet paper bag in an accident with an old Cortina, just like every other modern car has been designed to. But the size of the 50% overweight gas guzzling 4WD cars is part of the buying the delusion.

You are not just shuffling back and forth from work, you are a “Farmer dragging kilometres of fencing”, an “Intrepid outdoorsman, towing grateful dopes out of sticky holes, their cow like eyes looking up to you in undying admiration” and that most useful “need”, “Relocating meteorites up impossibly steep hills, where they belong”.

In other words the whole car thing is giving the dopey Walter Mittys of this world their daily fantasy whist stuck fuming in the traffic, that in their heart of hearts they “know” is not really “normal”.

TOF said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

The Liberals will be bringing in tolls to balance our budget.

Do u mean ACT Liberals ? If so, where/when have ACT Liberals said that ? Reference ?

Only a short time ago, I heard the ACT Libs Jeremy Hanson say something like “there will be no toll roads in the ACT under a Government that I lead……”.

Given Gillards’/Federal ALPs performance with that famous promise, I suppose its a kiss of death really !!!

Couldn’t have a better reference!

Rollersk8r said :

And you can’t argue about the capital cost of roads. Tram or no tram you still need a road infrastructure in a city for, you know, ambulances, deliveries, fire engines, police (I can just see them catching a 30minute ride from Gunghalin to the City to respond to crime) and people who actually have multiple destinations, families…..and real lives.

It is a very valid argument. You are indeed correct roads are needed, however our roads end up (eventually) being designed for peak load despite only carrying peak load maybe 10 hours a week in each direction. So with increased use of public transport, rail in particular you may not need as many main roads (for example calls for a road from Gungahlin around the back of Watson and Ainslie), or for them to be 4 lane dual carriageways. So it is something that very much needs to be considered in the big picture view.

And of course the users don’t pay nearly enough for their use. A large portion of road costs are cross subsidised by general rates, land sales and federal government grants. The piddly rego amount of $330 covers next to nothing. And mentioned it before but every trip made on the Majura parkway for the next 20 years is being subsidised to the tune of almost $1 for every trip made. And that is excluding maintenance and financing costs. Of course there are non cash savings elsewhere, and IMO on record saying it is a road that is necessary. But apply the same principles to light rail and you get endless howls of protest. All people see is a cost, not the direct and indirect cost savings and social benifits.

Congratulations!

Warmest Autumn on Record!!!!

Yay! Great stuff, keep up the great work!

With that deep thought and hard effort sitting down, you know you can make it even hotter!

So,what?
There must have been warmer (and colder) ones throughout time.
Personally, I found the Indian Summer conditions most pleasant and would welcome some more of it.

wildturkeycanoe said :

The Liberals will be bringing in tolls to balance our budget.

Do u mean ACT Liberals ? If so, where/when have ACT Liberals said that ? Reference ?

Only a short time ago, I heard the ACT Libs Jeremy Hanson say something like “there will be no toll roads in the ACT under a Government that I lead……”. Given Gillards’/Federal ALPs performance with that famous promise, I suppose its a kiss of death really !!!

dungfungus said :

Mordd said :

madelini said :

farout said :

I would like to see the cost-benefit analysis for making all ACTION buses free of charge.
Lower income earners are more likely to use public transport and are very price-responsive. This would get heaps of cars off the road and better utilise an existing asset. The revenue per fare would decrease, but total revenue would also increase – by a lot.

Poor people don’t drive (according to former treasurer Joe Hockey), so they must already be using public transport. So making it free would just be giving a handout to the poor would it not? So keep charging, they have no other option anyway. Call it a poor tax and then give cuts to companies and high income earners. Common sense really.

We can’t do that, it’s unfair.

Instead we need to build a ridiculously expensive transport system that will only be used by a tiny percentage of the population and will give windfall benefits to mostly well-off, inner-city property owners while asking them to pay almost nothing for it.

Makes much better sense.

“ridiculously expensive transport system”?

Isn’t that cars/roads? The only thing that will be more expensive than private cars will be Uber/Autonomous Cars.

Or if you really want to blow money, taxis and limos. Now you know they make sense! ROTFL!

Are you sure about that. What numbers are you basing tram usage on. Even if you get an average 13,000 commuters per day (unlikely), then divide by total cost of tram (pre inevitable blowouts), it’s quite scary.

Argue the tram on less congestion (even though it won’t be), argue it on greedy developer opportunities on Northbourne, argue it on urban renewal or some other wanky term for cramming more apartments into less space, but please, please don’t try to sell this on some kind of bargain of per passenger per kilometre.

And you can’t argue about the capital cost of roads. Tram or no tram you still need a road infrastructure in a city for, you know, ambulances, deliveries, fire engines, police (I can just see them catching a 30minute ride from Gunghalin to the City to respond to crime) and people who actually have multiple destinations, families…..and real lives.

dungfungus said :

Mordd said :

madelini said :

farout said :

I would like to see the cost-benefit analysis for making all ACTION buses free of charge.
Lower income earners are more likely to use public transport and are very price-responsive. This would get heaps of cars off the road and better utilise an existing asset. The revenue per fare would decrease, but total revenue would also increase – by a lot.

Poor people don’t drive (according to former treasurer Joe Hockey), so they must already be using public transport. So making it free would just be giving a handout to the poor would it not? So keep charging, they have no other option anyway. Call it a poor tax and then give cuts to companies and high income earners. Common sense really.

We can’t do that, it’s unfair.

Instead we need to build a ridiculously expensive transport system that will only be used by a tiny percentage of the population and will give windfall benefits to mostly well-off, inner-city property owners while asking them to pay almost nothing for it.

Makes much better sense.

“ridiculously expensive transport system”?

Isn’t that cars/roads? The only thing that will be more expensive than private cars will be Uber/Autonomous Cars.

Or if you really want to blow money, taxis and limos. Now you know they make sense! ROTFL!

Oh, can you point me to my comments supporting the construction of ridiculously expensive roads used by a tiny minority of people that aren’t funded by those users?

What’s that? No you can’t?

Situation normal it seems, carry on…..

Congratulations!

Warmest Autumn on Record!!!!

Yay! Great stuff, keep up the great work!

With that deep thought and hard effort sitting down, you know you can make it even hotter!

Mordd said :

madelini said :

farout said :

I would like to see the cost-benefit analysis for making all ACTION buses free of charge.
Lower income earners are more likely to use public transport and are very price-responsive. This would get heaps of cars off the road and better utilise an existing asset. The revenue per fare would decrease, but total revenue would also increase – by a lot.

Poor people don’t drive (according to former treasurer Joe Hockey), so they must already be using public transport. So making it free would just be giving a handout to the poor would it not? So keep charging, they have no other option anyway. Call it a poor tax and then give cuts to companies and high income earners. Common sense really.

We can’t do that, it’s unfair.

Instead we need to build a ridiculously expensive transport system that will only be used by a tiny percentage of the population and will give windfall benefits to mostly well-off, inner-city property owners while asking them to pay almost nothing for it.

Makes much better sense.

“ridiculously expensive transport system”?

Isn’t that cars/roads? The only thing that will be more expensive than private cars will be Uber/Autonomous Cars.

Or if you really want to blow money, taxis and limos. Now you know they make sense! ROTFL!

madelini said :

farout said :

I would like to see the cost-benefit analysis for making all ACTION buses free of charge.
Lower income earners are more likely to use public transport and are very price-responsive. This would get heaps of cars off the road and better utilise an existing asset. The revenue per fare would decrease, but total revenue would also increase – by a lot.

Poor people don’t drive (according to former treasurer Joe Hockey), so they must already be using public transport. So making it free would just be giving a handout to the poor would it not? So keep charging, they have no other option anyway. Call it a poor tax and then give cuts to companies and high income earners. Common sense really.

We can’t do that, it’s unfair.

Instead we need to build a ridiculously expensive transport system that will only be used by a tiny percentage of the population and will give windfall benefits to mostly well-off, inner-city property owners while asking them to pay almost nothing for it.

Makes much better sense.

dungfungus said :

farout said :

I would like to see the cost-benefit analysis for making all ACTION buses free of charge.
Lower income earners are more likely to use public transport and are very price-responsive. This would get heaps of cars off the road and better utilise an existing asset. The revenue per fare would decrease, but total revenue would also increase – by a lot.

“The revenue per fare would decrease, but total revenue would also increase – by a lot”
If they are free there will be no revenue. Please explain?

Yeah! That was weird!

People should pay for what they use. That includes drivers.

The Liberals will be bringing in tolls to balance our budget. No more government handouts, you will be means tested to prove that you are rich enough not to get the $50 billion ‘stimulus’ instead.

dungfungus said :

farout said :

I would like to see the cost-benefit analysis for making all ACTION buses free of charge.
Lower income earners are more likely to use public transport and are very price-responsive. This would get heaps of cars off the road and better utilise an existing asset. The revenue per fare would decrease, but total revenue would also increase – by a lot.

“The revenue per fare would decrease, but total revenue would also increase – by a lot”
If they are free there will be no revenue. Please explain?

My apologies, I meant free for low income earners. For others, run prices at a greater loss than already offered (i.e. a nominal fare). Social benefits are less congestion, it would deliver sufficient scale to increase total services and for once it’s a progressive subsidy rather than a regressive tax.

dungfungus said :

But what the heck who gives a stuff about the Great Barrier Reef when you get to drive your waddling body to Macdonalds for your sh*tty meal that “free” toys trained you into eating?

😀 love this. I may have to use it sometime.

However, you only get a toy with a Happy Meal and I’m pretty sure that the Happy Meal is failing in it’s basic premise if they’ve been eating them.

farout said :

I would like to see the cost-benefit analysis for making all ACTION buses free of charge.
Lower income earners are more likely to use public transport and are very price-responsive. This would get heaps of cars off the road and better utilise an existing asset. The revenue per fare would decrease, but total revenue would also increase – by a lot.

Poor people don’t drive (according to former treasurer Joe Hockey), so they must already be using public transport. So making it free would just be giving a handout to the poor would it not? So keep charging, they have no other option anyway. Call it a poor tax and then give cuts to companies and high income earners. Common sense really.

farout said :

I would like to see the cost-benefit analysis for making all ACTION buses free of charge.
Lower income earners are more likely to use public transport and are very price-responsive. This would get heaps of cars off the road and better utilise an existing asset. The revenue per fare would decrease, but total revenue would also increase – by a lot.

“The revenue per fare would decrease, but total revenue would also increase – by a lot”
If they are free there will be no revenue. Please explain?

I would like to see the cost-benefit analysis for making all ACTION buses free of charge.
Lower income earners are more likely to use public transport and are very price-responsive. This would get heaps of cars off the road and better utilise an existing asset. The revenue per fare would decrease, but total revenue would also increase – by a lot.

Mordd said :

Charlotte Harper said :

Or, is it that you just hate cars.

This far into the responses and you just figured that out?

Is it a hate of cars or the people who have to drive them ?

I don’t hate cars unlike some of those who have a pathological hatred and fear of trams, public transport and the people who use them. I use cars when I need to, but avoid them where I can

I do have however an intense dislike of deep-seated unthinking prejudices and stupidity.

There is no doubt of the damage that cars do to a city physically and environmentally. They make a misery of huge swathes of our urban environment with the immense amount of noise that infiltrates everywhere and the barriers they throw up to movement, how they kill neighborhoods, the awful effects of their contribution to the sit down culture that is also killing us and of course the Big Denial of their contribution to global warming. But what the heck who gives a stuff about the Great Barrier Reef when you get to drive your waddling body to Macdonalds for your sh*tty meal that “free” toys trained you into eating?

Mordd said :

Charlotte Harper said :

Or, is it that you just hate cars.

This far into the responses and you just figured that out?

Is it a hate of cars or the people who have to drive them ?

Charlotte Harper said :

Or, is it that you just hate cars.

This far into the responses and you just figured that out?

TuggLife said :

Particularly ringing alarm bells are assuming multiple passengers when present car usage shows none of that. Nearly every car today, especially in peak hour has one occupant, with a very occasional two.

Why do you think your statement is true? It is because very few people who travel in Canberra are going from and to the same destination, at the same time. With the pathetic public transport model running presently, people have no choice but to drive their cars. If they wanted to take an extra hour or two to get from their breakfast table to their office, they would catch the morning express but they haven’t got time for that. If it rains, or is windy and -6°C or calm and 39°C, or they have to carry tools, heavy equipment, or have to walk 400 meters to the nearest bus stop to endure a tour of the suburbs followed by another 600 meter walk with their high heels, steel caps or suit, tie and brief case, they will take the next best option which is driving their car. Perhaps they use their car frequently during the day to visit clients or attend meetings. Maybe they have to pick up the kids straight after school or from afters care, but they aren’t on the bus route. A lot of people need the flexibility and freedom that a car gives them.

I have been without a car before and absolutely hated it. I used public transport to go car shopping on a Saturday and found that of the approximately six hours I spent doing so, nearly four hours of it were either waiting for the next bus or sitting in one. That is 66% of my time spent in public transport for a shopping trip that could have better if had I driven there. Similarly, I have had appointments across town for which I had to leave an hour and a half early in order to avoid being late. A car would have taken me there in under 30 minutes.
I also considered commuting to work during this time, but I would have had to catch the last bus, around 11:00 PM the day before and spend the night sleeping at the bus shelter in order to arrive at work by 7:00 the next morning. I ended up getting lifts but when my lift was sick or had a day off, alarm bells rang and I’d be frantically looking for alternatives. If this is your idea of a better alternative to cars, you are insane.

In my younger days I was without a license for 12 months and believe me when I say it ruined my life. I was living in a small town, but nevertheless my life went down the gurgler. Walking to and from work in steel caps in the heat of the middle of summer and the ice of winter, organizing lifts to attend TAFE 100km away and carrying bags of shopping up the steepest hill in town. That wasn’t the worst of it. I became isolated from my friends, many of whom lived further out of town. When last minute camping or fishing trips happened I’d be left with no way of getting there, especially if they were on their dirt bikes. I felt guilty having to always ask for lifts, so I instead decided to just decline attendance and stay at home. Do you know how awkward it is when you have been given a lift to an event somewhere and cannot leave when you want to but have to wait till your ride goes? It doesn’t do your self esteem much good at all. All those months spent alone unable to do the things I most enjoyed doing, pushed me into a dark state of mind.

If you did a poll on people who drive to and from work, would you find many willing or able to change to public transport? If it is indeed cheaper, why do so many not take up the option? Even if bus travel was free, I would bet that the people who drive now would not change their method of transport. The tram project will not rid Civic of traffic chaos, even if the expected 7,500 passengers ditched their cars. Trams across all of Canberra will still not get rid of the need for personalized transport options, because they do not suit our needs. Changing work and family schedules, places of employment, the way our jobs are carried out and the structure of the public transport system itself may be of better use than a “one size fits all”, last century attempt at fixing a problem. Centralizing government services, financial institutions and education hubs instead of spreading these around into major town centers is the reason we have the need for commuting. Every time a bank branch closes in a shopping district, a post office shuts or welfare and government services are relocated into a one stop shop, more people need to travel further to carry out their daily tasks. If we focused on removing the reasons people need to travel instead of finding ways to make more people fill our transit corridors, we can make this less of a problem.

TuggLife said :

It will take me some time to read through all that and I’ll do my best, hampered by the lack of calculations.

When I showed my research for cars vs Light Rail on a wide range of factors I actually showed my calculations and the factors on which they were based. I have none of this on the above links, so it is very hard to deconstruct. Be great to have the spreadsheets so I can check the presumptions and the calculations and how they interrelate. Looks very much like the rickety but complicated arguments you find on anti-environmental websites. The devil being in the dubious details.

Meanwhile I already have spotted a few major flaws and will tackle them logically in steps.

1. SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR

The presumptions that underpin the arguments and calculations of the projected usage of autonomous cars are extremely optimistic and I think are way off base. Like many things which are nothing but sales pitches and I’ve seen thousands of those, having done the marketing for many.

Particularly ringing alarm bells are assuming multiple passengers when present car usage shows none of that. Nearly every car today, especially in peak hour has one occupant, with a very occasional two.

The assumptions have a huge impact, by unrealistically assuming 2, 3, 4, 5 passengers per vehicle this dramatically changes the economics and more particularly the vehicle density on the roads and therefore their presumed capacity and cost.

Let’s not fool ourselves that autonomous cars are anything but a fancy taxi service. It would be most accurate to model usage and cost of autonomous cars on usage of taxis.

Taxis are expensive so you would think that would push people to share taxis to bring the cost down, which is what your modelling states WILL happen (no shadow of doubt) with autonomous cars. Yet most rides in taxis are still only one passenger. If there are additional passengers, rarely, they usually are related in some way with a common destination, just about never strangers headed to multiple destinations. Yet that is what the modelling suggests will happen in the future.

This is something that you with your apparent agoraphobia, hypochondria and anti-social obsessions may appreciate. In taxis this all happens within the implied protection of a human driver, yet the “model” suggests this will all change with NO driver! and that users will actually freely share and feel safe within the small confines of the vehicle. I see little to no chance of that especially for women, children, the elderly or anyone who feels vulnerable. Or prone to the horrific diseases contracted from being near other people! 😀

CONCLUSION: Ride sharing has only ever worked for very limited numbers of commuters who know each other and repeatedly do the same commute at the same time between the same two points. Autonomous cars radically changing that? Can not see how, if anything worse due to the increased vulnerability.

