A war on cars or visionary policy?

Nilrem said :

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

Skyring said :

rosscoact said :

Let’s be realistic about this.

A high proportion of people who are not directly benefiting from the first leg of the light rail are taking a dog in the manger approach. They just don’t want anybody to have a benefit that they don’t directly have.

It goes deeper than this. The tram costs a billion dollars. That’s money we’ve got to come up with through extra taxes or reduced services, and that’s something the whole community has to wear. So those who aren’t within cooee of the tram will receive no benefit, *and* will have to lose a big chunk of money or services to boot.

It’s not about being a grumblebum. It’s about reason.

For me, I don’t think this one single tramline is going to do anything that our existing bus fleet cannot do now and for a hell of a lot cheaper.

And then we get those who say, well, let’s run the thing to Tuggeranong and Belco and Weston Creek and give everyone the benefit. Yeah, quadruple the cost.

We don’t have the urban density to make it pay. Not without a few million more residents.

And you say all that almost as if any of it was true!

The BRT option was less than half the cost for the same performance and your own argument is that we need increased density to support the tram, so he’s not 100% wrong, is he.

A bus is is a bus is a bus is a bus. Something I doubt you use which is why you recommend them so highly.

They pollute, are noisy, wreck the roads that they share with the cars, require lots of drivers, which we don’t have thanks to the lazy “solutions” of most of our politicians, and ultimately they pile up in the cities as urban assassins.

They do not cost half as much no matter how much you lie about the cost of the Light Rail, and they have been rejected by many cities because they do not do what Light Rail does which is bring in life to an area. Instead they kill it stone dead.

It doesn’t take Einstein to look at the bus terminuses to see EXACTLY why people really just want to avoid them.

Sorry, I use the bus every day currently because it suits my personal needs for travel to and from work. I also have a car at home because the public transport in this city is limited in its useability.

And the fact that you don’t believe the bus option cost half as much as the light rail means you clearly haven’t read the business case which considered the options for this route.

It’s funny how people that never catch buses have a perception that the buses and their interchanges are some kind of dangerous hell on earth. It is a proposition refuted by anyone that catches buses, even only occasionally, like me.

I remember telling someone at work that I had caught a bus in that morning. The response was “did you get attacked by a hobo?”. I had to dissapoint them.

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

Skyring said :

rosscoact said :

Let’s be realistic about this.

A high proportion of people who are not directly benefiting from the first leg of the light rail are taking a dog in the manger approach. They just don’t want anybody to have a benefit that they don’t directly have.

It goes deeper than this. The tram costs a billion dollars. That’s money we’ve got to come up with through extra taxes or reduced services, and that’s something the whole community has to wear. So those who aren’t within cooee of the tram will receive no benefit, *and* will have to lose a big chunk of money or services to boot.

It’s not about being a grumblebum. It’s about reason.

For me, I don’t think this one single tramline is going to do anything that our existing bus fleet cannot do now and for a hell of a lot cheaper.

And then we get those who say, well, let’s run the thing to Tuggeranong and Belco and Weston Creek and give everyone the benefit. Yeah, quadruple the cost.

We don’t have the urban density to make it pay. Not without a few million more residents.

And you say all that almost as if any of it was true!

The BRT option was less than half the cost for the same performance and your own argument is that we need increased density to support the tram, so he’s not 100% wrong, is he.

A bus is is a bus is a bus is a bus. Something I doubt you use which is why you recommend them so highly.

They pollute, are noisy, wreck the roads that they share with the cars, require lots of drivers, which we don’t have thanks to the lazy “solutions” of most of our politicians, and ultimately they pile up in the cities as urban assassins.

They do not cost half as much no matter how much you lie about the cost of the Light Rail, and they have been rejected by many cities because they do not do what Light Rail does which is bring in life to an area. Instead they kill it stone dead.

It doesn’t take Einstein to look at the bus terminuses to see EXACTLY why people really just want to avoid them.

Sorry, I use the bus every day currently because it suits my personal needs for travel to and from work. I also have a car at home because the public transport in this city is limited in its useability.

And the fact that you don’t believe the bus option cost half as much as the light rail means you clearly haven’t read the business case which considered the options for this route.

It’s funny how people that never catch buses have a perception that the buses and their interchanges are some kind of dangerous hell on earth. It is a proposition refuted by anyone that catches buses, even only occasionally, like me.

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

Skyring said :

rosscoact said :

Let’s be realistic about this.

A high proportion of people who are not directly benefiting from the first leg of the light rail are taking a dog in the manger approach. They just don’t want anybody to have a benefit that they don’t directly have.

It goes deeper than this. The tram costs a billion dollars. That’s money we’ve got to come up with through extra taxes or reduced services, and that’s something the whole community has to wear. So those who aren’t within cooee of the tram will receive no benefit, *and* will have to lose a big chunk of money or services to boot.

It’s not about being a grumblebum. It’s about reason.

For me, I don’t think this one single tramline is going to do anything that our existing bus fleet cannot do now and for a hell of a lot cheaper.

And then we get those who say, well, let’s run the thing to Tuggeranong and Belco and Weston Creek and give everyone the benefit. Yeah, quadruple the cost.

We don’t have the urban density to make it pay. Not without a few million more residents.

And you say all that almost as if any of it was true!

The BRT option was less than half the cost for the same performance and your own argument is that we need increased density to support the tram, so he’s not 100% wrong, is he.

A bus is is a bus is a bus is a bus. Something I doubt you use which is why you recommend them so highly.

They pollute, are noisy, wreck the roads that they share with the cars, require lots of drivers, which we don’t have thanks to the lazy “solutions” of most of our politicians, and ultimately they pile up in the cities as urban assassins.

They do not cost half as much no matter how much you lie about the cost of the Light Rail, and they have been rejected by many cities because they do not do what Light Rail does which is bring in life to an area. Instead they kill it stone dead.

It doesn’t take Einstein to look at the bus terminuses to see EXACTLY why people really just want to avoid them.

Sorry, I use the bus every day currently because it suits my personal needs for travel to and from work. I also have a car at home because the public transport in this city is limited in its useability.

And the fact that you don’t believe the bus option cost half as much as the light rail means you clearly haven’t read the business case which considered the options for this route.

Which was rejected. As was a similar case in Perth.

None of them fully costed the buses making the same assumption that they simply exist, which had me scratching my head.

The Perth study went through a long list of examples and came up with the summary that BRTs are not cheap but have a fraction of the capacity of any form of Rail, are difficult to expand, just like freeways, need 3 times as many drivers, do not transition to anything better without huge cost and become congested at all the stations where the buses attempt to pass each other.

But the principal case against them is that they do do not foster development near them. They repel development, because they stink, are noisy, and only add to the traffic. In fact many of the places they were tried they ended up having to rip them out at huge expense and redo them as Light Rail.

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

Skyring said :

rosscoact said :

Let’s be realistic about this.

A high proportion of people who are not directly benefiting from the first leg of the light rail are taking a dog in the manger approach. They just don’t want anybody to have a benefit that they don’t directly have.

It goes deeper than this. The tram costs a billion dollars. That’s money we’ve got to come up with through extra taxes or reduced services, and that’s something the whole community has to wear. So those who aren’t within cooee of the tram will receive no benefit, *and* will have to lose a big chunk of money or services to boot.

It’s not about being a grumblebum. It’s about reason.

For me, I don’t think this one single tramline is going to do anything that our existing bus fleet cannot do now and for a hell of a lot cheaper.

And then we get those who say, well, let’s run the thing to Tuggeranong and Belco and Weston Creek and give everyone the benefit. Yeah, quadruple the cost.

We don’t have the urban density to make it pay. Not without a few million more residents.

And you say all that almost as if any of it was true!

The BRT option was less than half the cost for the same performance and your own argument is that we need increased density to support the tram, so he’s not 100% wrong, is he.

A bus is is a bus is a bus is a bus. Something I doubt you use which is why you recommend them so highly.

They pollute, are noisy, wreck the roads that they share with the cars, require lots of drivers, which we don’t have thanks to the lazy “solutions” of most of our politicians, and ultimately they pile up in the cities as urban assassins.

They do not cost half as much no matter how much you lie about the cost of the Light Rail, and they have been rejected by many cities because they do not do what Light Rail does which is bring in life to an area. Instead they kill it stone dead.

It doesn’t take Einstein to look at the bus terminuses to see EXACTLY why people really just want to avoid them.

Sorry, I use the bus every day currently because it suits my personal needs for travel to and from work. I also have a car at home because the public transport in this city is limited in its useability.

And the fact that you don’t believe the bus option cost half as much as the light rail means you clearly haven’t read the business case which considered the options for this route.

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

Skyring said :

rosscoact said :

Let’s be realistic about this.

A high proportion of people who are not directly benefiting from the first leg of the light rail are taking a dog in the manger approach. They just don’t want anybody to have a benefit that they don’t directly have.

It goes deeper than this. The tram costs a billion dollars. That’s money we’ve got to come up with through extra taxes or reduced services, and that’s something the whole community has to wear. So those who aren’t within cooee of the tram will receive no benefit, *and* will have to lose a big chunk of money or services to boot.

It’s not about being a grumblebum. It’s about reason.

For me, I don’t think this one single tramline is going to do anything that our existing bus fleet cannot do now and for a hell of a lot cheaper.

And then we get those who say, well, let’s run the thing to Tuggeranong and Belco and Weston Creek and give everyone the benefit. Yeah, quadruple the cost.

We don’t have the urban density to make it pay. Not without a few million more residents.

And you say all that almost as if any of it was true!

The BRT option was less than half the cost for the same performance and your own argument is that we need increased density to support the tram, so he’s not 100% wrong, is he.

A bus is is a bus is a bus is a bus. Something I doubt you use which is why you recommend them so highly.

They pollute, are noisy, wreck the roads that they share with the cars, require lots of drivers, which we don’t have thanks to the lazy “solutions” of most of our politicians, and ultimately they pile up in the cities as urban assassins.

They do not cost half as much no matter how much you lie about the cost of the Light Rail, and they have been rejected by many cities because they do not do what Light Rail does which is bring in life to an area. Instead they kill it stone dead.

It doesn’t take Einstein to look at the bus terminuses to see EXACTLY why people really just want to avoid them.

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

rosscoact said :

It’s a shame that the opposition has put up no alternative than the ‘Nope at any cost!’ policy position that the former PM remains so fond of.

And seeing as the Federal NO! brigade is gone, and even in Queensland the local LNP politicians are 100% for Light Rail, the ACT Liberals are looking rather lonely except for the more extreme Tuggeranong pensioners.

Still, the Light Rail really should have a lot more support if only the Government explained it better, and people actually looked at it without over the top emotional negativity because it is a first for Canberra.

This is a cheap fear/smear campaign.

You can rely on people to fall for those because they are mostly lazy, never check anything, and stay ignorant. From ignorance comes fear.

“more extreme Tuggeranong pensioners.”
I know you are referring to me but John Hargreaves is also part of this demographic.

Actually I was not directly referring to you, I suspect most of the can’t see the forest for the “not my trees” are from Tuggeranong.

I think you are confusing “Voices in The Forest” with voices in your head.

rubaiyat said :

Skyring said :

rosscoact said :

Let’s be realistic about this.

A high proportion of people who are not directly benefiting from the first leg of the light rail are taking a dog in the manger approach. They just don’t want anybody to have a benefit that they don’t directly have.

It goes deeper than this. The tram costs a billion dollars. That’s money we’ve got to come up with through extra taxes or reduced services, and that’s something the whole community has to wear. So those who aren’t within cooee of the tram will receive no benefit, *and* will have to lose a big chunk of money or services to boot.

It’s not about being a grumblebum. It’s about reason.

For me, I don’t think this one single tramline is going to do anything that our existing bus fleet cannot do now and for a hell of a lot cheaper.

And then we get those who say, well, let’s run the thing to Tuggeranong and Belco and Weston Creek and give everyone the benefit. Yeah, quadruple the cost.

We don’t have the urban density to make it pay. Not without a few million more residents.

And you say all that almost as if any of it was true!

The BRT option was less than half the cost for the same performance and your own argument is that we need increased density to support the tram, so he’s not 100% wrong, is he.

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

If you want to do a true comparison, you should stick to the costs of operating the car on those particular trips that could be switched to public transport rather than including the entire cost of owning and operating the car.

Which is what I did.

Just as many cars to serve the number of commuters, running the same distance.

i.e. If all the tram passengers had to complete the trip in cars.

I work hard at comparing like with like.

No, it’s not like for like because it assumes that the only reason the people have cars is to drive the exact public transport routes covered by my way. It assumes that they wouldn’t have cars anyway for all the other types of trips that current public transport simply doesn’t have the ability to travel.

Unless the performance and convenience is equivalent, you aren’t comparing like for like.

It is a costing. It doesn’t assume anything for the cars other than their cost.

You are not comparing like with like if you ignore the cost of the car.

An empty freeway is not a transport system. Every time you take your car out of the garage it costs you. It costs you day and night just sitting there or in paid parking somewhere.

You can own a car and take the Light Rail to work or for a night out because you do not want to drink and drive, and you will still save money. An enormous amount of money and possibly your licence if you are caught drink driving or total your car or both.

You may choose to pay a lot of money for perceived “performance and convenience”, even if you don’t get it, but that is irrelevant and certainly does not make the car free for the purposes of costing a transport system for this route or any other.

You may even come to realise that you and many others are constantly bitching and moaning about traffic because you are NOT getting the “performance and convenience” you were promised.

If a convenient, clean, pleasant and economic transport system exists, as it does in many other cities, you can avoid owning a car or simply own fewer, smaller cars that you drive less. Which is what many young city dwellers are doing today.

It assumes the cost of a car, the whole cost of a car. So its only a true comparison if you never use that car for trips other than those exactly the same as public transport routes.

As soon as you use the car for other trips, say interstate trips to NSW towns, you would have to reduce the cost attributeable for comparison to public transport. If you have to own a car anyway, all of the ownership costs have to be removed from your comparison because they are sunk regardless of the public transport system.

You say, ” if a convenient, clean, pleasant and economic transport system exists”, then you might not need a car (maybe). But that’s not the cost comparison you’re making because no such system currently exists in Canberra.

Public transport is still going to be cheaper over those PT routes but your figures are excessively exagerrated and provide no worthwhile information in this debate.

rubaiyat said :

There is nothing in the stats put up by proponents of freeways for the noise, pollution, deaths, wildlife killed, and huge expense of cars. They pretend that an empty stretch of freeway IS the transport system.

But the tram doesn’t go out on the freeway, it only goes between Gunners and the city. How many roos are killed on that stretch of road? We are not comparing apples and apples because the tram line at 2 trips per day, every day of the year, is only 8760km, half the 15,000km you use for the average car journeys annually. So the travel costs of the car should be halved to make it a little more even in comparisons. I doubt anyone would use the tram at least once a day anyway.

rubaiyat said :

You are more likely to be held up for work stuck in unpredictable traffic due to weather, accidents or just because its just another traffic jam! Hey, nobody knows where they come from!

And how exactly does the tram get around the same traffic jam that holds up the cars? There is no advantage when a car can detour around the back streets and continue to it’s destination, but the poor tram is stuck on the tracks.

rubaiyat said :

What does staying in bed with the flu or how you got to work to give them the flu have to do with this?

Sharing your germs with 200 other people on a 30 minute tram ride increases your chances of getting sick infinitely more than sitting in your own car. All the time taken off work and associated costs of getting sick can be directly attributed to public transport and avoided by minimizing exposure through individual modes of travel.

rubaiyat said :

I didn’t get the bit about buses, what are you trying to say?
The schedule for the trams will be frequent and regular and the ride extremely comfortable.

Some of the expected population taking the tram, factored into its future patronage, will be living on the outskirts of Gungahlin, some as far away as over 4km from the Gungahlin town center. How are they meant to get to the tram from their house? Walking that far is not suitable so a bus will be needed to make the connection. How often will the buses be doing their rounds in these far reaches? Will it be with the same frequency as the tram? Presently, it takes around 30 minutes to get from the furthest reaches of Gunners to where the tram station is, so that makes it a 1 hour commute to Civic if you don’t count the time wasted sitting at the stop waiting for the next service to arrive. Does this figure get any promotion in the “pro-tram” debate?

rubaiyat said :

And again on about the hellhole that is Canberra! Where you live seems to alternate between cyclones and blizzards. Obviously not near the Light Rail

How long have you lived in Canberra? We are often told this is the place where you have 4 seasons in one day. This past week alone we’ve had three days of rapidly changing weather conditions, storms and heavy rain. Are you suggesting that this doesn’t happen? There is no dome over the tram to protect it from the elements. Having to carry a poncho and umbrella every time you travel is just not convenient but is necessary with public transport. At least with a vehicle you can have the option of undercover parking when shopping. Your spiel about getting wet when going to a city restaurant doesn’t add up when you look at the amount of under cover parking available at the Canberra Center and near the university, which would always have more free spaces than the outdoor alternative. Was it perhaps that you didn’t want to walk far to get to the eatery, but instead parked close by for convenience? Where was you umbrella? The boot is a great place to store these kinds of items.

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

rosscoact said :

It’s a shame that the opposition has put up no alternative than the ‘Nope at any cost!’ policy position that the former PM remains so fond of.

And seeing as the Federal NO! brigade is gone, and even in Queensland the local LNP politicians are 100% for Light Rail, the ACT Liberals are looking rather lonely except for the more extreme Tuggeranong pensioners.

Still, the Light Rail really should have a lot more support if only the Government explained it better, and people actually looked at it without over the top emotional negativity because it is a first for Canberra.

This is a cheap fear/smear campaign.

You can rely on people to fall for those because they are mostly lazy, never check anything, and stay ignorant. From ignorance comes fear.

“more extreme Tuggeranong pensioners.”
I know you are referring to me but John Hargreaves is also part of this demographic.

Actually I was not directly referring to you, I suspect most of the can’t see the forest for the “not my trees” are from Tuggeranong.

My limo and chauffeur are really convenient.

Since I have already paid for the Mercedes and the driver’s wages, the only cost is when the driver asks for the petrol back on petty cash!

Skyring said :

rosscoact said :

Let’s be realistic about this.

A high proportion of people who are not directly benefiting from the first leg of the light rail are taking a dog in the manger approach. They just don’t want anybody to have a benefit that they don’t directly have.

It goes deeper than this. The tram costs a billion dollars. That’s money we’ve got to come up with through extra taxes or reduced services, and that’s something the whole community has to wear. So those who aren’t within cooee of the tram will receive no benefit, *and* will have to lose a big chunk of money or services to boot.

It’s not about being a grumblebum. It’s about reason.

For me, I don’t think this one single tramline is going to do anything that our existing bus fleet cannot do now and for a hell of a lot cheaper.

And then we get those who say, well, let’s run the thing to Tuggeranong and Belco and Weston Creek and give everyone the benefit. Yeah, quadruple the cost.

We don’t have the urban density to make it pay. Not without a few million more residents.

And you say all that almost as if any of it was true!

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

If you want to do a true comparison, you should stick to the costs of operating the car on those particular trips that could be switched to public transport rather than including the entire cost of owning and operating the car.

Which is what I did.

Just as many cars to serve the number of commuters, running the same distance.

i.e. If all the tram passengers had to complete the trip in cars.

I work hard at comparing like with like.

No, it’s not like for like because it assumes that the only reason the people have cars is to drive the exact public transport routes covered by my way. It assumes that they wouldn’t have cars anyway for all the other types of trips that current public transport simply doesn’t have the ability to travel.

Unless the performance and convenience is equivalent, you aren’t comparing like for like.

It is a costing. It doesn’t assume anything for the cars other than their cost.

You are not comparing like with like if you ignore the cost of the car.

An empty freeway is not a transport system. Every time you take your car out of the garage it costs you. It costs you day and night just sitting there or in paid parking somewhere.

You can own a car and take the Light Rail to work or for a night out because you do not want to drink and drive, and you will still save money. An enormous amount of money and possibly your licence if you are caught drink driving or total your car or both.

You may choose to pay a lot of money for perceived “performance and convenience”, even if you don’t get it, but that is irrelevant and certainly does not make the car free for the purposes of costing a transport system for this route or any other.

You may even come to realise that you and many others are constantly bitching and moaning about traffic because you are NOT getting the “performance and convenience” you were promised.

If a convenient, clean, pleasant and economic transport system exists, as it does in many other cities, you can avoid owning a car or simply own fewer, smaller cars that you drive less. Which is what many young city dwellers are doing today.

rosscoact said :

Let’s be realistic about this.

A high proportion of people who are not directly benefiting from the first leg of the light rail are taking a dog in the manger approach. They just don’t want anybody to have a benefit that they don’t directly have.

It goes deeper than this. The tram costs a billion dollars. That’s money we’ve got to come up with through extra taxes or reduced services, and that’s something the whole community has to wear. So those who aren’t within cooee of the tram will receive no benefit, *and* will have to lose a big chunk of money or services to boot.

It’s not about being a grumblebum. It’s about reason.

For me, I don’t think this one single tramline is going to do anything that our existing bus fleet cannot do now and for a hell of a lot cheaper.

And then we get those who say, well, let’s run the thing to Tuggeranong and Belco and Weston Creek and give everyone the benefit. Yeah, quadruple the cost.

We don’t have the urban density to make it pay. Not without a few million more residents.

rubaiyat said :

rosscoact said :

It’s a shame that the opposition has put up no alternative than the ‘Nope at any cost!’ policy position that the former PM remains so fond of.

And seeing as the Federal NO! brigade is gone, and even in Queensland the local LNP politicians are 100% for Light Rail, the ACT Liberals are looking rather lonely except for the more extreme Tuggeranong pensioners.

Still, the Light Rail really should have a lot more support if only the Government explained it better, and people actually looked at it without over the top emotional negativity because it is a first for Canberra.

This is a cheap fear/smear campaign.

You can rely on people to fall for those because they are mostly lazy, never check anything, and stay ignorant. From ignorance comes fear.

“more extreme Tuggeranong pensioners.”
I know you are referring to me but John Hargreaves is also part of this demographic.

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

If you want to do a true comparison, you should stick to the costs of operating the car on those particular trips that could be switched to public transport rather than including the entire cost of owning and operating the car.

Which is what I did.

Just as many cars to serve the number of commuters, running the same distance.

i.e. If all the tram passengers had to complete the trip in cars.

I work hard at comparing like with like.

No, it’s not like for like because it assumes that the only reason the people have cars is to drive the exact public transport routes covered by my way. It assumes that they wouldn’t have cars anyway for all the other types of trips that current public transport simply doesn’t have the ability to travel.

Unless the performance and convenience is equivalent, you aren’t comparing like for like.

wildturkeycanoe said :

Apart from running costs, there is nothing in the stats that take into account convenience and other factors. How much annual income is lost through being late for work because the public transport system has delays? How many days of income are lost [extra sick days/medicine/doctors or hospital visits] through getting gastro or the flu due to being in close and prolonged proximity to all the other sick people who didn’t take the right course of action and stay in bed, but instead went to work and infected hundreds more people on the tram?
What about the extra costs imposed on families who have to pay for out of hours care for children because the public transport schedule does not allow them to drop off kids to school and then get to work on time? Does it factor the cost of hiring a car, ute or taxi when one needs to get larger items picked up on shopping trips that cannot be carried on a tram? What about out of town road trips? You are assuming that tram users do not have cars to justify it as a cheaper alternative. That pretty much restricts people to never leaving the A.C.T. unless they hire a vehicle, which is quite expensive and not factored into your annual cost of tram riding. So many extra things haven’t been addressed that it isn’t really a fair comparison, not to mention how the connecting buses from the outer edges of the Gungahlin area will service the tram passengers to get them to the stops. How far will people have to walk in order to get to the tram line? How many will ditch the idea because it is 41 degrees outside, or three below zero? What about when it blows a nice thunderstorm in from the west? I certainly wouldn’t be caught out battling the elements with nothing but a briefcase for protection from the ice being blown in by 70km/h gusts. I’ve often smirked at those sitting at the inadequate bus shelters on stormy days, whilst I drive past knowing I won’t get a drop on me.

There is nothing in the stats put up by proponents of freeways for the noise, pollution, deaths, wildlife killed, and huge expense of cars. They pretend that an empty stretch of freeway IS the transport system.

You are more likely to be held up for work stuck in unpredictable traffic due to weather, accidents or just because its just another traffic jam! Hey, nobody knows where they come from!

What does staying in bed with the flu or how you got to work to give them the flu have to do with this?

I didn’t get the bit about buses, what are you trying to say?

The schedule for the trams will be frequent and regular and the ride extremely comfortable.

And again on about the hellhole that is Canberra! Where you live seems to alternate between cyclones and blizzards. Obviously not near the Light Rail, so I am guessing you live in a cave in the Brindabellas.

I know how you feel, I feel for those people out in all weather in those awful car parks or circling endlessly trying to find a parking spot. We lost our table in a city restaurant when we got caught in a down pour and couldn’t find any parking, and got drenched having to run from the inconvenient spot we could find. If we had taken public transport we would have had only to walk around the corner of the Sydney Building under shelter.

No-one has said catching a tram means you won’t have a car, In fact said the opposite over and over again.

And YET AGAIN, are you able to distinguish yourself from everyone else?

YOU are not everybody, and just because YOU won’t use it is no reason for anyone else to not use it.

rosscoact said :

It’s a shame that the opposition has put up no alternative than the ‘Nope at any cost!’ policy position that the former PM remains so fond of.

And seeing as the Federal NO! brigade is gone, and even in Queensland the local LNP politicians are 100% for Light Rail, the ACT Liberals are looking rather lonely except for the more extreme Tuggeranong pensioners.

Still, the Light Rail really should have a lot more support if only the Government explained it better, and people actually looked at it without over the top emotional negativity because it is a first for Canberra.

This is a cheap fear/smear campaign.

You can rely on people to fall for those because they are mostly lazy, never check anything, and stay ignorant. From ignorance comes fear.

chewy14 said :

If you want to do a true comparison, you should stick to the costs of operating the car on those particular trips that could be switched to public transport rather than including the entire cost of owning and operating the car.

Which is what I did.

Just as many cars to serve the number of commuters, running the same distance.

i.e. If all the tram passengers had to complete the trip in cars.

I work hard at comparing like with like.

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

I’m in the mood for more figures. Science, maths and research hold no terrors for me.

What exactly does it actually take to buy the supposed convenience and time saving of cars?

Working off the RACQ figures for the cost of the average car, you need to earn $11,366.84/car/year after tax.

That is $17,050.25/car/year before tax. See below for calculations.

Vehicles registered in the ACT in January 2015 02: 283,572

Population of the ACT 2015 03: 389,700

Ave Number of people per household: 2.6

Number of households in the ACT: 149,885

Ave number of cars per household: 1.89

Ave cost per household for cars: $21,483 (in after tax dollars)

Ave A.C.T. FT income: $85,545.20 so clearly in the top tax bracket

Ave A.C.T. FT income/hr: $46.90/hr

2nd tier Tax rate ($37,001 – $80,000): 32.5%

3rd tier Tax rate ($80,001 – $180,000): 37.5%

For simplicities sake calculate at: 33.333% i.e. a third.

Pre tax dollars required to pay for household cars: $32,224.50/year

Ave Number of hours to pay for household cars: 687 hours/year or 13.21/hours/week

Assume each car per Household represents one income earner at the ave wage (an extremely generous assumption).

Ave Household income: $161,680

So the ave Household is working 20% of their time just to pay for the car.

If your income is below the average even more of your time goes to paying for your car.

Before tax cost of MyWay card: $750.38 – $1990.43 (Use the higher for a working individual)

Ave Number of hours pay for MyWay card: 42.44 hours/year or 0.8/hours/week/individual

Ave Passengers/Household (1.2 passengers/car x 1.89 cars): 2.268 passengers/household

Ave Before tax cost of MyWay card: $4,514.30 (assuming everybody is on full fare which they are not)

Ave Number of hours/Household pay for MyWay cards: 96.25 hours/year or 1.85/hours/week

So the ave Household is working less than 2.8% of their time to pay for public transport.

Extra hours per household to pay for car: 590.75 hours/year or 11.36 hours/week

So the reality is the ave Household is working at least 2.6 hours/day to save how much time driving/parking their cars?

Notes:

1. The RACQ figures do not include the cost of parking, parking infringements, fines etc so they are not included in the above.

2. Add an additional $14.90/day, $76.85/week parking, $3,996.20/year for parking ($5,994.30 before tax) i.e. an extra 2 hours work per week.

3. The assumption that all the Household MyCard passengers pay full fare is a large over estimation of the cost of fares. The individually applicable fares will dramatically reduce the above figures for public transport. Use less public transport and the cost comes down further.

4. Using public transport instead of a car is equal to an average $21,000/year pay rise, factoring in the cost of parking, but not other costs such as parking infringements or fines.

You’re comparing the entire cost of owning a car with the cost of a very specific public transport option that does not have the same convenience, performance or utility as owning a car.

Apples meet Oranges.

Those people using that public transport will by and large still have cars sitting in their driveways, so the figures are not comparable.

If you want to do a true comparison, you should stick to the costs of operating the car on those particular trips that could be switched to public transport rather than including the entire cost of owning and operating the car.

Apart from running costs, there is nothing in the stats that take into account convenience and other factors. How much annual income is lost through being late for work because the public transport system has delays? How many days of income are lost [extra sick days/medicine/doctors or hospital visits] through getting gastro or the flu due to being in close and prolonged proximity to all the other sick people who didn’t take the right course of action and stay in bed, but instead went to work and infected hundreds more people on the tram?
What about the extra costs imposed on families who have to pay for out of hours care for children because the public transport schedule does not allow them to drop off kids to school and then get to work on time? Does it factor the cost of hiring a car, ute or taxi when one needs to get larger items picked up on shopping trips that cannot be carried on a tram? What about out of town road trips? You are assuming that tram users do not have cars to justify it as a cheaper alternative. That pretty much restricts people to never leaving the A.C.T. unless they hire a vehicle, which is quite expensive and not factored into your annual cost of tram riding. So many extra things haven’t been addressed that it isn’t really a fair comparison, not to mention how the connecting buses from the outer edges of the Gungahlin area will service the tram passengers to get them to the stops. How far will people have to walk in order to get to the tram line? How many will ditch the idea because it is 41 degrees outside, or three below zero? What about when it blows a nice thunderstorm in from the west? I certainly wouldn’t be caught out battling the elements with nothing but a briefcase for protection from the ice being blown in by 70km/h gusts. I’ve often smirked at those sitting at the inadequate bus shelters on stormy days, whilst I drive past knowing I won’t get a drop on me.

dungfungus said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

If we want a clean sustainable transport system we have to accept this, or nothing, because that is what the opposition wants.

And here is the crux of the whole debate, if Canberra wants this tram, let alone an environmentally friendly transport system.
“Fifty-four per cent of people who took part in the online Canberra Times survey oppose light rail, and still more – 59 per cent – oppose the route.”
Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberras-light-rail-an-election-vote-changer-20141019-117fz6#ixzz3oO9XlzPL

Are the polls beginning to reflect actual feelings in our community? A month ago another poll on the A.C.T Light Rail website showed overwhelming support for the route, though it was conducted by a union. Can polls be so different if they are conducted in an unbiased fashion?

Polls are largely contrived these days. I have never been polled on any matter nor have any of my fiends and colleagues. Then there is that stupid “survey monkey” thing on the computer which invites unknown problems so it is left alone.

For once you have said it for me dungers.

Online surveys are the same as the old Cosmo polls, light amusement for their readership.

Also you have to take a poll conducted by an interest group with a huge grain of sand. Even if it is not carefully phrased to get the result they want, you will never ever get to hear of it if it went the wrong way.

I take it wildturkeycanoe just ignored the caveat at the bottom of the Canberra Times survey, because that also was something he didn’t want to hear.

rubaiyat said :

I’m in the mood for more figures. Science, maths and research hold no terrors for me.

What exactly does it actually take to buy the supposed convenience and time saving of cars?

Working off the RACQ figures for the cost of the average car, you need to earn $11,366.84/car/year after tax.

That is $17,050.25/car/year before tax. See below for calculations.

Vehicles registered in the ACT in January 2015 02: 283,572

Population of the ACT 2015 03: 389,700

Ave Number of people per household: 2.6

Number of households in the ACT: 149,885

Ave number of cars per household: 1.89

Ave cost per household for cars: $21,483 (in after tax dollars)

Ave A.C.T. FT income: $85,545.20 so clearly in the top tax bracket

Ave A.C.T. FT income/hr: $46.90/hr

2nd tier Tax rate ($37,001 – $80,000): 32.5%

3rd tier Tax rate ($80,001 – $180,000): 37.5%

For simplicities sake calculate at: 33.333% i.e. a third.

Pre tax dollars required to pay for household cars: $32,224.50/year

Ave Number of hours to pay for household cars: 687 hours/year or 13.21/hours/week

Assume each car per Household represents one income earner at the ave wage (an extremely generous assumption).