Autonomous cars may in fact actually reduce the passenger rate because for a significant travel time they will be empty, circulating, repositioning, refueling or heading for maintenance or parking. I can see none of that in the links. Only what we in the industry call “billing time” the chargeable, passenger part of the journey.

It has already been suggested by those eagerly looking forward to autonomous vehicles as the Solution To Everything that they will own their own (no reduction in vehicle numbers) and send them home to park or to park in the nearest quiet suburb, using someone else’s neighborhood as a parking lot. In fact doubling the number of trips and in the case of sending the vehicle home, halving the passenger number to 0.5.

That people are even suggesting such wasteful and expensive practices shows just how little they appreciate the actual cost of the car kilometres, the disruption to the city and the energy used.

That’s got to be one of the most closed minded rants I’ve ever read. We aren’t even sure yet exactly how autonomous vehicles will change things, but by all accounts they will be an incredibly ‘disruptive’ technology in the same way as internet or smartphones. That’s why building a tram right now is about the worst timing possible.

Autonomous vehicles need not even take the current form of cars, you could for instance have a minibus style setup. People will naturally not want to share, but if there is money to be saved, then the decision may vary. The big thing about autonomous is there is the ability to make super educated decisions, it won’t be like car pooling with people you need to co-ordinate trips. You could say call an autonomous car on your smartphone when ready and the system will plot the closest car etc.

What exactly are you trying to fix with trams? Pollution, well electric autonomous vehicles and renewable energy addresses that. Noise? Electric cars fix that – trams are just as noisy. Congestion? Autonomous cars have the potential to address this too. Your suggestion of every car returning home is just putting a negative spin on things. Autonomous vehicles could plot the least congested route to a low value piece of land with multi storey charging stations.

Or, is it that you just hate cars.

The tram is already a terrible solution for Canberra…autonomous cars will just make the situation even worse for the tram decision.

2. EFFICIENCY

2.1 ENERGY

These are still heavy cars, with rubber tyres and for the foreseable future, and definitely for the calculations on the autonomous car site, using fossil fuels.

Cars use over 10-20 times as much energy to move people as railed vehicles and for the foreseeable future that will be dirty energy at a time when we desperately need to be converting to clean sources of energy.

2.2 TRANSIT CORRIDOR

Cars occupy a lot of space, both when actually moving people which is rarely, and when doing nothing, the vast amount of time. It is not the average square metre of the car with its typical 1.2 passengers either, it is the access to parking and the braking margin between cars when moving which grows worse the greater the congestion and (if it is possible when traffic gets moving) expands with increased speed and number of lanes.

Because roads are so inefficient the width of road corridors is dramatically greater than that of LR. Depending how you calculate it, you need about 10x as much roads as you do rail. A 2 track LR corridor is the same as 2 road lanes but carries over 10x as many passengers., and you can still easily cross the tracks, where you have no chance in hell of crossing multiple lanes of road without stopping the traffic.

I was amazed to find on an ACTPLAN land use map that 25% of built up Canberra is devoted to roads and vehicles.

2.3 RESOURCES

The huge number of cars and the resources used in their manufacture, shipped long distances around the world along with their dirty fuels means every car, with its usual solitary passenger, moving very infrequently represents a huge amount of consumer miles before making its first trip.

In 2015 there were 283,572 vehicles in the ACT for 392,000 people.

2.4 COST

According to RACQ figures in 2015 based on ABS statistics:

Average annual distance travelled: 15,000 km
Average running costs of medium size car: $11,704.16/yr
Average cost of driving: $0.74/km

Owning a car is obviously an expensive convenience, especially as it gets very little use. Unless you are using it for business you would be lucky to use it 5% of the time. 95% of the time it is parked somewhere. The cost of both public parking and private parking is not included in the above figures. Just the additional building required to house cars is greater than the cost of the cars themselves, adding significantly to the cost of houses and apartments.

If, as proposed by those promoting autonomous vehicles this cost is a business cost by the supplier of what will be a computerised taxi service, this results in a much higher maintenance cost and the margin for profit. The autonomous car is going to cost more because it is more complex than a normal car. To get any green credentials and be an electric car, the cost skyrockets.

The extent of all this is anyone’s guess because it is all pie in the sky, but an autonomous car WILL cost more than a conventional vehicle and will suffer greater wear and tear and need to be maintained to a much higher standard. Think vomitting drunks and vandals and this is far beyond the occassional air freshener. My guess which is about as good as any, is that this will be in the vicinity of what Uber charges.

The claimed figures in the autonomous car links are way off the mark. No way corporate autonomous cars are going to cost less than private cars per kilometre. If they are used more often they will need more maintenance and need to be replaced more often and certainly the need to get a return on investment is going to trump the private owners general total lack of economic judgement.

2.5 DUPLICATION OF SERVICES

Competing suppliers will mean multiple fleets and numbers of vehicles in fleets will increase due to each fleet needing spare capacity.

The number of vehicles will need to cover maximum usage in any needs based planning, but in commercial planning that usually translates to the 80:20 rule. Supply 80% of the demand, the other 20% is not profitable and you get the No Taxi When It Is Wet rule applying.

The maximum demand will be peak hour as it is for all transport systems. That means there will be a huge number of vehicles required to cover short periods of use AM and PM and be largely idle and need to be stored for the remainder of the day. Pretty well the 95% idle of priovate ownership, only slightly moderated if the vehicle can get back to the remote location for another pickup. Automated cars suffer from the same tidal flow of people movements as all other transport systems.

I particularly question the claim that an actually available autonomous car will be at your beck and call anywhere within 2 minutes.

How many circulating autonomous cars will there be within 2 minutes of you in Banks at 2am Tuesday morning?

How about Googong or Sutton?

After the big footie match at Canberra Stadium?

Last people will still duplicate any shared vehicles with private vehicles because autonomous vehicles will either not be available for long trips or simply be prohibitavely expensive over long distances. This will effectively negate the supposed Either/Or advantage. It will be both.

2.6 INTERACTION WITH NON-AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES & PEOPLE

The whole story of autonomous cars is how they will tighten up traffic and work in synchronised lock step at maximum efficiency.

That does rather beggar what happens with all the non-autonomous vehicles, which will always exist. Particularly whilst autonomous cars are just the minority vehicles and get absolutely NO benefit at all when stuck in the existing traffic jams. All the passenger will be able to do is read their newspaper. If they can without throwing up in stop start traffic.

The premise of autonomous cars comes from the computer industry. “If only cars were like information packets moving through chips. If only!”

Well for a start they are extremely inefficient packets. 2 bits as opposed to the 8 bits of trams and the 32 bits of metro systems and 64 bits of heavy rail.

Secondly they fail just as do circuits which have interference from non regulated movements. Catastrophically, and generating a massive amount of heat in the process.

As they exist supposedly to enable the existing suburban (increasing) sprawl, they do exactly the opposite of Moore’s Law which predicts capacity and speed increasing due to miniaturisation. ie Reducing the necessary distance of travel. They generate a lot of long distance movement which grows exponentially slower and less efficient with size.

There is also the curious interaction with pedestrians, bike riders or any other inhabitants in this world that drivers pretend don’t, or should not exist. Will jaywalkers bring autonomous cars to a grinding halt or just die? Either way, will streams of closely spaced cars further divide up our cities into impassable No-Go zones?

CONCLUSION: The whole premise of autonomous cars is built upon a lot of totally unrealistic assumptions that don’t even include the most obvious real world obstacles. Performance is greatly exaggerated.

Since it doesn’t even exist in practice, the promoters have gone for Disneyland, an almost word for word repeat of the promises made for cars in Futureworld, before they ate our cities, made us all fatslugs and turned the planet up to Gas Mark 5.

It will take me some time to read through all that and I’ll do my best, hampered by the lack of calculations.

When I showed my research for cars vs Light Rail on a wide range of factors I actually showed my calculations and the factors on which they were based. I have none of this on the above links, so it is very hard to deconstruct. Be great to have the spreadsheets so I can check the presumptions and the calculations and how they interrelate. Looks very much like the rickety but complicated arguments you find on anti-environmental websites. The devil being in the dubious details.

Meanwhile I already have spotted a few major flaws and will tackle them logically in steps.

1. SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR

The presumptions that underpin the arguments and calculations of the projected usage of autonomous cars are extremely optimistic and I think are way off base. Like many things which are nothing but sales pitches and I’ve seen thousands of those, having done the marketing for many.

Particularly ringing alarm bells are assuming multiple passengers when present car usage shows none of that. Nearly every car today, especially in peak hour has one occupant, with a very occasional two.

The assumptions have a huge impact, by unrealistically assuming 2, 3, 4, 5 passengers per vehicle this dramatically changes the economics and more particularly the vehicle density on the roads and therefore their presumed capacity and cost.

Let’s not fool ourselves that autonomous cars are anything but a fancy taxi service. It would be most accurate to model usage and cost of autonomous cars on usage of taxis.

Taxis are expensive so you would think that would push people to share taxis to bring the cost down, which is what your modelling states WILL happen (no shadow of doubt) with autonomous cars. Yet most rides in taxis are still only one passenger. If there are additional passengers, rarely, they usually are related in some way with a common destination, just about never strangers headed to multiple destinations. Yet that is what the modelling suggests will happen in the future.

This is something that you with your apparent agoraphobia, hypochondria and anti-social obsessions may appreciate. In taxis this all happens within the implied protection of a human driver, yet the “model” suggests this will all change with NO driver! and that users will actually freely share and feel safe within the small confines of the vehicle. I see little to no chance of that especially for women, children, the elderly or anyone who feels vulnerable. Or prone to the horrific diseases contracted from being near other people! 😀

CONCLUSION: Ride sharing has only ever worked for very limited numbers of commuters who know each other and repeatedly do the same commute at the same time between the same two points. Autonomous cars radically changing that? Can not see how, if anything worse due to the increased vulnerability.

Autonomous cars may in fact actually reduce the passenger rate because for a significant travel time they will be empty, circulating, repositioning, refueling or heading for maintenance or parking. I can see none of that in the links. Only what we in the industry call “billing time” the chargeable, passenger part of the journey.

It has already been suggested by those eagerly looking forward to autonomous vehicles as the Solution To Everything that they will own their own (no reduction in vehicle numbers) and send them home to park or to park in the nearest quiet suburb, using someone else’s neighborhood as a parking lot. In fact doubling the number of trips and in the case of sending the vehicle home, halving the passenger number to 0.5.

That people are even suggesting such wasteful and expensive practices shows just how little they appreciate the actual cost of the car kilometres, the disruption to the city and the energy used.

Mark of Sydney said :

Note also the negative impact on car traffic on Northbourne despite what the tram business case claims.

The ACT Labor/Greens Gov’t own Environmental Impact Statement for the Tram actually says that road traffic congestion will increase dramatically (+ trip times will blow out) along the corridor – especially along Northborne and Flemington, because of the rush to infill/densify along the corridor. Remember that cross traffic will also be affected by signals being syncronised for an approaching tram + the absurd assertion that those living along the corridor will not need or use a car.

Well, Rubaiyat, here’s some analysis (albeit from the autonomous car site, although it looks more analytical than the fluff from our local Govt) of just how much the tram will screw over everyone:
http://canberraautonomouscars.info/TramsForCanberra/tramsAndCanberra.html

Note the massive drop in the % of users who will be seated. We aren’t living in London or New York, now or anytime in the future. We can do better than forcing our transport users to stand up squished in.

Note also the negative impact on car traffic on Northbourne despite what the tram business case claims.

Rubaiyat, you’ve said before on RiotACT that you own(ed) a ski lodge and send your kids to Grammar. I don’t think I’ve met a single Canberran with that kind of wealth who uses public transport. Is it that you are happy for others to stand up packed in coughing and sneezing over each other. Is that your vision for the masses?

Heavs said :

Mordd said :

If we charged $1 for every post Rubaiyat makes about how trams are good, buses aren’t for some weird reasons and cars are evil then we’d have enough to afford this white elephant. Well, at least the first stage of it. Even the richest city in the world couldn’t afford to span that gold plated solution across spread out Canberra.

Rubaiyat, Canberra does not have a significant car problem now or in the forseeable future. Sure Gunghalin needs some alleviation, but a few lovely roads will fix that. Canberrans don’t all work in civic. even if they do, many also drop children at daycare, sports, etc. etc. Cars are cheaper than ever. Petrol is cheaper than ever. Electric cars are coming as are autonomous cars (despite your protestation). The cost of our roads is spread across an enormous number of users. The Majura Parkway isn’t just for a few Gunghalin commuters you realise?

The tram will service a very limited subset of Canberrans. Worse still, if it happens to get the usage Labor dreams of, the users will be crammed in, almost all standing and coughing and sneezing over each other. Surely we can do better than that?

Hear hear!
I heard today that the Canberra trams will have seat belts which is akin to a pocket on a pair of underpants or an ashtray on a push-bike so it is probably correct.

Ah, those voices again.

Pity they never give links.

Is it the CFMEU or the TWU that will control ACT Tram drivers ? Will the ACT Govt’s MOU with Unions ACT lead to the types of 18% pay rises on the Tram project that the CFMEU has just obtained for Victorian construction workers : ?

http://www.afr.com/opinion/editorials/cfmeu-robs-from-other-workers-to-fund-their-pay-rises-20160529-gp6jrz

Well, I suppose if garbage truck drivers can earn $96K pa through their union in Canberra, then what about the future Tram drivers ???? But hey – who cares. It’s a project funded by ACT Ratepayers, so the sky might be the limit !!!!

Mordd said :

If we charged $1 for every post Rubaiyat makes about how trams are good, buses aren’t for some weird reasons and cars are evil then we’d have enough to afford this white elephant. Well, at least the first stage of it. Even the richest city in the world couldn’t afford to span that gold plated solution across spread out Canberra.

Rubaiyat, Canberra does not have a significant car problem now or in the forseeable future. Sure Gunghalin needs some alleviation, but a few lovely roads will fix that. Canberrans don’t all work in civic. even if they do, many also drop children at daycare, sports, etc. etc. Cars are cheaper than ever. Petrol is cheaper than ever. Electric cars are coming as are autonomous cars (despite your protestation). The cost of our roads is spread across an enormous number of users. The Majura Parkway isn’t just for a few Gunghalin commuters you realise?

The tram will service a very limited subset of Canberrans. Worse still, if it happens to get the usage Labor dreams of, the users will be crammed in, almost all standing and coughing and sneezing over each other. Surely we can do better than that?

Hear hear!
I heard today that the Canberra trams will have seat belts which is akin to a pocket on a pair of underpants or an ashtray on a push-bike so it is probably correct.

If we charged $1 for every post Rubaiyat makes about how trams are good, buses aren’t for some weird reasons and cars are evil then we’d have enough to afford this white elephant. Well, at least the first stage of it. Even the richest city in the world couldn’t afford to span that gold plated solution across spread out Canberra.

Rubaiyat, Canberra does not have a significant car problem now or in the forseeable future. Sure Gunghalin needs some alleviation, but a few lovely roads will fix that. Canberrans don’t all work in civic. even if they do, many also drop children at daycare, sports, etc. etc. Cars are cheaper than ever. Petrol is cheaper than ever. Electric cars are coming as are autonomous cars (despite your protestation). The cost of our roads is spread across an enormous number of users. The Majura Parkway isn’t just for a few Gunghalin commuters you realise?

The tram will service a very limited subset of Canberrans. Worse still, if it happens to get the usage Labor dreams of, the users will be crammed in, almost all standing and coughing and sneezing over each other. Surely we can do better than that?

wildturkeycanoe said :

John Moulis said :

Kim Huynh said :

pajs said :

bronal said :

sputnik said :

pajs said :

Here’s another candidate for “examine all options”:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/chinese-bus-to-glide-above-traffic-20160526-gp50nd.html

I’m extremely surprised you’re not the main cheerleader for this option.

Ridiculously high upfront cost – check
poor cost/benefit analysis – check
Much cheaper more versatile alternatives – check

Why doesnt everyone stop living in the past, we need proper public transport and this is clearly the only way to go. It’s 2016.ffs.

If you want something ridiculously expensive: freeway plus enormous number of cars
If you want something that destroys the city it is supposed to serve: freeway plus enormous number of cars
If you want something that gets zero cost/benefit analysis: freeway plus enormous number of cars
If you want something that the people who promulgate it will never use: BRT
If you want something that runs up and down the street unobtrusively, safely and with minimal pollution, that you get on and off as you please and in the long run is the cheapest option: Tram

I put up the above example because it only exists, like BRT, as an excuse to keep roads flooded with noisy polluting, dangerous cars that divide up cities and make life hell for all the inhabitants.

Indeed, why doesn’t everybody stop living in the past? We don’t need people spitting or urinating/defecating/polluting in the streets, in peril of being run over just trying to go somewhere by selfish people occupying large areas of land, in almost two hundred year old cars, raging against each other because they figure they have defeated everybody else in the battle for domination of the city and pollution of the planet.

As with cigarettes the problem is the advertising industry has so successfully persuaded the small weiners who drive, that this makes them manly even when creeping along in traffic in their old smokers, and getting them out of their cars into something that fits a grown up city better is equivalent to emasculation.

The single minded selfishness and everybody else can go hang is demonstrated by the miniscule wait drivers will have to endure to cross from one side of Northbourne Avenue to the other. They never consider the much greater delays THEY as drivers cause pedestrians who can not cross multi-lane roads and freeways like Northbourne Avenue in the city or anyway, without fear of being run over. So much so that the west side of the City is neglected and avoided.