Ave Household income: $161,680

So the ave Household is working 20% of their time just to pay for the car.

If your income is below the average even more of your time goes to paying for your car.

Before tax cost of MyWay card: $750.38 – $1990.43 (Use the higher for a working individual)

Ave Number of hours pay for MyWay card: 42.44 hours/year or 0.8/hours/week/individual

Ave Passengers/Household (1.2 passengers/car x 1.89 cars): 2.268 passengers/household

Ave Before tax cost of MyWay card: $4,514.30 (assuming everybody is on full fare which they are not)

Ave Number of hours/Household pay for MyWay cards: 96.25 hours/year or 1.85/hours/week

So the ave Household is working less than 2.8% of their time to pay for public transport.

Extra hours per household to pay for car: 590.75 hours/year or 11.36 hours/week

So the reality is the ave Household is working at least 2.6 hours/day to save how much time driving/parking their cars?

Notes:

1. The RACQ figures do not include the cost of parking, parking infringements, fines etc so they are not included in the above.

2. Add an additional $14.90/day, $76.85/week parking, $3,996.20/year for parking ($5,994.30 before tax) i.e. an extra 2 hours work per week.

3. The assumption that all the Household MyCard passengers pay full fare is a large over estimation of the cost of fares. The individually applicable fares will dramatically reduce the above figures for public transport. Use less public transport and the cost comes down further.

4. Using public transport instead of a car is equal to an average $21,000/year pay rise, factoring in the cost of parking, but not other costs such as parking infringements or fines.

You’re comparing the entire cost of owning a car with the cost of a very specific public transport option that does not have the same convenience, performance or utility as owning a car.

Apples meet Oranges.

Those people using that public transport will by and large still have cars sitting in their driveways, so the figures are not comparable.

If you want to do a true comparison, you should stick to the costs of operating the car on those particular trips that could be switched to public transport rather than including the entire cost of owning and operating the car.

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

If we want a clean sustainable transport system we have to accept this, or nothing, because that is what the opposition wants.

And here is the crux of the whole debate, if Canberra wants this tram, let alone an environmentally friendly transport system.
“Fifty-four per cent of people who took part in the online Canberra Times survey oppose light rail, and still more – 59 per cent – oppose the route.”
Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberras-light-rail-an-election-vote-changer-20141019-117fz6#ixzz3oO9XlzPL

Are the polls beginning to reflect actual feelings in our community? A month ago another poll on the A.C.T Light Rail website showed overwhelming support for the route, though it was conducted by a union. Can polls be so different if they are conducted in an unbiased fashion?

The trouble with this sort of poll is that some people might be recording their vote, particularly those with very strong views, such as what appears to me to be a very loud and vocal organised group against trams. Many are likely retired too, so have time on their hands to keep voting.

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

If we want a clean sustainable transport system we have to accept this, or nothing, because that is what the opposition wants.

And here is the crux of the whole debate, if Canberra wants this tram, let alone an environmentally friendly transport system.
“Fifty-four per cent of people who took part in the online Canberra Times survey oppose light rail, and still more – 59 per cent – oppose the route.”
Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberras-light-rail-an-election-vote-changer-20141019-117fz6#ixzz3oO9XlzPL

Are the polls beginning to reflect actual feelings in our community? A month ago another poll on the A.C.T Light Rail website showed overwhelming support for the route, though it was conducted by a union. Can polls be so different if they are conducted in an unbiased fashion?

Let’s be realistic about this.

A high proportion of people who are not directly benefiting from the first leg of the light rail are taking a dog in the manger approach. They just don’t want anybody to have a benefit that they don’t directly have.

Anybody who is doggedly opposed to any form of tram and lives south of Woden is probably in this camp.

On the other hand, people who wholeheartedly support the light rail and directly benefit could also be accused of having an unreasonable bias too. It is reasonable to assume that numerically the former group outweighs the latter and this is reflected in the poll figures.

It’s a shame that the opposition has put up no alternative than the ‘Nope at any cost!’ policy position that the former PM remains so fond of.

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

If we want a clean sustainable transport system we have to accept this, or nothing, because that is what the opposition wants.

And here is the crux of the whole debate, if Canberra wants this tram, let alone an environmentally friendly transport system.
“Fifty-four per cent of people who took part in the online Canberra Times survey oppose light rail, and still more – 59 per cent – oppose the route.”
Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberras-light-rail-an-election-vote-changer-20141019-117fz6#ixzz3oO9XlzPL

Are the polls beginning to reflect actual feelings in our community? A month ago another poll on the A.C.T Light Rail website showed overwhelming support for the route, though it was conducted by a union. Can polls be so different if they are conducted in an unbiased fashion?

Polls are largely contrived these days. I have never been polled on any matter nor have any of my fiends and colleagues. Then there is that stupid “survey monkey” thing on the computer which invites unknown problems so it is left alone.

rubaiyat said :

If we want a clean sustainable transport system we have to accept this, or nothing, because that is what the opposition wants.

And here is the crux of the whole debate, if Canberra wants this tram, let alone an environmentally friendly transport system.
“Fifty-four per cent of people who took part in the online Canberra Times survey oppose light rail, and still more – 59 per cent – oppose the route.”
Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberras-light-rail-an-election-vote-changer-20141019-117fz6#ixzz3oO9XlzPL

Are the polls beginning to reflect actual feelings in our community? A month ago another poll on the A.C.T Light Rail website showed overwhelming support for the route, though it was conducted by a union. Can polls be so different if they are conducted in an unbiased fashion?

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

I can guarantee you I do not throw massive amounts of money at my vehicle. At $900 it was a bargain and will not have lost much value at all by the time I depart with it. Registration of $900 a year and insurance of $216 is just a smidge over $3/day. Add the fuel I pump into it and it is still much less cost than public transport [$8.80 /day]. All this plus the convenience of independence.

How many figures can you make up in just one paragraph, including the small detail that it is not ONE but TWO vehicles at DOUBLE the cost.

There is nothing made up in that paragraph whatsoever. I’m not talking about two vehicles, I’m talking about one, as it was referenced to your “figures for the cost of the average car,” for the ONE vehicle above. Even for two vehicles as we have, we didn’t earn $161,680 income in order to keep them on the road. Maybe we are below average then?

“What happened to being a “tradie” and “need to carry around heavy tools”?” – Bad back, as I said, forcing an end to my career.

“Seems to contradict the bad back story, and the “Freedom Machine” that you claim is a $900 old bomb, with comfy chairs?” – Why should an older, cheaper car not be comfortable? There are plenty of older “bombs” that are economical and comfortable with all the modern features like air conditioning. Just because it is under a grand, doesn’t necessarily make it ready for the junk heap. Also, why can’t one go fishing with a bad back? It’s probably about the only recreation one can do when unable to participate in other sports.

“That again seems to paint a different picture to the one above.” – Why? As an example, if I’d taken a bus for my transport needs yesterday, I would not have had the same hours free in the afternoon to go for a walk or a cycle [which has the least impact on the spinal vertebrae]. Instead, hypothetically I would have had this as my schedule yesterday using the bus network;
Sunday morning 8:28 AM – Wake up and get breakfast ingredients from local shops. Arrive home at 9:41 [over an hour even though shops are only 4km away, 15 minutes via car]
10:43 AM – go to Gungahlin to purchase a Eurobed mattress, arrive home at 2:40PM [only took us an hour in the car]
3:05 PM – trip to Belconnen mall for particular items required, arrive home at 4:40PM [only 1 hour trip by car including shopping time]
5:03 PM – leave to go to a dinner reservation at 7PM and arrive only a few minutes before 7 [only 20 minutes via car]
8:10 PM – get stranded in Weston Creek as no bus services are available to get home with. Taxi? $$$$$

Using public transport, there would have been less than 2 hours of non-transit free time spent at home yesterday. As it was, we had a lot of spare time thanks to my car which drove less than 100km, using only 7L of fuel at $1.33/L making it $9.31. Sure by bus it would have only been $1.97 cap for each person, totaling $9.85 but you cannot argue for public transport as a viable alternative when it chews up your entire day to do three errands and leaves you stranded 20km from home.

For the thousandth time if you insist on driving, drive. Don’t insist that everyone else do the same by opposing alternatives.

The Light Rail proposal is for people along its high density corridor, mostly but not exclusively for commuting. People who sensibly do not drive 4km to get coffee, who probably will have a short walk to eat out for breakfast because they did not make your choices, that far from freeing you up seem to leave you unable to do even the simplest of things without having to drive.

miz said :

I think you are being a tad judgmental there rubaiyat – you have spent the entire thread quoting stats. Granted you have probably looked them up somewhere yourself, but not everyone has internet intuitiveness or knows where to look to find such info. It’s certainly not lazy or ignorant to ask sensible questions.

I understandably get impatient. You can’t type a question into your URL field or do the same in google? But can make endless emphatic claims without doing any elementary checking.

My reference to lazy ignorance is actually the absolute certainty based on…what?

…feelings and resentment?

I don’t claim to have the same certainty because I am quite aware that this project like many others can go either way. I tend to believe it will succeed because we have plenty of other examples that have, particularly in Canberra where this is really servicing an existing and quite clear route. If you can build some of the 3rd rate high rise that they are in the City, Belconnen, Woden and now Gungahlin and people have bought it, this is almost a dead cert, but not quite.

I sincerely want you or anyone else here with different views to do serious research, because that hones our collective knowledge. I didn’t start off supporting the Light Rail and still think it could be better laid in a more Tram like route through the suburbs not up the middle of a very busy road.

It is actually the unthinking opposition that is leaving no wriggle room on this project. If we want a clean sustainable transport system we have to accept this, or nothing, because that is what the opposition wants. Nothing. No alternatives to the awful and unbelievably expensive and stupid freeways, that aren’t even good road engineering.

Rubaiyat, I’d also be more aware of the ‘three-post nutbag’ tag if I were you.

I think you are being a tad judgmental there rubaiyat – you have spent the entire thread quoting stats. Granted you have probably looked them up somewhere yourself, but not everyone has internet intuitiveness or knows where to look to find such info. It’s certainly not lazy or ignorant to ask sensible questions.

rubaiyat said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

I can guarantee you I do not throw massive amounts of money at my vehicle. At $900 it was a bargain and will not have lost much value at all by the time I depart with it. Registration of $900 a year and insurance of $216 is just a smidge over $3/day. Add the fuel I pump into it and it is still much less cost than public transport [$8.80 /day]. All this plus the convenience of independence.

How many figures can you make up in just one paragraph, including the small detail that it is not ONE but TWO vehicles at DOUBLE the cost.

There is nothing made up in that paragraph whatsoever. I’m not talking about two vehicles, I’m talking about one, as it was referenced to your “figures for the cost of the average car,” for the ONE vehicle above. Even for two vehicles as we have, we didn’t earn $161,680 income in order to keep them on the road. Maybe we are below average then?

“What happened to being a “tradie” and “need to carry around heavy tools”?” – Bad back, as I said, forcing an end to my career.

“Seems to contradict the bad back story, and the “Freedom Machine” that you claim is a $900 old bomb, with comfy chairs?” – Why should an older, cheaper car not be comfortable? There are plenty of older “bombs” that are economical and comfortable with all the modern features like air conditioning. Just because it is under a grand, doesn’t necessarily make it ready for the junk heap. Also, why can’t one go fishing with a bad back? It’s probably about the only recreation one can do when unable to participate in other sports.

“That again seems to paint a different picture to the one above.” – Why? As an example, if I’d taken a bus for my transport needs yesterday, I would not have had the same hours free in the afternoon to go for a walk or a cycle [which has the least impact on the spinal vertebrae]. Instead, hypothetically I would have had this as my schedule yesterday using the bus network;
Sunday morning 8:28 AM – Wake up and get breakfast ingredients from local shops. Arrive home at 9:41 [over an hour even though shops are only 4km away, 15 minutes via car]
10:43 AM – go to Gungahlin to purchase a Eurobed mattress, arrive home at 2:40PM [only took us an hour in the car]
3:05 PM – trip to Belconnen mall for particular items required, arrive home at 4:40PM [only 1 hour trip by car including shopping time]
5:03 PM – leave to go to a dinner reservation at 7PM and arrive only a few minutes before 7 [only 20 minutes via car]
8:10 PM – get stranded in Weston Creek as no bus services are available to get home with. Taxi? $$$$$

Using public transport, there would have been less than 2 hours of non-transit free time spent at home yesterday. As it was, we had a lot of spare time thanks to my car which drove less than 100km, using only 7L of fuel at $1.33/L making it $9.31. Sure by bus it would have only been $1.97 cap for each person, totaling $9.85 but you cannot argue for public transport as a viable alternative when it chews up your entire day to do three errands and leaves you stranded 20km from home.

miz said :

Rubaiyat, definitely no political affiliations here other than standard CPSU. Glad you have at least tried to reply to my questions (which were also moderated BTW). Thanks. So, do you have any affiliations? If so what are they? Context to your posts would be useful and if you have some it would be ethical to declare them in this forum.
Seeing you seem to have the stats at your fingertips, I am still keen to know the light rail costs already incurred by the ACT, including running Capital Metro agency. Do you have these or know where they can be found?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I have no political affiliations, just I detest B.S. and can’t resist hosing it off the walls.

I am astonished at the ignorance and blind prejudices on display and do my best to fact check the worst of it, learning a lot along the way.

I’ve suggested it before, and maybe that is why it got moderated, that lazy ignorance is no excuse these days with the Internet at your fingertips. Do some research yourself to substantiate your claims.

It would make this less of a school playground and more of a serious debate.

Skyring said :

rubaiyat said :

Cars are like bad diets. For most people it is just laziness, unthinking conformity, a whole lot of excuses and never counting the real cost in both money and consequences.

Well, sure. But like democracy, if people want something and are prepared to pay the costs, then who are you and I to say they are wrong?

People don’t just want something, they are persuaded that what they want is what we have to sell.

You forget I’ve worked for the mob who pull the steeple’s wool over their own eyes.

I know they are wrong, and being a democracy I speak up.

rubaiyat said :

Cars are like bad diets. For most people it is just laziness, unthinking conformity, a whole lot of excuses and never counting the real cost in both money and consequences.

Well, sure. But like democracy, if people want something and are prepared to pay the costs, then who are you and I to say they are wrong?

JC said :

… endless urban sprawl will bring more and more cars onto the road which will cause congestion, or calls for US style 10 lane freeways.

I agree. It’s not a sustainable model. My own preference is for more European style residential development, coupled with nearby open space to walk or ride or play in. Unfortunately, here we seem to get as many units crammed in as possible and the boulevards and parks and playing fields are minimised.

The US model sucks. Pedestrians and cyclists get the short end of the stick, and the wide open spaces tend to be car parks rather than anywhere to walk the dog.

However, we don’t have the overall urban density to make trams and light rail efficient. Buses don’t make a profit, so why should a more limited and expensive alternative? That’s just stupid.

Cars are very expensive to own and operate, but people are willing to pay for the freedom and mobility cars provide. Buses and trams can’t solve a lot of personal transport needs.

We’re never going to infill our sprawling suburbs to the point where conventional public transport becomes the best alternative. We’d need another five million people or so. And the costs of providing enough roads and carparking for everyone to drive everywhere they want are more than we can afford.

We’re caught in a bind, and we need something fresh to solve the problem.

I think that ridesharing apps and shared autonomous cars will be the answer and that we could do worse than keep a close eye on developments overseas.

I think the market will sort the matter out. Something as simple as autonomous cars not having to stop for red traffic lights would make for big improvements.

Rubaiyat, definitely no political affiliations here other than standard CPSU. Glad you have at least tried to reply to my questions (which were also moderated BTW). Thanks. So, do you have any affiliations? If so what are they? Context to your posts would be useful and if you have some it would be ethical to declare them in this forum.
Seeing you seem to have the stats at your fingertips, I am still keen to know the light rail costs already incurred by the ACT, including running Capital Metro agency. Do you have these or know where they can be found?

Stage 2 of the Gold Coast Light Rail is underway, and further funding for rail projects are in line for Melbourne. Not too late to have another go for Canberra now we have a grown up in charge with an open mind.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/gold-coast-light-rail-pm-arrives-by-train-with-95m-promise-on-board-20151011-gk68rt.html

At last! We are now emerging from 2 years of the Opposition in Government:

Ship Abbott, Hockey and the rest of the Dark Lords off to Cambodia as $10 million dollar migrants. They have 4 good friends already there waiting for them.

Classic case of inflation, Abbott originally cost us 10 quid. We should be asking for a refund.

wildturkeycanoe said :

I can guarantee you I do not throw massive amounts of money at my vehicle. At $900 it was a bargain and will not have lost much value at all by the time I depart with it. Registration of $900 a year and insurance of $216 is just a smidge over $3/day. Add the fuel I pump into it and it is still much less cost than public transport [$8.80 /day]. All this plus the convenience of independence.

How many figures can you make up in just one paragraph, including the small detail that it is not ONE but TWO vehicles at DOUBLE the cost.

wildturkeycanoe said :

I don’t commute regularly as I haven’t worked for the last 9 months. I also can’t access the bus network thanks to a bad back and the distance to the nearest bus stop. That and the uncomfortable seats which aggravate my injury make vehicle ownership essential.

What happened to being a “tradie” and “need to carry around heavy tools”?

Look on the bright side you’re up for concession fares on ACTION!

wildturkeycanoe said :

You cannot make everyone believe the global warming hype.

Sadly so. So much they can not grasp, or “Just don’ wanna”.

You can’t make everyone believe your story either.

wildturkeycanoe said :

Why should I care about the gravel my car sits on.

And as I said earlier, that used to be greenery before your claimed “needs” trumped everyone else’s.

wildturkeycanoe said :

My 1 tonne freedom machine gets me to the mountains to go fishing, down the coast for a holiday, to my parents interstate for a visit.

Seems to contradict the bad back story, and the “Freedom Machine” that you claim is a $900 old bomb, with comfy chairs?

wildturkeycanoe said :

I have time to do regular exercise thanks to not spending all day in a bus…

That again seems to paint a different picture to the one above.

Including the real biggie that you don’t seem to be anywhere near the Light Rail, so everything you say is irrelevant.

wildturkeycanoe said :

Why would I change when what I have is perfect?

Your story certainly isn’t.

On looking up the depreciation calculations for the RACQ I see it is for 5 years ownership at the average 15,000 km/yr usage. This is not as some assumed writing off the vehicle over 5 years, just the price adjustment (loss) over that period.

Something I missed in calculating the cost of new cars was the statutory charges and average dealer delivery fee of $2152.14. That is an additional $3,228.21/per vehicle before tax or $6101.31 per Household.

That is also an additional $40.7 million capital cost for vehicles on a freeway equivalent to the Light Rail.

Reworking calculations for the hypothetical 10 year old car:

RACQ figures for the cost of the average $18,000 car, $8,212.83/car/year after tax ($12,319.25/car/year before tax).

Ave number of cars per household: 1.89

Ave cost per household for cars: $23,283 before tax.

Ave Number of hours to pay for household cars: 496 hours/year or 9.54/hours/week

Extra hours per household to pay for car: 453.56 hours/year or 8.7 hours/week

Ave Household works 1.75 hours/day to pay for driving/parking 10 year old cars.

Notes:

1. The RACQ figures do not include the cost of parking, parking infringements, fines etc so they are not included in the above.

2. Add an additional $5,994.30/year before tax for parking i.e. an extra 2 hours work per week.

3. Using public transport instead of a car is equal to an average $18,300/year pay rise, factoring in the cost of parking, but not other costs such as parking infringements or fines.

The cost of parking is a separate matter and is a substantial amount, as shown above, on top of all the other costs for car commuters, but is a profitable one for the Government and private corporations at the City end.

If there is to be a Park & Ride at the Gungahlin end that would either be an additional cost on the Light Rail if free or an additional source of income for the A.C.T. government to pay for the Light Rail if charged commercially. Depending on which case that would be no additional cost to the commuter or an additional cost.

History shows that over time parking at either end will not be free and will rise at a faster rate than inflation as real estate values rise to multi-storey commercial values.

As the cost of parking inevitable rises, the case for Public Transport improves.

If you are arguing that people do not drive new cars, on average that is true, with the average age of an Australian car being 10 years.

But the average value of a car in Australia is still $18,000 and no matter what you paid, it depreciates, i.e. loses money every year. It also requires more expensive maintenance, with a higher probability of failure.

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features40July+2013

The average Australian motorist drives 15,530 km/year.

http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/australian-moterists-drive-average-15530km-201305090702

Choosing a car of that value to determine a cost that includes depreciation for the value of $18,000 would be something a bit better than a Volkswagen Polo Trendline worth $16,990 which costs $0.52/km to run (RACQ), adjusted to the $18,000 figure makes it $0.55 /km.

Driving the average car the average distance per year ignoring that it is not new and actually needs more maintenance is 15,530 x $0.55 = $8,541.50/year after tax ($12,812.25 before tax).

Parking costs remain exactly the same no matter what the value or age of the car, i.e. $3,996.20/year for parking ($5,994.30 before tax).

To compare Light Rail to the average car over the same 24km commute:

Light Rail at My Way Card full fare: $5.51

Car at $0.55/km: $13.90 + $14.90 parking = $28.10, 1.2 average number of passengers = $23.42/passenger = 425% the cost of public transport.

There are two undefined factors in this costing:

1. The Light Rail fare is in practice not $5.51 it is a maximum and is capped per month. In the case of a concession fare it is half or less than half.

2. The Car is assumed to be new, fuel efficient and low maintenance, when in practice it is not, it is based on the equivalent value of a 10 year old car. It is also the cost of driving the car in Queensland where fuel prices are lower. There is little savings in driving the car more.

The cost of the Light Rail in practice will be much less. The cost of the car will be somewhat more due to poorer fuel economy and higher maintenance costs. The comparison is biased towards the car so is an underestimation of the comparative costs of the car.

For comparison purposes you should compare like with like i.e. new cars with a new transport system. As time goes on the comparison can be done between used vehicles of whatever category. e.g. In Melbourne the residual value of Trams will be negligible simply due to age and their capital cost has long been written off. They still function however, for very long periods of time. Fleet renewal has principally been because of new requirements for disability access and air conditioning.

For the purposes of this comparison I ignored the like with like, comparing the costs of a new Light Rail with a ten year old average car.

I previously worked out the actual subsidised cost of the Light Rail i.e. The difference between actual costs and income from fares. That was relatively easy to work out because they have been costed.

To work out the subsidy for cars I need additional information which is not easy to come by.

I can roughly calculate the capital cost of an equivalent freeway to the Light Rail. That would be the Majura Parkway 11.5km at $288 in 2013 dollars i.e. approx. $318 million plus.

That would be needed to be substantially adjusted for not being a greenfield project in the case of any Gungahlin freeway and facing the same disruption costs as the Light Rail.

I would need to know the additional cost of annual maintenance, policing etc of a freeway.

On top of that comes the cost of the actual transport i.e. the vehicles to transport the equivalent 15,120 passengers/day rising to 20,207 in 2031.

At 1.2 passengers/car that is 12,600 cars @ $18,000 at an average capital cost of $226.8 million. Private purchases are after tax, so that becomes $340.2 million capital cost before tax.

Total capital cost of an equivalent freeway with vehicles is $658.2 million plus additional costs for land resumptions in built up areas, plus the cost of extras such as 48km of 4m high concrete sound barrier lining the freeway.

NB Finance for the private vehicles is at a much higher compounded interest rate than that achieved by PPP/A.C.T Government.

Cost of operating those cars per day over 24km at $0.55/km i.e. $11/passenger or $60.7 million/year after tax, or $91.1 million before tax.

These are relatively back of the envelope figures and does not include the 15% contingency in the Light Rail business study.

I can not find anywhere in Infrastructure Australia’s reports or even the A.C.T. Governments Business Case where they have done full comparison costing. I’d love to put my hand up if anyone is interested.

rubaiyat said :

I’m in the mood for more figures. Science, maths and research hold no terrors for me.

What exactly does it actually take to buy the supposed convenience and time saving of cars?.

Your numbers lie. We couldn’t possibly have been able to afford running two cars with your figures, whilst paying off a mortgage and raising three kids on the income I had last year, which was less than half of your “estimate”. But, we did!
Aside from that, we also could not have used public transport even if we couldn’t afford to run both cars. Do you know why? You cannot carry the amount of work tools I need to take every day on a bus. I could not possibly get around being an electrician using public transport. Also, the bus network would have taken me hours to get to my work sites and I would have consistently been late and had to leave early, plus walk for many kilometers. It would have been disastrous had I been required to change work sites through the day.
Last year my wife studied but could not drop the youngest off to before care and still make it to school on time with the buses, they simply wouldn’t get her there on time. She now works but by the nature of her employment could be called in to the other side of town with only an hour of notice and would never make it there on time with the buses. On Saturdays it would take 2 hours plus a 1.5km walk to get home, in the dark. Also, she needs to carry a substantial amount of equipment which would not be easy to carry and difficult to get onto a bus. Parking is free BTW.

rubaiyat said :

What is this constant mantra about driving kids to school, why aren’t they walking? And why aren’t they catching the ridiculously cheap school bus that is laid on for them if they don’t walk as they should.

Young kids [under 8 for instance] cannot necessarily be relied upon to walk safely to school by themselves and many responsible parents are cautious about strangers and kidnapping. This is not an irrational fear as we often hear in the news about stalking of children by suspicious people, sometimes even here in Canberra. The bus for our eldest costs around $10 a week. If it was convenient to drop him off on the way to school by car that would save $400 a year.

rubaiyat said :

and from sitting in their car all day in traffic then pulling into the Macdonalds drive through to pick up “dinner” because they wasted their time in traffic.
They could be getting out and enjoying life instead with the time they aren’t doing long commutes.

I’d rather waste twenty minutes in a car than two hours in a bus, then get home in time to cook up a feed. Your logic there doesn’t make sense, that cars are an inefficient use of time. Public transport is the mode that uses up one’s free time, making you stop and start every few hundred meters for the convenience of the other users.

Rotten_berry (I have been repeatedly banned from commenting on that name),

The A.C.T. Government has a AAA rating.

The current Cash Rate is 2.25%

The Current Mortage rate is 4.58%

So what is with the wildly inflated 7% in your “calculations”?

Not that it counts. The Capital Metro Business Report factored all that in over 30 years, see the Table.

Now THAT is a Business Case Study!

Note: The cost of parking is per/car so that should be an extra $11,328/Household/year before tax.

I’m in the mood for more figures. Science, maths and research hold no terrors for me.

What exactly does it actually take to buy the supposed convenience and time saving of cars?

Working off the RACQ figures for the cost of the average car, you need to earn $11,366.84/car/year after tax.

That is $17,050.25/car/year before tax. See below for calculations.

Vehicles registered in the ACT in January 2015 02: 283,572

Population of the ACT 2015 03: 389,700

Ave Number of people per household: 2.6

Number of households in the ACT: 149,885

Ave number of cars per household: 1.89

Ave cost per household for cars: $21,483 (in after tax dollars)

Ave A.C.T. FT income: $85,545.20 so clearly in the top tax bracket

Ave A.C.T. FT income/hr: $46.90/hr

2nd tier Tax rate ($37,001 – $80,000): 32.5%

3rd tier Tax rate ($80,001 – $180,000): 37.5%

For simplicities sake calculate at: 33.333% i.e. a third.

Pre tax dollars required to pay for household cars: $32,224.50/year

Ave Number of hours to pay for household cars: 687 hours/year or 13.21/hours/week

Assume each car per Household represents one income earner at the ave wage (an extremely generous assumption).

Ave Household income: $161,680

So the ave Household is working 20% of their time just to pay for the car.

If your income is below the average even more of your time goes to paying for your car.

Before tax cost of MyWay card: $750.38 – $1990.43 (Use the higher for a working individual)

Ave Number of hours pay for MyWay card: 42.44 hours/year or 0.8/hours/week/individual

Ave Passengers/Household (1.2 passengers/car x 1.89 cars): 2.268 passengers/household

Ave Before tax cost of MyWay card: $4,514.30 (assuming everybody is on full fare which they are not)

Ave Number of hours/Household pay for MyWay cards: 96.25 hours/year or 1.85/hours/week

So the ave Household is working less than 2.8% of their time to pay for public transport.

Extra hours per household to pay for car: 590.75 hours/year or 11.36 hours/week

So the reality is the ave Household is working at least 2.6 hours/day to save how much time driving/parking their cars?

Notes:

1. The RACQ figures do not include the cost of parking, parking infringements, fines etc so they are not included in the above.

2. Add an additional $14.90/day, $76.85/week parking, $3,996.20/year for parking ($5,994.30 before tax) i.e. an extra 2 hours work per week.

3. The assumption that all the Household MyCard passengers pay full fare is a large over estimation of the cost of fares. The individually applicable fares will dramatically reduce the above figures for public transport. Use less public transport and the cost comes down further.

4. Using public transport instead of a car is equal to an average $21,000/year pay rise, factoring in the cost of parking, but not other costs such as parking infringements or fines.

Rotten_berry said :

rubaiyat said :

Rotten_berry said :

That’s just the private cost. Each light rail trip will cost about $20 all up (public and private), no less than a car trip, and nearly twice as much as an Action bus trip. And it only goes along one route. No good for someone working in woden, belcompton, or wanting to buy stuff from a hardware store, etc. The handy BBC hardware that used to be in Braddon went long ago, probably now a café.

If you want to compare the total costs of public transport and cars, you would need to estimate the cost of providing decent service to all of Canberra! The cars at present provide a much higher level of mobility. Which is why people are willing to pay substantial amounts of money for them. Serving a whole population with rail only works well if you cram them all on top of each other and cram them into overcrowded trains, as in Tokyo and HK. But most Australians don’t want to live like that.

Those costs you quote also contain a lot of discretionary spending and don’t represent the “least cost” options. I bought a new Corolla 15 years ago and it’s still going strong with only basic maintenance. I am with you on the sillyness of “I bought a Jeep” though; I laugh at seeing them stuck in traffic or broken down on the side of the road. The marketing spivs are definitely good at stoking “keeping up with the Jones” spending on cars. But they’re very active in light rail circles too. Check out Capital Metro’s PR spending!

It’s already possible to live without a car in Canberra, if you live in the inner north and bike/bus everywhere, or in belco or gungers centres and use the buses, etc. And there’s more apartments popping up in these areas, which is generally a good thing (though some are pretty poorly done). But most people will still have cars for bulky shopping, trips out of town, etc.

Don’t just make things up, show how you arrived at:

“Each light rail trip will cost about $20 all up (public and private)”.

(snip)

CAPITAL METRO COSTS

$823 million Total Project Cost (incl. $65m + $173m contingency) at 2015 $ over 30 year period 2018-2048 (Table 23 p95 CMA Full Business Case).

Ave estimated annual trips 4.75 million/year in 2019 rising to 7.3 million/year by 2031 (mid term).

Total trips over 30 year operating period: est 219 million.

Cost per trip: $3.75, $7.50 return.

I can not see an adjustment for fares, I assume that is not a part of costs as that is an income.

Current MyWay fare: $2.52/trip, $5.04/return.

i.e. Government subsidy of $1.23/trip, $2.56/return.

NB If the Light Rail achieves higher passenger numbers, as the Gold Coast LR has, the cost per trip drops accordingly. The Gold Coast LR has so far almost 20% more passengers than originally estimated.

Admittedly my $20 estimate was a little lazy, but I’ll run through it below.

If the light rail only required a $1.23 subsidy per trip it would be a great investment. Unfortunately that is using discounted (present value) costs while ignoring cost of capital and PPP provider profit margin. Just like the mortgage on your house, the yearly repayments are much more than the price divided by 30. Cost of capital (interest) is also a significant chunk of the car running costs you quote. The business case neatly steps around the question of what the actual “availability payment” to the PPP provider will be.

As per the Table 23 in the business case the undiscounted capex is 730 million (it seems a bit funny to discount the future capital cost when the project hasn’t started yet) and opex 665 (22.17 million per year). If the capital cost is financed by the PPP provider at 7%, the principal plus interest replayments are 62.5 million/year, plus 22.2 million opex, for a total of ~85 million/year.

The availability payments (to the provider) will not start untill the project is complete, so 7% may be conservative. The PPP provider will also want to cream off a nice profit (and they don’t get the fair income – the govt does). In theory PPPs allow “leveraging of private sector efficiencies and innovation” and so on, but in practice the they seem to find innovative ways of boosting profits and shareholder returns. For these reasons I would be surprised if the actual availability payments come in at under 100 million/year for a full PPP finance model, but we won’t know untill the bids are made public. If you divide 100 million by 5 million pax/year you get $20/trip. If patronage improves, this will come down.

The govt is planning to chip in some of the upfront cost, which will reduce the PPP payments, but it doesn’t really matter where the money comes from, because the oppertunity cost is about the same as the interest cost.