The tram fits in perfectly with urban life as demonstrated around the world, mixing in with pedestrians who can freely cross its tracks between passes, unobstructed, unpolluted, not drowned by ceaseless noise and with minimal damage to both the city and the world as a whole.

But then this is not about all of us in the city or the world, this is about selfish, resentful, isolated and often angry little people hiding away inside their cars being as unsociable as they like because “You can’t see me!, but I am so amazing, I bought a car!”

So you like trams because they’re pretty. Got it.

You (repeatedly) have got nothing.

I like trams because they are effective inner city transport, clean, safe, unobstructive, and cheap.

For all of those reasons they liberate urban spaces where buses and cars kill them.

I repeatedly point to the government’s own modelling as to why the tram is not the most cost effective solution for public transport in this corridor when considering all factors and demand. They potentially could be used in the future if the economics ever stacked up but it doesn’t at present and won’t for many years/decades. You repeatedly ignore it because you want the most expensive option.

The fact that you think they’re unobstructive and cheap makes my point when all evidence points to either the opposite or no better than other options.

I am firmly of the opinion that this government couldn’t make the case for free beer.

You have repeatedly ignored all the environmental, health, safety and urban costs of BRT as it seems so does the very report that you cherry pick from. Strangely according to Table 1 the BRT has no vehicles nor depots, just bare roads and bus stops. Hence no mention either of pollution or adverse impact on the city.

“Oh! No! Gromit! We forgot the buses!!”

You have repeatedly quoted all the bits you like from the report but not the conclusion, nor as the report points out that there are many reasons to choose a transport solution other than just price.

You have repeatedly ignored the consequences of BRTs. Where they are most used, in 3rd world countries, they are banned from operations during certain times of the day due to excessive pollution and noise. In Canberra you only have to see what bus terminals do to their neighbourhoods to not want them anywhere near you.

You have also ignored that the BRT planned was kerbside and so removed 2 lanes from the entire length of the route except where it mysteriously crossed all the rest of the traffic to converge in the middle. just to stuff up the other lanes.

You have also ignored that the proposed Liberal BRT only achieves its “speed” by not stopping. Useless. As if speed is everything. Certainly isn’t for all those stuck in traffic or they’d be riding bicycles which have been shown to be by far the fastest commute from Gungahlin to the City.

The killer is that most BRTs in 1st world countries end up Light Rail, so you end up paying twice. Like buying that Android phone because “I’m saving money”. You still end up with the iPhone but your mates never threw their money away on the Samsung.

I’ve ignored none of those things, any negatives of a BRT system is clearly offset by the significantly lower capital costs and flexibility of the system.

And as I ‘ve also said repeatedly we may end up upgrading to light rail in a few decades if/when demand necessitates it. The NPV of doing so would still be much better than spending the ridiculous amount proposed for the light rail now with no demand to support it.

I’ve also said that if the government is dead set on spending this money then the whole project should be funded by the main beneficiaries of the project. The landholders along the route, who are basically being given a taxpayer funded gift of tens of thousands of dollars paid for by all ratepayers. Ah but doing so would cost votes and remove the smell of pork from this whole debacle now wouldn’t it.

John Moulis said :

Kim Huynh said :

pajs said :

bronal said :

sputnik said :

pajs said :

Here’s another candidate for “examine all options”:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/chinese-bus-to-glide-above-traffic-20160526-gp50nd.html

I’m extremely surprised you’re not the main cheerleader for this option.

Ridiculously high upfront cost – check
poor cost/benefit analysis – check
Much cheaper more versatile alternatives – check

Why doesnt everyone stop living in the past, we need proper public transport and this is clearly the only way to go. It’s 2016.ffs.

If you want something ridiculously expensive: freeway plus enormous number of cars
If you want something that destroys the city it is supposed to serve: freeway plus enormous number of cars
If you want something that gets zero cost/benefit analysis: freeway plus enormous number of cars
If you want something that the people who promulgate it will never use: BRT
If you want something that runs up and down the street unobtrusively, safely and with minimal pollution, that you get on and off as you please and in the long run is the cheapest option: Tram

I put up the above example because it only exists, like BRT, as an excuse to keep roads flooded with noisy polluting, dangerous cars that divide up cities and make life hell for all the inhabitants.

Indeed, why doesn’t everybody stop living in the past? We don’t need people spitting or urinating/defecating/polluting in the streets, in peril of being run over just trying to go somewhere by selfish people occupying large areas of land, in almost two hundred year old cars, raging against each other because they figure they have defeated everybody else in the battle for domination of the city and pollution of the planet.

As with cigarettes the problem is the advertising industry has so successfully persuaded the small weiners who drive, that this makes them manly even when creeping along in traffic in their old smokers, and getting them out of their cars into something that fits a grown up city better is equivalent to emasculation.

The single minded selfishness and everybody else can go hang is demonstrated by the miniscule wait drivers will have to endure to cross from one side of Northbourne Avenue to the other. They never consider the much greater delays THEY as drivers cause pedestrians who can not cross multi-lane roads and freeways like Northbourne Avenue in the city or anyway, without fear of being run over. So much so that the west side of the City is neglected and avoided.

The tram fits in perfectly with urban life as demonstrated around the world, mixing in with pedestrians who can freely cross its tracks between passes, unobstructed, unpolluted, not drowned by ceaseless noise and with minimal damage to both the city and the world as a whole.

But then this is not about all of us in the city or the world, this is about selfish, resentful, isolated and often angry little people hiding away inside their cars being as unsociable as they like because “You can’t see me!, but I am so amazing, I bought a car!”

So you like trams because they’re pretty. Got it.

You (repeatedly) have got nothing.

I like trams because they are effective inner city transport, clean, safe, unobstructive, and cheap.

For all of those reasons they liberate urban spaces where buses and cars kill them.

I repeatedly point to the government’s own modelling as to why the tram is not the most cost effective solution for public transport in this corridor when considering all factors and demand. They potentially could be used in the future if the economics ever stacked up but it doesn’t at present and won’t for many years/decades. You repeatedly ignore it because you want the most expensive option.

The fact that you think they’re unobstructive and cheap makes my point when all evidence points to either the opposite or no better than other options.

I am firmly of the opinion that this government couldn’t make the case for free beer.

You have repeatedly ignored all the environmental, health, safety and urban costs of BRT as it seems so does the very report that you cherry pick from. Strangely according to Table 1 the BRT has no vehicles nor depots, just bare roads and bus stops. Hence no mention either of pollution or adverse impact on the city.

“Oh! No! Gromit! We forgot the buses!!”

You have repeatedly quoted all the bits you like from the report but not the conclusion, nor as the report points out that there are many reasons to choose a transport solution other than just price.

You have repeatedly ignored the consequences of BRTs. Where they are most used, in 3rd world countries, they are banned from operations during certain times of the day due to excessive pollution and noise. In Canberra you only have to see what bus terminals do to their neighbourhoods to not want them anywhere near you.

You have also ignored that the BRT planned was kerbside and so removed 2 lanes from the entire length of the route except where it mysteriously crossed all the rest of the traffic to converge in the middle. just to stuff up the other lanes.

You have also ignored that the proposed Liberal BRT only achieves its “speed” by not stopping. Useless. As if speed is everything. Certainly isn’t for all those stuck in traffic or they’d be riding bicycles which have been shown to be by far the fastest commute from Gungahlin to the City.

The killer is that most BRTs in 1st world countries end up Light Rail, so you end up paying twice. Like buying that Android phone because “I’m saving money”. You still end up with the iPhone but your mates never threw their money away on the Samsung.

Kim Huynh said :

pajs said :

bronal said :

sputnik said :

pajs said :

Here’s another candidate for “examine all options”:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/chinese-bus-to-glide-above-traffic-20160526-gp50nd.html

I’m extremely surprised you’re not the main cheerleader for this option.

Ridiculously high upfront cost – check
poor cost/benefit analysis – check
Much cheaper more versatile alternatives – check

Why doesnt everyone stop living in the past, we need proper public transport and this is clearly the only way to go. It’s 2016.ffs.

If you want something ridiculously expensive: freeway plus enormous number of cars
If you want something that destroys the city it is supposed to serve: freeway plus enormous number of cars
If you want something that gets zero cost/benefit analysis: freeway plus enormous number of cars
If you want something that the people who promulgate it will never use: BRT
If you want something that runs up and down the street unobtrusively, safely and with minimal pollution, that you get on and off as you please and in the long run is the cheapest option: Tram

I put up the above example because it only exists, like BRT, as an excuse to keep roads flooded with noisy polluting, dangerous cars that divide up cities and make life hell for all the inhabitants.

Indeed, why doesn’t everybody stop living in the past? We don’t need people spitting or urinating/defecating/polluting in the streets, in peril of being run over just trying to go somewhere by selfish people occupying large areas of land, in almost two hundred year old cars, raging against each other because they figure they have defeated everybody else in the battle for domination of the city and pollution of the planet.

As with cigarettes the problem is the advertising industry has so successfully persuaded the small weiners who drive, that this makes them manly even when creeping along in traffic in their old smokers, and getting them out of their cars into something that fits a grown up city better is equivalent to emasculation.

The single minded selfishness and everybody else can go hang is demonstrated by the miniscule wait drivers will have to endure to cross from one side of Northbourne Avenue to the other. They never consider the much greater delays THEY as drivers cause pedestrians who can not cross multi-lane roads and freeways like Northbourne Avenue in the city or anyway, without fear of being run over. So much so that the west side of the City is neglected and avoided.

The tram fits in perfectly with urban life as demonstrated around the world, mixing in with pedestrians who can freely cross its tracks between passes, unobstructed, unpolluted, not drowned by ceaseless noise and with minimal damage to both the city and the world as a whole.

But then this is not about all of us in the city or the world, this is about selfish, resentful, isolated and often angry little people hiding away inside their cars being as unsociable as they like because “You can’t see me!, but I am so amazing, I bought a car!”

So you like trams because they’re pretty. Got it.

You (repeatedly) have got nothing.

I like trams because they are effective inner city transport, clean, safe, unobstructive, and cheap.

For all of those reasons they liberate urban spaces where buses and cars kill them.

I repeatedly point to the government’s own modelling as to why the tram is not the most cost effective solution for public transport in this corridor when considering all factors and demand. They potentially could be used in the future if the economics ever stacked up but it doesn’t at present and won’t for many years/decades. You repeatedly ignore it because you want the most expensive option.

The fact that you think they’re unobstructive and cheap makes my point when all evidence points to either the opposite or no better than other options.

Mordd said :

Roksteddy said :

tooltime said :

rommeldog56 said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

pajs said :

Here’s another candidate for “examine all options”:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/chinese-bus-to-glide-above-traffic-20160526-gp50nd.html

Don’t carry anything on the car roof rack. It would be like being eaten by a worm. 🙂

Or be another bus or truck or almost anything!

It is one of those not very thought through “brainwaves” by a rather persistent inventor who seems unable to give up on his pet project, as shot full of holes as it obviously is.

You need a rather tall ladder to get up and down from the thing for a start, and far from cruising over the traffic it is going to be stuck behind the next highest thing. Just like everybody else in China’s appalling traffic jams.

Looks like absolutely the worst option of a long list of terrible options, but what the heck, toss it in the grab bag of obfuscating obstructions to doing the obvious.

If they made it a bit higher it could cruise over the trees along Northbourne too!
That would make it a winner.
Hey, why criticize China for traffic jams. Aren’t they closing all their filthy coal-fired power stations and leading the world in combating over production of carbon (dioxide)?

Traffic jams are a natural consequence of using the most inefficient, costly, energy consuming, polluting, destructive, anti-social and dangerous form of transport.

No China is not closing all their filthy coal-fired stations, but they are building vastly more sustainable power sources than the rest of the world put together, in stark contrast to Australia which is one of the world’s worst polluters per head of population (No 11 – China is No 54), despite Australia has boundless renewable resources available.

Maybe that is why this is going to be the Chinese Century and not ours. They don’t believe in just mouthing the words: “The Clever Country”.

But why isn’t China closing all their filthy coal fired power stations? Australia is.

Australia is no more doing it than China. The difference is that we pollute by lazy choice, China has to try and raise 1.3 billion people to an economic level still far below ours.

We are the Worlds Grossest Fatties arguing that we can’t diet because the poor still eat.

Roksteddy said :

tooltime said :

rommeldog56 said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

pajs said :

Here’s another candidate for “examine all options”:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/chinese-bus-to-glide-above-traffic-20160526-gp50nd.html

Don’t carry anything on the car roof rack. It would be like being eaten by a worm. 🙂

Or be another bus or truck or almost anything!

It is one of those not very thought through “brainwaves” by a rather persistent inventor who seems unable to give up on his pet project, as shot full of holes as it obviously is.

You need a rather tall ladder to get up and down from the thing for a start, and far from cruising over the traffic it is going to be stuck behind the next highest thing. Just like everybody else in China’s appalling traffic jams.

Looks like absolutely the worst option of a long list of terrible options, but what the heck, toss it in the grab bag of obfuscating obstructions to doing the obvious.

If they made it a bit higher it could cruise over the trees along Northbourne too!
That would make it a winner.
Hey, why criticize China for traffic jams. Aren’t they closing all their filthy coal-fired power stations and leading the world in combating over production of carbon (dioxide)?

Traffic jams are a natural consequence of using the most inefficient, costly, energy consuming, polluting, destructive, anti-social and dangerous form of transport.

No China is not closing all their filthy coal-fired stations, but they are building vastly more sustainable power sources than the rest of the world put together, in stark contrast to Australia which is one of the world’s worst polluters per head of population (No 11 – China is No 54), despite Australia has boundless renewable resources available.

Maybe that is why this is going to be the Chinese Century and not ours. They don’t believe in just mouthing the words: “The Clever Country”.

But why isn’t China closing all their filthy coal fired power stations? Australia is.

I’ve said it often enough but trams are also quiet. Noise being the most immediate and noticeable pollutant in cities.

pajs said :

bronal said :

sputnik said :

pajs said :

Here’s another candidate for “examine all options”:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/chinese-bus-to-glide-above-traffic-20160526-gp50nd.html

I’m extremely surprised you’re not the main cheerleader for this option.

Ridiculously high upfront cost – check
poor cost/benefit analysis – check
Much cheaper more versatile alternatives – check

Why doesnt everyone stop living in the past, we need proper public transport and this is clearly the only way to go. It’s 2016.ffs.

If you want something ridiculously expensive: freeway plus enormous number of cars
If you want something that destroys the city it is supposed to serve: freeway plus enormous number of cars
If you want something that gets zero cost/benefit analysis: freeway plus enormous number of cars
If you want something that the people who promulgate it will never use: BRT
If you want something that runs up and down the street unobtrusively, safely and with minimal pollution, that you get on and off as you please and in the long run is the cheapest option: Tram

I put up the above example because it only exists, like BRT, as an excuse to keep roads flooded with noisy polluting, dangerous cars that divide up cities and make life hell for all the inhabitants.

Indeed, why doesn’t everybody stop living in the past? We don’t need people spitting or urinating/defecating/polluting in the streets, in peril of being run over just trying to go somewhere by selfish people occupying large areas of land, in almost two hundred year old cars, raging against each other because they figure they have defeated everybody else in the battle for domination of the city and pollution of the planet.

As with cigarettes the problem is the advertising industry has so successfully persuaded the small weiners who drive, that this makes them manly even when creeping along in traffic in their old smokers, and getting them out of their cars into something that fits a grown up city better is equivalent to emasculation.

The single minded selfishness and everybody else can go hang is demonstrated by the miniscule wait drivers will have to endure to cross from one side of Northbourne Avenue to the other. They never consider the much greater delays THEY as drivers cause pedestrians who can not cross multi-lane roads and freeways like Northbourne Avenue in the city or anyway, without fear of being run over. So much so that the west side of the City is neglected and avoided.

The tram fits in perfectly with urban life as demonstrated around the world, mixing in with pedestrians who can freely cross its tracks between passes, unobstructed, unpolluted, not drowned by ceaseless noise and with minimal damage to both the city and the world as a whole.

But then this is not about all of us in the city or the world, this is about selfish, resentful, isolated and often angry little people hiding away inside their cars being as unsociable as they like because “You can’t see me!, but I am so amazing, I bought a car!”

So you like trams because they’re pretty. Got it.

You (repeatedly) have got nothing.

I like trams because they are effective inner city transport, clean, safe, unobstructive, and cheap.

For all of those reasons they liberate urban spaces where buses and cars kill them.

…yet again:

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iYErBhjRk5Vk/v1/488x-1.png

…and another:

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iYErBhjRk5Vk/v1/488x-1.png

bronal said :

sputnik said :

pajs said :

Here’s another candidate for “examine all options”:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/chinese-bus-to-glide-above-traffic-20160526-gp50nd.html

I’m extremely surprised you’re not the main cheerleader for this option.

Ridiculously high upfront cost – check
poor cost/benefit analysis – check
Much cheaper more versatile alternatives – check

Why doesnt everyone stop living in the past, we need proper public transport and this is clearly the only way to go. It’s 2016.ffs.

If you want something ridiculously expensive: freeway plus enormous number of cars
If you want something that destroys the city it is supposed to serve: freeway plus enormous number of cars
If you want something that gets zero cost/benefit analysis: freeway plus enormous number of cars
If you want something that the people who promulgate it will never use: BRT
If you want something that runs up and down the street unobtrusively, safely and with minimal pollution, that you get on and off as you please and in the long run is the cheapest option: Tram

I put up the above example because it only exists, like BRT, as an excuse to keep roads flooded with noisy polluting, dangerous cars that divide up cities and make life hell for all the inhabitants.