On another note the car costs assume you buy a new one every 5 years – most of the cost is depreciation so if you keep them for longer the costs come down (unless it’s a VW!).

The capital cost to the PPP for a government guaranteed project will not be 7% and it is all costed into the project in current dollars because that is how you work things out. You can’t do it for future dollars as a comparison. Certainly not without also having to factor in a discount for inflation to discount the interest payments and the rising income over time.

The table has factored in all the capital and finance costs with a huge contingency, which may not even be spent.

I didn’t even factor in the reduction of the government’s costs due to offsetting asset sales, but if this is “good management” when the Liberals do it how is it bad when the Labor/Greens do it?

The calculated $823 million, in 2015 $, over 30 years including a massive 15% contingency stands. Your claim of $3000 million over the same period is total nonsense and is in the same category as the constant claims that the G.C. cost $1.6 billion when it didn’t and this project will cost some other fictitious amount, i.e. B.S.

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

Didn’t find the “plenty of places…”

But got a hit on Gumtree for only one second hand tyre for $40 “for rural use only” which sounds like a bad spare or with illegal tread.

Do you have 5 mismatched tyres on your car at all times? How do you balance the 3rd world tyres yourself?

btw I’m loving this. The deeper you go into the woods the more fun this gets. 🙂

Wrecking yards that scrap vehicles have piles of used tyres that have plenty of legal tread on them. They are matched as well. $40 ea fitted, balancing is your own responsibility, though mine were pretty well balanced anyway. A tyre place in Fyshwick sells new tyres for around $70 ea, fitted, balanced and totally legal [no retreads]. Maintaining a car isn’t as expensive as you think, unless of course you are talking about brand new vehicles with 17 inch low profile treads.
No need to make assumptions just because you can’t find the facts on the internet. There is a whole other world out there.

JC said :

Skyring said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

So the long row of eucalyptus trees and grass along Northbourne that will be mowed down by the tram is just collateral damage in the drive towards progress? The green spaces in the city and along Flemington Road to be turned into this high density housing corridor, tram depots and shops also just a step towards a greener future?

This government beats all others hands-down at chopping down trees and getting rid of open space. This marvellous city of ours is getting more and more cramped and less and less green. I don’t think building some glass and concrete tower with a bit of clever artwork really makes up for the green open space that used to be there.

So what is your solution to fitting more people in?

The government is already addressing that by building the new Molonglo and West Belconnen suburbs. Not everyone likes to hear their neighbor’s domestics and nuptials so a few meters of green space between homes is more appealing.

I couldn’t agree more, I like the burbs myself too and have mentioned here before I am currently building my own McMansion in Gungahlin (not that light rail will be of much use to me where I will live). This may come as a surprise considering my support for light rail, but I still will make the CHOICE to drive for the most part.

But there are some, and an increasing many who don’t want that and would prefer living in town centres or along transport corridors in medium to high density housing. I’ve been there done that in Sydney and London, but with kids and family it is not how I want to live, but I am not arrogant enough to assume everyone wants to live like me.

HiddenDragon said :

Skyring said :

Maya123 said :

Skyring said :

What happened to the Canberra we used to have, where development was decentralised, parking was plentiful and often free, there was no such thing as a rush hour, and it didn’t cost a fortune to register a car?

That disappeared in the surge of population growth, and will only get worse with the immigration rates. We used to be able to drive on the dirt roads in the local forests too, but they are gated now, and as the population continues to rise expect freedoms and ease of living to reduce further.

What rubbish. I often drive in American cities. Kansas City is a good example. No real downtown, freeways everywhere, free parking and lots of it. Fort Worth is another favorite of mine. These are cities built around the car, where everyone has one and public transport is for the indigent.

I also drive a lot in Europe. Places like Frankfurt and Amsterdam and Paris are built on different models, and while it’s expensive and difficult to be a driver, I very much prefer them over the American sprawl.

Canberra is built along American lines, but the government is trying to turn it into a Euro town where bikes and trams and walking are popular. That’s a strategy that can only ever have limited success, given the size and sprawl and population density.

Turning Civic and Braddon and Acton into medium or high density living and working environments is all very well, but most people are always going to live at a distance and having a car makes sense. We can’t afford the sort of classic public transport systems that would make losing the car attractive.

If all of Canberra were medium or high density, along the Euro model, then we could invest heavily in buses and trams and a Metro. But unless Australia changes out of all recognition, Canberra is unlikely to attract the five or ten million inhabitants that would give us the same population densities as Amsterdam or Barcelona on our existing city area.

We’re always going to have that huge mass of sprawling residential suburbs built around the quarter-acre block. Adding new suburbs built along more cramped and constricted lines, or attempting infill in places like Reid or Forrest is not going to alter the basic reality.

Classic public transport options aren’t going to work here, not unless we are prepared to wear the huge operating costs, perhaps by making drivers pay more and more, and making parking increasingly scarce. But even then, most suburb-living Canberrans will still want to have a car just to get the kids around or to get places without waiting a half hour for a bus. If you have a car and pay the maintenance, registration/insurance, and depreciation, you might as well get some use out of it.

I think the answer is just around the corner. A few days and we’ll have Uber cars. A few years and we’ll have self-driving cars. If we as a population can reduce the size of our car fleet while still making the same overall number of car trips, we’ll save an enormous amount and remove most of the congestion on our roads. If we can call up a car on an app, it’s there within five minutes, and the cost of the trip is less than the costs of car ownership, then where is the need to own a car?

If we have fleets of self-driving cars zipping around the city during the day and recharging themselves at night, we’ll make enormous advances on many fronts. Less time spent in traffic, less traffic overall, less space needed to accommodate cars that are mostly idle while their owners are busy, less carbon pollution, fewer accidents.

We won’t even need buses and trams. A properly designed system would have self-driving cars form themselves into chains that roll down the main roads through intersections that clear as they approach. Just enough engine power needed to overcome air and rolling resistance, so most of the vehicles would be freewheeling. As the chain approaches a destination area, individual cars would peel off.

This isn’t fantasy. It isn’t something we can do next week, but it is something that will happen soon.

Indeed – initiatives which will, in truth, make a marginal difference are being sadly over-hyped. Apartment towers in or near Civic and the town centres will only help with congestion to the extent that their occupants’ lives revolve around those town centres, or others parts of Canberra which they are willing, and able, to travel to by means other than car. Aside from our Capital Hill FIFOs, that would still be the exception to the rule for many, many Canberrans.

And endless urban sprawl will bring more and more cars onto the road which will cause congestion, or calls for US style 10 lane freeways.

gooterz said :

rubaiyat said :

If you use it less than that, it is proportionately cheaper. If you don’t ride on it all, it costs you nothing.

For the first part if you are talking about money alone you might be correct.
If you are talking about time, and time equals money, it falls apart.

Public transport is more expensive because of the extra time it takes that is lost time.
Don’t quote me reading books etc. not everyone can sit and just start something on a bus. Many of us have to switch a few times just to get to work.
Not to mention that most of the light rail’s 25+ minutes for 12 km/s will be standing room for most.

For the 2nd part its completely wrong:
Either you pay taxes or you don’t..
If you pay taxes you are directly paying for Public transport.
If you don’t pay net taxes you are losing money from something else to pay for it.

Drivers don’t value the huge extra time it takes to pay for the “convenience” of a car, which often isn’t convenient at all. The massive amounts of marginal tax they pay to get the money that they blow on the car that spends most of the time in either the garage at home, sitting in traffic or littering the City at the other end.

I find it liberating to not circle around for expensive parking spots, usually where I don’t want them, then having to walk to where I really want to go, and afterwards make my way back to wherever I left the car. Which is why I enjoy much more of my spare time.

You hear the same implausible argument from people who waste a lot of money and time on junk food. It is just an excuse for physical and mental laziness.

Are you claiming that the Light Rail is BOTH under patronised AND overcrowded? Interesting!

In the well patronised trams in Sydney and Melbourne most people get a seat except in peak hour and are still reading, listening to their iPhones, working on laptops or chatting to each other. Some stare idly out the window at the solitary driver stuck unhappily in traffic, doing nothing with all that wasted time.

If you pay taxes you are directly paying for roads and all the traffic congestion, policing, ambulances, hospital beds, injuries, deaths and ill health that comes from driving.

Public transport, gets hardly any money compared with roads.

Skyring said :

We’re always going to have that huge mass of sprawling residential suburbs built around the quarter-acre block. Adding new suburbs built along more cramped and constricted lines, or attempting infill in places like Reid or Forrest is not going to alter the basic reality.

No, we are not “always” going to have anything. Obviously there are no more “quarter acre blocks” they are tiny blocks with the eaves touching, no backyards and too far away, forcing people to spend far too long sitting in traffic.

Skyring said :

Classic public transport options aren’t going to work here, not unless we are prepared to wear the huge operating costs, perhaps by making drivers pay more and more, and making parking increasingly scarce. But even then, most suburb-living Canberrans will still want to have a car just to get the kids around or to get places without waiting a half hour for a bus. If you have a car and pay the maintenance, registration/insurance, and depreciation, you might as well get some use out of it.

Just saying something doesn’t make it so. Repeating it over and over may fool yourself but not your wallet.

I showed the calculations and driving just one car is massively more expensive than the public transport alternatives.

Driving several as most people are forced to do, once they ignore the public transport alternative, is worse.

Skyring said :

I think the answer is just around the corner.

Isn’t it always.

Urban sprawl, massive traffic congestion and parking problems are what is ACTUALLY just around the corner, unless you do something about it.

Uber is no solution, anymore than the existing taxis.

Expensive autonomously driven cars, will drive around empty as they shuffle from one place to the next, or to park, only adding to the cars on the road.

Self-driving cars, still with one driver (or none) sitting in them, is a long held fantasy and makes the massive assumption that we have spent an unbelievable fortune on replacing the existing cars and none of those are left to disrupt the robotic ranks of commuters.

They are a non-solution and somewhere over the hill so therefore perfect (as a fob-off for real transport).

Wait for any of these and you’ll still be sitting fuming in worse traffic, breathing in the fumes and noise staring out at those high concrete walls lining the freeways that chop up our cities, making a token effort at protecting the residents from the consequences of their own bad choices.

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

Maya123 said :

Skyring said :

Spot on. For years we’ve watched things get tougher for drivers. Registration and licences cost more. Parking is harder to find and more expensive. Speed limits are lower. Traffic lights and speed cameras more prevalent.

What happened to the Canberra we used to have, where development was decentralised, parking was plentiful and often free, there was no such thing as a rush hour, and it didn’t cost a fortune to register a car?

That disappeared in the surge of population growth, and will only get worse with the immigration rates. We used to be able to drive on the dirt roads in the local forests too, but they are gated now, and as the population continues to rise expect freedoms and ease of living to reduce further.

The local forests that have either burnt down or been chopped down to make way for all the roads, Macmansions, traffic and lack of parking that everyone is complaining about.

There are consequences to your choices and your actions, but most people always think it is someone else’s fault.

If the Government tries to plan for the future and make sensible choices the usuals all get up in arms.

Just watching the news and the blame is starting on the Bushfires in Victoria. All the people who complain that there isn’t enough preventative burning off, are now complaining because of the unavoidable burn off got caught in a wind change. None of those people blames their lifestyle choices, or the inappropriate housing, or their Pitt Street farm aspirations, nor the many other choices that are probably contributing to the increasingly catastrophic outcomes.

You are wrong because on the ABC Radio AM offering this morning there was someone from one of the many taxpayer-funded climate NGOs claiming the current Victorian bushfires were caused by climate change and there will be worse ones to come.

As usual you didn’t get what I said, and it is certainly sensible to observe what is happening and try and do something about it, not stick your head in the sand and complain about everyone who is.

Most NGOs are not taxpayer funded, that is why they are NGOs.

They are not evil Government Departments like the Weather Bureau who report on their research and analyses, and don’t lazily take the Tele’s yellow journalism at face value because it matches their deepest prejudices.

Skyring said :

rubaiyat said :

I’ll post this yet again. http://www.action.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/532433/MyWay_Fare_Increase_2015.pdf

…

So the maximum fares you can pay for an entire year are $1,108.80 to $1,396.80

There is a 5% discount if you BPay your card so that is actually $1000.50 to $1,326.95.

It’s a lot cheaper than operating a car, to be sure. But if you have a family, that’s several people using the car, so that’s a saving.

Then there is absolutely no saving, because there are on average only 1.2 people in a car.

Skyring said :

There’s also the fact that public transport doesn’t necessarily coincide with the various needs of individuals to go to school, shops, visit friends and relatives and so on. Not unless you want to spend a lot of time waiting for the next bus and walking between the bus stop and your actual destination. There’s only so many hours in the day.

And the one car doesn’t get you everywhere so families have a lot of cars, therefore multiplying the car cost which is equally bad for every single car.

What is this constant mantra about driving kids to school, why aren’t they walking? And why aren’t they catching the ridiculously cheap school bus that is laid on for them if they don’t walk as they should.

Visiting friends and relatives is not a full time activity, 95% of the car time is mind numbing commuting, sitting in traffic.

Do the sensible thing. If you need a car, have A car, a SMALLER car, NOT several, NOT a 2 tonne monster that feeds the fantasy, planted in your head, of driving somewhere pleasant instead of the office car park.

…and drive them less. Even if you own a car you still save by leaving it in the garage as much as possible.

Cars are like bad diets. For most people it is just laziness, unthinking conformity, a whole lot of excuses and and never counting the real cost in both money and consequences.

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

Didn’t find the “plenty of places…”

But got a hit on Gumtree for only one second hand tyre for $40 “for rural use only” which sounds like a bad spare or with illegal tread.

Do you have 5 mismatched tyres on your car at all times? How do you balance the 3rd world tyres yourself?

btw I’m loving this. The deeper you go into the woods the more fun this gets. 🙂

Wrecking yards that scrap vehicles have piles of used tyres that have plenty of legal tread on them. They are matched as well. $40 ea fitted, balancing is your own responsibility, though mine were pretty well balanced anyway. A tyre place in Fyshwick sells new tyres for around $70 ea, fitted, balanced and totally legal [no retreads]. Maintaining a car isn’t as expensive as you think, unless of course you are talking about brand new vehicles with 17 inch low profile treads.
No need to make assumptions just because you can’t find the facts on the internet. There is a whole other world out there.

JC said :

Skyring said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

So the long row of eucalyptus trees and grass along Northbourne that will be mowed down by the tram is just collateral damage in the drive towards progress? The green spaces in the city and along Flemington Road to be turned into this high density housing corridor, tram depots and shops also just a step towards a greener future?

This government beats all others hands-down at chopping down trees and getting rid of open space. This marvellous city of ours is getting more and more cramped and less and less green. I don’t think building some glass and concrete tower with a bit of clever artwork really makes up for the green open space that used to be there.

So what is your solution to fitting more people in?

The government is already addressing that by building the new Molonglo and West Belconnen suburbs. Not everyone likes to hear their neighbor’s domestics and nuptials so a few meters of green space between homes is more appealing.

You are just contorting yourself in knots to make your story sound sensible.

HenryBG’s picture of you sitting on each others laps and sleeping in your car sounds about right to me.

Have you been out to the new suburbs, the eaves are piratically touching, they may as well share a common wall. If they can hear each others arguments it may be a good thing given our current news, and perhaps the stress is financial from the mortgage on the money blown on driving everywhere, and from sitting in their car all day in traffic then pulling into the Macdonalds drive through to pick up “dinner” because they wasted their time in traffic.

They could be getting out and enjoying life instead with the time they aren’t doing long commutes.

There is a reason that people who have inner city lifestyles don’t go out to the ‘burbs and it isn’t because of transport.

JC said :

Even without people coming here the population will increase. So what is your suggestion to accommodate people?

Depends if they’re fit or not.

Skyring said :

JC said :

Skyring said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

So the long row of eucalyptus trees and grass along Northbourne that will be mowed down by the tram is just collateral damage in the drive towards progress? The green spaces in the city and along Flemington Road to be turned into this high density housing corridor, tram depots and shops also just a step towards a greener future?

This government beats all others hands-down at chopping down trees and getting rid of open space. This marvellous city of ours is getting more and more cramped and less and less green. I don’t think building some glass and concrete tower with a bit of clever artwork really makes up for the green open space that used to be there.

So what is your solution to fitting more people in?

Don’t. The ACT government is trying to get people to move here. Why? And why do they have to be persuaded?

Even without people coming here the population will increase. So what is your suggestion to accommodate people?

rubaiyat said :

Didn’t find the “plenty of places…”

But got a hit on Gumtree for only one second hand tyre for $40 “for rural use only” which sounds like a bad spare or with illegal tread.

Do you have 5 mismatched tyres on your car at all times? How do you balance the 3rd world tyres yourself?

btw I’m loving this. The deeper you go into the woods the more fun this gets. 🙂

Wrecking yards that scrap vehicles have piles of used tyres that have plenty of legal tread on them. They are matched as well. $40 ea fitted, balancing is your own responsibility, though mine were pretty well balanced anyway. A tyre place in Fyshwick sells new tyres for around $70 ea, fitted, balanced and totally legal [no retreads]. Maintaining a car isn’t as expensive as you think, unless of course you are talking about brand new vehicles with 17 inch low profile treads.
No need to make assumptions just because you can’t find the facts on the internet. There is a whole other world out there.

JC said :

Skyring said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

So the long row of eucalyptus trees and grass along Northbourne that will be mowed down by the tram is just collateral damage in the drive towards progress? The green spaces in the city and along Flemington Road to be turned into this high density housing corridor, tram depots and shops also just a step towards a greener future?

This government beats all others hands-down at chopping down trees and getting rid of open space. This marvellous city of ours is getting more and more cramped and less and less green. I don’t think building some glass and concrete tower with a bit of clever artwork really makes up for the green open space that used to be there.

So what is your solution to fitting more people in?

The government is already addressing that by building the new Molonglo and West Belconnen suburbs. Not everyone likes to hear their neighbor’s domestics and nuptials so a few meters of green space between homes is more appealing.

rubaiyat said :

HiddenDragon said :

Nice try, but the disaster is a joint (bipartisan) effort across a range of policy areas – bilateral and multilateral trade agreements have been a sideshow.

As to my subsequent comments about “Big Australia”, and the Canberra version of that, it’s not so long since you referred to “the real estate Ponzi scheme that is Canberra”, so we can probably agree on that much:

http://the-riotact.com/how-government-propaganda-may-kill-light-rail-and-the-rest-of-canberra/152262/comment-page-1#comment-553170

The Labor Party is a sad sack “Me-too” lately, but since the Liberal/National Parties like to own everything including having the luck to be in power when the economy succeeds despite their best efforts, I think it is only fair they claim 100% credit for their consistently incompetent trade negotiations:

Labor: 1 extremely profitable negotiation

Liberals: 8 disastrous negotiations that so far have cost us over $215 billion dollars with much more to come.

Particularly as they have learnt absolutely nothing and are pursuing yet another.

You are lucky to have seen that comment, my flare for a nice turn of phrase gets my posts canned more often than not.

Well I’m glad the P-word got through – it’s very, very relevant – locally, and nationally.

Skyring said :

Maya123 said :

Skyring said :

What happened to the Canberra we used to have, where development was decentralised, parking was plentiful and often free, there was no such thing as a rush hour, and it didn’t cost a fortune to register a car?

That disappeared in the surge of population growth, and will only get worse with the immigration rates. We used to be able to drive on the dirt roads in the local forests too, but they are gated now, and as the population continues to rise expect freedoms and ease of living to reduce further.

What rubbish. I often drive in American cities. Kansas City is a good example. No real downtown, freeways everywhere, free parking and lots of it. Fort Worth is another favorite of mine. These are cities built around the car, where everyone has one and public transport is for the indigent.

I also drive a lot in Europe. Places like Frankfurt and Amsterdam and Paris are built on different models, and while it’s expensive and difficult to be a driver, I very much prefer them over the American sprawl.

Canberra is built along American lines, but the government is trying to turn it into a Euro town where bikes and trams and walking are popular. That’s a strategy that can only ever have limited success, given the size and sprawl and population density.

Turning Civic and Braddon and Acton into medium or high density living and working environments is all very well, but most people are always going to live at a distance and having a car makes sense. We can’t afford the sort of classic public transport systems that would make losing the car attractive.

If all of Canberra were medium or high density, along the Euro model, then we could invest heavily in buses and trams and a Metro. But unless Australia changes out of all recognition, Canberra is unlikely to attract the five or ten million inhabitants that would give us the same population densities as Amsterdam or Barcelona on our existing city area.

We’re always going to have that huge mass of sprawling residential suburbs built around the quarter-acre block. Adding new suburbs built along more cramped and constricted lines, or attempting infill in places like Reid or Forrest is not going to alter the basic reality.

Classic public transport options aren’t going to work here, not unless we are prepared to wear the huge operating costs, perhaps by making drivers pay more and more, and making parking increasingly scarce. But even then, most suburb-living Canberrans will still want to have a car just to get the kids around or to get places without waiting a half hour for a bus. If you have a car and pay the maintenance, registration/insurance, and depreciation, you might as well get some use out of it.

I think the answer is just around the corner. A few days and we’ll have Uber cars. A few years and we’ll have self-driving cars. If we as a population can reduce the size of our car fleet while still making the same overall number of car trips, we’ll save an enormous amount and remove most of the congestion on our roads. If we can call up a car on an app, it’s there within five minutes, and the cost of the trip is less than the costs of car ownership, then where is the need to own a car?

If we have fleets of self-driving cars zipping around the city during the day and recharging themselves at night, we’ll make enormous advances on many fronts. Less time spent in traffic, less traffic overall, less space needed to accommodate cars that are mostly idle while their owners are busy, less carbon pollution, fewer accidents.

We won’t even need buses and trams. A properly designed system would have self-driving cars form themselves into chains that roll down the main roads through intersections that clear as they approach. Just enough engine power needed to overcome air and rolling resistance, so most of the vehicles would be freewheeling. As the chain approaches a destination area, individual cars would peel off.

This isn’t fantasy. It isn’t something we can do next week, but it is something that will happen soon.

Indeed – initiatives which will, in truth, make a marginal difference are being sadly over-hyped. Apartment towers in or near Civic and the town centres will only help with congestion to the extent that their occupants’ lives revolve around those town centres, or others parts of Canberra which they are willing, and able, to travel to by means other than car. Aside from our Capital Hill FIFOs, that would still be the exception to the rule for many, many Canberrans.

Skyring said :

JC said :

Skyring said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

So the long row of eucalyptus trees and grass along Northbourne that will be mowed down by the tram is just collateral damage in the drive towards progress? The green spaces in the city and along Flemington Road to be turned into this high density housing corridor, tram depots and shops also just a step towards a greener future?

This government beats all others hands-down at chopping down trees and getting rid of open space. This marvellous city of ours is getting more and more cramped and less and less green. I don’t think building some glass and concrete tower with a bit of clever artwork really makes up for the green open space that used to be there.

So what is your solution to fitting more people in?

Don’t. The ACT government is trying to get people to move here. Why? And why do they have to be persuaded?

We need new blood to provide a lot of the services and what you are asking for would have Canberra turn into a retirement village of grumpy old people complaining about what they are doing to the place, oh wait…

Skyring said :

JC said :

Skyring said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

So the long row of eucalyptus trees and grass along Northbourne that will be mowed down by the tram is just collateral damage in the drive towards progress? The green spaces in the city and along Flemington Road to be turned into this high density housing corridor, tram depots and shops also just a step towards a greener future?

This government beats all others hands-down at chopping down trees and getting rid of open space. This marvellous city of ours is getting more and more cramped and less and less green. I don’t think building some glass and concrete tower with a bit of clever artwork really makes up for the green open space that used to be there.

So what is your solution to fitting more people in?

Don’t. The ACT government is trying to get people to move here. Why? And why do they have to be persuaded?

It must be because they promised IKEA a quota.

JC said :

Skyring said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

So the long row of eucalyptus trees and grass along Northbourne that will be mowed down by the tram is just collateral damage in the drive towards progress? The green spaces in the city and along Flemington Road to be turned into this high density housing corridor, tram depots and shops also just a step towards a greener future?

This government beats all others hands-down at chopping down trees and getting rid of open space. This marvellous city of ours is getting more and more cramped and less and less green. I don’t think building some glass and concrete tower with a bit of clever artwork really makes up for the green open space that used to be there.

So what is your solution to fitting more people in?

Don’t. The ACT government is trying to get people to move here. Why? And why do they have to be persuaded?

wildturkeycanoe said :

You are presuming a person owns and operates a new vehicle there with regular dealer servicing. A lot of people like myself can only afford cheap 2nd hand cars and do their own maintenance. $95 a week to keep a car running….especially an economical one is ridiculous. Gumtree can afford cheap tyres and parts, tppd insurance saves a lot and is suitable for a thousand dollar vehicle. If you crash it once a year, you can buy another with the insurance money you’ve saved.
As for the bus fare costs….it does not work out cheaper when you add the fares of 3 kids and the wife. The car does have more than one seat so potentially on a per person cost it just became much cheaper to drive.

Rego $10/week, insurance $20/week, and if you’re crashing your cheap 2nd-hand car on a regular basis, that’s another $10-$30/week to replace it averaged over time. Add to that the cost of parts averaged at another $10/week minimum and you’re left with $5-$45/week for petrol.

The fact is that the NRMA knows exactly what it’s talking about. $100/week to run a car would be a lowball figure for most people.

Your second paragraph leaves me with this mental image of a family of 5, sitting in a car 24/7 while you unceasingly drive them back and forth across town to prove your point.

rubaiyat said :

Maya123 said :

Skyring said :

Spot on. For years we’ve watched things get tougher for drivers. Registration and licences cost more. Parking is harder to find and more expensive. Speed limits are lower. Traffic lights and speed cameras more prevalent.

What happened to the Canberra we used to have, where development was decentralised, parking was plentiful and often free, there was no such thing as a rush hour, and it didn’t cost a fortune to register a car?

That disappeared in the surge of population growth, and will only get worse with the immigration rates. We used to be able to drive on the dirt roads in the local forests too, but they are gated now, and as the population continues to rise expect freedoms and ease of living to reduce further.

The local forests that have either burnt down or been chopped down to make way for all the roads, Macmansions, traffic and lack of parking that everyone is complaining about.

There are consequences to your choices and your actions, but most people always think it is someone else’s fault.

If the Government tries to plan for the future and make sensible choices the usuals all get up in arms.

Just watching the news and the blame is starting on the Bushfires in Victoria. All the people who complain that there isn’t enough preventative burning off, are now complaining because of the unavoidable burn off got caught in a wind change. None of those people blames their lifestyle choices, or the inappropriate housing, or their Pitt Street farm aspirations, nor the many other choices that are probably contributing to the increasingly catastrophic outcomes.

You are wrong because on the ABC Radio AM offering this morning there was someone from one of the many taxpayer-funded climate NGOs claiming the current Victorian bushfires were caused by climate change and there will be worse ones to come.

JC said :

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

As I have repeatedly reported, the argument for Light Rail is over and done with in even the most car obsessed cities around the world.

L.A. is an interesting place to see future trends, especially as the use of cars has been ingrained into the local population for so long.

Major local projects need to be funded by local Sales Taxes that require a two-thirds majority to pass. Despite the obstacles, Voters have voted 3 times for raising sales tax to pay for transportation projects.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is now looking to raise overall sales tax to 9.5% to fund new rail lines.

According to this L.A. Times article, polling suggests it will pass and test polling indicates that the various projects are likely to get more support if it is for increased rail.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-train-to-lax-metro-sales-tax-20151007-story.html

Canberra of course is slow on the uptake.

The A.C.T. Government can blame itself on this one as they have done virtually nothing to argue their own case and given the howls of outrage from Tuggeranong, the Deep South of Canberra, opposition remains strong.

The Government appears too frightened to lay out a city wide transport plan that I think would swing the opposition behind the project. I don’t believe that that plan has to be immediate, it should be staged, just so long as people know there is one.

Your last point is 100% correct.

Which makes me why you’re so gung ho to build the Gungahlin to City link now, rather than developing the overall plan and implementating it when demand dictates? That indeed it should be staged as part of the overall plan, with construction of whatever technology is chosen only happening when it’s economically viable.

That’s basically the position I’ve been arguing all along, that you seem so against.

They have and they have decided to start on the City to Gungahlin route first.

C’mon, you know that’s bull. They’ve artificially come up with a very thin “plan” to retrospectively support the decision they’ve already made for the city to gungahlin leg.

The logic behind completing this leg in the timeframe provided is far too tinged with politics and the four year election cycle. The ideas are reasonable, the supporting evidence and implementation planning so far is wanting.

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

As I have repeatedly reported, the argument for Light Rail is over and done with in even the most car obsessed cities around the world.

L.A. is an interesting place to see future trends, especially as the use of cars has been ingrained into the local population for so long.

Major local projects need to be funded by local Sales Taxes that require a two-thirds majority to pass. Despite the obstacles, Voters have voted 3 times for raising sales tax to pay for transportation projects.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is now looking to raise overall sales tax to 9.5% to fund new rail lines.

According to this L.A. Times article, polling suggests it will pass and test polling indicates that the various projects are likely to get more support if it is for increased rail.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-train-to-lax-metro-sales-tax-20151007-story.html

Canberra of course is slow on the uptake.

The A.C.T. Government can blame itself on this one as they have done virtually nothing to argue their own case and given the howls of outrage from Tuggeranong, the Deep South of Canberra, opposition remains strong.

The Government appears too frightened to lay out a city wide transport plan that I think would swing the opposition behind the project. I don’t believe that that plan has to be immediate, it should be staged, just so long as people know there is one.

Your last point is 100% correct.

Which makes me why you’re so gung ho to build the Gungahlin to City link now, rather than developing the overall plan and implementating it when demand dictates? That indeed it should be staged as part of the overall plan, with construction of whatever technology is chosen only happening when it’s economically viable.

That’s basically the position I’ve been arguing all along, that you seem so against.

They have and they have decided to start on the City to Gungahlin route first.

Skyring said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

So the long row of eucalyptus trees and grass along Northbourne that will be mowed down by the tram is just collateral damage in the drive towards progress? The green spaces in the city and along Flemington Road to be turned into this high density housing corridor, tram depots and shops also just a step towards a greener future?

This government beats all others hands-down at chopping down trees and getting rid of open space. This marvellous city of ours is getting more and more cramped and less and less green. I don’t think building some glass and concrete tower with a bit of clever artwork really makes up for the green open space that used to be there.

So what is your solution to fitting more people in?

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

As I have repeatedly reported, the argument for Light Rail is over and done with in even the most car obsessed cities around the world.

L.A. is an interesting place to see future trends, especially as the use of cars has been ingrained into the local population for so long.

Major local projects need to be funded by local Sales Taxes that require a two-thirds majority to pass. Despite the obstacles, Voters have voted 3 times for raising sales tax to pay for transportation projects.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is now looking to raise overall sales tax to 9.5% to fund new rail lines.

According to this L.A. Times article, polling suggests it will pass and test polling indicates that the various projects are likely to get more support if it is for increased rail.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-train-to-lax-metro-sales-tax-20151007-story.html

Canberra of course is slow on the uptake.

The A.C.T. Government can blame itself on this one as they have done virtually nothing to argue their own case and given the howls of outrage from Tuggeranong, the Deep South of Canberra, opposition remains strong.

The Government appears too frightened to lay out a city wide transport plan that I think would swing the opposition behind the project. I don’t believe that that plan has to be immediate, it should be staged, just so long as people know there is one.

Your last point is 100% correct.

Which makes me why you’re so gung ho to build the Gungahlin to City link now, rather than developing the overall plan and implementating it when demand dictates? That indeed it should be staged as part of the overall plan, with construction of whatever technology is chosen only happening when it’s economically viable.

That’s basically the position I’ve been arguing all along, that you seem so against.

I am against the putting off of plans with eternal excuses. Which people seem so good at.

The route might not be my ideal choice but it will service Gungahlin and as a Stage 1 that will do.

Russell is definitely on the agenda so crossing the lake is not far off.

It should be possible to have a debate about the route, but the peanut gallery wants No Route. Ever.

rubaiyat said :

As I have repeatedly reported, the argument for Light Rail is over and done with in even the most car obsessed cities around the world.

L.A. is an interesting place to see future trends, especially as the use of cars has been ingrained into the local population for so long.

Major local projects need to be funded by local Sales Taxes that require a two-thirds majority to pass. Despite the obstacles, Voters have voted 3 times for raising sales tax to pay for transportation projects.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is now looking to raise overall sales tax to 9.5% to fund new rail lines.

According to this L.A. Times article, polling suggests it will pass and test polling indicates that the various projects are likely to get more support if it is for increased rail.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-train-to-lax-metro-sales-tax-20151007-story.html

Canberra of course is slow on the uptake.

The A.C.T. Government can blame itself on this one as they have done virtually nothing to argue their own case and given the howls of outrage from Tuggeranong, the Deep South of Canberra, opposition remains strong.