Indeed, why doesn’t everybody stop living in the past? We don’t need people spitting or urinating/defecating/polluting in the streets, in peril of being run over just trying to go somewhere by selfish people occupying large areas of land, in almost two hundred year old cars, raging against each other because they figure they have defeated everybody else in the battle for domination of the city and pollution of the planet.

As with cigarettes the problem is the advertising industry has so successfully persuaded the small weiners who drive, that this makes them manly even when creeping along in traffic in their old smokers, and getting them out of their cars into something that fits a grown up city better is equivalent to emasculation.

The single minded selfishness and everybody else can go hang is demonstrated by the miniscule wait drivers will have to endure to cross from one side of Northbourne Avenue to the other. They never consider the much greater delays THEY as drivers cause pedestrians who can not cross multi-lane roads and freeways like Northbourne Avenue in the city or anyway, without fear of being run over. So much so that the west side of the City is neglected and avoided.

The tram fits in perfectly with urban life as demonstrated around the world, mixing in with pedestrians who can freely cross its tracks between passes, unobstructed, unpolluted, not drowned by ceaseless noise and with minimal damage to both the city and the world as a whole.

But then this is not about all of us in the city or the world, this is about selfish, resentful, isolated and often angry little people hiding away inside their cars being as unsociable as they like because “You can’t see me!, but I am so amazing, I bought a car!”

So you like trams because they’re pretty. Got it.

Another shot at getting a link to work:

https://www.bnef.com/dataview/clean-energy-investment/index.html

We should not let facts get in the way of what everybody in Tuggeranong “just knows”, but here is a little something from that extreme left wing journal, Bloomberg:

http://cdn.downtoearth.org.in/dte/userfiles/images/map(22).jpg

tooltime said :

rommeldog56 said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

pajs said :

Here’s another candidate for “examine all options”:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/chinese-bus-to-glide-above-traffic-20160526-gp50nd.html

Don’t carry anything on the car roof rack. It would be like being eaten by a worm. 🙂

Or be another bus or truck or almost anything!

It is one of those not very thought through “brainwaves” by a rather persistent inventor who seems unable to give up on his pet project, as shot full of holes as it obviously is.

You need a rather tall ladder to get up and down from the thing for a start, and far from cruising over the traffic it is going to be stuck behind the next highest thing. Just like everybody else in China’s appalling traffic jams.

Looks like absolutely the worst option of a long list of terrible options, but what the heck, toss it in the grab bag of obfuscating obstructions to doing the obvious.

If they made it a bit higher it could cruise over the trees along Northbourne too!
That would make it a winner.
Hey, why criticize China for traffic jams. Aren’t they closing all their filthy coal-fired power stations and leading the world in combating over production of carbon (dioxide)?

Traffic jams are a natural consequence of using the most inefficient, costly, energy consuming, polluting, destructive, anti-social and dangerous form of transport.

No China is not closing all their filthy coal-fired stations, but they are building vastly more sustainable power sources than the rest of the world put together, in stark contrast to Australia which is one of the world’s worst polluters per head of population (No 11 – China is No 54), despite Australia has boundless renewable resources available.

Maybe that is why this is going to be the Chinese Century and not ours. They don’t believe in just mouthing the words: “The Clever Country”.

rommeldog56 said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

pajs said :

Here’s another candidate for “examine all options”:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/chinese-bus-to-glide-above-traffic-20160526-gp50nd.html

Don’t carry anything on the car roof rack. It would be like being eaten by a worm. 🙂

Or be another bus or truck or almost anything!

It is one of those not very thought through “brainwaves” by a rather persistent inventor who seems unable to give up on his pet project, as shot full of holes as it obviously is.

You need a rather tall ladder to get up and down from the thing for a start, and far from cruising over the traffic it is going to be stuck behind the next highest thing. Just like everybody else in China’s appalling traffic jams.

Looks like absolutely the worst option of a long list of terrible options, but what the heck, toss it in the grab bag of obfuscating obstructions to doing the obvious.

If they made it a bit higher it could cruise over the trees along Northbourne too!
That would make it a winner.
Hey, why criticize China for traffic jams. Aren’t they closing all their filthy coal-fired power stations and leading the world in combating over production of carbon (dioxide)?

wildturkeycanoe said :

pajs said :

Here’s another candidate for “examine all options”:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/chinese-bus-to-glide-above-traffic-20160526-gp50nd.html

Don’t carry anything on the car roof rack. It would be like being eaten by a worm. 🙂

Or be another bus or truck or almost anything!

It is one of those not very thought through “brainwaves” by a rather persistent inventor who seems unable to give up on his pet project, as shot full of holes as it obviously is.

You need a rather tall ladder to get up and down from the thing for a start, and far from cruising over the traffic it is going to be stuck behind the next highest thing. Just like everybody else in China’s appalling traffic jams.

Looks like absolutely the worst option of a long list of terrible options, but what the heck, toss it in the grab bag of obfuscating obstructions to doing the obvious.

The thing the Chinese Straddling Bus does bring home to the “It’s all about ME!” crowd is that that juggernaut coming down the road is putting THEM in danger, and as drivers that is not the way it is supposed to be.

It is supposed to be drivers making everyone else live in fear of their lives and put up with all the unpleasant consequences. The way God meant it to be, since forever.

sputnik said :

pajs said :

Here’s another candidate for “examine all options”:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/chinese-bus-to-glide-above-traffic-20160526-gp50nd.html

I’m extremely surprised you’re not the main cheerleader for this option.

Ridiculously high upfront cost – check
poor cost/benefit analysis – check
Much cheaper more versatile alternatives – check

Why doesnt everyone stop living in the past, we need proper public transport and this is clearly the only way to go. It’s 2016.ffs.

If you want something ridiculously expensive: freeway plus enormous number of cars
If you want something that destroys the city it is supposed to serve: freeway plus enormous number of cars
If you want something that gets zero cost/benefit analysis: freeway plus enormous number of cars
If you want something that the people who promulgate it will never use: BRT
If you want something that runs up and down the street unobtrusively, safely and with minimal pollution, that you get on and off as you please and in the long run is the cheapest option: Tram

I put up the above example because it only exists, like BRT, as an excuse to keep roads flooded with noisy polluting, dangerous cars that divide up cities and make life hell for all the inhabitants.

Indeed, why doesn’t everybody stop living in the past? We don’t need people spitting or urinating/defecating/polluting in the streets, in peril of being run over just trying to go somewhere by selfish people occupying large areas of land, in almost two hundred year old cars, raging against each other because they figure they have defeated everybody else in the battle for domination of the city and pollution of the planet.

As with cigarettes the problem is the advertising industry has so successfully persuaded the small weiners who drive, that this makes them manly even when creeping along in traffic in their old smokers, and getting them out of their cars into something that fits a grown up city better is equivalent to emasculation.

The single minded selfishness and everybody else can go hang is demonstrated by the miniscule wait drivers will have to endure to cross from one side of Northbourne Avenue to the other. They never consider the much greater delays THEY as drivers cause pedestrians who can not cross multi-lane roads and freeways like Northbourne Avenue in the city or anyway, without fear of being run over. So much so that the west side of the City is neglected and avoided.

The tram fits in perfectly with urban life as demonstrated around the world, mixing in with pedestrians who can freely cross its tracks between passes, unobstructed, unpolluted, not drowned by ceaseless noise and with minimal damage to both the city and the world as a whole.

But then this is not about all of us in the city or the world, this is about selfish, resentful, isolated and often angry little people hiding away inside their cars being as unsociable as they like because “You can’t see me!, but I am so amazing, I bought a car!”

The great thing about advertising, marketing, politics, sales, magic, astrology, psychic prognostication is that you can count on “facts” popping up in the recipients’ mostly blank minds.

All you have to do is make fatuously silly qualifiers such as “could” and “up to” and lazy impressionable thinkers, who want it to be whatever they want, turn that into “will” and “equals”.

They then quote the predictions as if they are results or change the results to fit the predictions, and Voila! you are Nostradamus!

pajs said :

Here’s another candidate for “examine all options”:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/chinese-bus-to-glide-above-traffic-20160526-gp50nd.html

I’m extremely surprised you’re not the main cheerleader for this option.

Ridiculously high upfront cost – check
poor cost/benefit analysis – check
Much cheaper more versatile alternatives – check

Why doesnt everyone stop living in the past, we need proper public transport and this is clearly the only way to go. It’s 2016.ffs.

This prediction made by the Liberals in 2014 is very valid as it turns out:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-01/light-rail-could-cost-up-to-1-billion-says-act-opposition/5859518
The Libs have more credibility on this issue than anyone else.
The costs to relocate services under planned corridors and the cost of electrical head works has still not been revealed.
Come on all you pro-trammers, tell me I am wrong again.

pajs said :

Here’s another candidate for “examine all options”:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/chinese-bus-to-glide-above-traffic-20160526-gp50nd.html

Don’t carry anything on the car roof rack. It would be like being eaten by a worm. 🙂

Here’s another candidate for “examine all options”:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/chinese-bus-to-glide-above-traffic-20160526-gp50nd.html

John Moulis said :

And how are students going to afford to live in the rail corridor with its value adding rents much higher than elsewhere? How are students going to help pay off the tram with their discounted fares, subsidised by working ratepayers who won’t be using the service? I hope the universities come to the party and chip in to the running costs, as it seems the passengers won’t be pulling their weight.

…and we certainly do not want to encourage scholarship and research when we have unlimited resources of the “Commonsense” guessologists here with their top of the head facts to fill in the blanks.

The student very likely are going to find out and announce things that many Canberrans apparently don’t want to hear.

John Moulis said :

Steven Bailey said :

chewy14 said :

What exactly are interstate visitors going to use the tram for? It doesn’t link any tourist parts of Canberra with hotels anywhere. What’s there to see in Gungahlin? Nothing. The main aim of the tram is for commuting to and from work for Gungahlin residents. It isn’t a a tourist train, or it’d be running from Gold Creek to the Old Bus Depot Markets via the War Memorial. The tram will not get tourists anywhere they want to go. If they are in the city and want to go shopping, what is in Gungahlin that Civic doesn’t have already?

True, but remember that a major industry in Canberra are the universities. Improving public transport is an important part of keeping the city student-friendly, and as the public service keeps being cut back becoming a university town is the best option available to us. Students in Gungahlin will be able to use the line to get to ANU, ADFA once the line is extended, and hopefully it will cut travel times to UC and ACU.

And how are students going to afford to live in the rail corridor with its value adding rents much higher than elsewhere? How are students going to help pay off the tram with their discounted fares, subsidised by working ratepayers who won’t be using the service? I hope the universities come to the party and chip in to the running costs, as it seems the passengers won’t be pulling their weight.

Some of the loudest supporters for the “polly trolley folly” are academics from ANU and CU.

Steven Bailey said :

chewy14 said :

What exactly are interstate visitors going to use the tram for? It doesn’t link any tourist parts of Canberra with hotels anywhere. What’s there to see in Gungahlin? Nothing. The main aim of the tram is for commuting to and from work for Gungahlin residents. It isn’t a a tourist train, or it’d be running from Gold Creek to the Old Bus Depot Markets via the War Memorial. The tram will not get tourists anywhere they want to go. If they are in the city and want to go shopping, what is in Gungahlin that Civic doesn’t have already?

True, but remember that a major industry in Canberra are the universities. Improving public transport is an important part of keeping the city student-friendly, and as the public service keeps being cut back becoming a university town is the best option available to us. Students in Gungahlin will be able to use the line to get to ANU, ADFA once the line is extended, and hopefully it will cut travel times to UC and ACU.

And how are students going to afford to live in the rail corridor with its value adding rents much higher than elsewhere? How are students going to help pay off the tram with their discounted fares, subsidised by working ratepayers who won’t be using the service? I hope the universities come to the party and chip in to the running costs, as it seems the passengers won’t be pulling their weight.

Ezy said :

Trams are for mass transport. Canberra lacks the mass bit.

Unfortunately there is plenty of mass hallucinations about the tram roll out to all of Canberra ever happening/being affordable, that its going to make any noticeable difference to congestion and especially that it will negate the need for new roads.

Steven Bailey said :

True, but remember that a major industry in Canberra are the universities. Improving public transport is an important part of keeping the city student-friendly, and as the public service keeps being cut back becoming a university town is the best option available to us. Students in Gungahlin will be able to use the line to get to ANU, ADFA once the line is extended, and hopefully it will cut travel times to UC and ACU.

But the tram is not about the best route for public transport – its about the best opportunity for accelerating development and infill. Any advantages to public transport, if any, are consequential – or even accidental.

Ezy said :

Garfield said :

A_Cog said :

As we only have population of less than 400,000 how much is this tram going to add to our rates?

The population of the ACT will pass 500,000 in 2017 severely stretching all community services including water, sewerage and waste disposal.
There will be a huge increase in contingent liabilities created by the expansion of the Legislative Assembly.
An immediate cessation of further development is needed followed by a long period of consolidation.

So dungfungus you are telling us 110,000 people are moving to Canberra in the next 18 months?

We will need the light rail just to get them down Northbourne Ave.

Sorry, I meant 400,000 (unless I can spin you that I was including dogs, cats, rabbits and roos).
This is still a couple of years earlier than what was predicted in 2012.
We still don’t need so many people.

gooterz said :

gooterz said :

Cannyrider said :

Mordd said :

rommeldog56 said :

carnardly said :

Perrin said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

HenryBG said :

Well said, Greg.
The Territory’s finances are on the edge of a precipice right now and any further cost blowouts on the light rail or the Constitution Avenue cock-up together with a drop in revenue could tip us over the edge.

The Constitution Ave upgrade is Federally funded and pray tell what is the cock-up?

The received the money in 2011 and started work in 2013.
It’s now 2016 and still not finished, that’s the cock-up.
Is it still within the budgeted amount? We don’t know, do we.
How will they get the trams to run on time with a track record like this?
Still waiting for your comment on the state of the Territory’s finances.

Where was I meant to comment on the finances? But AAA credit rating by S&P’s I would say things are not as bad as you make out and far far far from Greece.

Well that’s great then.
So all you ACT public servants who have $5 billion of unfunded retirement benefits to look forward to have absolutely nothing to worry about.
When sovereign countries are printing money, credit ratings sort of become meaningless.
But if you are happy then most others will be also.

Never mind what I say but perhaps you will take heed of these people:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/fading-triple-a-allure-could-send-a-towards-us50-cents-20160524-gp33lj
I hope the price of the trams is in Australian dollars.

All depends really. That would make a difference is around $20m over the 14 vehicles, assuming the Euro to AUD follows the same USD to AUD downwards path. If it doesn’t then all academic isn’t it?

That answer just cost Canberra ratepayers potentially $20 million.
Who cares?

That is the reality of living in an international world. For exchange can and does effect projects. And of course doesn’t just apply to trams. All our bus chassis come from Europe so would be equally effected. Most of our road pavers are imported too and soon all cars. But who cares that’s for roads so all a-ok hey?

Roads are essential for commerce, trams are not.
I don’t envisage anything like a “trambulance” turning up at my door at any time in the future.
More people are ordering their groceries online and they have them delivered to their front door by road, not (and never) rail.
Trams are for mass transport. Canberra lacks the mass bit.

Garfield said :

A_Cog said :

As we only have population of less than 400,000 how much is this tram going to add to our rates?

The population of the ACT will pass 500,000 in 2017 severely stretching all community services including water, sewerage and waste disposal.
There will be a huge increase in contingent liabilities created by the expansion of the Legislative Assembly.
An immediate cessation of further development is needed followed by a long period of consolidation.

So dungfungus you are telling us 110,000 people are moving to Canberra in the next 18 months?

We will need the light rail just to get them down Northbourne Ave.

Conspiracy theory – Labor’s folly bankrupts the ACT. Feds step in to take over the mess.
No more self-government, exactly what the residents voted for in referendums years ago (twice?).

Electric cars will make the LR dream redundant. Canberra was designed around private vehicle ownership, just live with that!

Garfield said :

A_Cog said :

As we only have population of less than 400,000 how much is this tram going to add to our rates?

The population of the ACT will pass 500,000 in 2017 severely stretching all community services including water, sewerage and waste disposal.
There will be a huge increase in contingent liabilities created by the expansion of the Legislative Assembly.
An immediate cessation of further development is needed followed by a long period of consolidation.

Gee there must be a lot of people moving into Canberra in the next twelve months, seeing the latest estimates are we only have around 392,000

http://apps.treasury.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/644813/ERP.pdf

Garfield said :

A_Cog said :

As we only have population of less than 400,000 how much is this tram going to add to our rates?

The population of the ACT will pass 500,000 in 2017 severely stretching all community services including water, sewerage and waste disposal.
There will be a huge increase in contingent liabilities created by the expansion of the Legislative Assembly.
An immediate cessation of further development is needed followed by a long period of consolidation.

That is never and should never happen, get real. Getting real is coming up with alternaives to accomodate the growing population within the bounds of what we already have. And guess what development of light rail actually feeds off that very development and in many ways. So in many ways developping higher density along those corridors help aleviate some of what you recognise as issues. So glad yhour on board now.

chewy14 said :

What exactly are interstate visitors going to use the tram for? It doesn’t link any tourist parts of Canberra with hotels anywhere. What’s there to see in Gungahlin? Nothing. The main aim of the tram is for commuting to and from work for Gungahlin residents. It isn’t a a tourist train, or it’d be running from Gold Creek to the Old Bus Depot Markets via the War Memorial. The tram will not get tourists anywhere they want to go. If they are in the city and want to go shopping, what is in Gungahlin that Civic doesn’t have already?

True, but remember that a major industry in Canberra are the universities. Improving public transport is an important part of keeping the city student-friendly, and as the public service keeps being cut back becoming a university town is the best option available to us. Students in Gungahlin will be able to use the line to get to ANU, ADFA once the line is extended, and hopefully it will cut travel times to UC and ACU.

rommeldog56 said :

I’m never going to live in an area serviced by the tram so don’t really care if it’s built or not. I am mildly irritated by the argument that the tram is going to somehow eliminate or greatly reduce cars/roads/freeway building. Can some of you pro tram lobbyists please commit to personally giving up all of your cars once the tram is complete or have a measurable stab at how many fewer ACT vehicle registrations there will be post tram before using such nonsensical arguments

Well I am clearly pro light rail however I am firmly on record on this very board that cars and roads still very much have a place in the city even myself. It is inescapable fact.

That said again look through these boards and you will see calls for another freeway link from Gungahlin. One of the ones that is on old plans up behind Watson and ainslie. That for example is a road that won’t be needed if public transport useage from Gungahlin, especially the part where the light rail is proposed is greatly increased.

What I don’t believe is we can continue building our town for the sole benefit of the car. The Flemmington road corridor is what is needed to continue to house the growing population of the act (not everyone clearly apartment living isn’t for everyone myself included). But with high density corridors you need to make a better effort at public transport compared to what we have done in the past.

HiddenDragon said :

rommeldog56 said :

A_Cog said :

As we only have population of less than 400,000 how much is this tram going to add to our rates?

How many of those are kids, those living in public housing, prisons, university dorms?

In 2012 ACT Labor pitched the tram as a whole ACT network, starting with this first route.
Their mandate would specifically about beginning a whole network of light rail. Their price was capped at 617million, according to Gallagher.
The price is now well above that. There is zero chance of a whole of ACT network in any future, its simply unaffordable.

Labor went from building an expensive first leg to the first and only leg of a very expensive white elephant.

20 years of light rail costs is greater than 200 years worth of Action ticket sales.
Put it another way we could have free buses for 200 years across the ACT for the same price as the first leg of light rail.

The quoted figure was for the construction of one leg of light rail. Same as $380 million was for one leg of Majura Parkway freeway which will never be arm money. If CanTheTram was doing their pensioner rant against Majura Parkway it would be “over a billion”, “never to Tuggeranong”, “waste of taxpayers money”, “always lose money”, “dangerous”, “white elephant”, “put it off forever because we will all be riding in autonomous 4WDs that don’t need expensive freeways”, “every freeway in the world has lost money and run over budget, here is an example from Tashkent”, “we need more pollution not less because pollution is being rich and important”, “all the cars have to shipped to Australia in ships which are not cars”, “God made the world in seven days and on the seventh he made Canberra with freeways and saw that it was good and told man go forth and drive to Woolies but don’t go forth and multiple because that is maths and maths is something evil clever people do instead of guess and make things up….”

So Rubiyat,

you agree that we should not build the tram, instead we should build the more cost effective BRT and put a toll on major highways/roads to make them more efficient?

Good to have you on board.

A_Cog said :

As we only have population of less than 400,000 how much is this tram going to add to our rates?

The population of the ACT will pass 500,000 in 2017 severely stretching all community services including water, sewerage and waste disposal.
There will be a huge increase in contingent liabilities created by the expansion of the Legislative Assembly.
An immediate cessation of further development is needed followed by a long period of consolidation.

I’m never going to live in an area serviced by the tram so don’t really care if it’s built or not. I am mildly irritated by the argument that the tram is going to somehow eliminate or greatly reduce cars/roads/freeway building. Can some of you pro tram lobbyists please commit to personally giving up all of your cars once the tram is complete or have a measurable stab at how many fewer ACT vehicle registrations there will be post tram before using such nonsensical arguments

rommeldog56 said :

A_Cog said :

As we only have population of less than 400,000 how much is this tram going to add to our rates?

How many of those are kids, those living in public housing, prisons, university dorms?

In 2012 ACT Labor pitched the tram as a whole ACT network, starting with this first route.
Their mandate would specifically about beginning a whole network of light rail. Their price was capped at 617million, according to Gallagher.
The price is now well above that. There is zero chance of a whole of ACT network in any future, its simply unaffordable.

Labor went from building an expensive first leg to the first and only leg of a very expensive white elephant.

20 years of light rail costs is greater than 200 years worth of Action ticket sales.
Put it another way we could have free buses for 200 years across the ACT for the same price as the first leg of light rail.

The quoted figure was for the construction of one leg of light rail. Same as $380 million was for one leg of Majura Parkway freeway which will never be arm money. If CanTheTram was doing their pensioner rant against Majura Parkway it would be “over a billion”, “never to Tuggeranong”, “waste of taxpayers money”, “always lose money”, “dangerous”, “white elephant”, “put it off forever because we will all be riding in autonomous 4WDs that don’t need expensive freeways”, “every freeway in the world has lost money and run over budget, here is an example from Tashkent”, “we need more pollution not less because pollution is being rich and important”, “all the cars have to shipped to Australia in ships which are not cars”, “God made the world in seven days and on the seventh he made Canberra with freeways and saw that it was good and told man go forth and drive to Woolies but don’t go forth and multiple because that is maths and maths is something evil clever people do instead of guess and make things up….”

rosscoact said :

”What use will international/interstate visitors put the tram to ? Its a commuter line. Maybe they can go from their hotel in Gunners to shop in Dickson. What a tourist attraction that is !”

Given the number of hotels along Northbourne and at the city end, I would imagine a lot of tourists/visitors would use the tram. To travel to events at EPIC such as the Farmers Markets, Summernats, Canberra Show; to sporting events at the National Hockey Centre and Tennis Centre at Lyneham and to horseracing events at Thoroughbred Park; to Gold Creek for the Dinosaur Museum and Cockington Green plus shops, cafes, pub. To eat/drink at Dickson, Braddon.

Might just point out that Gold Creek is off the Barton Hwy, not Flemington road. To make up for it, you could probably add Dickson and Mitchell.

rommeldog56 said :

A_Cog said :

As we only have population of less than 400,000 how much is this tram going to add to our rates?

How many of those are kids, those living in public housing, prisons, university dorms?

In 2012 ACT Labor pitched the tram as a whole ACT network, starting with this first route.
Their mandate would specifically about beginning a whole network of light rail. Their price was capped at 617million, according to Gallagher.
The price is now well above that. There is zero chance of a whole of ACT network in any future, its simply unaffordable.

Labor went from building an expensive first leg to the first and only leg of a very expensive white elephant.

20 years of light rail costs is greater than 200 years worth of Action ticket sales.
Put it another way we could have free buses for 200 years across the ACT for the same price as the first leg of light rail.

It is $140 per person per year less fares in 2016 dollars.

gooterz said :

Cannyrider said :

Mordd said :

rommeldog56 said :

carnardly said :

Perrin said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

HenryBG said :

Well said, Greg.
The Territory’s finances are on the edge of a precipice right now and any further cost blowouts on the light rail or the Constitution Avenue cock-up together with a drop in revenue could tip us over the edge.

The Constitution Ave upgrade is Federally funded and pray tell what is the cock-up?

The received the money in 2011 and started work in 2013.
It’s now 2016 and still not finished, that’s the cock-up.
Is it still within the budgeted amount? We don’t know, do we.
How will they get the trams to run on time with a track record like this?
Still waiting for your comment on the state of the Territory’s finances.

Where was I meant to comment on the finances? But AAA credit rating by S&P’s I would say things are not as bad as you make out and far far far from Greece.

Well that’s great then.
So all you ACT public servants who have $5 billion of unfunded retirement benefits to look forward to have absolutely nothing to worry about.
When sovereign countries are printing money, credit ratings sort of become meaningless.
But if you are happy then most others will be also.

Never mind what I say but perhaps you will take heed of these people:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/fading-triple-a-allure-could-send-a-towards-us50-cents-20160524-gp33lj
I hope the price of the trams is in Australian dollars.

All depends really. That would make a difference is around $20m over the 14 vehicles, assuming the Euro to AUD follows the same USD to AUD downwards path. If it doesn’t then all academic isn’t it?

That answer just cost Canberra ratepayers potentially $20 million.
Who cares?

That is the reality of living in an international world. For exchange can and does effect projects. And of course doesn’t just apply to trams. All our bus chassis come from Europe so would be equally effected. Most of our road pavers are imported too and soon all cars. But who cares that’s for roads so all a-ok hey?

wildturkeycanoe said :

the costs have not blown out. It was $614m and now $700m odd for construction. It was always construction cost not life time running costs.

As for my question don’t think it is an oversimplifaction or nonsense.

I do not accept your argument that costs have not blown out. In any event, total cost over 20 years to ACT Ratepayers will be b$1.280 (ACT Govt own figure based on avg.m$64pa) or b$1.380 (based on figure on RiotAct by kentfitch) – for the 1st 12Ks of track !

Like – where was such a all up cost to ACT Ratepayers disclosed by ACT Labor/Greens as a basis for their “mandate” to introduce Light Rail in their 2012 election campaign ? So, in my view, they did not have any such “mandate” and should not have signed contracts before disclosing the estimated total all up costs to ACT Ratepayers. They would have known ball park.

And yes, I’m aware that revenues from fares need to be factored in, but based on those total cost figures, thats peanuts.

A_Cog said :

As we only have population of less than 400,000 how much is this tram going to add to our rates?

How many of those are kids, those living in public housing, prisons, university dorms?

In 2012 ACT Labor pitched the tram as a whole ACT network, starting with this first route.
Their mandate would specifically about beginning a whole network of light rail. Their price was capped at 617million, according to Gallagher.
The price is now well above that. There is zero chance of a whole of ACT network in any future, its simply unaffordable.

Labor went from building an expensive first leg to the first and only leg of a very expensive white elephant.

20 years of light rail costs is greater than 200 years worth of Action ticket sales.
Put it another way we could have free buses for 200 years across the ACT for the same price as the first leg of light rail.

oh_ said :

Mordd said :

And realise that Canberra will have less traffic congestion as a result.

Everyone seems to be framing the light rail issue around “How does this benefit ME personally?”

What about interstate or international visitors to our fair city? Have you ever tried navigating ACTION as a brand new arrival to Canberra?

Once this light rail project is finalised and rolled out across the entirety of Canberra, the benefits will become more than apparent… you just have to step outside of your own existence (which I appreciate not everyone has the capacity to do).

It will be a real shame if the project is only half completed and not rolled out to all Canberra districts as planned.

Unfortunately the Liberal Party has the ability to do this if they win the next election, and in the process will be fulfilling their prophecy of Canberra’s “DOOMED TO FAIL” light rail.

“Rolled out across the entirety of Canberra”? I’ll have what he’s having! But after that, I’ve got to go because I’m due back on Planet Earth.

Cannyrider said :

Mordd said :

rommeldog56 said :

carnardly said :

Perrin said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

HenryBG said :

Well said, Greg.
The Territory’s finances are on the edge of a precipice right now and any further cost blowouts on the light rail or the Constitution Avenue cock-up together with a drop in revenue could tip us over the edge.

The Constitution Ave upgrade is Federally funded and pray tell what is the cock-up?

The received the money in 2011 and started work in 2013.
It’s now 2016 and still not finished, that’s the cock-up.
Is it still within the budgeted amount? We don’t know, do we.
How will they get the trams to run on time with a track record like this?
Still waiting for your comment on the state of the Territory’s finances.

Where was I meant to comment on the finances? But AAA credit rating by S&P’s I would say things are not as bad as you make out and far far far from Greece.

Well that’s great then.
So all you ACT public servants who have $5 billion of unfunded retirement benefits to look forward to have absolutely nothing to worry about.
When sovereign countries are printing money, credit ratings sort of become meaningless.
But if you are happy then most others will be also.

Never mind what I say but perhaps you will take heed of these people:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/fading-triple-a-allure-could-send-a-towards-us50-cents-20160524-gp33lj
I hope the price of the trams is in Australian dollars.

All depends really. That would make a difference is around $20m over the 14 vehicles, assuming the Euro to AUD follows the same USD to AUD downwards path. If it doesn’t then all academic isn’t it?

That answer just cost Canberra ratepayers potentially $20 million.
Who cares?

emu said :

gazket said :

So Greg how far out from an election should a government stop making decisions?

Should there be a rule that says if you want a project to straddle the electoral cycle that you can only sign in say the first year?

Oh what a great way to have governments that only work to an electoral cycle rather than, shock horror thinking ahead.

Once again, an over simplification of the issue. The costs have blown out substantially since the orginal m$614 was announced.

Much more is known through consultancies on such things as engineering works, the results of the audit into what actually under Northborne Ave- and so the cost of relocating that – hasn’t been released, the MOU between the ACT Govt and Unions ACt has come to light, the Environmental Impact Statement has been released, other options have not yet been properly and rigorously evaluated and the state of the ACT territory budget just gets worse and worse – whilst both parties keep on rolling out multi millions in pre-election promises.

Its not like the Tram is the re-tendering for a roll over of an existing ACT Govt contract. Its over 20 years and just stage 1 is an incredibly large and hyper expensive infrastructure project for a jurisdiction the size of Canberra, with its comparatively narrow revenue raising base. Also, it locks future generations into contracts that will span 20 years or more.

Contracts should not be signed before the October 2016 ACT Legislative election.

To extrapolate that to your question as to “how far out from an election should a government stop making decisions”, is a nonsense.

This infrastructure contract is apparently the biggest ever here and is over 20+ years, and its only stage 1 !!!

the costs have not blown out. It was $614m and now $700m odd for construction. It was always construction cost not life time running costs.

As for my question don’t think it is an oversimplifaction or nonsense. We elect a government to make decisions. Yes this is a big decision and cost, but one we give them power to do so. Yet people want contracts to hold off, when again they were elected to run the territory. We cannot have a situtation where the government is allowed to do this, but not that, who decides what the that is and how do you resolve it? We have already had an election where it was a platform of the two parties who are now in government. Let them govern.

emu said :

gazket said :

So Greg how far out from an election should a government stop making decisions?

Should there be a rule that says if you want a project to straddle the electoral cycle that you can only sign in say the first year?

Oh what a great way to have governments that only work to an electoral cycle rather than, shock horror thinking ahead.

Once again, an over simplification of the issue. The costs have blown out substantially since the orginal m$614 was announced.

Much more is known through consultancies on such things as engineering works, the results of the audit into what actually under Northborne Ave- and so the cost of relocating that – hasn’t been released, the MOU between the ACT Govt and Unions ACt has come to light, the Environmental Impact Statement has been released, other options have not yet been properly and rigorously evaluated and the state of the ACT territory budget just gets worse and worse – whilst both parties keep on rolling out multi millions in pre-election promises.

Its not like the Tram is the re-tendering for a roll over of an existing ACT Govt contract. Its over 20 years and just stage 1 is an incredibly large and hyper expensive infrastructure project for a jurisdiction the size of Canberra, with its comparatively narrow revenue raising base. Also, it locks future generations into contracts that will span 20 years or more.

Contracts should not be signed before the October 2016 ACT Legislative election.

To extrapolate that to your question as to “how far out from an election should a government stop making decisions”, is a nonsense.

This infrastructure contract is apparently the biggest ever here and is over 20+ years, and its only stage 1 !!!

At the time of the 2012 ACT election, the ACT Budget made provision for just over $30m. spending # on asbestos-related matters – this funding was for the 2012/13 and 2013/14 years, and that (at the time) was it.

Since then, we have had the Mr Fluffy Buyback Scheme (announced October 2014) – the 2015/16 Budget (Budget Paper No. 3, p.298) advised that “The estimated net cash cost of the Scheme has increased slightly from $363 million at Budget Review to $370 million excluding contingency.” So aside from any other new spending commitments which have been made in the meantime, that’s an extra $370m in estimated liabilities for the ACT Government since the tram “mandate” of 2012.

# – $12.93m over two years for Taylor Primary, $15m for North Weston Pond and $3.1m for the Lyneham Precinct – Budget Paper No. 3 for 2012/13 refers.

Just get on with building it. The government promised to do this and now they are doing it – shock, horror!

rosscoact said :

”What use will international/interstate visitors put the tram to ? Its a commuter line. Maybe they can go from their hotel in Gunners to shop in Dickson. What a tourist attraction that is !”

Given the number of hotels along Northbourne and at the city end, I would imagine a lot of tourists/visitors would use the tram. To travel to events at EPIC such as the Farmers Markets, Summernats, Canberra Show; to sporting events at the National Hockey Centre and Tennis Centre at Lyneham and to horseracing events at Thoroughbred Park; to Gold Creek for the Dinosaur Museum and Cockington Green plus shops, cafes, pub. To eat/drink at Dickson, Braddon.

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Sack the act government. This is an ill advised use of territory funds. They have lost my vote!

As we only have population of less than 400,000 how much is this tram going to add to our rates?

I can’t see the point of spending so much money to provide a tram that is only going to provide transport for a those people travelling to Civic from Gungahlin. It will not help tourists, or residents of the rest of Canberra. It will not even help residents of Gungahlin who do not live near the tram route or work in Civic. Who will be using it except for during the morning and evening commute to work time.

Mordd said :

rommeldog56 said :

carnardly said :

Perrin said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

HenryBG said :

Well said, Greg.
The Territory’s finances are on the edge of a precipice right now and any further cost blowouts on the light rail or the Constitution Avenue cock-up together with a drop in revenue could tip us over the edge.