The Government appears too frightened to lay out a city wide transport plan that I think would swing the opposition behind the project. I don’t believe that that plan has to be immediate, it should be staged, just so long as people know there is one.

Your last point is 100% correct.

Which makes me why you’re so gung ho to build the Gungahlin to City link now, rather than developing the overall plan and implementating it when demand dictates? That indeed it should be staged as part of the overall plan, with construction of whatever technology is chosen only happening when it’s economically viable.

That’s basically the position I’ve been arguing all along, that you seem so against.

Skyring said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

I wonder just how much interest there is from the business community in investing into the light rail network? Do we have any information about that yet?

Lots. There is competition on who gets to build the tracks and supply the vehicles. Huge profits to be made there. And operating the thing, with its guaranteed subsidy, likewise.

The cost comes out of the public purse. The tram cannot possibly turn a profit in itself, but there is money to be made in building and running it, so long as the government is paying. And the government is planning to make its money by approving a high density corridor all the way from Civic to Gungahlin.

The startup money comes straight out of our pockets, and as the new residential towers go up, we pay by losing open space, views and vegetation. Once the buildings are in place, we’ll still be paying a subsidy.

The builders and operators will clean up, and each contract, each transaction represents a chance of corruption. Perhaps directly, perhaps through political donations.

The technology is obsolete as we speak. We are going to pay through the nose for a dinosaur that nobody will use in ten years time.

In third world countries infrastructure projects like this are ripe for price fixing whereby short-listed tenderers arrange for one to win the building and running contract but then the winning consortium contracts the running out to the other tenderer and aggregate profits are shared.
Thank goodness that won’t happen here due to the diligence of our government ministers and their capable team.

Skyring said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

I wonder just how much interest there is from the business community in investing into the light rail network? Do we have any information about that yet?

Lots. There is competition on who gets to build the tracks and supply the vehicles. Huge profits to be made there. And operating the thing, with its guaranteed subsidy, likewise.

The cost comes out of the public purse. The tram cannot possibly turn a profit in itself, but there is money to be made in building and running it, so long as the government is paying. And the government is planning to make its money by approving a high density corridor all the way from Civic to Gungahlin.

The startup money comes straight out of our pockets, and as the new residential towers go up, we pay by losing open space, views and vegetation. Once the buildings are in place, we’ll still be paying a subsidy.

The builders and operators will clean up, and each contract, each transaction represents a chance of corruption. Perhaps directly, perhaps through political donations.

The technology is obsolete as we speak. We are going to pay through the nose for a dinosaur that nobody will use in ten years time.

There is also a huge risk in the dubious “value added”concept as something like this has never been tried in Australia before and few reports as to how successful it has been overseas are available.
Given the appalling track record (no pun intended) of successive ACT Governments and their subsidiaries getting involved in (“Green tinged-Blue Sky) commercial ventures the light rail and residential densification proposal promises to be the mother of all failures.
The minister primarily organising this debacle is opting out too so who will accept responsibilty?

rubaiyat said :

I’ll post this yet again. http://www.action.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/532433/MyWay_Fare_Increase_2015.pdf

…

So the maximum fares you can pay for an entire year are $1,108.80 to $1,396.80

There is a 5% discount if you BPay your card so that is actually $1000.50 to $1,326.95.

It’s a lot cheaper than operating a car, to be sure. But if you have a family, that’s several people using the car, so that’s a saving.

There’s also the fact that public transport doesn’t necessarily coincide with the various needs of individuals to go to school, shops, visit friends and relatives and so on. Not unless you want to spend a lot of time waiting for the next bus and walking between the bus stop and your actual destination. There’s only so many hours in the day.

wildturkeycanoe said :

I wonder just how much interest there is from the business community in investing into the light rail network? Do we have any information about that yet?

Lots. There is competition on who gets to build the tracks and supply the vehicles. Huge profits to be made there. And operating the thing, with its guaranteed subsidy, likewise.

The cost comes out of the public purse. The tram cannot possibly turn a profit in itself, but there is money to be made in building and running it, so long as the government is paying. And the government is planning to make its money by approving a high density corridor all the way from Civic to Gungahlin.

The startup money comes straight out of our pockets, and as the new residential towers go up, we pay by losing open space, views and vegetation. Once the buildings are in place, we’ll still be paying a subsidy.

The builders and operators will clean up, and each contract, each transaction represents a chance of corruption. Perhaps directly, perhaps through political donations.

The technology is obsolete as we speak. We are going to pay through the nose for a dinosaur that nobody will use in ten years time.

wildturkeycanoe said :

So the long row of eucalyptus trees and grass along Northbourne that will be mowed down by the tram is just collateral damage in the drive towards progress? The green spaces in the city and along Flemington Road to be turned into this high density housing corridor, tram depots and shops also just a step towards a greener future?

This government beats all others hands-down at chopping down trees and getting rid of open space. This marvellous city of ours is getting more and more cramped and less and less green. I don’t think building some glass and concrete tower with a bit of clever artwork really makes up for the green open space that used to be there.

rubaiyat said :

A car starts off costing you a fortune before you even use it and it only gets more expensive the more you use it; to you, the government and especially the environment and the quality of life in our city.

That is exactly right. Buy a car and it’s lost 10% of its value the moment you drive it out onto the street. Add another 10% of the initial price each year. Add in the costs of fuel and maintenance, insurance, parking, traffic fines and all the rest and you are just pissing money away.

However, that’s just money. People tend not to be very efficient money managers. Less easily quantified factors such as convenience, comfort, limited time, personal organisation, willingness (or lack thereof) to venture out into cold, windy, rainy, hot or stormy weather beat the balance sheet almost every time.

As we can see from the huge numbers of cars on the road, each one draining the life force from their owners’ wallets at a staggering rate. And each car on the road is a bold statement that the driver has chosen not to use public transport.

We can see for ourselves exactly how many people make that decision.

Maya123 said :

Skyring said :

What happened to the Canberra we used to have, where development was decentralised, parking was plentiful and often free, there was no such thing as a rush hour, and it didn’t cost a fortune to register a car?

That disappeared in the surge of population growth, and will only get worse with the immigration rates. We used to be able to drive on the dirt roads in the local forests too, but they are gated now, and as the population continues to rise expect freedoms and ease of living to reduce further.

What rubbish. I often drive in American cities. Kansas City is a good example. No real downtown, freeways everywhere, free parking and lots of it. Fort Worth is another favorite of mine. These are cities built around the car, where everyone has one and public transport is for the indigent.

I also drive a lot in Europe. Places like Frankfurt and Amsterdam and Paris are built on different models, and while it’s expensive and difficult to be a driver, I very much prefer them over the American sprawl.

Canberra is built along American lines, but the government is trying to turn it into a Euro town where bikes and trams and walking are popular. That’s a strategy that can only ever have limited success, given the size and sprawl and population density.

Turning Civic and Braddon and Acton into medium or high density living and working environments is all very well, but most people are always going to live at a distance and having a car makes sense. We can’t afford the sort of classic public transport systems that would make losing the car attractive.

If all of Canberra were medium or high density, along the Euro model, then we could invest heavily in buses and trams and a Metro. But unless Australia changes out of all recognition, Canberra is unlikely to attract the five or ten million inhabitants that would give us the same population densities as Amsterdam or Barcelona on our existing city area.

We’re always going to have that huge mass of sprawling residential suburbs built around the quarter-acre block. Adding new suburbs built along more cramped and constricted lines, or attempting infill in places like Reid or Forrest is not going to alter the basic reality.

Classic public transport options aren’t going to work here, not unless we are prepared to wear the huge operating costs, perhaps by making drivers pay more and more, and making parking increasingly scarce. But even then, most suburb-living Canberrans will still want to have a car just to get the kids around or to get places without waiting a half hour for a bus. If you have a car and pay the maintenance, registration/insurance, and depreciation, you might as well get some use out of it.

I think the answer is just around the corner. A few days and we’ll have Uber cars. A few years and we’ll have self-driving cars. If we as a population can reduce the size of our car fleet while still making the same overall number of car trips, we’ll save an enormous amount and remove most of the congestion on our roads. If we can call up a car on an app, it’s there within five minutes, and the cost of the trip is less than the costs of car ownership, then where is the need to own a car?

If we have fleets of self-driving cars zipping around the city during the day and recharging themselves at night, we’ll make enormous advances on many fronts. Less time spent in traffic, less traffic overall, less space needed to accommodate cars that are mostly idle while their owners are busy, less carbon pollution, fewer accidents.

We won’t even need buses and trams. A properly designed system would have self-driving cars form themselves into chains that roll down the main roads through intersections that clear as they approach. Just enough engine power needed to overcome air and rolling resistance, so most of the vehicles would be freewheeling. As the chain approaches a destination area, individual cars would peel off.

This isn’t fantasy. It isn’t something we can do next week, but it is something that will happen soon.

As I have repeatedly reported, the argument for Light Rail is over and done with in even the most car obsessed cities around the world.

L.A. is an interesting place to see future trends, especially as the use of cars has been ingrained into the local population for so long.

Major local projects need to be funded by local Sales Taxes that require a two-thirds majority to pass. Despite the obstacles, Voters have voted 3 times for raising sales tax to pay for transportation projects.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is now looking to raise overall sales tax to 9.5% to fund new rail lines.

According to this L.A. Times article, polling suggests it will pass and test polling indicates that the various projects are likely to get more support if it is for increased rail.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-train-to-lax-metro-sales-tax-20151007-story.html

Canberra of course is slow on the uptake.

The A.C.T. Government can blame itself on this one as they have done virtually nothing to argue their own case and given the howls of outrage from Tuggeranong, the Deep South of Canberra, opposition remains strong.

The Government appears too frightened to lay out a city wide transport plan that I think would swing the opposition behind the project. I don’t believe that that plan has to be immediate, it should be staged, just so long as people know there is one.

wildturkeycanoe said :

Because you cannot do school drop offs and get to work using public transport. You cannot do a family sized shopping trip with the bus network. Icy horizontal rain in winter, scorching desert heat in summer and thunder storms do not go hand in hand with un-sheltered bus stops and the walk of up to a kilometer to get there.

Agree with the sentiment that public transport is not for everyone. But I call BS on your above statement. I lived in London for 4 years and did exactly what you said could not be done. Don’t confuse will with what is or isn’t possible.

dungfungus said :

I may have previously referred to climatic control of land forms and my references would have been from Physical Geography by William Morris Davis, Professor of Physical Geography in Harvard University assisted by William Henry Snyder, Master in Science in Worcester Academy. This book was published in 1893 and copies are probably a bit rare .

I often wondered on what you based your denial of the readily examinable and easily verifiable evidence of climate change upon.

Now I see. A one hundred and twenty-two year old tome.

That explains a lot.

Didn’t find the “plenty of places…”

But got a hit on Gumtree for only one second hand tyre for $40 “for rural use only” which sounds like a bad spare or with illegal tread.

Do you have 5 mismatched tyres on your car at all times? How do you balance the 3rd world tyres yourself?

btw I’m loving this. The deeper you go into the woods the more fun this gets. 🙂

Regardless of the cost differences, either way, there would be a population about a quarter the size of Canberra that will still own a vehicle even if a tram went by their house. Do you want to know why? Because you cannot do school drop offs and get to work using public transport. You cannot do a family sized shopping trip with the bus network. Icy horizontal rain in winter, scorching desert heat in summer and thunder storms do not go hand in hand with un-sheltered bus stops and the walk of up to a kilometer to get there. Shift workers are forgotten by public transport because there isn’t enough demand. So many different reasons apart from the simple cost factor, will deter users of the tram network.
As mentioned often, time-poor folks will drive to save time. Do not kid yourself that public transport will ever get you to your destination faster than a car. What is the purpose of the tram then, mass transit or pollution control? If the latter, then I think we will be sorely disappointed in the result. As a mass transit solution, it could be done better with buses. Blind Freddy can see that, but we are all really arguing fruitlessly about it as the deal has been rubber stamped and is destined to become reality. Whether the government and ratepayers survive fiscally remains the only unknown variable.

BTW, $40 second hand tyres [not retread] can be purchased at many places. Why buy new when you get 80% tread for a third of the cost of new ones?

rubaiyat said :

If you use it less than that, it is proportionately cheaper. If you don’t ride on it all, it costs you nothing.

For the first part if you are talking about money alone you might be correct.
If you are talking about time, and time equals money, it falls apart.

Public transport is more expensive because of the extra time it takes that is lost time.
Don’t quote me reading books etc. not everyone can sit and just start something on a bus. Many of us have to switch a few times just to get to work.
Not to mention that most of the light rail’s 25+ minutes for 12 km/s will be standing room for most.

For the 2nd part its completely wrong:
Either you pay taxes or you don’t..
If you pay taxes you are directly paying for Public transport.
If you don’t pay net taxes you are losing money from something else to pay for it.

Google opportunity cost.

Anyway. I expect the usual strawman reply. Goodluck

HiddenDragon said :

Nice try, but the disaster is a joint (bipartisan) effort across a range of policy areas – bilateral and multilateral trade agreements have been a sideshow.

As to my subsequent comments about “Big Australia”, and the Canberra version of that, it’s not so long since you referred to “the real estate Ponzi scheme that is Canberra”, so we can probably agree on that much:

http://the-riotact.com/how-government-propaganda-may-kill-light-rail-and-the-rest-of-canberra/152262/comment-page-1#comment-553170

The Labor Party is a sad sack “Me-too” lately, but since the Liberal/National Parties like to own everything including having the luck to be in power when the economy succeeds despite their best efforts, I think it is only fair they claim 100% credit for their consistently incompetent trade negotiations:

Labor: 1 extremely profitable negotiation

Liberals: 8 disastrous negotiations that so far have cost us over $215 billion dollars with much more to come.

Particularly as they have learnt absolutely nothing and are pursuing yet another.

You are lucky to have seen that comment, my flare for a nice turn of phrase gets my posts canned more often than not.

I’d like to give a public thank you to ACTION for not asking me to shop in my own time for spare parts for their buses, pay their fuel, insurance and rego bills. Nor asking me to spend my free time servicing their vehicles.

Also for chauffeuring me where I want to go, dropping me off in the heart of the city and not making me circle endlessly for a parking spot.

And for saving me a swag of money that I get to spend on things I genuinely enjoy.

Maya123 said :

Skyring said :

Spot on. For years we’ve watched things get tougher for drivers. Registration and licences cost more. Parking is harder to find and more expensive. Speed limits are lower. Traffic lights and speed cameras more prevalent.

What happened to the Canberra we used to have, where development was decentralised, parking was plentiful and often free, there was no such thing as a rush hour, and it didn’t cost a fortune to register a car?

That disappeared in the surge of population growth, and will only get worse with the immigration rates. We used to be able to drive on the dirt roads in the local forests too, but they are gated now, and as the population continues to rise expect freedoms and ease of living to reduce further.

The local forests that have either burnt down or been chopped down to make way for all the roads, Macmansions, traffic and lack of parking that everyone is complaining about.

There are consequences to your choices and your actions, but most people always think it is someone else’s fault.

If the Government tries to plan for the future and make sensible choices the usuals all get up in arms.

Just watching the news and the blame is starting on the Bushfires in Victoria. All the people who complain that there isn’t enough preventative burning off, are now complaining because of the unavoidable burn off got caught in a wind change. None of those people blames their lifestyle choices, or the inappropriate housing, or their Pitt Street farm aspirations, nor the many other choices that are probably contributing to the increasingly catastrophic outcomes.

May I point out that the more you use public transport, both for yourself and for the Government, the cheaper it gets. After $650 to $1300/year in fact it becomes free.

If you use it less than that, it is proportionately cheaper. If you don’t ride on it all, it costs you nothing.

A car starts off costing you a fortune before you even use it and it only gets more expensive the more you use it; to you, the government and especially the environment and the quality of life in our city.

Maya123 said :

Skyring said :

Spot on. For years we’ve watched things get tougher for drivers. Registration and licences cost more. Parking is harder to find and more expensive. Speed limits are lower. Traffic lights and speed cameras more prevalent.

What happened to the Canberra we used to have, where development was decentralised, parking was plentiful and often free, there was no such thing as a rush hour, and it didn’t cost a fortune to register a car?

That disappeared in the surge of population growth, and will only get worse with the immigration rates. We used to be able to drive on the dirt roads in the local forests too, but they are gated now, and as the population continues to rise expect freedoms and ease of living to reduce further.

Glad to hear someone make a comment about an issue that is generally taboo on this blog.
It is nice to have a caring heart but a level head is needed if we are to preserve the standard of living and freedom that we have worked so hard for.
I have ex-pat friends living in Europe who now want to return to Australia as the new settlers and their ideology take over there.

rubaiyat said :

HiddenDragon said :

The policies which have produced that splendid statistic, and so many others like it, are largely bipartisan – you might recall that the Whitlam government began the dismantling of McEwenism with the splash of a large tariff cut, and the process continued under subsequent governments.

The Australia/NZ agreement was a Labor initiative and the ONLY ONE that was successful from the Australian perspective.

All the rest have been LNP agreements, are quite clearly shockers when you chart the results, and are the reason we have such bad Trade Deficits, which will become unsustainable now that the minerals boom is over and we have demolished so much of the rest of our industry, even parts of our agricultural industries.

Nice try, but the disaster is a joint (bipartisan) effort across a range of policy areas – bilateral and multilateral trade agreements have been a sideshow.

As to my subsequent comments about “Big Australia”, and the Canberra version of that, it’s not so long since you referred to “the real estate Ponzi scheme that is Canberra”, so we can probably agree on that much:

http://the-riotact.com/how-government-propaganda-may-kill-light-rail-and-the-rest-of-canberra/152262/comment-page-1#comment-553170

wildturkeycanoe said :

HenryBG said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

How is it wrong, my wallet does not lie? I could not possibly afford to use public transport as a transport option at $8.80 per day. That’s $3212 per year and yes, I do use my car every single day of the year. Excluding the cost of rego and insurance, that figure gives me about 350km a week I can drive.

Uh, I don’t think your maths really adds up.

According to the NRMA,
http://www.mynrma.com.au/motoring-services/buy-sell/buying-advice/car-operating-costs.htm
“The cheapest vehicle to own and run in both NSW and the ACT was the Hyundai i20. Based on 15,000km driven per year, the i20 would cost around $95 per week to own and run.”

I’m also curious about these “second hand tyres at $40 a pop” – what is the economic model that governs this activity?
As for your idea that “maintenance” involves “a drop of oil”, I’m wondering if your vehicle is even roadworthy?

You are presuming a person owns and operates a new vehicle there with regular dealer servicing. A lot of people like myself can only afford cheap 2nd hand cars and do their own maintenance. $95 a week to keep a car running….especially an economical one is ridiculous. Gumtree can afford cheap tyres and parts, tppd insurance saves a lot and is suitable for a thousand dollar vehicle. If you crash it once a year, you can buy another with the insurance money you’ve saved.
As for the bus fare costs….it does not work out cheaper when you add the fares of 3 kids and the wife. The car does have more than one seat so potentially on a per person cost it just became much cheaper to drive.

And you are presuming a person owns and operates a cheap old bomb that never fails, that you have all the time in the world to shop for parts, the skills to keep it running and that you don’t value your own time, which you have already told us is so precious. Also that there several people in the car.

Here is a simple test to see who is simply fooling themselves:

Observe Canberra traffic anywhere.

1. How many cars actually have more than one occupant (the driver)?

2. How old are the cars?

3. What model are the cars?

4. How many are actually oversize 4WDs?

5. What are they worth?

6. How many of them are not you?

I’ve done the observation and I also checked the rego stats, and whatever world you are living in it isn’t this one. I suspect it is a world of self deception, where buses cost 3 times as much, and cars one tenth as much as they really do, where you are a better driver with a few drinks in you, where you are safer not wearing a seat belt and where you can’t get pregnant if you do it standing up.

Go on to observe how many “free” parking spots you can really find within a 15 minute walk of the City, how much money the A.C.T government is making from parking, parking fines and traffic offences, all the expensive roads and engineering, traffic lights, policing, ambulances, hospitalisations etc, and consider who exactly is paying for all this if it isn’t you.

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

btw dungfungus when you have time can you expand and give references for your conclusions as to what is causing Global Warming. You simply claimed it was all explained by landscape evolution i.e. it was geological but gave nothing we could check.

I’m writing a book on the subject and would be happy to check it out. But you need to give actual references and not newspaper snippets from dubious sources, which we did not even get for this example.

I don’t think I ever said the globe was warming in the way contemporary warmists think.
Before the current global warming narrative was invented climate change was assessed by averaging the general yearly successions of weather changes over many years. The word meaning of climate accepts that it changes so to use the terminology “climate change” is senseless. There have always been climatologists in modern times but climate scientists sounds sexier.
The study of climate is important as it determines the distribution of plants and animals which in turn affects where humans settle and what occupations they pursue.
I may have previously referred to climatic control of land forms and my references would have been from Physical Geography by William Morris Davis, Professor of Physical Geography in Harvard University assisted by William Henry Snyder, Master in Science in Worcester Academy. This book was published in 1893 and copies are probably a bit rare – I am sure the National Library would have a copy. If you can’t find it I would be happy to lend it to you.
I am glad you are seeking factual information for your book – to much of current group-think is sullied by computer modelling and wild claims.

I got that and chased it up but you never said how you think it applies to the subject so I am groping in the dark.

The “computer modelling” is not the proof of what has happened, it is the projected trajectory of future anticipated warming.

What NASA, the U.N. and many different research organisations have done is accumulate and digest the mass of data from many different sources going back over a hundred years for the detailed temperatures and sea level, to see the historical change. They also have used other techniques from Ice Cores and tree rings etc to calculate temperature and sea levels over a much longer period to fit the recent data into overall patterns.

It is like the two parts of the weather report, the measurements of todays weather and precipitation and the separate forecast which has probability attached to it, but is getting pretty good, using the computer modelling you disparage.

For longer term movements which are also weather based, not climate, there is the Southern Oscillation Index which simply gives an indication of where we lie on the movement between the El Niño and La Niña extremes in the Pacific Basin.

If you seriously want to communicate what you think explains what we are observing, you seriously have to explain what it is, with some references within Davis’ book, because I can’t read your mind as to how you are coming to these conclusions from what on the face of it seems an irrelevant document.

As you can see I am willing to research claims. I may be one of the few here who is.

You asked where I got my information and I told you. I even offered to loan it to you so what is your response? You say you “can’t read my mind”! So much for your willingness to “research”.
I think you are too scared to read the book because it will immediately de-bunk most of the contemporary narratives that are used to convince the warmists that variations of climate are linked to some evil acts of mankind.
By the way, thank you for thanking me to loan you the book.

Skyring said :

Spot on. For years we’ve watched things get tougher for drivers. Registration and licences cost more. Parking is harder to find and more expensive. Speed limits are lower. Traffic lights and speed cameras more prevalent.

What happened to the Canberra we used to have, where development was decentralised, parking was plentiful and often free, there was no such thing as a rush hour, and it didn’t cost a fortune to register a car?

That disappeared in the surge of population growth, and will only get worse with the immigration rates. We used to be able to drive on the dirt roads in the local forests too, but they are gated now, and as the population continues to rise expect freedoms and ease of living to reduce further.

Skyring said :

Spot on. For years we’ve watched things get tougher for drivers. Registration and licences cost more. Parking is harder to find and more expensive. Speed limits are lower. Traffic lights and speed cameras more prevalent.

What happened to the Canberra we used to have, where development was decentralised, parking was plentiful and often free, there was no such thing as a rush hour, and it didn’t cost a fortune to register a car?

It’s called Cooma.

Skyring said :

Spot on. For years we’ve watched things get tougher for drivers. Registration and licences cost more. Parking is harder to find and more expensive. Speed limits are lower. Traffic lights and speed cameras more prevalent.

What happened to the Canberra we used to have, where development was decentralised, parking was plentiful and often free, there was no such thing as a rush hour, and it didn’t cost a fortune to register a car?

Agreed.

Skyring said :

What happened to the Canberra we used to have, where development was decentralised, parking was plentiful and often free, there was no such thing as a rush hour, and it didn’t cost a fortune to register a car?

Rego in Canberra is one of the cheapest in the country. CTP on the other hand… Don’t confuse the two.

But why is CTP so high? Simple far too many drop kicks driving on ACT roads who have no idea how to drive in this brave new world of moderate traffic. Resulting in higher a higher number of motor vehicle accident injuries and higher CTP.

HenryBG said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

How is it wrong, my wallet does not lie? I could not possibly afford to use public transport as a transport option at $8.80 per day. That’s $3212 per year and yes, I do use my car every single day of the year. Excluding the cost of rego and insurance, that figure gives me about 350km a week I can drive.

Uh, I don’t think your maths really adds up.

According to the NRMA,
http://www.mynrma.com.au/motoring-services/buy-sell/buying-advice/car-operating-costs.htm
“The cheapest vehicle to own and run in both NSW and the ACT was the Hyundai i20. Based on 15,000km driven per year, the i20 would cost around $95 per week to own and run.”

I’m also curious about these “second hand tyres at $40 a pop” – what is the economic model that governs this activity?
As for your idea that “maintenance” involves “a drop of oil”, I’m wondering if your vehicle is even roadworthy?

Notice they have left out the cost of rego and insurance. With insurance probably someone who thinks that CTP is the only cover they need. My dumb brother thought that until he caused an accident and the other parties 1yo Honda Civic was written off. Took him 10 years to pay that off.

Spot on. For years we’ve watched things get tougher for drivers. Registration and licences cost more. Parking is harder to find and more expensive. Speed limits are lower. Traffic lights and speed cameras more prevalent.

What happened to the Canberra we used to have, where development was decentralised, parking was plentiful and often free, there was no such thing as a rush hour, and it didn’t cost a fortune to register a car?

HenryBG said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

How is it wrong, my wallet does not lie? I could not possibly afford to use public transport as a transport option at $8.80 per day. That’s $3212 per year and yes, I do use my car every single day of the year. Excluding the cost of rego and insurance, that figure gives me about 350km a week I can drive.

Uh, I don’t think your maths really adds up.

According to the NRMA,
http://www.mynrma.com.au/motoring-services/buy-sell/buying-advice/car-operating-costs.htm
“The cheapest vehicle to own and run in both NSW and the ACT was the Hyundai i20. Based on 15,000km driven per year, the i20 would cost around $95 per week to own and run.”

I’m also curious about these “second hand tyres at $40 a pop” – what is the economic model that governs this activity?
As for your idea that “maintenance” involves “a drop of oil”, I’m wondering if your vehicle is even roadworthy?

You are presuming a person owns and operates a new vehicle there with regular dealer servicing. A lot of people like myself can only afford cheap 2nd hand cars and do their own maintenance. $95 a week to keep a car running….especially an economical one is ridiculous. Gumtree can afford cheap tyres and parts, tppd insurance saves a lot and is suitable for a thousand dollar vehicle. If you crash it once a year, you can buy another with the insurance money you’ve saved.
As for the bus fare costs….it does not work out cheaper when you add the fares of 3 kids and the wife. The car does have more than one seat so potentially on a per person cost it just became much cheaper to drive.

Retread tyres are not a way to save money, but then so are most of these Fondly Imagined Beliefs.

http://www.drive.com.au/motor-news/qa-retreads-or-new-tyres-20110210-1ao2m.html

https://www.jaxtyres.com.au/tyres/retreaded

I am unable to cost the “drop of oil” but know my older cars used oil by the bucket, not by the drop.

If you are wondering at unseen references, they are held up, possibly never to appear, as often happens.

Ill informed opinion with political aspersions on posters seems to be OK.

Actual researched facts that show up those opinions are not.

HenryBG said :

According to the NRMA,
http://www.mynrma.com.au/motoring-services/buy-sell/buying-advice/car-operating-costs.htm
“The cheapest vehicle to own and run in both NSW and the ACT was the Hyundai i20. Based on 15,000km driven per year, the i20 would cost around $95 per week to own and run.”

So how far would this money go on public transport: that’s $29.10 for peak-time bus travel to and from work each day.
Leaving you with $64.90 to spend on off-peak travel at other times. And a couple of cab rides.

And of course, most people run a car that is costing them considerably more than a Hyundai i20 does.

There are reasons why public transport is impractical for most people in Canberra, but to claim that you “can’t afford it” is not a valid argument.
“I’d go insane” on the other hand is a fair argument against having to try catching buses between certain points in Canberra – for example any route that would include looping atrocities such as routes 4,5 and 80.

wildturkeycanoe said :

How is it wrong, my wallet does not lie? I could not possibly afford to use public transport as a transport option at $8.80 per day. That’s $3212 per year and yes, I do use my car every single day of the year. Excluding the cost of rego and insurance, that figure gives me about 350km a week I can drive.

Uh, I don’t think your maths really adds up.

According to the NRMA,
http://www.mynrma.com.au/motoring-services/buy-sell/buying-advice/car-operating-costs.htm
“The cheapest vehicle to own and run in both NSW and the ACT was the Hyundai i20. Based on 15,000km driven per year, the i20 would cost around $95 per week to own and run.”

I’m also curious about these “second hand tyres at $40 a pop” – what is the economic model that governs this activity?
As for your idea that “maintenance” involves “a drop of oil”, I’m wondering if your vehicle is even roadworthy?

The point being you would have to work very hard, paying cash without ever having a MyWay card to ever pay $3212 a year on fares.

Maya123 said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

Add the fuel I pump into it and it is still much less cost than public transport [$8.80 /day].

Wrong, both for the cost of keeping your old bomb on the road and for the cost of the public transport that you never use.

The same as the eternally made up figures you keep quoting on the LR in the hope that if you say it often enough the more impressionable out there will actually believe it.

How is it wrong, my wallet does not lie? I could not possibly afford to use public transport as a transport option at $8.80 per day. That’s $3212 per year and yes, I do use my car every single day of the year. Excluding the cost of rego and insurance, that figure gives me about 350km a week I can drive. That’s certainly not as much as I do travel, my odometer would testify to that. Even with the maintenance of a few second hand tyres at $40 a pop and a drop of oil, there’s plenty of fuel left to travel around as much as I want. Parking? Nah, I find free parking and avoid going to places that require a pocket full of coins.
Public transport would only create stress and chaos in my life, never being able to make appointments and then return to pick up the kids from school, spending hours at bus stops waiting for the next connection. The simple convenience of getting to and from destinations in a time frame and cost that suits me is the only reason I will never adopt public transport as a means of travel. That goes for tens if not hundreds of thousands of Canberrans. With the introduction of more fuel efficient and electric vehicles, it will become even more appealing to stay on our roads in cars. The tram will diminish into the pages of history before it is even commissioned. I wonder just how much interest there is from the business community in investing into the light rail network? Do we have any information about that yet?

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

Add the fuel I pump into it and it is still much less cost than public transport [$8.80 /day].

Wrong, both for the cost of keeping your old bomb on the road and for the cost of the public transport that you never use.

The same as the eternally made up figures you keep quoting on the LR in the hope that if you say it often enough the more impressionable out there will actually believe it.

How is it wrong, my wallet does not lie? I could not possibly afford to use public transport as a transport option at $8.80 per day. That’s $3212 per year and yes, I do use my car every single day of the year. Excluding the cost of rego and insurance, that figure gives me about 350km a week I can drive. That’s certainly not as much as I do travel, my odometer would testify to that. Even with the maintenance of a few second hand tyres at $40 a pop and a drop of oil, there’s plenty of fuel left to travel around as much as I want. Parking? Nah, I find free parking and avoid going to places that require a pocket full of coins.
Public transport would only create stress and chaos in my life, never being able to make appointments and then return to pick up the kids from school, spending hours at bus stops waiting for the next connection. The simple convenience of getting to and from destinations in a time frame and cost that suits me is the only reason I will never adopt public transport as a means of travel. That goes for tens if not hundreds of thousands of Canberrans. With the introduction of more fuel efficient and electric vehicles, it will become even more appealing to stay on our roads in cars. The tram will diminish into the pages of history before it is even commissioned. I wonder just how much interest there is from the business community in investing into the light rail network? Do we have any information about that yet?

“$8.80”

That must mean you would make the equivalent of four bus trips a day, separated by a length of time to be outside of the 1.5 hour transfer periods, passed on the cost of a My Way card, which no sensible person who made that many trips a day would not have.

Most people don’t make four trips a day though, and it would cost them less. Much less after turning 60 years.

I which case after 10 days all trips would be free.

btw My wallet doesn’t lie either and I don’t lie to myself.

I got rid of my car, and are just down to the wife’s.

My student son uses public transport and gets by on the smell of any oil rag, much as I did when I studied.

My other son is a chef who works odd hours at an out of the way restaurant and is perpetually broke, having gone through several second hand cars.

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

Add the fuel I pump into it and it is still much less cost than public transport [$8.80 /day].

Wrong, both for the cost of keeping your old bomb on the road and for the cost of the public transport that you never use.