The Constitution Ave upgrade is Federally funded and pray tell what is the cock-up?

The received the money in 2011 and started work in 2013.
It’s now 2016 and still not finished, that’s the cock-up.
Is it still within the budgeted amount? We don’t know, do we.
How will they get the trams to run on time with a track record like this?
Still waiting for your comment on the state of the Territory’s finances.

Where was I meant to comment on the finances? But AAA credit rating by S&P’s I would say things are not as bad as you make out and far far far from Greece.

Well that’s great then.
So all you ACT public servants who have $5 billion of unfunded retirement benefits to look forward to have absolutely nothing to worry about.
When sovereign countries are printing money, credit ratings sort of become meaningless.
But if you are happy then most others will be also.

Never mind what I say but perhaps you will take heed of these people:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/fading-triple-a-allure-could-send-a-towards-us50-cents-20160524-gp33lj
I hope the price of the trams is in Australian dollars.

All depends really. That would make a difference is around $20m over the 14 vehicles, assuming the Euro to AUD follows the same USD to AUD downwards path. If it doesn’t then all academic isn’t it?

rommeldog56 said :

carnardly said :

Perrin said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

HenryBG said :

Well said, Greg.
The Territory’s finances are on the edge of a precipice right now and any further cost blowouts on the light rail or the Constitution Avenue cock-up together with a drop in revenue could tip us over the edge.

The Constitution Ave upgrade is Federally funded and pray tell what is the cock-up?

The received the money in 2011 and started work in 2013.
It’s now 2016 and still not finished, that’s the cock-up.
Is it still within the budgeted amount? We don’t know, do we.
How will they get the trams to run on time with a track record like this?
Still waiting for your comment on the state of the Territory’s finances.

Where was I meant to comment on the finances? But AAA credit rating by S&P’s I would say things are not as bad as you make out and far far far from Greece.

Well that’s great then.
So all you ACT public servants who have $5 billion of unfunded retirement benefits to look forward to have absolutely nothing to worry about.
When sovereign countries are printing money, credit ratings sort of become meaningless.
But if you are happy then most others will be also.

Never mind what I say but perhaps you will take heed of these people:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/fading-triple-a-allure-could-send-a-towards-us50-cents-20160524-gp33lj
I hope the price of the trams is in Australian dollars.

wildturkeycanoe said :

Can anyone explain what problem light rail is meant to solve? It can’t be traffic – Canberra doesn’t have traffic.

Light rail solved the problem of how to form a government in 2012.

rosscoact said :

”What use will international/interstate visitors put the tram to ? Its a commuter line. Maybe they can go from their hotel in Gunners to shop in Dickson. What a tourist attraction that is !”

Given the number of hotels along Northbourne and at the city end, I would imagine a lot of tourists/visitors would use the tram. To travel to events at EPIC such as the Farmers Markets, Summernats, Canberra Show; to sporting events at the National Hockey Centre and Tennis Centre at Lyneham and to horseracing events at Thoroughbred Park; to Gold Creek for the Dinosaur Museum and Cockington Green plus shops, cafes, pub. To eat/drink at Dickson, Braddon.

The governments own modelling shows that it will overwhelmingly be used by commuters getting to and from work rather than used by tourists.

gooterz said :

rosscoact said :

”What use will international/interstate visitors put the tram to ? Its a commuter line. Maybe they can go from their hotel in Gunners to shop in Dickson. What a tourist attraction that is !”

Given the number of hotels along Northbourne and at the city end, I would imagine a lot of tourists/visitors would use the tram. To travel to events at EPIC such as the Farmers Markets, Summernats, Canberra Show; to sporting events at the National Hockey Centre and Tennis Centre at Lyneham and to horseracing events at Thoroughbred Park; to Gold Creek for the Dinosaur Museum and Cockington Green plus shops, cafes, pub. To eat/drink at Dickson, Braddon.

I actually agree with some of this – but in total numbers, that wont be much I wouldnt think. I can not see visitors accessing the Farmers Market though. Each to their own interpretation of where passenger numbers will come from.

The tram will not go past Gold Creek/the Dinosaur Museum/Cockington Green etc.
The closest stop will be Gungahlin so, from there, a long walk with a compass and cut lunch.
I believe most tourists come by car so why would they want to use a tram?

Can anyone explain what problem light rail is meant to solve? It can’t be traffic – Canberra doesn’t have traffic.

rosscoact said :

”What use will international/interstate visitors put the tram to ? Its a commuter line. Maybe they can go from their hotel in Gunners to shop in Dickson. What a tourist attraction that is !”

Given the number of hotels along Northbourne and at the city end, I would imagine a lot of tourists/visitors would use the tram. To travel to events at EPIC such as the Farmers Markets, Summernats, Canberra Show; to sporting events at the National Hockey Centre and Tennis Centre at Lyneham and to horseracing events at Thoroughbred Park; to Gold Creek for the Dinosaur Museum and Cockington Green plus shops, cafes, pub. To eat/drink at Dickson, Braddon.

I actually agree with some of this – but in total numbers, that wont be much I wouldnt think. I can not see visitors accessing the Farmers Market though. Each to their own interpretation of where passenger numbers will come from.

BrendanH said :

Now the was always intended to be built and operated as a PPP where the government would chip in a portion (now confirmed ~$300m) on completion and then the operator wears the cost of finance, running, maintenance over the 20 year lifespan. But does that mean the line now costs over $1b? No the line still very much costs circa $700m.

You continue to cloud the issue of cost to ACT Ratepayers. Take the m$64 avg cost pa (the ACT Govt’s own figure) – or use the avg. m$69 pa mentioned on here by kentfitch. Now, multiply that by 20 years. Its b$1.280 or b$1.380. Simple. That’s the cost to ACT Ratepayers, not to mention the other infrastructure costs that the ACT Govt needs to meet.

The operator wears the cost of operating the tram ? Hardly. ACT Ratepayers do.

oh_ said :

What about interstate or international visitors to our fair city? Have you ever tried navigating ACTION as a brand new arrival to Canberra?

It will be a real shame if the project is only half completed and not rolled out to all Canberra districts as planned.

Unfortunately the Liberal Party has the ability to do this if they win the next election, and in the process will be fulfilling their prophecy of Canberra’s “DOOMED TO FAIL” light rail.

What use will international/interstate visitors put the tram to ? Its a commuter line. Maybe they can go from their hotel in Gunners to shop in Dickson. What a tourist attraction that is !

I agree that the Lib’s are actually on the wrong path in tearing up the contract. Firstly, no one knows what the financial penalties to be met by ACT Ratepayers are. Secondly, they would probably be better off keeping stage 1 as a stand alone route. That way, the cost of it would be politically useful to use against ACT Labor/Greens for the next 20+ years ! Heck, they could even put plaques on the stations like “The Katy Gallagher memorial stop”, “the Andrew Barr Dickson interchange”, “the Simon Corbell end of the line platform”, etc, so that all users are reminded who is responsible for this financial folly every time they travel.

Leon said :

Just get on with building it. We are rich enough to pay for it.

hahaha……Have you seen the latest near record territory budget deficit ?? Do you understand what u are saying by claiming that “we are rich enough to afford it”. And this is only stage 1 – a lousy 12 Ks of track ! Our Hospital is the worst performing in the country, our rate of homelessness is 2nd highest (second only to the NT with its issues surrounding indigenous homelessness), our schools are slipping by comparison to other States, municipal services are being degraded to fund the tram, + other poor fiscal priority setting by this hopeless ACT Labor/Greens Gov’t.

I hope you have deep pockets pajs, you are going to need it !

gazket said :

So Greg how far out from an election should a government stop making decisions?

Should there be a rule that says if you want a project to straddle the electoral cycle that you can only sign in say the first year?

Oh what a great way to have governments that only work to an electoral cycle rather than, shock horror thinking ahead.

Once again, an over simplification of the issue. The costs have blown out substantially since the orginal m$614 was announced. Much more is known through consultancies on such things as engineering works, the results of the audit into what actually under Northborne Ave- and so the cost of relocating that – hasn’t been released, the MOU between the ACT Govt and Unions ACt has come to light, the Environmental Impact Statement has been released, other options have not yet been properly and rigorously evaluated and the state of the ACT territory budget just gets worse and worse – whilst both parties keep on rolling out multi millions in pre-election promises.

Its not like the Tram is the re-tendering for a roll over of an existing ACT Govt contract. Its over 20 years and just stage 1 is an incredibly large and hyper expensive infrastructure project for a jurisdiction the size of Canberra, with its comparatively narrow revenue raising base. Also, it locks future generations into contracts that will span 20 years or more.

Contracts should not be signed before the October 2016 ACT Legislative election. To extrapolate that to your question as to “how far out from an election should a government stop making decisions”, is a nonsense. This infrastructure contract is apparently the biggest ever here and is over 20+ years, and its only stage 1 !!!

Mordd said :

And realise that Canberra will have less traffic congestion as a result.

That will be negligible – if detectable/measurable at all. In major part because so many tram passengers will be ex bus commuters, so already don’t use a car to get to/from work.

In fact, the ACt Gov’ts own Environmental Impact Statement says that congestion will in fact dramatically increase along the tram corridor. That’s going to cause much more rat running through adjacent suburbs and suburban areas.

Grail said :

*yawn* stopping light rail is still a thing? Even after it’s been taken to elections, massive tranches of planning commenced and build contracts signed?

It’s happening. Come to terms with it.

Or try : It shouldn’t be happening. Come to terms with it.

I’ll just leave this here:
http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/design/bus-that-drives-over-cars-china-unveils-futuristic-transport-concept/news-story/3145cb42098e6a83d66c4c3c7b239c5e

chewy14 said :

Ghettosmurf87 said :

HenryBG said :

rosscoact said :

Here is more gobbledygook:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/tram-project-to-cost-taxpayers-939-million-in-todays-dollars-says-act-government-20160524-gp2nc6.html

Only goodledtgook if you don’t take the time to understand how the thing is funded. My message a few posts up puts it in simpler language though.

$300m odd at start of operations and the a monthly fee to run the line. That monthly fee also includes repayment of the line construction.

It kind of blows the whole cannot afford it line out the window really. Especially the final 10 years where we will be paying 2016 costs but in 2026 dollars.

But sadly, JC, the cost is being deliberately obfuscated to throw even those taking a bit of time off the scent. Announced are $939m in availability payments (2016 $) plus $375m lump sum on completion in 2018/19, totally about $1.31 billion, the real contract cost in 2016 dollars.

The agency costs of running Capital Metro and land acquisition for and construction of the Dickson tram/bus interchange must be added to this, which are at least $70m (but have not yet been fully disclosed).

The $1.31billion includes about $460m in operation costs (based on Business Case estimates, adjusted for 2016 dollars). So the current best guess of the project construction cost is about $1.31 billion plus $70m less $460m = $920m in current dollars.

In the Canberra Times of June 11 2014, then Chief Minister Katy Gallagher was reported as drawing a line in the sand for the cost of the project at $614m in 2011 dollars, which is about $678m in 2016 dollars.

So, that line has been crossed by about $240m in less than two years, and the digging hasn’t even started.

Annualising the costs over the 20 year project, in 2016 dollars:
Capital and financing, contract and agency costs: $46m/yr
Operational costs: $23m/yr
Total: $69m/yr

This, for one tram line. This is over half the equivalent costs for the whole of ACTION, and it is why people concerned over adequate funding of public transport are very worried that the tram will divert scarce funding from providing improved public transport.

I seem to recall predicting the cost to blow out to around $1b from the initial <$700m claim made a few years back. I also recall the usual tram cheerleaders (some of which are in this thread) telling me I was a liar.

Don’t know about being a liar, but clearly you and others don’t understand the difference between cost of the line, eg building it and the cost of running and financing it under the PPP.

The line will cost circa $700m to build. That figure never ever included the running nor finance costs. That is the cost of construction. Others may debate what is included in this cost and there may well be other costs. Dungers can provide a list I am sure.

Now the was always intended to be built and operated as a PPP where the government would chip in a portion (now confirmed ~$300m) on completion and then the operator wears the cost of finance, running, maintenance over the 20 year lifespan. But does that mean the line now costs over $1b? No the line still very much costs circa $700m

The arguments that factor in whole of life running costs would be like saying an Action buses costs us $2.5B over 15 years, or each bus costs the tax payer $4.5m a pop, so they are expensive and we should never buy any.

When in fact that bus costs closer to the $450,000 mark. But over it’s life time of 15-20 years, including the finance, operating costs, fuel etc it is closer to $4.5m. Of course excluding cost of new roads, cost of priority measures, road maintenance etc. That would probably add another $1m to each bus cost over the 15-20 year life span.

Substantial costs of the project that have not been disclosed will come from here:
ActewAGL Planning Report 2015, page 85
9.5 Electric Vehicles & Light Rail
The ACT Government is proposing to construct a light rail system (known as Capital Metro) which
will feature electric passenger trams running on purpose-laid tracks from Central Canberra City
northwards to Gungahlin town centre and eastwards to the Russell suburb. This rail network will
include the installation of nine traction power stations that will require an 11 kV 1.7 MW supply to
each from ActewAGL’s distribution network. Construction is expected to be carried out over the
next five years. Further expansion of this network is planned for the future.

Over to you JC. How much is this going to cost?

Whatever. I am retired now as well. I worked in the Parliamentary Triangle … even with “free” parking (back then) … driving there was much better and faster than catching a bus.

rosscoact said :

Here is more gobbledygook:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/tram-project-to-cost-taxpayers-939-million-in-todays-dollars-says-act-government-20160524-gp2nc6.html

This must be at least the third or fourth time (and almost certainly not the last) that the “true cost” of the Gungahlin tramline has been “finally revealed”.

Ghettosmurf87 said :

HenryBG said :

rosscoact said :

Here is more gobbledygook:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/tram-project-to-cost-taxpayers-939-million-in-todays-dollars-says-act-government-20160524-gp2nc6.html

Only goodledtgook if you don’t take the time to understand how the thing is funded. My message a few posts up puts it in simpler language though.

$300m odd at start of operations and the a monthly fee to run the line. That monthly fee also includes repayment of the line construction.

It kind of blows the whole cannot afford it line out the window really. Especially the final 10 years where we will be paying 2016 costs but in 2026 dollars.

But sadly, JC, the cost is being deliberately obfuscated to throw even those taking a bit of time off the scent. Announced are $939m in availability payments (2016 $) plus $375m lump sum on completion in 2018/19, totally about $1.31 billion, the real contract cost in 2016 dollars.

The agency costs of running Capital Metro and land acquisition for and construction of the Dickson tram/bus interchange must be added to this, which are at least $70m (but have not yet been fully disclosed).

The $1.31billion includes about $460m in operation costs (based on Business Case estimates, adjusted for 2016 dollars). So the current best guess of the project construction cost is about $1.31 billion plus $70m less $460m = $920m in current dollars.

In the Canberra Times of June 11 2014, then Chief Minister Katy Gallagher was reported as drawing a line in the sand for the cost of the project at $614m in 2011 dollars, which is about $678m in 2016 dollars.

So, that line has been crossed by about $240m in less than two years, and the digging hasn’t even started.

Annualising the costs over the 20 year project, in 2016 dollars:
Capital and financing, contract and agency costs: $46m/yr
Operational costs: $23m/yr
Total: $69m/yr

This, for one tram line. This is over half the equivalent costs for the whole of ACTION, and it is why people concerned over adequate funding of public transport are very worried that the tram will divert scarce funding from providing improved public transport.

I seem to recall predicting the cost to blow out to around $1b from the initial <$700m claim made a few years back. I also recall the usual tram cheerleaders (some of which are in this thread) telling me I was a liar.

Ghettosmurf87 said :

But sadly, JC, the cost is being deliberately obfuscated to throw even those taking a bit of time off the scent. Announced are $939m in availability payments (2016 $) plus $375m lump sum on completion in 2018/19, totally about $1.31 billion, the real contract cost in 2016 dollars.

The agency costs of running Capital Metro and land acquisition for and construction of the Dickson tram/bus interchange must be added to this, which are at least $70m (but have not yet been fully disclosed).

The $1.31billion includes about $460m in operation costs (based on Business Case estimates, adjusted for 2016 dollars). So the current best guess of the project construction cost is about $1.31 billion plus $70m less $460m = $920m in current dollars.

In the Canberra Times of June 11 2014, then Chief Minister Katy Gallagher was reported as drawing a line in the sand for the cost of the project at $614m in 2011 dollars, which is about $678m in 2016 dollars.

So, that line has been crossed by about $240m in less than two years, and the digging hasn’t even started.

Annualising the costs over the 20 year project, in 2016 dollars:
Capital and financing, contract and agency costs: $46m/yr
Operational costs: $23m/yr
Total: $69m/yr

This, for one tram line. This is over half the equivalent costs for the whole of ACTION, and it is why people concerned over adequate funding of public transport are very worried that the tram will divert scarce funding from providing improved public transport.

Well said kentfitch. People want a good transport system, there is widespread disbelief that the Tram is that for all of Canberra nor that its affordable (look at the recently announced record territory budget deficit !). Also, I think the spin from the ACt Gov’t is wearing more than a little thin.

Anyway, I get sick and tired of Ministers and some economic illiterates on here claiming that the tram across all of Canberra is affordable. It is not.

What ever the real cost of this 1st 12Ks of track over 20 years is, here are some distances that might be additional to roll it out across all of Canberra (debunk these as Im sure pro tramers will, but they are only my estimates) :
Civic-airport : 9 Ks
Civic-Kingston 6Ks
Civic- Woden : 12Ks
Woden-Tuggeranong : 11Ks
Woden-Weston Creek : 4Ks
Civic-Belconnen : 10Ks
Civic-Molonglo Valley : 14Ks
TOTAL : 66Ks

Now, argue if you will that some are not dedicated lines – eg. Civic-Kingston might branch off from Civic-airport somehow, but the above is my take on it. But then again, I’m not a route planning expert.

Now, if the figure from kentfitch of M$69 pa over 20 yrs for 12 Ks is correct (and I’m hoping that I read what kentfitch is saying corrctly ?), and assuming that another 66Ks of track will be necessary (or there abouts), then what will be the final, all up cost to ACT Ratepayers for a Canberra wide Tram ??

And the ACTION operating deficit will still be there, as will most of the road maintenance, requirements for new roads, etc !

So, how is that “affordable” ?

creative_canberran said :

HiddenDragon said :

I had somebody (apparently research for the ACT Government) cold call me some time ago, asking for my opinion about the “light rail” project. I laughed out loud and said that apart from it being a huge waste of taxpayer dollars, it didn’t affect me since I did not live in Gunghalin and nor did I work in Civic.

No doubt the “tram” will end up the same way as ACTION has …. bus drivers earning heaps to putter around with 2 passengers … an absolute waste of taxpayer dollars!

Canberra is a City of Cars ……. drive the car to work, 20 minutes, catch a bus, 1 hour 20 minutes.

Perhaps some bus routes are underutilised, but it’s a long time since I shared a bus with only two passengers on my route, and that’s usually off peak times too. When was the last time you shared a bus with two or less people? I shared a bus (twice) with more than that (ten? – I didn’t count them), yesterday. And you, when did you last catch a bus?

🙂 I pressed enter too soon. I meant to add, drive to work 20minutes, look for park (paid) and then walk from that to work 5 to 10 minutes; cycle there, 25 minutes; catch bus about 30mins, plus an enjoyable 2km walk (exercise). Cycling was the quickest, beating driving plus paid parking. Retired now, but that’s how it was.
Go to my nearest big shopping centre – Woden, bus 15mins, drive about the same, but then time must be spent finding a park, so the bus is quickest.

HiddenDragon said :

I had somebody (apparently research for the ACT Government) cold call me some time ago, asking for my opinion about the “light rail” project. I laughed out loud and said that apart from it being a huge waste of taxpayer dollars, it didn’t affect me since I did not live in Gunghalin and nor did I work in Civic.

No doubt the “tram” will end up the same way as ACTION has …. bus drivers earning heaps to putter around with 2 passengers … an absolute waste of taxpayer dollars!

Canberra is a City of Cars ……. drive the car to work, 20 minutes, catch a bus, 1 hour 20 minutes.

Perhaps some bus routes are underutilised, but it’s a long time since I shared a bus with only two passengers on my route, and that’s usually off peak times too. When was the last time you shared a bus with two or less people? I shared a bus (twice) with more than that (ten? – I didn’t count them), yesterday. And you, when did you last catch a bus?

I had somebody (apparently research for the ACT Government) cold call me some time ago, asking for my opinion about the “light rail” project. I laughed out loud and said that apart from it being a huge waste of taxpayer dollars, it didn’t affect me since I did not live in Gunghalin and nor did I work in Civic.

No doubt the “tram” will end up the same way as ACTION has …. bus drivers earning heaps to putter around with 2 passengers … an absolute waste of taxpayer dollars!

Canberra is a City of Cars ……. drive the car to work, 20 minutes, catch a bus, 1 hour 20 minutes.

HenryBG said :

rosscoact said :

Here is more gobbledygook:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/tram-project-to-cost-taxpayers-939-million-in-todays-dollars-says-act-government-20160524-gp2nc6.html

Only goodledtgook if you don’t take the time to understand how the thing is funded. My message a few posts up puts it in simpler language though.

$300m odd at start of operations and the a monthly fee to run the line. That monthly fee also includes repayment of the line construction.

It kind of blows the whole cannot afford it line out the window really. Especially the final 10 years where we will be paying 2016 costs but in 2026 dollars.

But sadly, JC, the cost is being deliberately obfuscated to throw even those taking a bit of time off the scent. Announced are $939m in availability payments (2016 $) plus $375m lump sum on completion in 2018/19, totally about $1.31 billion, the real contract cost in 2016 dollars.

The agency costs of running Capital Metro and land acquisition for and construction of the Dickson tram/bus interchange must be added to this, which are at least $70m (but have not yet been fully disclosed).

The $1.31billion includes about $460m in operation costs (based on Business Case estimates, adjusted for 2016 dollars). So the current best guess of the project construction cost is about $1.31 billion plus $70m less $460m = $920m in current dollars.

In the Canberra Times of June 11 2014, then Chief Minister Katy Gallagher was reported as drawing a line in the sand for the cost of the project at $614m in 2011 dollars, which is about $678m in 2016 dollars.

So, that line has been crossed by about $240m in less than two years, and the digging hasn’t even started.

Annualising the costs over the 20 year project, in 2016 dollars:
Capital and financing, contract and agency costs: $46m/yr
Operational costs: $23m/yr
Total: $69m/yr

This, for one tram line. This is over half the equivalent costs for the whole of ACTION, and it is why people concerned over adequate funding of public transport are very worried that the tram will divert scarce funding from providing improved public transport.

rosscoact said :

Here is more gobbledygook:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/tram-project-to-cost-taxpayers-939-million-in-todays-dollars-says-act-government-20160524-gp2nc6.html

Only goodledtgook if you don’t take the time to understand how the thing is funded. My message a few posts up puts it in simpler language though.

$300m odd at start of operations and the a monthly fee to run the line. That monthly fee also includes repayment of the line construction.

It kind of blows the whole cannot afford it line out the window really. Especially the final 10 years where we will be paying 2016 costs but in 2026 dollars.

HenryBG said :

Masquara said :

John Hargreaves said :

This is very different to other projects in that it commits the ACT to an ongoing $64million dollar (average) cost plus a massive $700+ million in capital cost. Given there is very strong opposition to this project (enough that the libs will make it an election issue), signing the contract is fiscal irresponsibility of the highest order.

The cost isn’t $700m+ $64mx20. From what I understand the consortium builds the line (including financeing the line), gets a payment on completion (which is mostly coming from the asset recyling scheme), and then over the 20 year operating phase gets payed to operate the system. The operation payment also includes the repayments for the infrastructure. And all fares go to the government. Then at the end of the 20 years all transfers to government ownership.

But we are happy to drop $100m a year on new roads, not maintenance but new roads. Year in year out.

In comparison roads are needed for new development that brings in billions. However how much new road money is spent in the area of light rail? I doubt civic is getting many new roads as there is no room.

You can’t include the whole amount of the asset recycling. That’s like saying the roads are free because the money comes from taxes. BRT could also have used this money.

Plus there would be the cost to the act the government over the amount we pay the consortium in setting up the tender the pop the capital works and remediation. Etc etc. Several 10s of millions has already gone into this.

Not to mention there is no costing of how much the tickets will cost or does all this money come back to the government?

Actually that figure isn’t new road construction for developments. It is new road projects like fixing up existing roads.

HenryBG said :

Masquara said :

John Hargreaves said :

This is very different to other projects in that it commits the ACT to an ongoing $64million dollar (average) cost plus a massive $700+ million in capital cost. Given there is very strong opposition to this project (enough that the libs will make it an election issue), signing the contract is fiscal irresponsibility of the highest order.

The cost isn’t $700m+ $64mx20. From what I understand the consortium builds the line (including financeing the line), gets a payment on completion (which is mostly coming from the asset recyling scheme), and then over the 20 year operating phase gets payed to operate the system. The operation payment also includes the repayments for the infrastructure. And all fares go to the government. Then at the end of the 20 years all transfers to government ownership.

But we are happy to drop $100m a year on new roads, not maintenance but new roads. Year in year out.

In comparison roads are needed for new development that brings in billions. However how much new road money is spent in the area of light rail? I doubt civic is getting many new roads as there is no room.

You can’t include the whole amount of the asset recycling. That’s like saying the roads are free because the money comes from taxes. BRT could also have used this money.

Plus there would be the cost to the act the government over the amount we pay the consortium in setting up the tender the pop the capital works and remediation. Etc etc. Several 10s of millions has already gone into this.

Not to mention there is no costing of how much the tickets will cost or does all this money come back to the government?

Yes the Light Rail does earn money from tickets, which go up with inflation, unlike roads which earn the government nothing and lose money from before they are built, and you pretend require no planning, negotiation, relocation of services nor contracts.

Can we have a break from the constant double standards, ie socialism for roads is good/public transport is bad, cars with perpetually one occupant congesting roads in peak hours and littering the streets empty 98% of the time good/full public transport in peak hours fewer in off peak bad, huge numbers of deaths and injuries from cars good//practically none on public transport bad, massive public and private debt for cars good/comparatively small debt for public transport bad, large amounts of land for roads good/barely any for public transport bad, long commutes and cities divided good, short commutes and open cities bad, lazy obesity good/daily exercise bad etc etc.

Do you really want to leave your kids and grandkids a polluted world where they sit in traffic jams cursing all those who had no foresight, just dubiously rosey memories of a taxpayer funded Canberra in the 60s with nowhere to go but overbuilt gold-plated roads, freeways and roundabouts on which to do it?

Here is more gobbledygook:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/tram-project-to-cost-taxpayers-939-million-in-todays-dollars-says-act-government-20160524-gp2nc6.html

Masquara said :

This is very different to other projects in that it commits the ACT to an ongoing $64million dollar (average) cost plus a massive $700+ million in capital cost. Given there is very strong opposition to this project (enough that the libs will make it an election issue), signing the contract is fiscal irresponsibility of the highest order.

The cost isn’t $700m+ $64mx20. From what I understand the consortium builds the line (including financeing the line), gets a payment on completion (which is mostly coming from the asset recyling scheme), and then over the 20 year operating phase gets payed to operate the system. The operation payment also includes the repayments for the infrastructure. And all fares go to the government. Then at the end of the 20 years all transfers to government ownership.

What! $2 billion dollars for just the roads!! Nothing on them? Just buried land that is difficult to cross and we are afraid our children might? None of the hundreds of Billions of dollars of vehicles, maintenanace, insurance, accidents, deaths, hospitals, bad health due to lack of exercise, on going medical care, fuel, parking and storage on our properties?

Not to mention another 20 years of continued pollution and consequences from that?

WOW! We really are masters of “economic commonsense”!

This is what some here want to leave their children and grandchildren that they are so concerned for (not themselves! ROTFL).

carnardly said :

Perrin said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

HenryBG said :

Well said, Greg.
The Territory’s finances are on the edge of a precipice right now and any further cost blowouts on the light rail or the Constitution Avenue cock-up together with a drop in revenue could tip us over the edge.

The Constitution Ave upgrade is Federally funded and pray tell what is the cock-up?

The received the money in 2011 and started work in 2013.
It’s now 2016 and still not finished, that’s the cock-up.
Is it still within the budgeted amount? We don’t know, do we.
How will they get the trams to run on time with a track record like this?
Still waiting for your comment on the state of the Territory’s finances.

Where was I meant to comment on the finances? But AAA credit rating by S&P’s I would say things are not as bad as you make out and far far far from Greece.

Well that’s great then.
So all you ACT public servants who have $5 billion of unfunded retirement benefits to look forward to have absolutely nothing to worry about.
When sovereign countries are printing money, credit ratings sort of become meaningless.
But if you are happy then most others will be also.

Masquara said :

John Hargreaves said :

This is very different to other projects in that it commits the ACT to an ongoing $64million dollar (average) cost plus a massive $700+ million in capital cost. Given there is very strong opposition to this project (enough that the libs will make it an election issue), signing the contract is fiscal irresponsibility of the highest order.

The cost isn’t $700m+ $64mx20. From what I understand the consortium builds the line (including financeing the line), gets a payment on completion (which is mostly coming from the asset recyling scheme), and then over the 20 year operating phase gets payed to operate the system. The operation payment also includes the repayments for the infrastructure. And all fares go to the government. Then at the end of the 20 years all transfers to government ownership.

But we are happy to drop $100m a year on new roads, not maintenance but new roads. Year in year out.

In comparison roads are needed for new development that brings in billions. However how much new road money is spent in the area of light rail? I doubt civic is getting many new roads as there is no room.

You can’t include the whole amount of the asset recycling. That’s like saying the roads are free because the money comes from taxes. BRT could also have used this money.

Plus there would be the cost to the act the government over the amount we pay the consortium in setting up the tender the pop the capital works and remediation. Etc etc. Several 10s of millions has already gone into this.

Not to mention there is no costing of how much the tickets will cost or does all this money come back to the government?

oh_ said :

Mordd said :

And realise that Canberra will have less traffic congestion as a result.

Everyone seems to be framing the light rail issue around “How does this benefit ME personally?”

What about interstate or international visitors to our fair city? Have you ever tried navigating ACTION as a brand new arrival to Canberra?

Once this light rail project is finalised and rolled out across the entirety of Canberra, the benefits will become more than apparent… you just have to step outside of your own existence (which I appreciate not everyone has the capacity to do).

It will be a real shame if the project is only half completed and not rolled out to all Canberra districts as planned.

Unfortunately the Liberal Party has the ability to do this if they win the next election, and in the process will be fulfilling their prophecy of Canberra’s “DOOMED TO FAIL” light rail.

Yes, there’s definitely a lot of people thinking about “me”, mainly tram supporters and people that live along the route who will be subsidized by the rest of Canberra and also see a healthy jump in their property prices, courtesy of the general ratepayer.

The whole point is that the chances of the light rail rolling out across Canberra in the foreseeable future are almost zero. It’s only viable on this corridor (barely) when you consider the uplift in development and population density. Things that are extremely difficult to replicate on other potential routes for many decades, even without the technical difficulties involved.

John Hargreaves said :

This is very different to other projects in that it commits the ACT to an ongoing $64million dollar (average) cost plus a massive $700+ million in capital cost. Given there is very strong opposition to this project (enough that the libs will make it an election issue), signing the contract is fiscal irresponsibility of the highest order.

The cost isn’t $700m+ $64mx20. From what I understand the consortium builds the line (including financeing the line), gets a payment on completion (which is mostly coming from the asset recyling scheme), and then over the 20 year operating phase gets payed to operate the system. The operation payment also includes the repayments for the infrastructure. And all fares go to the government. Then at the end of the 20 years all transfers to government ownership.

But we are happy to drop $100m a year on new roads, not maintenance but new roads. Year in year out.

Perrin said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

HenryBG said :

Well said, Greg.
The Territory’s finances are on the edge of a precipice right now and any further cost blowouts on the light rail or the Constitution Avenue cock-up together with a drop in revenue could tip us over the edge.

The Constitution Ave upgrade is Federally funded and pray tell what is the cock-up?

The received the money in 2011 and started work in 2013.
It’s now 2016 and still not finished, that’s the cock-up.
Is it still within the budgeted amount? We don’t know, do we.
How will they get the trams to run on time with a track record like this?
Still waiting for your comment on the state of the Territory’s finances.

Where was I meant to comment on the finances? But AAA credit rating by S&P’s I would say things are not as bad as you make out and far far far from Greece.

Johnwm said :

Leon said :

Just get on with building it. We are a city that should have a better public transport network and light rail can help with that. We are rich enough to pay for it. Bus rapid might be a more cost-effective option, but the Libs should have thought of that when they blocked it in the past. This is the result you live with when you make those choices.

The bus alternative is a furphy. Libs don’t catch buses. They just want to sit in traffic jams, getting angry.

The Libs made the “bus alternative” run “fast” by not stopping anywhere. They could obtain maximum speed by not picking up any passengers at all, their real objective. The great thing about buses, as we have seen is that it is really easy to cancel them and sell them off.

The buses are just a Liberal smokescreen, literally, their pollution adding to all the cars’ pollution, that’s SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good for us.

This is very different to other projects in that it commits the ACT to an ongoing $64million dollar (average) cost plus a massive $700+ million in capital cost. Given there is very strong opposition to this project (enough that the libs will make it an election issue), signing the contract is fiscal irresponsibility of the highest order. If Labor is in after Oct 15, then we deserve all the crippling cost trams we can’t afford.

The annual cost alone of this tram will chew up nearing 50% of public transport costs (based on ACT Budget 2015-16) for what is effectively one bus route all at a time when our city is under increasing fiscal pressure and our rates are soaring and our wages are stagnant. All for something that is very unlikely to be heavily used.

Oh, and it’s a terrible white elephant of a project for all the reasons we have gone over many times.

Politicians regularly top public polls of “which profession do you trust the most” because they are honest to a fault and are renowned for always keeping their promises (and for never, ever promising things which they don’t really mean) – which, of course, is why all the people who voted for Labor or Greens candidates in the 2012 ACT election did so in the full knowledge and expectation that contracts for hundreds of millions of dollars would be signed, and construction would be underway, before the 2016 ACT election……

wildturkeycanoe said :

HenryBG said :

Well said, Greg.
The Territory’s finances are on the edge of a precipice right now and any further cost blowouts on the light rail or the Constitution Avenue cock-up together with a drop in revenue could tip us over the edge.

The Constitution Ave upgrade is Federally funded and pray tell what is the cock-up?

The received the money in 2011 and started work in 2013.
It’s now 2016 and still not finished, that’s the cock-up.
Is it still within the budgeted amount? We don’t know, do we.
How will they get the trams to run on time with a track record like this?
Still waiting for your comment on the state of the Territory’s finances.

oh_ said :

Mordd said :

And realise that Canberra will have less traffic congestion as a result.