The same as the eternally made up figures you keep quoting on the LR in the hope that if you say it often enough the more impressionable out there will actually believe it.

How is it wrong, my wallet does not lie? I could not possibly afford to use public transport as a transport option at $8.80 per day. That’s $3212 per year and yes, I do use my car every single day of the year. Excluding the cost of rego and insurance, that figure gives me about 350km a week I can drive. That’s certainly not as much as I do travel, my odometer would testify to that. Even with the maintenance of a few second hand tyres at $40 a pop and a drop of oil, there’s plenty of fuel left to travel around as much as I want. Parking? Nah, I find free parking and avoid going to places that require a pocket full of coins.
Public transport would only create stress and chaos in my life, never being able to make appointments and then return to pick up the kids from school, spending hours at bus stops waiting for the next connection. The simple convenience of getting to and from destinations in a time frame and cost that suits me is the only reason I will never adopt public transport as a means of travel. That goes for tens if not hundreds of thousands of Canberrans. With the introduction of more fuel efficient and electric vehicles, it will become even more appealing to stay on our roads in cars. The tram will diminish into the pages of history before it is even commissioned. I wonder just how much interest there is from the business community in investing into the light rail network? Do we have any information about that yet?

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

Add the fuel I pump into it and it is still much less cost than public transport [$8.80 /day].

Wrong, both for the cost of keeping your old bomb on the road and for the cost of the public transport that you never use.

The same as the eternally made up figures you keep quoting on the LR in the hope that if you say it often enough the more impressionable out there will actually believe it.

How is it wrong, my wallet does not lie? I could not possibly afford to use public transport as a transport option at $8.80 per day. That’s $3212 per year and yes, I do use my car every single day of the year. Excluding the cost of rego and insurance, that figure gives me about 350km a week I can drive. That’s certainly not as much as I do travel, my odometer would testify to that. Even with the maintenance of a few second hand tyres at $40 a pop and a drop of oil, there’s plenty of fuel left to travel around as much as I want. Parking? Nah, I find free parking and avoid going to places that require a pocket full of coins.
Public transport would only create stress and chaos in my life, never being able to make appointments and then return to pick up the kids from school, spending hours at bus stops waiting for the next connection. The simple convenience of getting to and from destinations in a time frame and cost that suits me is the only reason I will never adopt public transport as a means of travel. That goes for tens if not hundreds of thousands of Canberrans. With the introduction of more fuel efficient and electric vehicles, it will become even more appealing to stay on our roads in cars. The tram will diminish into the pages of history before it is even commissioned. I wonder just how much interest there is from the business community in investing into the light rail network? Do we have any information about that yet?

“$8.80”

That must mean you would make the equivalent of four bus trips a day, separated by a length of time to be outside of the 1.5 hour transfer periods, passed on the cost of a My Way card, which no sensible person who made that many trips a day would not have.

Most people don’t make four trips a day though, and it would cost them less. Much less after turning 60 years.

I’ll post this yet again.

http://www.action.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/532433/MyWay_Fare_Increase_2015.pdf

Full Fare Peak fare is $2.91, Off Peak is $2.31.

Return trip is $5.82 or $4.62

There is a cap on paying for a maximum of 40 trips a month, all the rest are free.

So the maximum fares you can pay for an entire year are $1,108.80 to $1,396.80

There is a 5% discount if you BPay your card so that is actually $1000.50 to $1,326.95.

LESS THAN A THIRD of what was claimed by wildturkeycanoe.

LESS THAN A SIXTH of that for students or if you have a concession card.

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

HiddenDragon said :

The policies which have produced that splendid statistic, and so many others like it, are largely bipartisan – you might recall that the Whitlam government began the dismantling of McEwenism with the splash of a large tariff cut, and the process continued under subsequent governments.

The Australia/NZ agreement was a Labor initiative and the ONLY ONE that was successful from the Australian perspective.

All the rest have been LNP agreements, are quite clearly shockers when you chart the results, and are the reason we have such bad Trade Deficits, which will become unsustainable now that the minerals boom is over and we have demolished so much of the rest of our industry, even parts of our agricultural industries.

Who is “we”?
It can’t be the LNP as you have referred to them separately in the same sentence.

I think you will find that “we” is the democratically elected Federal Government, which is presently a Liebral/National Party coalition, not to be confused of course with the QLD LNP.

wildturkeycanoe said :

The green spaces in the city and along Flemington Road to be turned into this high density housing corridor, tram depots and shops also just a step towards a greener future?

What green spaces are these? Northborne is replacement of EXISTING buildings, and Flemmington road, well they may call it a greenfields development, but the fields are far from green, but fear not parts will be left as they are for the legless, earless dragons, or what ever they are to continue to live and for you to look at the long brown grass whilst stuck in traffic and complain about how the ACT government needs more mowing crews.

Beside construction in this corridor will happen light rail or not, the planned density however is what will make light rail viable along this route. A density that I will repeat will happen light rail or not. So whilst interlinked, the development is not dependant on light rail, light rail however is dependant on the development, which for the third time is going ahead regardless.

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

“You also perpetually ignore the environmental cost of your choice, so I gather you don’t give a stuff, as most drivers don’t.”
Spot on. You cannot make everyone believe the global warming hype.

“Nor what you park on.” Why should I care about the gravel my car sits on.

We guessed you “Are not a scientist but…”

…and that was green space before you turned it into gravel. Thanks!

So the long row of eucalyptus trees and grass along Northbourne that will be mowed down by the tram is just collateral damage in the drive towards progress? The green spaces in the city and along Flemington Road to be turned into this high density housing corridor, tram depots and shops also just a step towards a greener future?

If you paid attention, I agree on the trees. The grass doesn’t go, tram lines are laid through grass all around the world and are much more visually pleasant than the the multiple lanes of bitumen and concrete cars require. As a bonus you can just walk across them.

The higher density is inevitable and is better than wiping out whole valleys with Macmansions and making people drive long distances to work in the inevitable traffic jams on expensive freeways and roads that generate a huge amount of noise, pollution, deaths, injuries and divide our cities up whilst driving up obesity, diabetes and debt.

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

HiddenDragon said :

The policies which have produced that splendid statistic, and so many others like it, are largely bipartisan – you might recall that the Whitlam government began the dismantling of McEwenism with the splash of a large tariff cut, and the process continued under subsequent governments.

The Australia/NZ agreement was a Labor initiative and the ONLY ONE that was successful from the Australian perspective.

All the rest have been LNP agreements, are quite clearly shockers when you chart the results, and are the reason we have such bad Trade Deficits, which will become unsustainable now that the minerals boom is over and we have demolished so much of the rest of our industry, even parts of our agricultural industries.

Who is “we”?
It can’t be the LNP as you have referred to them separately in the same sentence.

I read “we” to be referring to the Australian national as a collective. Happy to stand corrected if he was referring to a more specific homogenous group

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

I am glad you are seeking factual information for your book – to much of current group-think is sullied by computer modelling and wild claims.

The “computer modelling” is not the proof of what has happened, it is the projected trajectory of future anticipated warming.

The “computer modelling” is just maths. And the maths – whether modelled on computers or not – has consistently been borne out by subsequent data collection.

There is nothing fanciful about the physics involved: CO2’s absorption spectrum is a measured reality, so CO2’s action on outgoing radiation is a plain fact: it traps heat that would otherwise escape the planet.
There are no “wild claims” – there are over two dozen published analyses of how much a doubling of CO2 will warm the planet, and they all agree that a likely value is about 3 degrees celsius.

Correction: there are indeed “wild claims” – climate change deniers make these all the time, from a denial of basic physics, a denial that CO2 is increasing, denials about sea level rise and warming.
This graphic shows up a few of these “wild claims” from deniers:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Predictions1976-2011.png

rubaiyat said :

HiddenDragon said :

The policies which have produced that splendid statistic, and so many others like it, are largely bipartisan – you might recall that the Whitlam government began the dismantling of McEwenism with the splash of a large tariff cut, and the process continued under subsequent governments.

The Australia/NZ agreement was a Labor initiative and the ONLY ONE that was successful from the Australian perspective.

All the rest have been LNP agreements, are quite clearly shockers when you chart the results, and are the reason we have such bad Trade Deficits, which will become unsustainable now that the minerals boom is over and we have demolished so much of the rest of our industry, even parts of our agricultural industries.

Who is “we”?
It can’t be the LNP as you have referred to them separately in the same sentence.

rubaiyat said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

Add the fuel I pump into it and it is still much less cost than public transport [$8.80 /day].

Wrong, both for the cost of keeping your old bomb on the road and for the cost of the public transport that you never use.

The same as the eternally made up figures you keep quoting on the LR in the hope that if you say it often enough the more impressionable out there will actually believe it.

How is it wrong, my wallet does not lie? I could not possibly afford to use public transport as a transport option at $8.80 per day. That’s $3212 per year and yes, I do use my car every single day of the year. Excluding the cost of rego and insurance, that figure gives me about 350km a week I can drive. That’s certainly not as much as I do travel, my odometer would testify to that. Even with the maintenance of a few second hand tyres at $40 a pop and a drop of oil, there’s plenty of fuel left to travel around as much as I want. Parking? Nah, I find free parking and avoid going to places that require a pocket full of coins.
Public transport would only create stress and chaos in my life, never being able to make appointments and then return to pick up the kids from school, spending hours at bus stops waiting for the next connection. The simple convenience of getting to and from destinations in a time frame and cost that suits me is the only reason I will never adopt public transport as a means of travel. That goes for tens if not hundreds of thousands of Canberrans. With the introduction of more fuel efficient and electric vehicles, it will become even more appealing to stay on our roads in cars. The tram will diminish into the pages of history before it is even commissioned. I wonder just how much interest there is from the business community in investing into the light rail network? Do we have any information about that yet?

rubaiyat said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

“You also perpetually ignore the environmental cost of your choice, so I gather you don’t give a stuff, as most drivers don’t.”
Spot on. You cannot make everyone believe the global warming hype.

“Nor what you park on.” Why should I care about the gravel my car sits on.

We guessed you “Are not a scientist but…”

…and that was green space before you turned it into gravel. Thanks!

So the long row of eucalyptus trees and grass along Northbourne that will be mowed down by the tram is just collateral damage in the drive towards progress? The green spaces in the city and along Flemington Road to be turned into this high density housing corridor, tram depots and shops also just a step towards a greener future?

HiddenDragon said :

The policies which have produced that splendid statistic, and so many others like it, are largely bipartisan – you might recall that the Whitlam government began the dismantling of McEwenism with the splash of a large tariff cut, and the process continued under subsequent governments.

The Australia/NZ agreement was a Labor initiative and the ONLY ONE that was successful from the Australian perspective.

All the rest have been LNP agreements, are quite clearly shockers when you chart the results, and are the reason we have such bad Trade Deficits, which will become unsustainable now that the minerals boom is over and we have demolished so much of the rest of our industry, even parts of our agricultural industries.

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

btw dungfungus when you have time can you expand and give references for your conclusions as to what is causing Global Warming. You simply claimed it was all explained by landscape evolution i.e. it was geological but gave nothing we could check.

I’m writing a book on the subject and would be happy to check it out. But you need to give actual references and not newspaper snippets from dubious sources, which we did not even get for this example.

I don’t think I ever said the globe was warming in the way contemporary warmists think.
Before the current global warming narrative was invented climate change was assessed by averaging the general yearly successions of weather changes over many years. The word meaning of climate accepts that it changes so to use the terminology “climate change” is senseless. There have always been climatologists in modern times but climate scientists sounds sexier.
The study of climate is important as it determines the distribution of plants and animals which in turn affects where humans settle and what occupations they pursue.
I may have previously referred to climatic control of land forms and my references would have been from Physical Geography by William Morris Davis, Professor of Physical Geography in Harvard University assisted by William Henry Snyder, Master in Science in Worcester Academy. This book was published in 1893 and copies are probably a bit rare – I am sure the National Library would have a copy. If you can’t find it I would be happy to lend it to you.
I am glad you are seeking factual information for your book – to much of current group-think is sullied by computer modelling and wild claims.

I got that and chased it up but you never said how you think it applies to the subject so I am groping in the dark.

The “computer modelling” is not the proof of what has happened, it is the projected trajectory of future anticipated warming.

What NASA, the U.N. and many different research organisations have done is accumulate and digest the mass of data from many different sources going back over a hundred years for the detailed temperatures and sea level, to see the historical change. They also have used other techniques from Ice Cores and tree rings etc to calculate temperature and sea levels over a much longer period to fit the recent data into overall patterns.

It is like the two parts of the weather report, the measurements of todays weather and precipitation and the separate forecast which has probability attached to it, but is getting pretty good, using the computer modelling you disparage.

For longer term movements which are also weather based, not climate, there is the Southern Oscillation Index which simply gives an indication of where we lie on the movement between the El Niño and La Niña extremes in the Pacific Basin.

If you seriously want to communicate what you think explains what we are observing, you seriously have to explain what it is, with some references within Davis’ book, because I can’t read your mind as to how you are coming to these conclusions from what on the face of it seems an irrelevant document.

As you can see I am willing to research claims. I may be one of the few here who is.

miz said :

Rubaiat, surely it is not difficult to answer the direct question already put about your role – a simple yes or no as to whether you have political, business or other affiliation would suffice.
To make it easier, I disclose that I am not a member of a political party but am a member of a union (and have strongly objected to unions ACT about their inappropriate spruiking of light rail).

I have replied several times on the subject.

Can’t help it if the moderator won’t post them.

Some of them have got through, but really you are neither listening nor paying attention, even to get my name right, so you will probably just ask all over again.

Since many of the negative comments on Light Rail here are blatantly dishonest, so we are supposed to believe you are not posting this from ACT Liberal Party headquarters?

dungfungus said :

rosscoact said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

The “Business Case Study” seems to have changed in the Gold Coast LR 2nd Stage:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/queensland/gold-coast-light-rail-extension-tenders-open-20150930-gjyl78.html

The real determining factor is prejudice. Now that Abbott has gone round the S bend of history, transport and energy planning can get back on track, literally. Just as Mendelssohn was quietly put back on the German orchestral playlist after WWII.

Infrastructure Australia will suddenly be “discovering” new data to come to their diametrically different conclusions.

The Commonwealth Games is the only factor driving the extension of the Gold Coast light rail.
It is reminiscent of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games when Canberra slickered a couple of non-event soccer games which made it imperative to complete the dual lane divided Federal Highway all the way into Canberra from the Hume Highway turn off south of Goulburn.

But surely you don’t consider the actual outcome of a dual lane Federal Highway a bad thing? I’d like to think (albeit without any actual proof) that past and present Federal governments have a strategy that goes beyond obvious craven opportunism.

Was it a pork barrelling for a NSW Lib government or just a marginal seat? I don’t have time to do some investigation.

The dual lane Federal Highway was a good thing but the excuse for building it was based on the myth that the Sydney Olympic games and Canberra’s fringe involvement would bring us heaps of tourists and business which simply didn’t happen.

Wrong yet again. The olympics in this case help bring forward the duplication it was not the excuse for it. The excuse was the number of deaths and the general increase in traffic.

Rubaiat, surely it is not difficult to answer the direct question already put about your role – a simple yes or no as to whether you have political, business or other affiliation would suffice.
To make it easier, I disclose that I am not a member of a political party but am a member of a union (and have strongly objected to unions ACT about their inappropriate spruiking of light rail).

rosscoact said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

The “Business Case Study” seems to have changed in the Gold Coast LR 2nd Stage:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/queensland/gold-coast-light-rail-extension-tenders-open-20150930-gjyl78.html

The real determining factor is prejudice. Now that Abbott has gone round the S bend of history, transport and energy planning can get back on track, literally. Just as Mendelssohn was quietly put back on the German orchestral playlist after WWII.

Infrastructure Australia will suddenly be “discovering” new data to come to their diametrically different conclusions.

The Commonwealth Games is the only factor driving the extension of the Gold Coast light rail.
It is reminiscent of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games when Canberra slickered a couple of non-event soccer games which made it imperative to complete the dual lane divided Federal Highway all the way into Canberra from the Hume Highway turn off south of Goulburn.

But surely you don’t consider the actual outcome of a dual lane Federal Highway a bad thing? I’d like to think (albeit without any actual proof) that past and present Federal governments have a strategy that goes beyond obvious craven opportunism.

Was it a pork barrelling for a NSW Lib government or just a marginal seat? I don’t have time to do some investigation.

The dual lane Federal Highway was a good thing but the excuse for building it was based on the myth that the Sydney Olympic games and Canberra’s fringe involvement would bring us heaps of tourists and business which simply didn’t happen.

rubaiyat said :

btw dungfungus when you have time can you expand and give references for your conclusions as to what is causing Global Warming. You simply claimed it was all explained by landscape evolution i.e. it was geological but gave nothing we could check.

I’m writing a book on the subject and would be happy to check it out. But you need to give actual references and not newspaper snippets from dubious sources, which we did not even get for this example.

I don’t think I ever said the globe was warming in the way contemporary warmists think.
Before the current global warming narrative was invented climate change was assessed by averaging the general yearly successions of weather changes over many years. The word meaning of climate accepts that it changes so to use the terminology “climate change” is senseless. There have always been climatologists in modern times but climate scientists sounds sexier.
The study of climate is important as it determines the distribution of plants and animals which in turn affects where humans settle and what occupations they pursue.
I may have previously referred to climatic control of land forms and my references would have been from Physical Geography by William Morris Davis, Professor of Physical Geography in Harvard University assisted by William Henry Snyder, Master in Science in Worcester Academy. This book was published in 1893 and copies are probably a bit rare – I am sure the National Library would have a copy. If you can’t find it I would be happy to lend it to you.
I am glad you are seeking factual information for your book – to much of current group-think is sullied by computer modelling and wild claims.

rubaiyat said :

We are facing yet another record deficit of $3.1 billion due mainly to government policy.

We have had nothing but bad Free Trade Agreements struck up by the Liberals and Nationals, and have just signed up to yet another.

The Liberals and Nationals are convinced that Australia is good for nothing else but digging holes and sheering sheep.

They began a policy of “deregulation” with the Howard government that took skilled jobs away from Australians and Australian companies and handed them over on a platter to foreign companies, mostly American. In return the Americans overcharged us once they got a stranglehold on our business and blocked us directly or with their subsidies from competing where we could with American businesses and agriculture. They are still doing it in the latest TPP.

Australians have had to go to America to work because the Liberals deliberately exported our jobs there. As they have said, they’d like to come back here but their shovel and sheering skills just aren’t up to scratch.

All this positive Can-Do attitude is laid out before you in these forums. No matter how much Canberra grows, most want to keep our small minded roots.

Thank you all the proud patriotic Australians who say we can’t do anything and bow and scrape to our great and powerful friends who dictate to us what we can or can’t do and what crumbs they will let fall down from their table. We will be reduced to hand crafted beggar bowls as one major industry after another flees our shores.

Expect your children to be Skyping from California and your grandchildren wishing you Happy Halloween.

Good on ya Howie! Job well done.

The policies which have produced that splendid statistic, and so many others like it, are largely bipartisan – you might recall that the Whitlam government began the dismantling of McEwenism with the splash of a large tariff cut, and the process continued under subsequent governments.

Aside from the premature opening of our economy to ferocious competition, another significant contributor to that statistic is the “Big Australia” project – the main purpose of which seems, in truth, to be importing consumers, rather than building an internationally competitive economy (or any other sensible aim). We have our own version of that here in Canberra, and the push for densification – including, of course, trams – is (political gimmicks aside) essentially an attempt to enable that project and ameliorate some of its symptoms.

dungfungus said :

These type of events have the potential to bankrupt states and even countries. Look at Greece for example.

That wasn’t what bankrupted Greece, it in fact helped clean up Athens which was foul with car pollution and traffic snarls that were destroying all the ancient monuments.

Greece doesn’t have any car industry, hence the Mercedes taxis, so they would have been blowing far more money on all the cars than even us and they can afford it less.

So it would have been more accurate to blame Greece’s financial woes on all the money they spent on pursuing the American dream of happy families cruising in their cars through the countryside past smiling cows. No traffic jams, no angry drivers blaring horns at each other through the thick smog. No massive national debt.

Solidarity said :

It’s spring time, I don’t know anybody who would prefer to sit in an air-conditioned, closed off public transport box full of snot, drivel and junkies. Window down, arm on the window sill and a slow cruise home from work is far more relaxing.

Like that Tradie who chased me 5 kilometres through Canberra in a fit of road rage because I dared to cross a lane in front of him (because I had to) to get off the Tuggeranong Parkway to get to the Scrivener Dam turn off.

They don’t like it here when I post the almost daily incidents of fatalities, stolen cars, cars used in robberies, hit and runs, road rage etc so don’t know if this will show up.

Somehow you are not supposed to talk about real “tragic” events, whereas the non-existent “snot, drivel and junkies” is OK because that comes under Fiction, and is therefore “amusing”.

btw dungfungus when you have time can you expand and give references for your conclusions as to what is causing Global Warming. You simply claimed it was all explained by landscape evolution i.e. it was geological but gave nothing we could check.

I’m writing a book on the subject and would be happy to check it out. But you need to give actual references and not newspaper snippets from dubious sources, which we did not even get for this example.

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

Add the fuel I pump into it and it is still much less cost than public transport [$8.80 /day].

Wrong, both for the cost of keeping your old bomb on the road and for the cost of the public transport that you never use.

The same as the eternally made up figures you keep quoting on the LR in the hope that if you say it often enough the more impressionable out there will actually believe it.

Don’t know if you missed the opening paragraph from the link about light rail in Silicon Valley but in case you did:
“Less than 1 percent of Santa Clara County residents ride VTA light rail; the per-passenger round-trip operating cost is $11.74 and taxpayers subsidize 85 percent of costs — third and second worst in the country, respectively. There are problems with measuring costs per passenger mile on light rail, but ouch.”
The point is that California, like Canberra, is where private car transit is the most popular, convenient and practical form of transport. The social engineering experiment that our current Labor/Green minority government is forcing on us will deliver the same outcome as the one “servicing” Silicon Valley.
You can look for the fifth leg on the cat as much as you like but when the chickens come home to roost the situation will be the same.

You didn’t read it properly and if you had been there you could see.

The services are disconnected/uncoordinated. You can’t easily transfer from CALTRAIN to the Light Rail or anything else.

Plus Palo Alto is as the poster said, “too-far-to-walk from a Caltrain station — and from anything else of interest — is almost a point of pride”.

One of the major problems in the USA is this notion of either running systems as isolated enterprises or if they are government i.e. a shambles of County/City/State/Federal in any combination. Trying to bridge them is a nightmare in most cities, but not all.

Major passenger train services are usually, but not always run by AMTRAK who for example if you come down from San Francisco to L.A. terminate at Bakersfield well outside the centre of L.A. Think like the Kingston Railway Station only much much worse and remote.

On the other hand the Light Rail and buses in L.A. are co-ordinated under L.A.s Metro Rail which consists of Rapid Transit lines and Light Rail lines which cross and transfer with the bus system at regular points. It has grown substantially and rapidly since I was there so is progressively reaching out in all directions in L.A.

Canberra has clearly defined town centres and a single public transport system run under one entity, so actually is not quite as bad as L.A. in that the destinations are more clear cut.

Silicon Valley’s transport, what there is of it, is largely private bus companies which have grown up independently to fill the gaps and I suspect may have grown out of the buses that picked up all the Latino farmworkers and dropped them off at farm gates when it used to be all orchards.

Because you are reaching out for anything to confirm your pre-conceived conclusions you will come up with lots of ‘facts’ that you have no real knowledge of. Just as you reported a “crime wave” on Sacramento’s Light Rail, that when I checked on it turned out to be complaints of smoking and swearing.

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

The “Business Case Study” seems to have changed in the Gold Coast LR 2nd Stage:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/queensland/gold-coast-light-rail-extension-tenders-open-20150930-gjyl78.html

The real determining factor is prejudice. Now that Abbott has gone round the S bend of history, transport and energy planning can get back on track, literally. Just as Mendelssohn was quietly put back on the German orchestral playlist after WWII.

Infrastructure Australia will suddenly be “discovering” new data to come to their diametrically different conclusions.

The Commonwealth Games is the only factor driving the extension of the Gold Coast light rail.
It is reminiscent of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games when Canberra slickered a couple of non-event soccer games which made it imperative to complete the dual lane divided Federal Highway all the way into Canberra from the Hume Highway turn off south of Goulburn.
This would ensure all the tourist and business spin-off that the Olympic games would generate would also come to Canberra.
Of course, it never happened and it won’t anywhere else.
When tram salesmen aren’t selling trams they are selling Olympic Games, World Cups or (running a distant third) Commonwealth Games.
These type of events have the potential to bankrupt states and even countries. Look at Greece for example.

Wrong yet again. The Commonwealth games is effecting the timing of the delivery of the extension, not the need for the extension. It was crazy that it never went to a train station in the first place. The extension is relatively simple, extend from the current terminus at the Hospital, over Olsen Ave then along Smith Street to the existing railway alignment. Two extra intermediate stops, plus the terminus at the station. Common sense.

PS most of the games events will be held away from the line anyway, though it will be useful to link the accommodation strip to the main line station.

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

Add the fuel I pump into it and it is still much less cost than public transport [$8.80 /day].

Wrong, both for the cost of keeping your old bomb on the road and for the cost of the public transport that you never use.

The same as the eternally made up figures you keep quoting on the LR in the hope that if you say it often enough the more impressionable out there will actually believe it.

Don’t know if you missed the opening paragraph from the link about light rail in Silicon Valley but in case you did:
“Less than 1 percent of Santa Clara County residents ride VTA light rail; the per-passenger round-trip operating cost is $11.74 and taxpayers subsidize 85 percent of costs — third and second worst in the country, respectively. There are problems with measuring costs per passenger mile on light rail, but ouch.”
The point is that California, like Canberra, is where private car transit is the most popular, convenient and practical form of transport. The social engineering experiment that our current Labor/Green minority government is forcing on us will deliver the same outcome as the one “servicing” Silicon Valley.
You can look for the fifth leg on the cat as much as you like but when the chickens come home to roost the situation will be the same.

For one light rail in the US, is a little bit heavier than what we in Australia and Europe consider light rail to be. What we call light rail the US calls street cars.

Your right California and Canberra do have a car centric mentality, however one would think that is all the more reason to actually try something new to try and break that mentality.

In Los Angeles for example they have been building up their light rail network (which again will say is heavier than what is proposed for Canberra) and it is working. In Canberra if there is one opportunity to break the mentality then the Northborne Ave/Flemmington road corridor is the place to do it. If we don’t we may as well all just bury our heads in the sand and complain for years to come about traffic and just accept it as saying it has always been this way and will never change.

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

The “Business Case Study” seems to have changed in the Gold Coast LR 2nd Stage:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/queensland/gold-coast-light-rail-extension-tenders-open-20150930-gjyl78.html

The real determining factor is prejudice. Now that Abbott has gone round the S bend of history, transport and energy planning can get back on track, literally. Just as Mendelssohn was quietly put back on the German orchestral playlist after WWII.

Infrastructure Australia will suddenly be “discovering” new data to come to their diametrically different conclusions.

The Commonwealth Games is the only factor driving the extension of the Gold Coast light rail.
It is reminiscent of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games when Canberra slickered a couple of non-event soccer games which made it imperative to complete the dual lane divided Federal Highway all the way into Canberra from the Hume Highway turn off south of Goulburn.

But surely you don’t consider the actual outcome of a dual lane Federal Highway a bad thing? I’d like to think (albeit without any actual proof) that past and present Federal governments have a strategy that goes beyond obvious craven opportunism.

Was it a pork barrelling for a NSW Lib government or just a marginal seat? I don’t have time to do some investigation.

It’s spring time, I don’t know anybody who would prefer to sit in an air-conditioned, closed off public transport box full of snot, drivel and junkies. Window down, arm on the window sill and a slow cruise home from work is far more relaxing.

rubaiyat said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

Add the fuel I pump into it and it is still much less cost than public transport [$8.80 /day].

Wrong, both for the cost of keeping your old bomb on the road and for the cost of the public transport that you never use.

The same as the eternally made up figures you keep quoting on the LR in the hope that if you say it often enough the more impressionable out there will actually believe it.

Don’t know if you missed the opening paragraph from the link about light rail in Silicon Valley but in case you did:
“Less than 1 percent of Santa Clara County residents ride VTA light rail; the per-passenger round-trip operating cost is $11.74 and taxpayers subsidize 85 percent of costs — third and second worst in the country, respectively. There are problems with measuring costs per passenger mile on light rail, but ouch.”
The point is that California, like Canberra, is where private car transit is the most popular, convenient and practical form of transport. The social engineering experiment that our current Labor/Green minority government is forcing on us will deliver the same outcome as the one “servicing” Silicon Valley.
You can look for the fifth leg on the cat as much as you like but when the chickens come home to roost the situation will be the same.

wildturkeycanoe said :

Add the fuel I pump into it and it is still much less cost than public transport [$8.80 /day].

Wrong, both for the cost of keeping your old bomb on the road and for the cost of the public transport that you never use.

The same as the eternally made up figures you keep quoting on the LR in the hope that if you say it often enough the more impressionable out there will actually believe it.

rubaiyat said :

The “Business Case Study” seems to have changed in the Gold Coast LR 2nd Stage:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/queensland/gold-coast-light-rail-extension-tenders-open-20150930-gjyl78.html

The real determining factor is prejudice. Now that Abbott has gone round the S bend of history, transport and energy planning can get back on track, literally. Just as Mendelssohn was quietly put back on the German orchestral playlist after WWII.

Infrastructure Australia will suddenly be “discovering” new data to come to their diametrically different conclusions.

The Commonwealth Games is the only factor driving the extension of the Gold Coast light rail.
It is reminiscent of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games when Canberra slickered a couple of non-event soccer games which made it imperative to complete the dual lane divided Federal Highway all the way into Canberra from the Hume Highway turn off south of Goulburn.
This would ensure all the tourist and business spin-off that the Olympic games would generate would also come to Canberra.
Of course, it never happened and it won’t anywhere else.
When tram salesmen aren’t selling trams they are selling Olympic Games, World Cups or (running a distant third) Commonwealth Games.
These type of events have the potential to bankrupt states and even countries. Look at Greece for example.

wildturkeycanoe said :

“You also perpetually ignore the environmental cost of your choice, so I gather you don’t give a stuff, as most drivers don’t.”
Spot on. You cannot make everyone believe the global warming hype.

“Nor what you park on.” Why should I care about the gravel my car sits on.

We guessed you “Are not a scientist but…”

…and that was green space before you turned it into gravel. Thanks!

miz said :

…I hate to think…. .

There’s your quick summary.

miz said :

Perhaps resident light rail marketeer Rubaiyat has those figures.

You don’t need them, “Just is!”

The “Business Case Study” seems to have changed in the Gold Coast LR 2nd Stage:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/queensland/gold-coast-light-rail-extension-tenders-open-20150930-gjyl78.html

The real determining factor is prejudice. Now that Abbott has gone round the S bend of history, transport and energy planning can get back on track, literally. Just as Mendelssohn was quietly put back on the German orchestral playlist after WWII.

Infrastructure Australia will suddenly be “discovering” new data to come to their diametrically different conclusions.

Crackerpants, you hit the nail on the head. It’s all about time. We are a time-poor society, and people weigh up travel choices based on how much time it will cost them and the cost to the hip pocket.
I have observed that in general, people are prepared to accept some ‘time sacrifice’ in relation to public transport, particularly if it does not affect other members of their family (i.e. they are the sole traveller or only have a single journey with minimal transfer involved). However, there are clear limits. Eg, if you are a cyclist, you may choose not to ride in the rain. If you have three drop offs, you may decide to drive as it is pointless even trying to work out how to do it by public transport (particularly after hours and on weekends, because of the lengthy travel time will eat into your limited and valuable time off). Canberra is also prone to extreme weather – very hot and windy in summer, and very cold and windy in winter. Sometimes you just want to be in your car with the air con on.
The unfortunate tram proposal is already doomed as it duplicates existing bus services (excellent, BTW – already the best bus service in Canberra) without even attempting to be faster than those services. Presumably it will cost a lot of other people a lot more time when their current direct Xpresso routes are cut and they are forced to transfer to the light rail to make the light rail look like it is being used and to help pay for it.
Not to mention it will cost a fortune to every Canberran in ongoing rates and charges, and will severely impact Civic businesses and general Northbourne amenity. Obvious really. The only people who can’t see this are those who ‘will not’ see because they are convinced (deluded) by their own mantras.
I would not have minded a light rail if it was going to work. But it’s not. And I hate to think what it is already costing us before a single track has been laid. (Perhaps resident light rail marketeer Rubaiyat has those figures).

rubaiyat said :

We are facing yet another record deficit of $3.1 billion due mainly to government policy.

We have had nothing but bad Free Trade Agreements struck up by the Liberals and Nationals, and have just signed up to yet another.

The Liberals and Nationals are convinced that Australia is good for nothing else but digging holes and sheering sheep.

They began a policy of “deregulation” with the Howard government that took skilled jobs away from Australians and Australian companies and handed them over on a platter to foreign companies, mostly American. In return the Americans overcharged us once they got a stranglehold on our business and blocked us directly or with their subsidies from competing where we could with American businesses and agriculture. They are still doing it in the latest TPP.

Australians have had to go to America to work because the Liberals deliberately exported our jobs there. As they have said, they’d like to come back here but their shovel and sheering skills just aren’t up to scratch.

All this positive Can-Do attitude is laid out before you in these forums. No matter how much Canberra grows, most want to keep our small minded roots.

Thank you all the proud patriotic Australians who say we can’t do anything and bow and scrape to our great and powerful friends who dictate to us what we can or can’t do and what crumbs they will let fall down from their table. We will be reduced to hand crafted beggar bowls as one major industry after another flees our shores.

Expect your children to be Skyping from California and your grandchildren wishing you Happy Halloween.

Good on ya Howie! Job well done.

How is any of this dribble relevant to the discussion?

“People can choose to use it, sitting in comfort and getting some work done, or reading or whatever they want. Or they can sit fuming in their cars, polluting, having unnecessary accidents, ruining their health and their planet, because it is not going to get better.”
Yes, people can choose and probably will continue to choose to drive after the tram is in service. There are a hundred reasons why so all the facts in the world won’t change that.

“Despite the massive amounts of money they personally throw down the drain on cars, followed by the massive amounts of money the taxpayer has to throw away and continue to throw away to subsidise their habit.”
I can guarantee you I do not throw massive amounts of money at my vehicle. At $900 it was a bargain and will not have lost much value at all by the time I depart with it. Registration of $900 a year and insurance of $216 is just a smidge over $3/day. Add the fuel I pump into it and it is still much less cost than public transport [$8.80 /day]. All this plus the convenience of independence.

“You like many others don’t know what you are actually spending on simply getting around, particularly commuting to work, and you want to keep it that way. Ignorance is bliss.”
I know exactly how much I put into my car, not much at all. It is economical and has saved me an absolute fortune on what public transport would have hit me with. I don’t commute regularly as I haven’t worked for the last 9 months. I also can’t access the bus network thanks to a bad back and the distance to the nearest bus stop. That and the uncomfortable seats which aggravate my injury make vehicle ownership essential.

“You also perpetually ignore the environmental cost of your choice, so I gather you don’t give a stuff, as most drivers don’t.”
Spot on. You cannot make everyone believe the global warming hype.

“Nor what you park on.” Why should I care about the gravel my car sits on.

“Nor what you are doing to where you and others live. Nor what you are doing to the surrounding country by paving it with dull but extremely crowded and bloated suburbia that then all piles into cars and tries to cram into the same destinations too far away and dump their 2 tonne ticket to “freedom” there.”
My 1 tonne freedom machine gets me to the mountains to go fishing, down the coast for a holiday, to my parents interstate for a visit. Without it I’d be confined to the Canberra city limits. Boring.
You talk about getting people to move to the city to avoid commuting but then call the suburbs crowded? People move to the suburbs to get away from the cramped city lifestyle. Bit of a contradiction in your description. If they didn’t drive, how would expect these “crowds” to get to the city, the infrastructure simply wouldn’t support it?

“…and can’t figure out what happened to your life. Why the air tastes funny, you are packing on the kilos and you can’t sleep at night because of the traffic.”
The air is clean, I have time to do regular exercise thanks to not spending all day in a bus and sleep very well in outer suburbia where there is very little traffic. All the traffic noise is on Northbourne.

“…and why you are sitting fuming in traffic along with everyone else, all alone because you have the sad notion that it is just you, and it is everyone else who should be somewhere else. You can daydream away as you sit there in your “Bait and Switch” that somehow, someday, in an alternate universe, cars will mysteriously actually become those “tickets to ride” that you were promised when you put out all that money for them.”
I love driving whether it is in traffic or out on the open road, cranking up the tunes and reveling in the feeling of the power at my toes. I may not be all alone as I could have the kids with me, my partner or a friend. Perhaps I like being all alone? That beats sitting in a crammed sardine can with a hundred other strangers sneezing and coughing, sweating because the air con isn’t switched on and putting up with some atrocious body odor. Then I’m constantly double checking which series of buses I need to board and which platforms or stops they depart from so that I don’t miss one and end up late or having to wait in the hot sun or drizzling rain for 20 minutes for the next one.

“When you finally get to work you can work a good chunk of your day just to support your car and the mortgage in the far flung suburbia that trashed the countryside you were promised would complete your life.”
Mortgages in the suburbs are more affordable and greener than those cramped apartments in the “high density corridor” that keeps being thrown around. Give me a nice sized backyard over several flights of stairs and noise coming through the walls any day.

“…or you can drag yourself out of the “Can’t Change Anything” mindset and choose something else.”
Why would I change when what I have is perfect?

Rotten_berry said :

The problem with Australian industry (or lack thereof) is not a lack of trams.

Note that Silicon Valley formed on low-cost land enabled by sprawl. Unfortunately, in Australia we have neither cheap urban land (anymore, we used to) nor good public transport.

Lots of things lead to success.

Attitude is one. Unremitting, uneducated objections to any change is not.

I think you give so much away that you think it was “low-cost land” (it isn’t) that formed Silicon Valley’s success.

It was the proximity to Stanford University, in particular to its Engineering School and Dean, Frederick Terman, who wanted to challenge the East Coast’s dominance over the new territories of the West, to which end he encouraged his students to start their own local enterprises.

When William Shockley, one of the creators of the transistor, moved to Palo Alto because his mother lived there, the transistor kicked off all the subsequent innovations and major companies that gave Silicon Valley its name.

After the war the CSIRO put up 3 major areas of research to the Liberal Government, one of which was computing, which we already had a head start in, but it was rejected in favour of the other 2 (agricultural) projects. This began a trend, which the Liberals have unfailingly followed ever since, probably due to a deep suspicion of anyone who thinks for a living, and a total non comprehension of what raw research leads to.

This post should be retitled “A War on Vision?”

We agree on the second point.

Australia does better than America on Public Transport, but NOT in Canberra.

Canberra is a University town, we have 4 major Higher Educational institutions here and it is our second biggest employer. We do not do a great job of tying the researchers into our community and opportunities. Easy movement of students would help, as it has in Oxford and Cambridge.

The A.C.T. should also turn neighbouring suburbs of the institutions into entrepreneurial localities, not keep them residential.

I look forward to the day the A.C.T. public demand and celebrate an intellectual edifice the way they do sports fields.

The problem with Australian industry (or lack thereof) is not a lack of trams.

Note that Silicon Valley formed on low-cost land enabled by sprawl. Unfortunately, in Australia we have neither cheap urban land (anymore, we used to) nor good public transport. The inflation in land costs really got going in the mid 90s; about the time that urban consolidation and vilification of sprawl become fashionable. Who would have thought that trying to put more people into the existing urban footprint would drive up the price of land. California has gone down the same path as Australia, and the people and job flow is now out of Calif and into the cheap sprawly plains of Texas.

BTW I don’t think places like Houston represent the ideal urban form, but traditional Australian suburbia is not US suburbia. Little things like local shops, walkways to improve connectivity for pedestrians and cyclists (especially cul-de-sacs – the yanks make them walking dead ends!), and plenty of parks make a big difference. Some of the new stuff with big houses on little tiny blocks is ghastly though. They don’t make them like they used to.

As a rambling aside I have always disliked the terms “sprawl” and “consolidation” in this context. They are products of social engineering, the former designed to produce negative feelings; the later to imply strengthening and rationalisation. More neutral terms would be “expansion” and “densification”. People never seem to consider their own houses “sprawl”, only those of others!

I really am sick of being lied to and nobody paying any attention.

I had a brief discussion with someone from Finance at lunch the other day, over their “Studies” and “Business Cases” that they painfully work over for such long periods. They talk as if the studies are written by God and all you need do is recite them every Sunday morning.

I asked if anyone does Post Mortems to see how accurate their predictions are, or even if the basic premise worked. She quickly changed the subject, so I am guessing: NO they don’t.

I got the strong impression that nobody furthers their career in Finance questioning anything, and having decided the Emperor’s trousers are lined with gold, actually examining them to find they don’t exist is not Playing the Team.

If anyone is interested I HAVE gone back and analysed all our past “Free” Trade Agreements.

In every single case except the Australia New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement (ANZCERTA) it as if we flicked a switch into the red, most cases massively.

When I see Warren Truss or his successors proudly waving the latest of these “proud outcomes” I think of Neville Chamberlain and his Peace of Paper.

We are facing yet another record deficit of $3.1 billion due mainly to government policy.

We have had nothing but bad Free Trade Agreements struck up by the Liberals and Nationals, and have just signed up to yet another.

The Liberals and Nationals are convinced that Australia is good for nothing else but digging holes and sheering sheep.

They began a policy of “deregulation” with the Howard government that took skilled jobs away from Australians and Australian companies and handed them over on a platter to foreign companies, mostly American. In return the Americans overcharged us once they got a stranglehold on our business and blocked us directly or with their subsidies from competing where we could with American businesses and agriculture. They are still doing it in the latest TPP.

Australians have had to go to America to work because the Liberals deliberately exported our jobs there. As they have said, they’d like to come back here but their shovel and sheering skills just aren’t up to scratch.

All this positive Can-Do attitude is laid out before you in these forums. No matter how much Canberra grows, most want to keep our small minded roots.

Thank you all the proud patriotic Australians who say we can’t do anything and bow and scrape to our great and powerful friends who dictate to us what we can or can’t do and what crumbs they will let fall down from their table. We will be reduced to hand crafted beggar bowls as one major industry after another flees our shores.

Expect your children to be Skyping from California and your grandchildren wishing you Happy Halloween.

Good on ya Howie! Job well done.

dungfungus said :

Andrew Barr is visiting Silicon Valley this week – apparently he plans to make Canberra similar.
Well, Canberra will have the light rail like Silicon Valley but I don’t think it is the outcome he was wishing for.
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2013/01/silicon-valley-cant-get-transit-right/4374/
I can’t wait until he returns and tells us all how great light rail is over there.

In the immortal words of Darryl Kerrigan, tell him he’s dreaming.

This interesting interview, with a very impressive interviewee, should make it clear to all but the most starry-eyed, that Canberra is going to remain Red Tape Valley for quite some time to come – we’ll have our niches, as we do now, but much more than that is unlikely:

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2015/s4322092.htm

Nilrem said :

HiddenDragon said :

rubaiyat said :

Jordania said :

Can’t be bothered reading all the pro/con/or just plain carping comments but I will add my voice to that of any sane person who wants to complain about Canberra public transport. Have been away from Canberra for a few years and have returned to a far less useful and passenger friendly bus service. I don’t know why the government, and/or their minions at ACTION, can’t seem to grasp the basic principle that in order to discourage the use of cars one must provide a viable AND ATTRACTIVE alternative. Stonkingly enormous parking charges aren’t going to discourage drivers; fewer car parks aren’t going to discourage drivers. But if the drivers were offered a bus service that picked them up at a stop relatively close to their homes and dropped them at a stop relatively close to their work; if the bus service were affordable; if the buses ran more frequently at night and weekends then people might be more inclined to catch the bus. And why on earth does Canberra still run those humongous buses all day and into the night? Can’t they invest in smaller buses to travel on less popular routes or at times of less demand and save the big’uns for peak demand times? Just sayin ….

Thanks for the fresh view.

There are three very simple reasons why we don’t have the smaller more frequent buses:

1. Our fleet is very old and from when they hadn’t thought about it (see above)

2. It is almost impossible to get drivers anywhere in Australia let alone in Canberra, due to the lack of imagination and lack of investment in public transport.

3. Cut backs in public transport have lead to less routes, less often and more circuitous, which has lead to buses being less attractive with less passengers, start cycle all over again.

There are some simple remedies.

1. Full dedicated express routes running the entire length of the route, not merging into regular lanes.

2. Run the buses at top speed, so passengers not only get there faster they do so with less buses, more frequently.

3. Orienting the drop off and pick up points closer to the actual destinations with through transit, not looping around badly laid out bus terminuses that act like they are all the end points of the destination.

4. Co-ordinate the feeder buses to arrive before the next more frequent express bus so that a quick change over can happen.

5. Provide a mobile App that actually uses the GPS data from the buses to tell of approaching buses and times and whether they actually are running. Week before last I got caught trying twice, the local bus didn’t show or was over 5 minutes early and when I walked to the next route over a kilometre away that bus never showed up at all despite my waiting 25 minutes. It would have been faster if I had simply walked to the destination, which is what I eventually did, arriving quarter an hour late.

But all of these are patches on an unpleasant, unreliable and polluting form of public transport.

FIX THE PLAN. Canberra’s “Town Plan” has been a schmozzle, put together and/or subverted by inept, incompetent, self serving public servants who have made odd and mysterious “exceptions” to even their own supposed “plans” not plan. Public Servants who can not find the sun in our bright blue skies if their lives depended on it and who are so bereft of ideas that they just try to copy first the dull British New Towns then American freeways/suburbia, then both together. Never ever planning public transport into any of it, right up to today.

Canberra does not have a huge population. It is a city now but just has the population of a major city’s municipal area. It can be contained in a much more compact area with excellent facilities, lifestyle and quick responsive transport, if it wasn’t for the pressure on the A.C.T. government and its developer friends to constantly speculate on new land releases further and further from the centre, eating up more and more countryside, environment and people’s lives.

We need a sharp turn in a new direction but frankly I can not see either the imagination nor the stomach for it in the bureaucracy, politicians or the population who are an extraordinarily unthinking lot. Even amongst the growing but small environmental thinking citizens I find an enormous ignorance of what is actual good design for climate.

Does anyone (someone who cares) have any ideas how we can ACTUALLY change, instead of just mouthing intentions that no-one keeps?

It would be lovely, it truly would, to live in the Canberra that might have been – but a tramline between Civic and some of the northern suburbs is not going to make that happen.

With a tramline, Canberra will still be the same technocratic, managerialist, careerist, hierarchical and primly politically correct place that it is, and for some decades has been – it will just have an even more worrying public sector balance sheet. There might be a few more little enclaves of ersatz bohemianism and bonsai cosmopolitanism, amidst the hoped-for proliferation of whack ’em up fast apartments and commercial buildings, but the place will still be overwhelmingly stolid and suburban, and the notion of the “coolest little capital” will simply remain a three word slogan.

I love the way you write. I hope you are wrong.

Merci!

Believe it or not, I hope so too (that I am wrong on this subject). One way or another, I think this probably will go ahead and will prove to be a very big, very expensive mistake – but it would be great if it turned out otherwise.

dungfungus said :

Andrew Barr is visiting Silicon Valley this week – apparently he plans to make Canberra similar.
Well, Canberra will have the light rail like Silicon Valley but I don’t think it is the outcome he was wishing for.
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2013/01/silicon-valley-cant-get-transit-right/4374/
I can’t wait until he returns and tells us all how great light rail is over there.

Glad to see you are still with us dungfungus.

As the article says:

“The industry that liberated millions from the tyranny of distance remains mired in its own desperately car-dependent world of corporate campuses, where being too-far-to-walk from a Caltrain station — and from anything else of interest — is almost a point of pride.”

If you’ve been to Silicon Valley you can see what the problem is. Disconnected Public Transport in the USA is no accident in my view. Many hands work at making it fail.

It is the flight from cities. It is no longer legal to segregate in the USA so they do it by moving to distant suburbs that the black and Latinos can’t afford, and are unwelcome. Bad public transport keeps them at arms length.

87 comments in, and the point was missed a couple of pages back. Rubaiyat, I agree with your overall sentiment, but longer posts with more and more statistics and what I will diplomatically call “extrapolations”, along with increasingly dire visions of a dystopian future that would have Margaret Atwood quaking, do miss the point. Which I believe was about families, and the fact that a mode shift is anti-family. That is to say, unrealistic.

We know how much it costs to drive. Any way you slice it, it’s a lot of money. What you’re missing is that we don’t care. We accept the costs. Because there is no public transport available, now or in the not-to-distant future, that would allow us, as a family, the ability to attend work, school, daycare, or anything else, let alone live with any degree of spontaneity. (Take 3 kids under 7 to the Green Shed then Yarralumla Nursery then the park in an afternoon? Nope.) Our lives would be completely dictated by someone else’s schedule, and most activities we enjoy would be out of the question.

I used to get the bus as a single commuter/shopper. It was fine, even though I was commuting much greater distances than I do now.

The funny thing is, it’s not making us obese either. And that’s the catch-22 I suppose – by living a whole 6k from work, and an outrageous 7k from daycare – we can live in a quiet suburban area that allows us to go running on nature trails without needing to drive there, with a yard big enough to spend stupid amounts of time gardening, and that’s the crazy bit. By driving where we need to, when we need to, we actually have time to look after ourselves and enjoy our lives, and teach our kids how to respect and care for nature.

Now you can pick apart my family’s lifestyle to the nth degree, point out all the things we must be doing wrong, “in my day” etc etc. It’s the RiotACT tradition after all. I support the idea of public transport, even at a big cost now to save future environmental degradation. But until the kids are off doing their own thing (in which case I’d rather walk/run the 6k to work), or we move to Gunghalin (and you couldn’t pay me to do that), light rail, or any other form of public transport, will not help us in any way.

Maya123 said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

Now travel along Melbourne’s Tram routes and see streets lined with shops, restaurants and housing and above all people. Clean, handy, pleasant and relatively quiet transport fosters life and activity, it is like a tonic or fertiliser spread along the route.

Melbourne is not Canberra. Canberra’s central shopping and business district does not have hundreds of thousands of locals and tourists flooding it. Apples and oranges my friend, how can you compare us to them? Also, Melbourne’s tram network has been built over a century, whereas we are only just beginning. It services a much larger population, as does the gold coast with its over half a million not including the tourists, which Canberra will never attract in as many numbers.
In time Canberra may get large enough to sustain a mass transit system, many would say that developing it now would be sensible instead of waiting for that to happen. It may also crash and burn, with the cost and failure of the network imminent whilst the population is too small to keep it viable. Sure they have projections of patronage, but since when has a government projection been accurate? Completion times on most projects end up running on for up to many years over the estimated date.
When people realize that the tram gets them to work no faster than previous bus systems and their own vehicles, they will ditch it. Without express services that can overtake the trams that stop at every pick up point on the route, the benefits of such a system will be outweighed by the need to get to one’s destination as quickly as possible. Why do you think people in cars are so agitated? They are trying to get somewhere on time, thanks to the “hurry, hurry” nature of our society. If urgency wasn’t an important requirement we’d have much better patronage of our bus network.
Alas, purely for the sake of trying to be a “Global City”, Canberra will bankrupt itself with another white elephant.

As my first attempt to answer this appeared to have been censored; nothing inflammatory that I could see, here is a slightly modified answer.

“They are trying to get somewhere on time, thanks to the “hurry, hurry” nature of our society. If urgency wasn’t an important requirement we’d have much better patronage of our bus network.”

Many people still won’t catch buses, even when the bus is quicker than the combination of driving there and finding a park. I had a neighbour like that. Nearby bus, 15 minutes to work over an almost direct bus route, but she still drove to work every day. When I mentioned how convenient the buses are, she looked at me with a shocked expression, and exclaimed, “I don’t catch buses.” Which came across as, oh the horror of me suggesting such a demeaning thing!!!
Someone else once complained about how bad it was to drive to civic and find a park, when he wanted to visit the library. His bus stopped right outside the library, but still he had not considered it a mode of transport for him.

I have had the strangest censorships.

One all I mentioned was that there was a beautifully designed shopfront library in Kingston, and it disappeared. Along with a lot of posts where I gave detailed, researched replies to what were plainly untrue assertions.

We can feel lucky when something actually does get through I suppose.

I ran a technical forum for years and always let everything through except spam. It’s not for me to decree what someone else can say, no matter how dumb or sometimes directed at me.

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

Nobody is double counting the sustainable energy, and we are well on the path to converting from coal.
“

If the Little Black Rock website is anything to go by, “The Department of Industry and Science reports that there are around 60 coal-related projects being explored, which together could provide over 58,000 new construction and mining jobs in the future. In addition, 15 coal mining projects were completed in the two years to April 2015, adding a production capacity of about 57 million tonnes.”
It doesn’t look like a path away from coal at all.

It sure looks like a path towards coal companies going bankrupt as the market falls out from under them.

How odd that how the Little Black Rock website isn’t bragging how many real (not made up) workers are being sacked.

Unemployment for mining professionals is now hitting 16.2% and growing rapidly.

https://www.ausimm.com.au/content/docs/policy/double-digit_unemployment_for_minerals_professionals_08092014.pdf

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-30/unemployment-in-mining-workforce-three-times-average-report/6815454

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

Now travel along Melbourne’s Tram routes and see streets lined with shops, restaurants and housing and above all people. Clean, handy, pleasant and relatively quiet transport fosters life and activity, it is like a tonic or fertiliser spread along the route.

Melbourne is not Canberra. Canberra’s central shopping and business district does not have hundreds of thousands of locals and tourists flooding it. Apples and oranges my friend, how can you compare us to them? Also, Melbourne’s tram network has been built over a century, whereas we are only just beginning. It services a much larger population, as does the gold coast with its over half a million not including the tourists, which Canberra will never attract in as many numbers.
In time Canberra may get large enough to sustain a mass transit system, many would say that developing it now would be sensible instead of waiting for that to happen. It may also crash and burn, with the cost and failure of the network imminent whilst the population is too small to keep it viable. Sure they have projections of patronage, but since when has a government projection been accurate? Completion times on most projects end up running on for up to many years over the estimated date.
When people realize that the tram gets them to work no faster than previous bus systems and their own vehicles, they will ditch it. Without express services that can overtake the trams that stop at every pick up point on the route, the benefits of such a system will be outweighed by the need to get to one’s destination as quickly as possible. Why do you think people in cars are so agitated? They are trying to get somewhere on time, thanks to the “hurry, hurry” nature of our society. If urgency wasn’t an important requirement we’d have much better patronage of our bus network.
Alas, purely for the sake of trying to be a “Global City”, Canberra will bankrupt itself with another white elephant.

We keep going over and over the same broken record.

Canberra is Canberra, it can be anything it wants to be, including Canberra with a tram. A Canberra with 4.75 million visitors a year on top of a large number of office workers commuting to work. A Canberra with a high density central corridor serviced by a clean, sustainable and pleasant transport system.

As you can see from my calculations it works out not only clean and sustainable but actually the cheapest option over its life. People can choose to use it, sitting in comfort and getting some work done, or reading or whatever they want. Or they can sit fuming in their cars, polluting, having unnecessary accidents, ruining their health and their planet, because it is not going to get better. Despite the massive amounts of money they personally throw down the drain on cars, followed by the massive amounts of money the taxpayer has to throw away and continue to throw away to subsidise their habit.

As to governments getting the patronage wrong, the Gold Coast did, they underestimated the patronage which is steadily growing with demands from the LNP Mayor, who was against it, to extend it.

You like many others don’t know what you are actually spending on simply getting around, particularly commuting to work, and you want to keep it that way. Ignorance is bliss. You also perpetually ignore the environmental cost of your choice, so I gather you don’t give a stuff, as most drivers don’t. Nor what you park on. Nor what you are doing to where you and others live. Nor what you are doing to the surrounding country by paving it with dull but extremely crowded and bloated suburbia that then all piles into cars and tries to cram into the same destinations too far away and dump their 2 tonne ticket to “freedom” there.

…and can’t figure out what happened to your life. Why the air tastes funny, you are packing on the kilos and you can’t sleep at night because of the traffic.

…and why you are sitting fuming in traffic along with everyone else, all alone because you have the sad notion that it is just you, and it is everyone else who should be somewhere else. You can daydream away as you sit there in your “Bait and Switch” that somehow, someday, in an alternate universe, cars will mysteriously actually become those “tickets to ride” that you were promised when you put out all that money for them.

When you finally get to work you can work a good chunk of your day just to support your car and the mortgage in the far flung suburbia that trashed the countryside you were promised would complete your life.

…or you can drag yourself out of the “Can’t Change Anything” mindset and choose something else.

If Canberra’s different, how did it actually get that way?

Andrew Barr is visiting Silicon Valley this week – apparently he plans to make Canberra similar.
Well, Canberra will have the light rail like Silicon Valley but I don’t think it is the outcome he was wishing for.
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2013/01/silicon-valley-cant-get-transit-right/4374/
I can’t wait until he returns and tells us all how great light rail is over there.

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

Now travel along Melbourne’s Tram routes and see streets lined with shops, restaurants and housing and above all people. Clean, handy, pleasant and relatively quiet transport fosters life and activity, it is like a tonic or fertiliser spread along the route.

Melbourne is not Canberra. Canberra’s central shopping and business district does not have hundreds of thousands of locals and tourists flooding it. Apples and oranges my friend, how can you compare us to them? Also, Melbourne’s tram network has been built over a century, whereas we are only just beginning. It services a much larger population, as does the gold coast with its over half a million not including the tourists, which Canberra will never attract in as many numbers.
In time Canberra may get large enough to sustain a mass transit system, many would say that developing it now would be sensible instead of waiting for that to happen. It may also crash and burn, with the cost and failure of the network imminent whilst the population is too small to keep it viable. Sure they have projections of patronage, but since when has a government projection been accurate? Completion times on most projects end up running on for up to many years over the estimated date.
When people realize that the tram gets them to work no faster than previous bus systems and their own vehicles, they will ditch it. Without express services that can overtake the trams that stop at every pick up point on the route, the benefits of such a system will be outweighed by the need to get to one’s destination as quickly as possible. Why do you think people in cars are so agitated? They are trying to get somewhere on time, thanks to the “hurry, hurry” nature of our society. If urgency wasn’t an important requirement we’d have much better patronage of our bus network.
Alas, purely for the sake of trying to be a “Global City”, Canberra will bankrupt itself with another white elephant.

As my first attempt to answer this appeared to have been censored; nothing inflammatory that I could see, here is a slightly modified answer.

“They are trying to get somewhere on time, thanks to the “hurry, hurry” nature of our society. If urgency wasn’t an important requirement we’d have much better patronage of our bus network.”

Many people still won’t catch buses, even when the bus is quicker than the combination of driving there and finding a park. I had a neighbour like that. Nearby bus, 15 minutes to work over an almost direct bus route, but she still drove to work every day. When I mentioned how convenient the buses are, she looked at me with a shocked expression, and exclaimed, “I don’t catch buses.” Which came across as, oh the horror of me suggesting such a demeaning thing!!!
Someone else once complained about how bad it was to drive to civic and find a park, when he wanted to visit the library. His bus stopped right outside the library, but still he had not considered it a mode of transport for him.

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

Now travel along Melbourne’s Tram routes and see streets lined with shops, restaurants and housing and above all people. Clean, handy, pleasant and relatively quiet transport fosters life and activity, it is like a tonic or fertiliser spread along the route.

Melbourne is not Canberra. Canberra’s central shopping and business district does not have hundreds of thousands of locals and tourists flooding it. Apples and oranges my friend, how can you compare us to them? Also, Melbourne’s tram network has been built over a century, whereas we are only just beginning. It services a much larger population, as does the gold coast with its over half a million not including the tourists, which Canberra will never attract in as many numbers.
In time Canberra may get large enough to sustain a mass transit system, many would say that developing it now would be sensible instead of waiting for that to happen. It may also crash and burn, with the cost and failure of the network imminent whilst the population is too small to keep it viable. Sure they have projections of patronage, but since when has a government projection been accurate? Completion times on most projects end up running on for up to many years over the estimated date.
When people realize that the tram gets them to work no faster than previous bus systems and their own vehicles, they will ditch it. Without express services that can overtake the trams that stop at every pick up point on the route, the benefits of such a system will be outweighed by the need to get to one’s destination as quickly as possible. Why do you think people in cars are so agitated? They are trying to get somewhere on time, thanks to the “hurry, hurry” nature of our society. If urgency wasn’t an important requirement we’d have much better patronage of our bus network.
Alas, purely for the sake of trying to be a “Global City”, Canberra will bankrupt itself with another white elephant.

“They are trying to get somewhere on time, thanks to the “hurry, hurry” nature of our society. If urgency wasn’t an important requirement we’d have much better patronage of our bus network.”

Many people still won’t catch buses, even when the bus is quicker than driving there and then finding a park. I had a neighbour like that. Nearby bus, 15 minutes to work over an almost direct bus route, but she still drove to work every day. When I mentioned how convenient the buses are, she looked at me with a shocked expression, and exclaimed, “I don’t catch buses.” Which came across as, oh the horror of me suggesting such a demeaning thing!!!
Someone else once complained about how bad it was to drive to civic and find a park, when he wanted to visit the library. His bus stopped right outside the library building for goodness sake!
No, no matter how convenient a bus is, some people won’t ‘demean’ themselves (in their lonely minds) and catch one.

wildturkeycanoe said :

Also, Melbourne’s tram network has been built over a century, whereas we are only just beginning. It services a much larger population, as does the gold coast

Raw population does not matter. Take Melbourne for example, it is a city of 4m odd people, yet the tramway network only services a fraction of the overall city. The same for the Gold Coast, it only services one corridor, the bulk of people live no where near it.

What is important however is the population density along the route, and as I and others keep saying the current and planned density along Northborne Ave and Flemmington road is is what makes light rail in Canberra viable, but only for that corridor and extensions to the main office areas in Canberra.

Elsewhere, say Woden, Tuggernaong or Belconnen no hope in hell.

HiddenDragon said :

rubaiyat said :

Jordania said :

Can’t be bothered reading all the pro/con/or just plain carping comments but I will add my voice to that of any sane person who wants to complain about Canberra public transport. Have been away from Canberra for a few years and have returned to a far less useful and passenger friendly bus service. I don’t know why the government, and/or their minions at ACTION, can’t seem to grasp the basic principle that in order to discourage the use of cars one must provide a viable AND ATTRACTIVE alternative. Stonkingly enormous parking charges aren’t going to discourage drivers; fewer car parks aren’t going to discourage drivers. But if the drivers were offered a bus service that picked them up at a stop relatively close to their homes and dropped them at a stop relatively close to their work; if the bus service were affordable; if the buses ran more frequently at night and weekends then people might be more inclined to catch the bus. And why on earth does Canberra still run those humongous buses all day and into the night? Can’t they invest in smaller buses to travel on less popular routes or at times of less demand and save the big’uns for peak demand times? Just sayin ….

Thanks for the fresh view.

There are three very simple reasons why we don’t have the smaller more frequent buses:

1. Our fleet is very old and from when they hadn’t thought about it (see above)

2. It is almost impossible to get drivers anywhere in Australia let alone in Canberra, due to the lack of imagination and lack of investment in public transport.

3. Cut backs in public transport have lead to less routes, less often and more circuitous, which has lead to buses being less attractive with less passengers, start cycle all over again.

There are some simple remedies.

1. Full dedicated express routes running the entire length of the route, not merging into regular lanes.

2. Run the buses at top speed, so passengers not only get there faster they do so with less buses, more frequently.

3. Orienting the drop off and pick up points closer to the actual destinations with through transit, not looping around badly laid out bus terminuses that act like they are all the end points of the destination.

4. Co-ordinate the feeder buses to arrive before the next more frequent express bus so that a quick change over can happen.

5. Provide a mobile App that actually uses the GPS data from the buses to tell of approaching buses and times and whether they actually are running. Week before last I got caught trying twice, the local bus didn’t show or was over 5 minutes early and when I walked to the next route over a kilometre away that bus never showed up at all despite my waiting 25 minutes. It would have been faster if I had simply walked to the destination, which is what I eventually did, arriving quarter an hour late.

But all of these are patches on an unpleasant, unreliable and polluting form of public transport.

FIX THE PLAN. Canberra’s “Town Plan” has been a schmozzle, put together and/or subverted by inept, incompetent, self serving public servants who have made odd and mysterious “exceptions” to even their own supposed “plans” not plan. Public Servants who can not find the sun in our bright blue skies if their lives depended on it and who are so bereft of ideas that they just try to copy first the dull British New Towns then American freeways/suburbia, then both together. Never ever planning public transport into any of it, right up to today.

Canberra does not have a huge population. It is a city now but just has the population of a major city’s municipal area. It can be contained in a much more compact area with excellent facilities, lifestyle and quick responsive transport, if it wasn’t for the pressure on the A.C.T. government and its developer friends to constantly speculate on new land releases further and further from the centre, eating up more and more countryside, environment and people’s lives.

We need a sharp turn in a new direction but frankly I can not see either the imagination nor the stomach for it in the bureaucracy, politicians or the population who are an extraordinarily unthinking lot. Even amongst the growing but small environmental thinking citizens I find an enormous ignorance of what is actual good design for climate.