Everyone seems to be framing the light rail issue around “How does this benefit ME personally?”

What about interstate or international visitors to our fair city? Have you ever tried navigating ACTION as a brand new arrival to Canberra?

Once this light rail project is finalised and rolled out across the entirety of Canberra, the benefits will become more than apparent… you just have to step outside of your own existence (which I appreciate not everyone has the capacity to do).

It will be a real shame if the project is only half completed and not rolled out to all Canberra districts as planned.

Unfortunately the Liberal Party has the ability to do this if they win the next election, and in the process will be fulfilling their prophecy of Canberra’s “DOOMED TO FAIL” light rail.

The cost to build and operate this one section of light rail is at least $1,655m over 20 years, with various costs to government in addition to payments to the consortium. To complete a full light rail network that links the town centres and airport would have to cost six times as much. That network will still require feeder buses to get people from the suburbs to light rail, that part of the bus network that is the least profitable. At the moment the bus system costs the taxpayer $100m+ p.a., so lets say that half that cost would go with a full light rail system. That would make the total cost of public transport with a full light rail system $546.5m p.a. Even if we subtract the entire cost of construction its still $333.5m p.a. or 3 times as costly as the current bus system. Even if the Liberal’s plan to revamp the bus system cost an extra $100m p.a., which should at least double the frequency of services, that would still be a saving on operations of $133m p.a. plus the entire construction costs of $4b+.

I read an article that said on average light rail systems delivered additional benefits of 30% above the base economic return, however our light rail is somehow going to deliver 140% with a base return of 50c per dollar spent but additional benefits of 70c. My opposition to the tram has nothing to do with whether I will use it or not, but that its going to be a massive black hole that ACT taxpayers will keep pouring hard earned dollars into for decades to come.

Leon said :

Just get on with building it. We are a city that should have a better public transport network and light rail can help with that. We are rich enough to pay for it. Bus rapid might be a more cost-effective option, but the Libs should have thought of that when they blocked it in the past. This is the result you live with when you make those choices.

I agree, get on with building it.

Mordd said :

Grail said :

*yawn* stopping light rail is still a thing? Even after it’s been taken to elections, massive tranches of planning commenced and build contracts signed?

It’s happening. Come to terms with it.

And realise that Canberra will have less traffic congestion as a result.

Except based on Capital Metro’s own reports, it makes traffic congestion much worse:

– Average combined AM and PM peak period vehicle speed in 2021 over the road network around the proposed route (not just traffic on the direct route) decreases from 27.8 km/hr without light-rail to 23.1 km/hr with light-rail. Source: Capital Metro Draft EIS, Volume 3, Technical Paper 5: Traffic and Transport, Table 4.2, page 38: http://www.planning.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/41352/Capital_Metro_Light_Rail_Stage_1_Draft_EIS_Volume_03_Part_5-Traffic_and_Transport.pdf

– The Capital Metro EIS’s analysis of intersection performance over AM and PM peaks shows that the combined number of intersections at which traffic will exceed capacity more than triples from 2 without light-rail to 7 with light-rail. Source: Reference: Capital Metro Draft EIS, Volume 3, Technical Paper 5: Traffic and Transport, Table 4.5 to 4.10, pages 41 to 45.

For an example of what will happen to one intersection, see this simulation based on Capital Metro volumes and signal timings: http://canberraautonomouscars.info/simMouat.html

The ACT Government’s 2012 transport “blueprint”, “Transport for Canberra”, offered great hope for public transport. A key target was a minimum 40km/hr end-to-end journey time for intertown and “Rapid transit”. The Gold Coast tram averages 23km/hr, the new Lilyfield to Dulwich Hill light rail extension in Sydney which runs on an entirely segregated right-of-way (no intersections) manages 26km/hr. Capital Metro is claiming 30km/hr, but with 24 road crossings they are hoping to achieve with light-rail infrastructure the performance of heavy rail, such as the Cranbourne heavy-rail line in Melbourne (about the same speeds) where the heavy rail uses level crossings for safety and traffic isolation but which the Vic Gov is now replacing at huge expense with bridges and tunnels

The public transport service offered by the tram is a step backwards:

– ACTION buses during the AM commuter peak (6:30am-9am) from Gungahlin currently have a capacity of 80 per 1000 people (Gungahlin population) (51 seated, 29 standing); Capital Metro will have a capacity of 62 per 1000 people (19 seated, 43 standing).

– most passengers will need to change from bus to tram at Gungahlin, and/or tram to bus in Civic to continue their journey, increasing journey time

– the distance between stops is increased, meaning less convenience access

(More information and sources here: http://canberraautonomouscars.info/TramsForCanberra/tramsAndCanberra.html )

I have no doubt when Simon Corbell unveiled his “Transport for Canberra” plan, he was genuinely seeking to deliver better public transport alternatives. But the process was captured by those seeking to impose a technology regardless of its suitability.

oh_ said :

What about interstate or international visitors to our fair city? Have you ever tried navigating ACTION as a brand new arrival to Canberra?

Once this light rail project is finalised and rolled out across the entirety of Canberra, the benefits will become more than apparent… you just have to step outside of your own existence (which I appreciate not everyone has the capacity to do).

It will be a real shame if the project is only half completed and not rolled out to all Canberra districts as planned.

What exactly are interstate visitors going to use the tram for? It doesn’t link any tourist parts of Canberra with hotels anywhere. What’s there to see in Gungahlin? Nothing. The main aim of the tram is for commuting to and from work for Gungahlin residents. It isn’t a a tourist train, or it’d be running from Gold Creek to the Old Bus Depot Markets via the War Memorial. The tram will not get tourists anywhere they want to go. If they are in the city and want to go shopping, what is in Gungahlin that Civic doesn’t have already?

Exactly when and for how much is this thing going to encompass all of Canberra!! Don’t make me laugh, it’ll never happen in our lifetime.

Nightshade said :

From Wikepedia, about Greece’s disastrous railway systems.
Financial problems:
Hellenic Railways operates at a loss of about $3.8 million per day, having accumulated a total debt of $13 billion, or about 5% of Greek GDP (2010). The bulk of this debt will mature in 2014. In 2008, the company reported a loss of more than $1 billion, on sales of about $253 million. Between 2000 and 2009, the cost of the company’s payroll soared by 50 percent even as overall personnel decreased by 30 percent. The average salary of a rail employee is over $78,000.[10] In the mountainous Peloponnese region, trains manned by drivers being paid as much as $130,000 a year frequently run empty. For the better part of a decade, Greece has provided sovereign backing to Hellenic Railways, thus allowing it to borrow billions even though the company’s finances are so skewed that it pays three times as much on interest expenses than it collects in revenue. As the debt of state-owned enterprises was not counted toward Greece’s official debt, Greece has been able to use the rail system as a means to support employment while not adding to its official debt number; basically an accounting trick to hide debt.[10] The Greek government is aware that only the closure of a substantial number of loss-making routes and large employment cuts (between 2500-3500 of the 7000 staff) will make Hellenic Railways attractive to foreign investors. But the Railway Union opposes privatization and threatens with strikes if jobs and benefits are threatened.[10] Nevertheless, some lines have been closed since 2010.

This is what Canberra will be like if the light rail madness continues.

I really don’t think you can compare Canberra with Greece. It is well-known that the Greeks couldn’t even run a pie stall at a country show, and I am Greek myself. The only criterion I have to judge light rail here with is the Metro in Sydney from Central to Lidcombe. This is run by private enterprise, it accepts Opal cards and the conductors on board take cash fares, and as far as I’m aware it runs at a profit. So light rail here might not be the financial disaster we are being told it will be.

Leon said :

Just get on with building it. We are a city that should have a better public transport network and light rail can help with that. We are rich enough to pay for it. Bus rapid might be a more cost-effective option, but the Libs should have thought of that when they blocked it in the past. This is the result you live with when you make those choices.

“We are rich enough to pay for it”
If we were, I would not have as many objections as I do.
How can you say such a thing given the huge debt we already have?
Perhaps you meant to say “we are silly enough to borrow the money for it”.
The fact is, it will never be paid for.

Leon said :

Just get on with building it. We are a city that should have a better public transport network and light rail can help with that. We are rich enough to pay for it. Bus rapid might be a more cost-effective option, but the Libs should have thought of that when they blocked it in the past. This is the result you live with when you make those choices.

The bus alternative is a furphy. Libs don’t catch buses. They just want to sit in traffic jams, getting angry.

It’s unclear why Cornwell thinks the project wouldn’t go ahead, when the government was elected with light rail as part of its platform, and has just signed off on the contract. Unless he’s still pretending that, should the Liberals get elected, they wouldn’t proceed with the light rail. That’s like pretending that no roads should be built in Gungahlin, because people in Tuggeranong wouldn’t benefit from them, or no buses should service Molonglo Valley, or schools or pools or whatever be built. Or that trees replanted as saplings don’t grow larger over time. Stupid argument, isn’t it?

Just get on with building it. We are a city that should have a better public transport network and light rail can help with that. We are rich enough to pay for it. Bus rapid might be a more cost-effective option, but the Libs should have thought of that when they blocked it in the past. This is the result you live with when you make those choices.

Mordd said :

And realise that Canberra will have less traffic congestion as a result.

Everyone seems to be framing the light rail issue around “How does this benefit ME personally?”

What about interstate or international visitors to our fair city? Have you ever tried navigating ACTION as a brand new arrival to Canberra?

Once this light rail project is finalised and rolled out across the entirety of Canberra, the benefits will become more than apparent… you just have to step outside of your own existence (which I appreciate not everyone has the capacity to do).

It will be a real shame if the project is only half completed and not rolled out to all Canberra districts as planned.

Unfortunately the Liberal Party has the ability to do this if they win the next election, and in the process will be fulfilling their prophecy of Canberra’s “DOOMED TO FAIL” light rail.

HenryBG said :

Well said, Greg.
The Territory’s finances are on the edge of a precipice right now and any further cost blowouts on the light rail or the Constitution Avenue cock-up together with a drop in revenue could tip us over the edge.

The Constitution Ave upgrade is Federally funded and pray tell what is the cock-up?

So Greg how far out from an election should a government stop making decisions?

Should there be a rule that says if you want a project to straddle the electoral cycle that you can only sign in say the first year?

Oh what a great way to have governments that only work to an electoral cycle rather than, shock horror thinking ahead.

pink little birdie said :

The tram supporters keep harping on about the fiscal benefits to the community, but there are losers too. If the predicted 15,000 journeys per day come to fruition, meaning 7500 people won’t be needing their cars, that means about $100,000 worth of petrol sales per week will not happen. About $6 million per year in vehicle registrations won’t be pocketed by the government. Local car dealerships will lose customers, mechanic workshops find business in decline as will spare parts businesses. Insurance companies will also lose millions in insurance policies and CTP.

I would hazard a guess that the majority of tram users would also still have cars and pay for rego, insurance, services and the like. It will also only replacement of cars.
I walk to work and I still have a car that is used most days (every second Tuesday is the only day we don’t use a car and Wednesdays and Thursdays we even use 2 cars). Our petrol bills are severely reduced though but I doubt that has much impact on jobs at petrol stations or in the production line.

Labor has no mandate for LR, apart from the deal Barr made with Rattenbury to form a minority government.
Liberal 86,032 votes
Labor 85,991 votes
Check the AEC if you like
Barr and co have to go, their dodgy land dealings, most expensive and worst hospitals in Australia is just madness.
He acts like a dictator rather than a public servant elected by the tax payer to represent all of Canberra, not just his mates
Haha less traffic congestion, says who? back it up with facts, not just opinions.
ACTION losses money hand over fist, Canberra cant support LR, look at gold coast even they struggle with passenger numbers and they have tourists and high rises all along the route

From Wikepedia, about Greece’s disastrous railway systems.
Financial problems:
Hellenic Railways operates at a loss of about $3.8 million per day, having accumulated a total debt of $13 billion, or about 5% of Greek GDP (2010). The bulk of this debt will mature in 2014. In 2008, the company reported a loss of more than $1 billion, on sales of about $253 million. Between 2000 and 2009, the cost of the company’s payroll soared by 50 percent even as overall personnel decreased by 30 percent. The average salary of a rail employee is over $78,000.[10] In the mountainous Peloponnese region, trains manned by drivers being paid as much as $130,000 a year frequently run empty. For the better part of a decade, Greece has provided sovereign backing to Hellenic Railways, thus allowing it to borrow billions even though the company’s finances are so skewed that it pays three times as much on interest expenses than it collects in revenue. As the debt of state-owned enterprises was not counted toward Greece’s official debt, Greece has been able to use the rail system as a means to support employment while not adding to its official debt number; basically an accounting trick to hide debt.[10] The Greek government is aware that only the closure of a substantial number of loss-making routes and large employment cuts (between 2500-3500 of the 7000 staff) will make Hellenic Railways attractive to foreign investors. But the Railway Union opposes privatization and threatens with strikes if jobs and benefits are threatened.[10] Nevertheless, some lines have been closed since 2010.

This is what Canberra will be like if the light rail madness continues.

Mordd said :

Yes it comes back to the original issue of did they get enough of a mandate at the last election to do what they have done – and that’s a matter of personal opinion for many on here. But ultimately, Governments need to be allowed, where reasonable, to get on and govern, even when an election is on the horizon.

If it was a clear mandate with the support of the constituents, why is there so much backlash and anger over this project? Did the details change? Did the cost change? Did Labor win the election? As it is, the legislative assembly has 8 Labor and 8 Liberal seats, with Greens holding the reins. Labor got no more than 40% of the vote in any electorate, which isn’t a majority anyway, so it is possible that more than half of Canberra is against the tram and Labor party. This is the folly of our electoral system where losers end up winning.

Grail said :

*yawn* stopping light rail is still a thing? Even after it’s been taken to elections, massive tranches of planning commenced and build contracts signed?

It’s happening. Come to terms with it.

And realise that Canberra will have less traffic congestion as a result.

Why did this have to be a decision between “pro-tram” and “no tram”? Why could it not have been an election decided over a light rail network or expansion of the bus network and infrastructure? When Liberals win, the result of the tram fiasco means Gungahlin will not also be without a tram, but also won’t get a better bus service because Labor’s poor decision making will cost our economy for years to come.

The tram supporters keep harping on about the fiscal benefits to the community, but there are losers too. If the predicted 15,000 journeys per day come to fruition, meaning 7500 people won’t be needing their cars, that means about $100,000 worth of petrol sales per week will not happen. About $6 million per year in vehicle registrations won’t be pocketed by the government. Local car dealerships will lose customers, mechanic workshops find business in decline as will spare parts businesses. Insurance companies will also lose millions in insurance policies and CTP.
Will there be any economic loss compensation for these organisations who will suffer because of the light rail, in the event the proclaimed patronage figures ever become truth? What of the rest of Canberra whose cars will lose value as the market is flooded with all these used vehicles that are no longer necessary? Will registrations increase for everybody else to make up the shortfall? Will insurance policies in the A.C.T only, suddenly see a sharp rise?
It is easy to look at land use benefits, infrastructure efficiency savings [whatever that is suppose to mean], transport time savings and construction jobs, but there are losers in this game and I don’t think they have been taken into consideration. Unfortunately, everyone in the A.C.T will be losing as they fund this unnecessary 12km long amusement ride.

Well said, Greg.
The Territory’s finances are on the edge of a precipice right now and any further cost blowouts on the light rail or the Constitution Avenue cock-up together with a drop in revenue could tip us over the edge.
I don’t believe the full cost of the light rail has been calculated yet. The cost and extent of relocating services under Northbourne Avenue is yet to be made public and the cost of capital works to deliver electricity has never been discussed. Indeed, if it these costs were revealed the ACT Labor government would have to activate the “cost too much” clause in the business plan and gracefully exit.
It is noted that the usual apologists for the “light fail” on this blog are totally silent about this costing black hole.
The opportunity to restore some common sense and dignity to our current government passed last week with the signing of the contracts.
Some time in the future we will need a new coat of arms to reflect how vibrant and progressive Canberra is.
I envisage a treeless, dusty Northbourne Avenue with rusty stanchions and fallen wires leading to the smoking remains of the Westside Hipster Container Village.

*yawn* stopping light rail is still a thing? Even after it’s been taken to elections, massive tranches of planning commenced and build contracts signed?

It’s happening. Come to terms with it.

I don’t have a particularly strong view one way or the other on the tram – I can see the obvious faults with it, but I can also see the potential benefits as well.

However, I do think there is an important issue at play here that is just being highlighted by the tram issue – just when is a Government allowed to govern up until? Is it until caretaker starts, or 6 months before an election, or 12 months – or just when is it?

Ultimately, while all the details were not there in the 2012 election, I thought it was pretty clear that a vote for Labor/Greens meant a vote for a tram project to progress and begin during the current term of the parliament.

To me, that means they should be free to pursue (within reason of course) their political agenda until the caretaker period starts. That shouldn’t mean signing crazy contracts the day or week before (there needs to be some reason), but if it is a committed policy position, that was taken to the electorate, then its hard to argue they are acting outside their political mandate. My question therefore is – just when was the cut off date that the contract should have been signed for it to be ‘acceptable’?

Yes it comes back to the original issue of did they get enough of a mandate at the last election to do what they have done – and that’s a matter of personal opinion for many on here. But ultimately, Governments need to be allowed, where reasonable, to get on and govern, even when an election is on the horizon.