Does anyone (someone who cares) have any ideas how we can ACTUALLY change, instead of just mouthing intentions that no-one keeps?

It would be lovely, it truly would, to live in the Canberra that might have been – but a tramline between Civic and some of the northern suburbs is not going to make that happen.

With a tramline, Canberra will still be the same technocratic, managerialist, careerist, hierarchical and primly politically correct place that it is, and for some decades has been – it will just have an even more worrying public sector balance sheet. There might be a few more little enclaves of ersatz bohemianism and bonsai cosmopolitanism, amidst the hoped-for proliferation of whack ’em up fast apartments and commercial buildings, but the place will still be overwhelmingly stolid and suburban, and the notion of the “coolest little capital” will simply remain a three word slogan.

I love the way you write. I hope you are wrong.

rubaiyat said :

Now travel along Melbourne’s Tram routes and see streets lined with shops, restaurants and housing and above all people. Clean, handy, pleasant and relatively quiet transport fosters life and activity, it is like a tonic or fertiliser spread along the route.

Melbourne is not Canberra. Canberra’s central shopping and business district does not have hundreds of thousands of locals and tourists flooding it. Apples and oranges my friend, how can you compare us to them? Also, Melbourne’s tram network has been built over a century, whereas we are only just beginning. It services a much larger population, as does the gold coast with its over half a million not including the tourists, which Canberra will never attract in as many numbers.
In time Canberra may get large enough to sustain a mass transit system, many would say that developing it now would be sensible instead of waiting for that to happen. It may also crash and burn, with the cost and failure of the network imminent whilst the population is too small to keep it viable. Sure they have projections of patronage, but since when has a government projection been accurate? Completion times on most projects end up running on for up to many years over the estimated date.
When people realize that the tram gets them to work no faster than previous bus systems and their own vehicles, they will ditch it. Without express services that can overtake the trams that stop at every pick up point on the route, the benefits of such a system will be outweighed by the need to get to one’s destination as quickly as possible. Why do you think people in cars are so agitated? They are trying to get somewhere on time, thanks to the “hurry, hurry” nature of our society. If urgency wasn’t an important requirement we’d have much better patronage of our bus network.
Alas, purely for the sake of trying to be a “Global City”, Canberra will bankrupt itself with another white elephant.

Rotten_berry said :

The trams in melbourne are great, but melbourne has 10x the population and much higher density in the central areas. Those vibrant tram streets still have plenty of cars, and they don’t seem to kill the street life. Sydney’s buses are pretty awful – they seem to have lots of really old ones that are loud enough to wake the dead. Some of Action’s newer buses are surprisingly quiet. JC, do you know which ones they are?

Would say they are the new Scania’s. Do they look like the new(ish) articulated buses? If so that would be them.

Rotten_berry said :

Those vibrant tram streets still have plenty of cars, and they don’t seem to kill the street life.

They cut down the cars dramatically where they run, and they sure as hell attract all the people who can use the streets without being tied to a car.

But keep on guessing why throughout the world, cars cars cars and urban desolation seem to go hand in hand. It is a total and utter mystery!

A mystery that more cars and more car parking at destinations are sure to fix!

Because “Canberra is different”.

Thankfully there is no requirement for freeways and cars to produce anything other than what they have always produced. Dull suburbia, urban rot and a trashed environment. All at huge expense.

HiddenDragon said :

This is not about my imagination, or, indeed, yours – it’s about the nature of this town, the forces that shape it, and the prospects of a tramline producing anything other than more of the same.

It’s a transport system from one Canberra Township to the Centre. Which it should do with clean sustainable and quiet technology. That will allow greater density to rise along its route closer to the centre. Greater density creates more interesting urban environment.

It obviously is unable to change the mental state of people whose greatest joy in life is to prevent any worthwhile change. i.e. The average Public Servant, as I observed them when contracting.

Obviously for complete miracle cures you need even more distant suburbia that requires expensive freeways which plow through everything in-between to mass all day “too expensive” parking where the jobs are. When they inevitably cause distress with the constant noise and fumes, line them with 3-4m high concrete walls so you can’t cross them or see them, but will still hear and smell them.

The trams in melbourne are great, but melbourne has 10x the population and much higher density in the central areas. Those vibrant tram streets still have plenty of cars, and they don’t seem to kill the street life. Sydney’s buses are pretty awful – they seem to have lots of really old ones that are loud enough to wake the dead. Some of Action’s newer buses are surprisingly quiet. JC, do you know which ones they are?

Canberra’s town centres have always been a bit funny and inward-looking. I think the lack of street life in many areas has more to do with the planning at the time than the lack of trams/presence of buses and cars. The pedestrian mall concept (as seen in civic and dickson) works ok in the day, but feels rather stabby at night. Flemington road was an attempt to move away from this but it doesn’t really have a consistent or pleasant streetscape. Maybe it will look better when (if) some trees and trams grow, but I’m not holding my breath. Some of the new apartment blocks look horrible too – soviet-style precast panel construction, with weird coloured panels tacked on and balconies sticking out awkwardly. Decent architecture and good construction quality and soundproofing would make the compactation cause more palatable. Light rail would be nice, but at this point it seems like a rather expensive decoration.

rubaiyat said :

HiddenDragon said :

It would be lovely, it truly would, to live in the Canberra that might have been – but a tramline between Civic and some of the northern suburbs is not going to make that happen.

With a tramline, Canberra will still be the same technocratic, managerialist, careerist, hierarchical and primly politically correct place that it is, and for some decades has been – it will just have an even more worrying public sector balance sheet. There might be a few more little enclaves of ersatz bohemianism and bonsai cosmopolitanism, amidst the hoped-for proliferation of whack ’em up fast apartments and commercial buildings, but the place will still be overwhelmingly stolid and suburban, and the notion of the “coolest little capital” will simply remain a three word slogan.

So what you are saying is you can’t imagine anything else.

Now can you tell me how you arrived at that?

When you look around you tell me what it is you see, let alone you actually foresaw, that is different, that is actually there.

That would be an interesting test of your prognostication skills, which it seems you are asking us to simply take as a fact.

This is not about my imagination, or, indeed, yours – it’s about the nature of this town, the forces that shape it, and the prospects of a tramline producing anything other than more of the same.

gooterz said :

rubaiyat said :

HiddenDragon said :

It would be lovely, it truly would, to live in the Canberra that might have been – but a tramline between Civic and some of the northern suburbs is not going to make that happen.

With a tramline, Canberra will still be the same technocratic, managerialist, careerist, hierarchical and primly politically correct place that it is, and for some decades has been – it will just have an even more worrying public sector balance sheet. There might be a few more little enclaves of ersatz bohemianism and bonsai cosmopolitanism, amidst the hoped-for proliferation of whack ’em up fast apartments and commercial buildings, but the place will still be overwhelmingly stolid and suburban, and the notion of the “coolest little capital” will simply remain a three word slogan.

So what you are saying is you can’t imagine anything else.

Now can you tell me how you arrived at that?

When you look around you tell me what it is you see, let alone you actually foresaw, that is different, that is actually there.

That would be an interesting test of your prognostication skills, which it seems you are asking us to simply take as a fact.

You seem to think that its either light rail or nothing. A very weak straw man.

How about investing in something to diversify the local economy. Something that will increase tourism (Tram doesn’t count).

Putting in light rail makes as much sense as charging for an action bus ride.

You seem to be confused as to what a “straw man” is.

Claiming that I see it as “light rail or nothing” which I never said and then arguing against that, THAT is a straw man.

My figures show it is the BEST transport option, not that it is the only option.

It is a cop-out false distraction to say “this money could be better spent on… [something else which you will ALSO object to}.

Canberra gets 4.75m visitors a year, many of whom stay in accomodation near or along the LR route. If tourists can move around better in a city that is notoriously visitor unfriendly and tourist accomodation springs up along the LR route, that’s good.

If an hotel is close to convenient, quiet, clean public transport, their rates go up.

If the hotel is next to a bust road or freeway they have to go on Groupon and hope their visitors don’t wise up.

btw Why aren’t you demanding freeways, “diversify the economy”.

Is passing an urban death sentence on all the property within sight, hearing and smell of freeways what you mean by “diversification”?

As to the last statement… I’m sorry, could you please tell us what on Earth you are talking about?

rosscoact said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

Nobody is double counting the sustainable energy, and we are well on the path to converting from coal.
“

If the Little Black Rock website is anything to go by, “The Department of Industry and Science reports that there are around 60 coal-related projects being explored, which together could provide over 58,000 new construction and mining jobs in the future. In addition, 15 coal mining projects were completed in the two years to April 2015, adding a production capacity of about 57 million tonnes.”
It doesn’t look like a path away from coal at all.

Quoting publicity sites for the coat industry doesn’t lend any credibility to your argument. It’s like the Adani claims of employment. Laughably exaggerated.

Just sayin.

😀 those damn coat industry publicity people…*coal*

wildturkeycanoe said :

rubaiyat said :

Nobody is double counting the sustainable energy, and we are well on the path to converting from coal.
“

If the Little Black Rock website is anything to go by, “The Department of Industry and Science reports that there are around 60 coal-related projects being explored, which together could provide over 58,000 new construction and mining jobs in the future. In addition, 15 coal mining projects were completed in the two years to April 2015, adding a production capacity of about 57 million tonnes.”
It doesn’t look like a path away from coal at all.

Quoting publicity sites for the coat industry doesn’t lend any credibility to your argument. It’s like the Adani claims of employment. Laughably exaggerated.

Just sayin.

rubaiyat said :

Nobody is double counting the sustainable energy, and we are well on the path to converting from coal.
“

If the Little Black Rock website is anything to go by, “The Department of Industry and Science reports that there are around 60 coal-related projects being explored, which together could provide over 58,000 new construction and mining jobs in the future. In addition, 15 coal mining projects were completed in the two years to April 2015, adding a production capacity of about 57 million tonnes.”
It doesn’t look like a path away from coal at all.

rubaiyat said :

JC said :

You might want to redo you figures. Your figures are total delivered, not total currently in service.

The Renault PR100.2 MKI fleet for example are now all gone.

So current fleet is:

Renault PR100.2 MKII = 100 in service (plus one training only bus)
PR100.3 = 34 (plus one training only bus)
Dart=8 in service (though they have 16 in storage)
Iris Agora= 19
Scania K320UB, only 40 of 77 ordered in service, another 37 to be delivered by mid 2017.

The rest your numbers are right.

But frankly overall the Canberra bus fleet from an age perspective is about right. Industry practice is to retire buses when they get to between 20-25 years of age. The PR100.2 MKII’s are the only ones close to this and are being progressively retired. To keep a constant flow of new buses, and keeping a max age of around 25, you need around 20 new buses per year (includes a few extras for growth). Guess how many new buses the get each year, yep around 20.

But when it comes to comparisons to light rail everything above is irrelevant anyway. History has shown people prefer light rail vehicles over a bus of any age.

I got the data from:

http://www.action.act.gov.au/About_ACTION/our_fleet

I take it you know something more than I do. Maybe there is a stack of old buses out the back that they have put up on gumtree, but nobody wants because ACTION has driven them into the ground.

I know I am riding on the stinky old rattlers. I’ll check which models they are next time.

The only thing that makes them tolerable is the drivers who are mostly very nice and considerate.

Murrays seems to change their fleet over much more frequently and sensibly works hard at filling their routes.

And yes you are absolutely right, put in Light Rail and people will fight to get on them, which of course is why we can not possibly ever put our foot in the door, because that would make the whole House of Cards argument against them, collapse.

rubaiyat said :

JC said :

You might want to redo you figures. Your figures are total delivered, not total currently in service.

The Renault PR100.2 MKI fleet for example are now all gone.

So current fleet is:

Renault PR100.2 MKII = 100 in service (plus one training only bus)
PR100.3 = 34 (plus one training only bus)
Dart=8 in service (though they have 16 in storage)
Iris Agora= 19
Scania K320UB, only 40 of 77 ordered in service, another 37 to be delivered by mid 2017.

The rest your numbers are right.

But frankly overall the Canberra bus fleet from an age perspective is about right. Industry practice is to retire buses when they get to between 20-25 years of age. The PR100.2 MKII’s are the only ones close to this and are being progressively retired. To keep a constant flow of new buses, and keeping a max age of around 25, you need around 20 new buses per year (includes a few extras for growth). Guess how many new buses the get each year, yep around 20.

But when it comes to comparisons to light rail everything above is irrelevant anyway. History has shown people prefer light rail vehicles over a bus of any age.

I got the data from:

http://www.action.act.gov.au/About_ACTION/our_fleet

I take it you know something more than I do. Maybe there is a stack of old buses out the back that they have put up on gumtree, but nobody wants because ACTION has driven them into the ground.

I know I am riding on the stinky old rattlers. I’ll check which models they are next time.

The only thing that makes them tolerable is the drivers who are mostly very nice and considerate.

Murrays seems to change their fleet over much more frequently and sensibly works hard at filling their routes.

And yes you are absolutely right, put in Light Rail and people will fight to get on them, which of course is why we can not possibly ever put our foot in the door, because that would make the whole House of Cards argument against them, collapse.

Yep all the MKI pr100.2 are gone and not out the back as you so put it. The only buses that are out the back are the darts. So that leaves the eldest buses as the PR100.2 MKII ( the one with the distinctive windscreen but have yellow flip dot destination signs) and the PR100.3’s which have the more curves front. They mostly only come out during the peaks which isn’t a surprise as that is why old buses are kept. No point rolling the felt over too early and not getting full return from those buses.

rubaiyat said :

HiddenDragon said :

It would be lovely, it truly would, to live in the Canberra that might have been – but a tramline between Civic and some of the northern suburbs is not going to make that happen.

With a tramline, Canberra will still be the same technocratic, managerialist, careerist, hierarchical and primly politically correct place that it is, and for some decades has been – it will just have an even more worrying public sector balance sheet. There might be a few more little enclaves of ersatz bohemianism and bonsai cosmopolitanism, amidst the hoped-for proliferation of whack ’em up fast apartments and commercial buildings, but the place will still be overwhelmingly stolid and suburban, and the notion of the “coolest little capital” will simply remain a three word slogan.

So what you are saying is you can’t imagine anything else.

Now can you tell me how you arrived at that?

When you look around you tell me what it is you see, let alone you actually foresaw, that is different, that is actually there.

That would be an interesting test of your prognostication skills, which it seems you are asking us to simply take as a fact.

You seem to think that its either light rail or nothing. A very weak straw man.

How about investing in something to diversify the local economy. Something that will increase tourism (Tram doesn’t count).

Putting in light rail makes as much sense as charging for an action bus ride.

“According to the Liebrals, rates were going to tripple even without light rail. They were right of course, rates will triple, just like everything in this world will triple including your income. The only question is over what time frame.”

Please stop using the term liebrals. Even as a centre-leftist it puts u in the Hanson young spectrum of political opinion. I silently agree with some of your positions but cheap shots are childish.

JC said :

You might want to redo you figures. Your figures are total delivered, not total currently in service.

The Renault PR100.2 MKI fleet for example are now all gone.

So current fleet is:

Renault PR100.2 MKII = 100 in service (plus one training only bus)
PR100.3 = 34 (plus one training only bus)
Dart=8 in service (though they have 16 in storage)
Iris Agora= 19
Scania K320UB, only 40 of 77 ordered in service, another 37 to be delivered by mid 2017.

The rest your numbers are right.

But frankly overall the Canberra bus fleet from an age perspective is about right. Industry practice is to retire buses when they get to between 20-25 years of age. The PR100.2 MKII’s are the only ones close to this and are being progressively retired. To keep a constant flow of new buses, and keeping a max age of around 25, you need around 20 new buses per year (includes a few extras for growth). Guess how many new buses the get each year, yep around 20.

But when it comes to comparisons to light rail everything above is irrelevant anyway. History has shown people prefer light rail vehicles over a bus of any age.

I got the data from:

http://www.action.act.gov.au/About_ACTION/our_fleet

I take it you know something more than I do. Maybe there is a stack of old buses out the back that they have put up on gumtree, but nobody wants because ACTION has driven them into the ground.

I know I am riding on the stinky old rattlers. I’ll check which models they are next time.

The only thing that makes them tolerable is the drivers who are mostly very nice and considerate.

Murrays seems to change their fleet over much more frequently and sensibly works hard at filling their routes.

And yes you are absolutely right, put in Light Rail and people will fight to get on them, which of course is why we can not possibly ever put our foot in the door, because that would make the whole House of Cards argument against them, collapse.

HiddenDragon said :

It would be lovely, it truly would, to live in the Canberra that might have been – but a tramline between Civic and some of the northern suburbs is not going to make that happen.

With a tramline, Canberra will still be the same technocratic, managerialist, careerist, hierarchical and primly politically correct place that it is, and for some decades has been – it will just have an even more worrying public sector balance sheet. There might be a few more little enclaves of ersatz bohemianism and bonsai cosmopolitanism, amidst the hoped-for proliferation of whack ’em up fast apartments and commercial buildings, but the place will still be overwhelmingly stolid and suburban, and the notion of the “coolest little capital” will simply remain a three word slogan.

So what you are saying is you can’t imagine anything else.

Now can you tell me how you arrived at that?

When you look around you tell me what it is you see, let alone you actually foresaw, that is different, that is actually there.

That would be an interesting test of your prognostication skills, which it seems you are asking us to simply take as a fact.

rubaiyat said :

Jordania said :

Can’t be bothered reading all the pro/con/or just plain carping comments but I will add my voice to that of any sane person who wants to complain about Canberra public transport. Have been away from Canberra for a few years and have returned to a far less useful and passenger friendly bus service. I don’t know why the government, and/or their minions at ACTION, can’t seem to grasp the basic principle that in order to discourage the use of cars one must provide a viable AND ATTRACTIVE alternative. Stonkingly enormous parking charges aren’t going to discourage drivers; fewer car parks aren’t going to discourage drivers. But if the drivers were offered a bus service that picked them up at a stop relatively close to their homes and dropped them at a stop relatively close to their work; if the bus service were affordable; if the buses ran more frequently at night and weekends then people might be more inclined to catch the bus. And why on earth does Canberra still run those humongous buses all day and into the night? Can’t they invest in smaller buses to travel on less popular routes or at times of less demand and save the big’uns for peak demand times? Just sayin ….

Thanks for the fresh view.

There are three very simple reasons why we don’t have the smaller more frequent buses:

1. Our fleet is very old and from when they hadn’t thought about it (see above)

2. It is almost impossible to get drivers anywhere in Australia let alone in Canberra, due to the lack of imagination and lack of investment in public transport.

3. Cut backs in public transport have lead to less routes, less often and more circuitous, which has lead to buses being less attractive with less passengers, start cycle all over again.

There are some simple remedies.

1. Full dedicated express routes running the entire length of the route, not merging into regular lanes.

2. Run the buses at top speed, so passengers not only get there faster they do so with less buses, more frequently.

3. Orienting the drop off and pick up points closer to the actual destinations with through transit, not looping around badly laid out bus terminuses that act like they are all the end points of the destination.

4. Co-ordinate the feeder buses to arrive before the next more frequent express bus so that a quick change over can happen.

5. Provide a mobile App that actually uses the GPS data from the buses to tell of approaching buses and times and whether they actually are running. Week before last I got caught trying twice, the local bus didn’t show or was over 5 minutes early and when I walked to the next route over a kilometre away that bus never showed up at all despite my waiting 25 minutes. It would have been faster if I had simply walked to the destination, which is what I eventually did, arriving quarter an hour late.

But all of these are patches on an unpleasant, unreliable and polluting form of public transport.

FIX THE PLAN. Canberra’s “Town Plan” has been a schmozzle, put together and/or subverted by inept, incompetent, self serving public servants who have made odd and mysterious “exceptions” to even their own supposed “plans” not plan. Public Servants who can not find the sun in our bright blue skies if their lives depended on it and who are so bereft of ideas that they just try to copy first the dull British New Towns then American freeways/suburbia, then both together. Never ever planning public transport into any of it, right up to today.

Canberra does not have a huge population. It is a city now but just has the population of a major city’s municipal area. It can be contained in a much more compact area with excellent facilities, lifestyle and quick responsive transport, if it wasn’t for the pressure on the A.C.T. government and its developer friends to constantly speculate on new land releases further and further from the centre, eating up more and more countryside, environment and people’s lives.

We need a sharp turn in a new direction but frankly I can not see either the imagination nor the stomach for it in the bureaucracy, politicians or the population who are an extraordinarily unthinking lot. Even amongst the growing but small environmental thinking citizens I find an enormous ignorance of what is actual good design for climate.

Does anyone (someone who cares) have any ideas how we can ACTUALLY change, instead of just mouthing intentions that no-one keeps?

It would be lovely, it truly would, to live in the Canberra that might have been – but a tramline between Civic and some of the northern suburbs is not going to make that happen.

With a tramline, Canberra will still be the same technocratic, managerialist, careerist, hierarchical and primly politically correct place that it is, and for some decades has been – it will just have an even more worrying public sector balance sheet. There might be a few more little enclaves of ersatz bohemianism and bonsai cosmopolitanism, amidst the hoped-for proliferation of whack ’em up fast apartments and commercial buildings, but the place will still be overwhelmingly stolid and suburban, and the notion of the “coolest little capital” will simply remain a three word slogan.

All of that ignores that we have to cut back both buses and cars and go to something that works.

I was always a practical designer and hated the “God’s View” of looking down on plans as if perched in a throne in a cloud above. In other words any view but the real world at ground level.

To see exactly what happens when you use cars and buses as your principle form of transport, just walk along Northbourne Avenue (or any of the streets in our town centres) where all the cars and buses pass. You will see blank, mostly empty, desolate, abandoned shop fronts or offices with obscured, painted over windows. Hardly any people, because they don’t want to be there. It is beyond unpleasant, it has that unthinking distasteful stench of not just car exhaust and noise but urban death.

Other classic examples of how cars and buses destroy cities is Parramatta Road which was once a healthy thriving well patronised strip, much like Melbourne has now, running as far west as Ashfield, served by trams which carried people to and from work not twice a day but four times, as office workers actually went home for lunch.

Just see any other place where freeways or busy roads carve up cities, you may as well have sprayed Agent Orange the length of the roads.

Now travel along Melbourne’s Tram routes and see streets lined with shops, restaurants and housing and above all people. Clean, handy, pleasant and relatively quiet transport fosters life and activity, it is like a tonic or fertiliser spread along the route.

The Gold Coast has switched and is now experiencing a new boom along the new Light Rail route because people can leave their cars at home and just make their way as they wish, unencumbered. It hasn’t got rid of the cars yet, but the change has started.

Canberrans like to think of themselves as “Special”. The question is that “Special” in a good way or the kind that gets you a parking spot close to the front door? How capable are they of thinking through real problems without the fear, ignorance and blind rejection of anything different, that invades most responses.

The costs you calculate for the buses look about right – although last I checked Action’s budget was more like $120 million. But they’re cheaper than light rail, despite the fact that they serve all sorts of far-flung suburbs, rather than just one busy route. The light rail route is one of action’s more profitable routes.

rubaiyat said :

Rotten_berry said :

That’s just the private cost. Each light rail trip will cost about $20 all up (public and private), no less than a car trip, and nearly twice as much as an Action bus trip. And it only goes along one route. No good for someone working in woden, belcompton, or wanting to buy stuff from a hardware store, etc. The handy BBC hardware that used to be in Braddon went long ago, probably now a café.

If you want to compare the total costs of public transport and cars, you would need to estimate the cost of providing decent service to all of Canberra! The cars at present provide a much higher level of mobility. Which is why people are willing to pay substantial amounts of money for them. Serving a whole population with rail only works well if you cram them all on top of each other and cram them into overcrowded trains, as in Tokyo and HK. But most Australians don’t want to live like that.

Those costs you quote also contain a lot of discretionary spending and don’t represent the “least cost” options. I bought a new Corolla 15 years ago and it’s still going strong with only basic maintenance. I am with you on the sillyness of “I bought a Jeep” though; I laugh at seeing them stuck in traffic or broken down on the side of the road. The marketing spivs are definitely good at stoking “keeping up with the Jones” spending on cars. But they’re very active in light rail circles too. Check out Capital Metro’s PR spending!

It’s already possible to live without a car in Canberra, if you live in the inner north and bike/bus everywhere, or in belco or gungers centres and use the buses, etc. And there’s more apartments popping up in these areas, which is generally a good thing (though some are pretty poorly done). But most people will still have cars for bulky shopping, trips out of town, etc.

Don’t just make things up, show how you arrived at:

“Each light rail trip will cost about $20 all up (public and private)”.

(snip)

CAPITAL METRO COSTS

$823 million Total Project Cost (incl. $65m + $173m contingency) at 2015 $ over 30 year period 2018-2048 (Table 23 p95 CMA Full Business Case).

Ave estimated annual trips 4.75 million/year in 2019 rising to 7.3 million/year by 2031 (mid term).

Total trips over 30 year operating period: est 219 million.

Cost per trip: $3.75, $7.50 return.

I can not see an adjustment for fares, I assume that is not a part of costs as that is an income.

Current MyWay fare: $2.52/trip, $5.04/return.

i.e. Government subsidy of $1.23/trip, $2.56/return.

NB If the Light Rail achieves higher passenger numbers, as the Gold Coast LR has, the cost per trip drops accordingly. The Gold Coast LR has so far almost 20% more passengers than originally estimated.

Admittedly my $20 estimate was a little lazy, but I’ll run through it below.

If the light rail only required a $1.23 subsidy per trip it would be a great investment. Unfortunately that is using discounted (present value) costs while ignoring cost of capital and PPP provider profit margin. Just like the mortgage on your house, the yearly repayments are much more than the price divided by 30. Cost of capital (interest) is also a significant chunk of the car running costs you quote. The business case neatly steps around the question of what the actual “availability payment” to the PPP provider will be.

As per the Table 23 in the business case the undiscounted capex is 730 million (it seems a bit funny to discount the future capital cost when the project hasn’t started yet) and opex 665 (22.17 million per year). If the capital cost is financed by the PPP provider at 7%, the principal plus interest replayments are 62.5 million/year, plus 22.2 million opex, for a total of ~85 million/year.

The availability payments (to the provider) will not start untill the project is complete, so 7% may be conservative. The PPP provider will also want to cream off a nice profit (and they don’t get the fair income – the govt does). In theory PPPs allow “leveraging of private sector efficiencies and innovation” and so on, but in practice the they seem to find innovative ways of boosting profits and shareholder returns. For these reasons I would be surprised if the actual availability payments come in at under 100 million/year for a full PPP finance model, but we won’t know untill the bids are made public. If you divide 100 million by 5 million pax/year you get $20/trip. If patronage improves, this will come down.

The govt is planning to chip in some of the upfront cost, which will reduce the PPP payments, but it doesn’t really matter where the money comes from, because the oppertunity cost is about the same as the interest cost.

On another note the car costs assume you buy a new one every 5 years – most of the cost is depreciation so if you keep them for longer the costs come down (unless it’s a VW!).

Jordania said :

Can’t be bothered reading all the pro/con/or just plain carping comments but I will add my voice to that of any sane person who wants to complain about Canberra public transport. Have been away from Canberra for a few years and have returned to a far less useful and passenger friendly bus service. I don’t know why the government, and/or their minions at ACTION, can’t seem to grasp the basic principle that in order to discourage the use of cars one must provide a viable AND ATTRACTIVE alternative. Stonkingly enormous parking charges aren’t going to discourage drivers; fewer car parks aren’t going to discourage drivers. But if the drivers were offered a bus service that picked them up at a stop relatively close to their homes and dropped them at a stop relatively close to their work; if the bus service were affordable; if the buses ran more frequently at night and weekends then people might be more inclined to catch the bus. And why on earth does Canberra still run those humongous buses all day and into the night? Can’t they invest in smaller buses to travel on less popular routes or at times of less demand and save the big’uns for peak demand times? Just sayin ….

Thanks for the fresh view.

There are three very simple reasons why we don’t have the smaller more frequent buses:

1. Our fleet is very old and from when they hadn’t thought about it (see above)

2. It is almost impossible to get drivers anywhere in Australia let alone in Canberra, due to the lack of imagination and lack of investment in public transport.

3. Cut backs in public transport have lead to less routes, less often and more circuitous, which has lead to buses being less attractive with less passengers, start cycle all over again.

There are some simple remedies.

1. Full dedicated express routes running the entire length of the route, not merging into regular lanes.

2. Run the buses at top speed, so passengers not only get there faster they do so with less buses, more frequently.

3. Orienting the drop off and pick up points closer to the actual destinations with through transit, not looping around badly laid out bus terminuses that act like they are all the end points of the destination.

4. Co-ordinate the feeder buses to arrive before the next more frequent express bus so that a quick change over can happen.

5. Provide a mobile App that actually uses the GPS data from the buses to tell of approaching buses and times and whether they actually are running. Week before last I got caught trying twice, the local bus didn’t show or was over 5 minutes early and when I walked to the next route over a kilometre away that bus never showed up at all despite my waiting 25 minutes. It would have been faster if I had simply walked to the destination, which is what I eventually did, arriving quarter an hour late.

But all of these are patches on an unpleasant, unreliable and polluting form of public transport.

FIX THE PLAN. Canberra’s “Town Plan” has been a schmozzle, put together and/or subverted by inept, incompetent, self serving public servants who have made odd and mysterious “exceptions” to even their own supposed “plans” not plan. Public Servants who can not find the sun in our bright blue skies if their lives depended on it and who are so bereft of ideas that they just try to copy first the dull British New Towns then American freeways/suburbia, then both together. Never ever planning public transport into any of it, right up to today.

Canberra does not have a huge population. It is a city now but just has the population of a major city’s municipal area. It can be contained in a much more compact area with excellent facilities, lifestyle and quick responsive transport, if it wasn’t for the pressure on the A.C.T. government and its developer friends to constantly speculate on new land releases further and further from the centre, eating up more and more countryside, environment and people’s lives.

We need a sharp turn in a new direction but frankly I can not see either the imagination nor the stomach for it in the bureaucracy, politicians or the population who are an extraordinarily unthinking lot. Even amongst the growing but small environmental thinking citizens I find an enormous ignorance of what is actual good design for climate.

Does anyone (someone who cares) have any ideas how we can ACTUALLY change, instead of just mouthing intentions that no-one keeps?

Rubaiat, two pertinent questions:
1. How much has light rail Capital Metro cost the ACT so far?
2. Are you a member of or affiliated with a political party or any of the businesses spruiking for light rail or employed in a relevant govt dept or agency? Because you seem to be the only person who thinks it’s a fine idea as it stands. So some disclosure would seem appropriate.

So a tram itself won’t pollute as much however the increased congestion will mean all the commuters are spending more time at the lights and wasting more fuel. The tram itself will have to have its priority at the lights. Meaning longer waiting times for other cars.

800million would daily make 5000 apartments if these were in the city no one would have to travel to work

rubaiyat said :

Someone here disputed my description of ACTION’s fleet as creaking, diesel fuming, old rattlers.

I have just came across their fleet web page whilst hunting for something else:

Renault PR1OO.2 MK I (118 buses) Came into service 1988 – 27 years old.

Renault PR100.2 MK II (113 Buses) Came into service 1993 – 22 years old.

Renault PR100.3 (42 Buses) Came into service 1993 – 22 years old.

Dennis Dart SLF (25 Buses) Came into service 1997 – 18 years old.

Scania L94UB CB60 (54 Buses) Came into service 2004 – 11 years old.

IRISBUS Agoraline (20 Buses) Came into service 2004 – 11 years old.

MAN A69 18.310 HOCLNL (16 Buses) Came into service 2008 – 7 years old.

MAN A69 18.320 HOUCL-R-NL (89 Buses) Came into service 2009 – 6 years old.

Scania K320UB (26 Buses) Came into service 2010 – 5 years old.

Scania K360UA 6 X 2/2 CB80 (33 Buses) Came into service 2012 – 3 years old.

Scania K320UB CB80 (77 Buses) Came into service 2014 – 1 years old.

THE MEDIAN AGE of ACTION BUSES IS A VENERABLE 22 years.

With 118, almost a quarter, actually 27 years old.

Average cost of a standard commuter bus carrying 59 – 65 passengers $355,000.

Average cost of a Bendy Bus carrying 115 passengers $507,000.

https://www.codot.gov/programs/commuterchoices/documents/trandir_transit.pdf

This plus the drivers, fuel, damage to roads etc is what you need to run a “cheap” BRT if you don’t want people to walk for 12km.

…assuming that you have still managed to ignore the fossil fuels, pollution, noise and space they occupy on regular roads.

Yes, the ACTION buses are just like trams!

You might want to redo you figures. Your figures are total delivered, not total currently in service.

The Renault PR100.2 MKI fleet for example are now all gone.

So current fleet is:

Renault PR100.2 MKII = 100 in service (plus one training only bus)
PR100.3 = 34 (plus one training only bus)
Dart=8 in service (though they have 16 in storage)
Iris Agora= 19
Scania K320UB, only 40 of 77 ordered in service, another 37 to be delivered by mid 2017.

The rest your numbers are right.

But frankly overall the Canberra bus fleet from an age perspective is about right. Industry practice is to retire buses when they get to between 20-25 years of age. The PR100.2 MKII’s are the only ones close to this and are being progressively retired. To keep a constant flow of new buses, and keeping a max age of around 25, you need around 20 new buses per year (includes a few extras for growth). Guess how many new buses the get each year, yep around 20.

But when it comes to comparisons to light rail everything above is irrelevant anyway. History has shown people prefer light rail vehicles over a bus of any age.

Someone here disputed my description of ACTION’s fleet as creaking, diesel fuming, old rattlers.

I have just came across their fleet web page whilst hunting for something else:

Renault PR1OO.2 MK I (118 buses) Came into service 1988 – 27 years old.

Renault PR100.2 MK II (113 Buses) Came into service 1993 – 22 years old.

Renault PR100.3 (42 Buses) Came into service 1993 – 22 years old.

Dennis Dart SLF (25 Buses) Came into service 1997 – 18 years old.

Scania L94UB CB60 (54 Buses) Came into service 2004 – 11 years old.

IRISBUS Agoraline (20 Buses) Came into service 2004 – 11 years old.

MAN A69 18.310 HOCLNL (16 Buses) Came into service 2008 – 7 years old.

MAN A69 18.320 HOUCL-R-NL (89 Buses) Came into service 2009 – 6 years old.

Scania K320UB (26 Buses) Came into service 2010 – 5 years old.

Scania K360UA 6 X 2/2 CB80 (33 Buses) Came into service 2012 – 3 years old.

Scania K320UB CB80 (77 Buses) Came into service 2014 – 1 years old.

THE MEDIAN AGE of ACTION BUSES IS A VENERABLE 22 years.

With 118, almost a quarter, actually 27 years old.

Average cost of a standard commuter bus carrying 59 – 65 passengers $355,000.

Average cost of a Bendy Bus carrying 115 passengers $507,000.

https://www.codot.gov/programs/commuterchoices/documents/trandir_transit.pdf

This plus the drivers, fuel, damage to roads etc is what you need to run a “cheap” BRT if you don’t want people to walk for 12km.

…assuming that you have still managed to ignore the fossil fuels, pollution, noise and space they occupy on regular roads.

Yes, the ACTION buses are just like trams!

HenryBG said :

Rotten_berry said :

Each light rail trip will cost about $20 all up (public and private), .

This would be funny, if it weren’t going to triple my rates bill. I’m hoping to leave Canberra before I start paying for any of thet Light Rail…..

According to the Liebrals, rates were going to tripple even without light rail. They were right of course, rates will triple, just like everything in this world will triple including your income. The only question is over what time frame.

Rotten_berry said :

That’s just the private cost. Each light rail trip will cost about $20 all up (public and private), no less than a car trip, and nearly twice as much as an Action bus trip. And it only goes along one route. No good for someone working in woden, belcompton, or wanting to buy stuff from a hardware store, etc. The handy BBC hardware that used to be in Braddon went long ago, probably now a café.

If you want to compare the total costs of public transport and cars, you would need to estimate the cost of providing decent service to all of Canberra! The cars at present provide a much higher level of mobility. Which is why people are willing to pay substantial amounts of money for them. Serving a whole population with rail only works well if you cram them all on top of each other and cram them into overcrowded trains, as in Tokyo and HK. But most Australians don’t want to live like that.

Those costs you quote also contain a lot of discretionary spending and don’t represent the “least cost” options. I bought a new Corolla 15 years ago and it’s still going strong with only basic maintenance. I am with you on the sillyness of “I bought a Jeep” though; I laugh at seeing them stuck in traffic or broken down on the side of the road. The marketing spivs are definitely good at stoking “keeping up with the Jones” spending on cars. But they’re very active in light rail circles too. Check out Capital Metro’s PR spending!

It’s already possible to live without a car in Canberra, if you live in the inner north and bike/bus everywhere, or in belco or gungers centres and use the buses, etc. And there’s more apartments popping up in these areas, which is generally a good thing (though some are pretty poorly done). But most people will still have cars for bulky shopping, trips out of town, etc.

Don’t just make things up, show how you arrived at:

“Each light rail trip will cost about $20 all up (public and private)”.

PRIVATE CAR COSTS

RACQ Private Ownership Costs 2015 for running Toyota Corolla Ascent 1.8L is:

Total Owner Costs (not including ACT/Federal Road costs): $0.56/km, $8,333.47/yr

Leaving your car at home permanently, doing nothing: $5667.48/yr

“Discretionary cost” AKA Actually using it: $2665.99/yr

Cost of driving a Corolla from Gungahlin to City incl. parking: $28.34/day + Government costs

Over 50% of ACT vehicles are now much heavier and expensive 4WDs. A Toyota Corolla is at the low end of the scale.

Cost of driving an average car from Gungahlin to Cityat &0.82/km incl. parking: $34.58/day + Government costs

NB All costs are Queensland costs, add the “Canberra Tax”, e.g more expensive fuel, on top.

TAXPAYER CAR COSTS

Difficult to calculate as our Governments do an excellent job of hiding the total cost of roads, but I leave it to you to assume the same cost of capital as for the Capital Metro Project and the cost of all associated services.

Some examples of capital cost of the fixed infrastructure:

The Gungahlin Drive Extension, 8.5km, cost $199m in 2011 $

The unfinished Majura Parkway 11.5km will cost $288m in 2015 $

Neither includes the ongoing operating, maintenance and interest costs, nor includes the cost of the actual vehicles on them.

Both will massively lose money over their historically short lives compared with Light Rail and it is beyond my current time and abilities to find out exactly how much the Governments are subsidising cars/km.

ACTION BUS COSTS

Passengers 2014 09 (last figures I can find) 1.552 million x12: 18.624 million/year

ACTION subsidy 2013-2014 $91.23 million: $4.89/trip, $9.78/return.

[ACT Budget 2013-2014 5.1-Expenditure-and-Forward-Estimates]

CAPITAL METRO COSTS

$823 million Total Project Cost (incl. $65m + $173m contingency) at 2015 $ over 30 year period 2018-2048 (Table 23 p95 CMA Full Business Case).

Ave estimated annual trips 4.75 million/year in 2019 rising to 7.3 million/year by 2031 (mid term).

Total trips over 30 year operating period: est 219 million.

Cost per trip: $3.75, $7.50 return.

I can not see an adjustment for fares, I assume that is not a part of costs as that is an income.

Current MyWay fare: $2.52/trip, $5.04/return.

i.e. Government subsidy of $1.23/trip, $2.56/return.

NB If the Light Rail achieves higher passenger numbers, as the Gold Coast LR has, the cost per trip drops accordingly. The Gold Coast LR has so far almost 20% more passengers than originally estimated.

Rotten_berry said :

Each light rail trip will cost about $20 all up (public and private), .

This would be funny, if it weren’t going to triple my rates bill. I’m hoping to leave Canberra before I start paying for any of thet Light Rail…..

I’ve had fun asking people who live in Gungahlin, “Are you looking forward to the Light Rail?”.
They all say,
“Yes!”
“Not because I’m going to use it, but hopefully other people will and the trip into Civic will be quicker of a morning”.

Rotten_berry wrote, “And it only goes along one route.”

So does each bus on a particular route too. My bus doesn’t take me to Belconnen, Tuggeranong, Gungahlin for instance. So your point? The tram is not planned to service all of Canberra, but then neither does an individual bus route. (Initially at least and then there will be more than one route, as there are with buses). The tram will be part of the network.
Actually, one of the strengths of trams and trains, is that the traveller can be feel more secure catching one, because it does go “along one route”.

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

But you are somehow claiming that the figure for running a car ($11-16k per year) can be compared against the light rail (or other public transport) cost as if they were equal and as if the light rail and other public transport are an alternative to all private car usage.

Obviously they are NOT equal far from it. The car is vastly more expensive. Those figures do not even include all the other non-private costs which are substantial.

I quote those figures, which are accurate, unlike all the made up costs against light rail, because of the claims that public transport/light rail is “wasteful” and “too expensive”.

You can go from one end of Canberra to the other, for what it costs you to drive 3 kilometres.

So obviously public transport is NOT wasteful NOR expensive.

That’s just the private cost. Each light rail trip will cost about $20 all up (public and private), no less than a car trip, and nearly twice as much as an Action bus trip. And it only goes along one route. No good for someone working in woden, belcompton, or wanting to buy stuff from a hardware store, etc. The handy BBC hardware that used to be in Braddon went long ago, probably now a café.

If you want to compare the total costs of public transport and cars, you would need to estimate the cost of providing decent service to all of Canberra! The cars at present provide a much higher level of mobility. Which is why people are willing to pay substantial amounts of money for them. Serving a whole population with rail only works well if you cram them all on top of each other and cram them into overcrowded trains, as in Tokyo and HK. But most Australians don’t want to live like that.

Those costs you quote also contain a lot of discretionary spending and don’t represent the “least cost” options. I bought a new Corolla 15 years ago and it’s still going strong with only basic maintenance. I am with you on the sillyness of “I bought a Jeep” though; I laugh at seeing them stuck in traffic or broken down on the side of the road. The marketing spivs are definitely good at stoking “keeping up with the Jones” spending on cars. But they’re very active in light rail circles too. Check out Capital Metro’s PR spending!

It’s already possible to live without a car in Canberra, if you live in the inner north and bike/bus everywhere, or in belco or gungers centres and use the buses, etc. And there’s more apartments popping up in these areas, which is generally a good thing (though some are pretty poorly done). But most people will still have cars for bulky shopping, trips out of town, etc.

JC said :

rubaiyat said :

Even in this country where people who have a huge stake in dirty coal, on all sides of politics, ACTEWAGL has announced it will be building no more coal fired power stations and begin phasing them out.

For the most part I am with you on this topic, but the comment above makes no sense what so ever.

ACTEWAGL is an electricity retailer, it doesn’t generate power, well except for a stake in a few small local systems. So maybe what ACTEWAGL are saying is they are going to be transferring their electricity buy away from coal power stations rather than saying they are not building any new ones. That is afterall a given anyway.

Sorry force of habit, I typed ACTEWAGL.

It is AGL:

http://www.agl.com.au/about-agl/media-centre/article-list/2015/april/agl-policy-to-provide-pathway-to-decarbonisation-of-electricity-generation

JC said :

rubaiyat said :

Even in this country where people who have a huge stake in dirty coal, on all sides of politics, ACTEWAGL has announced it will be building no more coal fired power stations and begin phasing them out.

For the most part I am with you on this topic, but the comment above makes no sense what so ever.

ACTEWAGL is an electricity retailer, it doesn’t generate power, well except for a stake in a few small local systems. So maybe what ACTEWAGL are saying is they are going to be transferring their electricity buy away from coal power stations rather than saying they are not building any new ones. That is afterall a given anyway.

Well technically this he’s correct. ActewAGL will be building no more coal fired power stations.

Another victory for “facts”!

let’s get this clear. This isn’t really about Light Rail. Given different circumstances, perhaps if they already had Light Rail and were using it the Antis would be For.

It is about thinking. Whether you do actually think or whether you just react. Fight for the familiar as against the unfamiliar. Fight for no change and against change. Mouth the same old slogans and thoughts that have been fed to you every 15 minutes or more often on TV, Radio or any media.

Believe me, I did this for a living.

The only reason you don’t think you are a duped sucker but everyone else is, is because we told you to think that so you’d then fall for all the consumer propaganda that we are paid to push down your throat.

The “I bought a Jeep” sells you the very thing you won’t get. It’s classic Bait and Switch.

I bring this up because there has been another dreadful shooting in the USA and I have just come from a forum where there are the Usuals, saying the problem is not guns, it is not enough guns!

That is the crazy talk that invades many debates, including this one and all the debates about Climate Change, New Economics, Health, Nutrition etc, they are all related. It really is the old Baffle them w B.S.

People are so taken back by the brazen nonsense they try to resolve it instead of just laughing at it.

I’m too experienced in both the B.S. and the debates to be taken in. The most powerful weapon in nearly all these arguments is to reflect the the hypocrisy and ludicrousness right back at the poster. The pen may be a powerful weapon, but so is the mirror.

chewy14 said :

But you are somehow claiming that the figure for running a car ($11-16k per year) can be compared against the light rail (or other public transport) cost as if they were equal and as if the light rail and other public transport are an alternative to all private car usage.

Obviously they are NOT equal far from it. The car is vastly more expensive. Those figures do not even include all the other non-private costs which are substantial.

I quote those figures, which are accurate, unlike all the made up costs against light rail, because of the claims that public transport/light rail is “wasteful” and “too expensive”.

You can go from one end of Canberra to the other, for what it costs you to drive 3 kilometres.

So obviously public transport is NOT wasteful NOR expensive.

The convenience of driving comes at a huge cost in your money, your health, the taxpayers money and the health of our environment.

Your health and the environment’s health are paramount in my view.

Further the whole idea of this light rail is to reorient the population along convenient transport options, which is what should have been done in the first place. People on the LR route simply won’t have to travel as far in the first place.

Sprawling suburbia is the curse that leads to the alienated lifestyle, private debt that has to be fed by long hours at work, and the need to sit in endless traffic.

Drivers remove the “convenience” from their choice when they inconvenience live so far from where they work, eat or play that they spend a large part of their time stuck in traffic doing SFA. Their repressed road rage fuels the Shout Back Radio that rails against public transport, healthy lifestyle and anything vaguely environmental.

rubaiyat said :

Even in this country where people who have a huge stake in dirty coal, on all sides of politics, ACTEWAGL has announced it will be building no more coal fired power stations and begin phasing them out.

For the most part I am with you on this topic, but the comment above makes no sense what so ever.

ACTEWAGL is an electricity retailer, it doesn’t generate power, well except for a stake in a few small local systems. So maybe what ACTEWAGL are saying is they are going to be transferring their electricity buy away from coal power stations rather than saying they are not building any new ones. That is afterall a given anyway.

rubaiyat said :

You are not against it, but……..

I expect a business case based on factual information that does not involve basing its decision on fudged or exagerrated figures. A business case that provides options based on what people actually want and need rather than what other people think they should have and analyses those options against what would be prudent and efficient expenditure on the project. One that outlines the true costs and details an equitable sharing of those costs amongst the beneficiaries of the project.

Not that hard I would have thought and doesn’t need you to address any of the 8 million strawman arguments you’ve claimed other people believe previously.

chewy14 said :

Firstly,
You seem to believe that I’m against public transport. I’m not and use our average bus system daily.

But you are somehow claiming that the figure for running a car ($11-16k per year) can be compared against the light rail (or other public transport) cost as if they were equal and as if the light rail and other public transport are an alternative to all private car usage.

The people who use the light rail will still mostly own cars. Most people who live in along the route aren’t going to suddenly sell their cars because public transport is the future.

And the reason is simple. Flexibility and performance. No public transport in this city is going to have the flexibility to take me from point A to point B at time X with anywhere near the consistency that a car will. Public transport is a long way off meeting it’s customer requirements in this city and you know it.

You can support the light rail, public transport and the reduction in reliance on private cars all you want. But you can’t use ridiculous and irrelevant “facts” to support it if you want your argument to hold any weight.

You are not against it, but……..

I have NEVER said it is an all or nothing.

Saying the obvious: “You are fat and don’t exercise. Eat less and better and get out on your feet.”

Is not: “STARVE AND BREAK ROCKS IN A CHAIN GANG!”

That voice in your head is not mine.

Steps you can take are: Less cars, smaller cars, used less often.

Seems obvious enough.

wildturkeycanoe said :

Trams are the way of the future, cars are the death of the world, etc. What impact on the environment will the tram and electric cars have? Claims are that zero emmissions and carbon neutrality will make these systems better but how can they say that. All the new clean energy alternatives rely on solar power, through the grid that is mainly run on coal. “But our power comes from the solar farm, or wind turbines!” Is claimed over and over but how many devices does clean energy actually run? There is only so much power being generated but every clean energy user claims they use that source. Not every clean energy electric device can extract power from the same supply so somebody must be lying about it. If the kWh produced is the same as how much is billed as clean energy then I am a monkey’s uncle. Electric cars are a prime example. Does the driver know where their electrons are sourced when plugged in? If every household and business changed to green energy tomorrow, there isn’t enough of it to go around and the amount of coal powered energy supplied would not change. It is deception by power companies to increase their profits under the guise of promising to help save our planet.

Put simply: That is ALL fatuous nonsense.

Nobody is double counting the sustainable energy, and we are well on the path to converting from coal. If Germany can do it, we definitely can.

Even in this country where people who have a huge stake in dirty coal, on all sides of politics, ACTEWAGL has announced it will be building no more coal fired power stations and begin phasing them out.

New alternative energy sources are now cheaper to build and run than coal power stations, end of story. As a bonus we are not ruining our future with the sustainable alternative source power. And the fuel is free.

If there was a country built for alternative sources of energy, Australia has to be it. It is unfortunate that we had a massive outbreak of stupidity in the last couple of years, but we’ll get back on track to fixing what is still an existential problem.

You may be exceptionally slow to catch on, but it is happening and sadly the recent shenanigans have put us behind everyone else. They have all got on with converting to something smarter and cleaner and we have been caught coal shovel in hand plaintively asking: “Anybody want this dreck? …going cheap?”

Dreadnaught1905 said :

[

Yeah, I suspected that you might be using something along the lines of the “Obesity is caused by cars” argument. Obesity is a major problem, but it is too much of a stretch to suggest that people with obesity are “car victims”. Lifestyle victims, mental health sufferers and the nature of the modern workforce are more at issue than the mode of transport.

Oh, I’ll not debate that there is a link between people making the convenient choice to drive rather than walk – or cycle – to places (including work) and an unhealthy lifestyle. I will debate that it is the sole or even primary cause, though.

Also – I most certainly did NOT dismiss the pedestrian / cycle injuries. I well and truly left them in the statistics I quoted. I have no doubt whatsoever that a high proportion of cycle and most pedestrian injuries are caused by collision with motorised vehicles.

I would be interested to know what proportion of traffic related injuries(in the ACT) are caused during a workday commute vs. other traffic usage. I suspect it’s not something statistics are compiled on, but it would be an interesting comparison.

If it is, say, 50%, and we can realistically move (for example) 30% of all ACT commuters over time to Light Rail; then will we see a corresponding 15% reduction in transport related injuries? I don’t know, but I would be interested to see if anyone has done a study in a similar style anywhere around the world…

PS Not only can you fall off horses, but they also bite. Ultra Marathon running is far safer…

Suspected?

How could I make it more plain, but it is only one of a long list of reasons for building a clean, sustainable AND healthy transport system.

Both the CSIRO and the UNSW have done studies on the relationship between users of Public Transport and relative levels of obesity.

As I pointed out here it is quite observable in New York vs New Jersey and I suspect it would be similar in the UK in London and France in Paris. Public Transport is not a point to point method of getting around, it involves a lot of walking/running certainly rushing. So it build activity into people’s lives.

One of the stupidest things to come out of the USA, and there are a lot of things to compete for that title, is the endless pursuit of “Labour Saving” devices and options. That is slowly killing us and our environment.

gooterz said :

rubaiyat said :

I am having trouble keeping up with all the facts (at least I hope that is what it is and not deliberate lies) about light rail.

The rambling catalogue of facts in no particular order:

They’ll have too many passengers.
They are too fast they’ll ram into things.
They’ve never been done before.
Canberra has never done anything different.
Canberra can’t change.
They are new untested technology.
They’ll break our precipitously steep bridges (heavier trucks just levitate over them)
They are dangerous sources of crime and will distract our police from dealing with all the car crime.
You can’t go shopping on them. Melbourne’s shops are all broke, lifeless and empty unlike in Civic.
If you let the government put in trams they’ll come around and take away all your cars.

Got sources for one of these?

Yes they were all from these forums. Just read back on anything relating to Light Rail on the RiotACT.

They have been sprouted in attached “reports” as well.

They are typically not reasons they are excuses by people who just can’t imagine what is a fairly common transport system elsewhere being where they live, because it never has. And OBVIOUSLY if nothing has existed before it NEVER CAN.

Just like Canberra never existed, nor Woden, Belconnen, Tuggeranong, Gungahlin, Molonglo etc etc.

Even Sydney is finally putting back Light Rail.

If you told Canberrans even twenty years ago that people would be living in high rise apartments in the City and even in Woden, Belconnen and Gungahlin, and there would be a healthy thriving inner city lifestyle, most would have said pigs might fly.

But there they are, there it is, and there they will be all along Northbourne Ave and Gungahlin in a few years time.

It is a psychological issue.

One of the usual lack of imagination exacerbated by political reflex opposition to both the change and the reasons behind the change. Unfortunately in this country we are only second to the United States for the number of anti Climate Change, Head in Sand vociferists. Theirs is a mix of far right libertarians, nutter politics and deep seated anti-Science fundamentalist Creationism. I’m not sure what excuse Australia has. At least they are a distinct minority here, a loud and large minority, but still a minority.

Despite their painful truculent inability to see past the end of their noses, there is hope that at least the more intelligent amongst them who have at least some pragmatism and an open mind, might come around after the event. Just as the LNP Gold Coast Lord Mayor has.

As he aptly put it, after having long opposed the Light Rail, now that it is built the Reality Trial is over, build the rest.

It will be a test of whether Malcom Turnbull is a Liberal Tea Party sock puppet or not, as to whether he overrides Abbott’s bloody minded opposition to any environmentally positive public transport or not.

Maya123 said :

rubaiyat said :

…..

LOL. That put a smile on my face.

Yes, It made me laugh too.

rubaiyat said :

Dreadnaught1905 said :

rubaiyat said :

, 20% of hospital beds occupied by car victims .

Ive seen you quote that one once or twice, and I’m sure you have a good reason to quote it. I did some reading through the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s hospital reports to try and see if I could find some corroboration for this very high number. Here’s what I found:

The AIHW report on “Trends in Hospitalised Injury, 1999-00 to 2012-13” shows that 12.2% of all Injury cases at hospital for 2012-13 are Transport Related.
Transport includes Road, Rail, Air, Sea, Footpath, Horse Drawn… etc.
Of course, the figures bear out that cars and motorcycles are by far the highest contributors at 34% and 25% (of that 12.2%) respectively. Surprisingly animal related transport injuries are at a little over 6%. Who knew horse riding was so dangerous?!

Anyway, 12.2% of all hospitalised injury cases are Transport related. Injury related hospitalisation accounts for around 13% of all hospitalisation in Australia (AIHW “Australia’s Hospitals at a Glance 2013-14”).

That leaves me with a figure of 1.5% of hospital cases being taken up by transport related cases. Not quite the 20% your source has claimed.

I agree with you 100% that road related injuries and fatalities are far too high, and we should endeavour to reduce them. Improved safety devices, appropriate road user education, viable alternatives for commuters all play a part in this – but we need a holistic approach to it.

You are right. In part.

I got my data from the bitre “Road Trauma Australia – Annual Summaries” and AIHW “Obesity and injury in the National Hospital Morbidity Database”. I made an allowance for the proportion of obese individuals with cardiac and diabetic admissions due to a largely exerciseless lifestyle, principally from using cars instead of walking or walking-using public transport.

You are too quick to dismiss the pedestrian/cycling etc portion of the statistics. My reading is those are victims of cars, the specifically car statistics are for the occupants of cars.

Where you are right is the statistics (except the obesity stats) are a proportion of the total injury cases. I was lead by the anacdotal evidence of hospital staff I know who say a large proportion of emergency admissions are car related.

The over 32,000 serious trama cases per year for Australia is not however a proportion, it comes from ABS stats (Road_trauma_Australia_2014_statistical_summary_N_ISSN.pdf). Unlike deaths this is steadily rising, not falling, a sign that the incidents are increasing but medical intervention is improving. That still leaves huge numbers of people permanently wholly or partially severely incapacitated.
…

PS I thought it was a well known that Horse Riding is the most dangerous sport, by far.

Yeah, I suspected that you might be using something along the lines of the “Obesity is caused by cars” argument. Obesity is a major problem, but it is too much of a stretch to suggest that people with obesity are “car victims”. Lifestyle victims, mental health sufferers and the nature of the modern workforce are more at issue than the mode of transport.

Oh, I’ll not debate that there is a link between people making the convenient choice to drive rather than walk – or cycle – to places (including work) and an unhealthy lifestyle. I will debate that it is the sole or even primary cause, though.

Also – I most certainly did NOT dismiss the pedestrian / cycle injuries. I well and truly left them in the statistics I quoted. I have no doubt whatsoever that a high proportion of cycle and most pedestrian injuries are caused by collision with motorised vehicles.

I would be interested to know what proportion of traffic related injuries(in the ACT) are caused during a workday commute vs. other traffic usage. I suspect it’s not something statistics are compiled on, but it would be an interesting comparison.

If it is, say, 50%, and we can realistically move (for example) 30% of all ACT commuters over time to Light Rail; then will we see a corresponding 15% reduction in transport related injuries? I don’t know, but I would be interested to see if anyone has done a study in a similar style anywhere around the world…

PS Not only can you fall off horses, but they also bite. Ultra Marathon running is far safer…

Can’t be bothered reading all the pro/con/or just plain carping comments but I will add my voice to that of any sane person who wants to complain about Canberra public transport. Have been away from Canberra for a few years and have returned to a far less useful and passenger friendly bus service. I don’t know why the government, and/or their minions at ACTION, can’t seem to grasp the basic principle that in order to discourage the use of cars one must provide a viable AND ATTRACTIVE alternative. Stonkingly enormous parking charges aren’t going to discourage drivers; fewer car parks aren’t going to discourage drivers. But if the drivers were offered a bus service that picked them up at a stop relatively close to their homes and dropped them at a stop relatively close to their work; if the bus service were affordable; if the buses ran more frequently at night and weekends then people might be more inclined to catch the bus. And why on earth does Canberra still run those humongous buses all day and into the night? Can’t they invest in smaller buses to travel on less popular routes or at times of less demand and save the big’uns for peak demand times? Just sayin ….

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

Where have you got the cost figure of $11-16K per driver from?

That would equate to about $3-4.5B per year for the ACT.

Are you talking about private or public costs? The total ACT government budget for 2015-16 is only $4.6B.

I have posted this innumerable times, this is the updated link:

http://www.google.com.au/url?q=http://www.racq.com.au/cars-and-driving/cars/owning-and-maintaining-a-car/car-running-costs&sa=U&ved=0CBQQFjAAahUKEwig7dSPi5_IAhUnn6YKHcC2BG8&sig2=YaBT1is2uv_5Ih0HgmJeOQ&usg=AFQjCNHTXYr57xFrp2xEuILUhr-AS6zgcQ

It is just the private costs. But does not include the additional costs of parking both at work and at home in the extra 18-20m2 of house that adds $36-40,000 onto your mortgage.

Keep in mind this is calculated for Queensland where petrol costs less. So add the “Canberra Tax”.

You need to add all the taxpayer subsidies from the ACT Government, Federal Government, Ambulance and police costs, the deaths, 20% of hospital beds occupied by car victims and lifetime costs of the ACT’s share of the over 32,000 seriously injured every year in Australia.

Nice to see someone can do the elementary maths to arrive at the huge waste involved., even though I have given the total calculation also several times.

Thanks Rubaiyat,

So it’s the private costs, in other words completely irrelevant to the debate and incomparable to the costs of public transport unless you were to design a public transport system with the same flexibility and performance of a personal car. And that’s without even starting to look at individual choice and how people are free to spend their own money however they like. I can’t believe that some people buy Ferraris but it’s disingenuous to say they’re wasting money when they could have a Toyota that does the same job.

You are probably correct in stating that effective public transport is better than private transport over these high use routes but you do yourself and your argument a disservice posting such ridiculously inflated figures.

Well they do say “ignorance is bliss”.

Sorry to throw in the facts as a distraction from the commuter daydream.

The facts?

Hmmmm, did you know that the average Australian spends almost one month per year watching television?

Imagine if they were at work for that extra month per year, we could build multiple trams everywhere through Australia. What a massive waste.

We are just talking about random, irrelevant stuff right? Can we talk about how much we waste on junk food next?

We are just talking about the actual, rather than misunderstood, cost of alternative methods of commuting which YOU see as random and irrelevant, because you arrive at your conclusions by guesstimate, fudge and ignoring everything you don’t like to hear.

I am having trouble keeping up with all the facts (at least I hope that is what it is and not deliberate lies) about light rail.

The rambling catalogue of facts in no particular order:

Can’t operate in Canberra’s cold climate. Just Leningrad, Portland, Addis Ababa, Prague…

Road isn’t level the tram will fall over.

They won’t have enough passengers.

They’ll have too many passengers.

They won’t have enough seats, despite not having enough passengers.

Passengers can’t stand up at speed.

They are too slow.

They are too fast they’ll ram into things.

They break down, like cars/trucks/buses/traffic.

They block up cities, despite being in their own roght of way.

They only work in large cities, small cities, existing cities, old cities, new cities, cities far far away, any city but Canberra City.

They’ve never been done before.

They’ve been done before.

They’ve never been done before here.

People won’t ride on something that doesn’t exist, so stop them or they will.

They have sent Canberra bankrupt before they even exist, just imagine what it will be like after?

Businesses are leaving Canberra because of trams, just imagine what it will be like after?

Canberra has never done anything different.

Canberra needs to change.

Canberra can’t change.

They are in a suburb I don’t live, unlike the buses and roads in a suburb where I don’t live.

They are new untested technology.

They are not new untested technology.

Hundred year old is bad (tram).

Hundred year old is good (car).

They can’t get over our precipitously steep bridges.

They’ll break our precipitously steep bridges (heavier trucks just levitate over them)

They are noisy (if you put your ear on them you can hear them).

They are dangerous sources of crime and will distract our police from dealing with all the car crime.

They are deadly, one person was killed in Melbourne last year.

They are too expensive (insert made up figure here).

You can’t go shopping on them. Melbourne’s shops are all broke, lifeless and empty unlike in Civic.

The substations are noisy, we won’t be able to hear our suburban substations.

They are ugly, we won’t be able to see or smell all the bitumen, concrete, road kill, parking lots, parking metres, parking signs, abandoned vehicles, service stations…

They pollute!!!! (apparently).

The money is needed for more hospital beds for road victims.

They are too expensive to run, unlike cheap cars.

They’ll never make money unlike all Canberra’s tollways and cars.

They’ll never be able to compete wuth Uber.

If you let the government put in trams they’ll come around and take away all your cars.

FINALLY:

“We” JUST KNOW they don’t work.

How do we know that? Because “We” keep saying it…

…until of course they get built and work (The Gold Coast), then they become THAT’S DIFFERENT.

LOL. That put a smile on my face.

Trams are the way of the future, cars are the death of the world, etc. What impact on the environment will the tram and electric cars have? Claims are that zero emmissions and carbon neutrality will make these systems better but how can they say that. All the new clean energy alternatives rely on solar power, through the grid that is mainly run on coal. “But our power comes from the solar farm, or wind turbines!” Is claimed over and over but how many devices does clean energy actually run? There is only so much power being generated but every clean energy user claims they use that source. Not every clean energy electric device can extract power from the same supply so somebody must be lying about it. If the kWh produced is the same as how much is billed as clean energy then I am a monkey’s uncle. Electric cars are a prime example. Does the driver know where their electrons are sourced when plugged in? If every household and business changed to green energy tomorrow, there isn’t enough of it to go around and the amount of coal powered energy supplied would not change. It is deception by power companies to increase their profits under the guise of promising to help save our planet.

rubaiyat said :

I am having trouble keeping up with all the facts (at least I hope that is what it is and not deliberate lies) about light rail.

The rambling catalogue of facts in no particular order:

They’ll have too many passengers.
They are too fast they’ll ram into things.
They’ve never been done before.
Canberra has never done anything different.
Canberra can’t change.
They are new untested technology.
They’ll break our precipitously steep bridges (heavier trucks just levitate over them)
They are dangerous sources of crime and will distract our police from dealing with all the car crime.
You can’t go shopping on them. Melbourne’s shops are all broke, lifeless and empty unlike in Civic.
If you let the government put in trams they’ll come around and take away all your cars.

Got sources for one of these?

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

Where have you got the cost figure of $11-16K per driver from?

That would equate to about $3-4.5B per year for the ACT.

Are you talking about private or public costs? The total ACT government budget for 2015-16 is only $4.6B.

I have posted this innumerable times, this is the updated link:

http://www.google.com.au/url?q=http://www.racq.com.au/cars-and-driving/cars/owning-and-maintaining-a-car/car-running-costs&sa=U&ved=0CBQQFjAAahUKEwig7dSPi5_IAhUnn6YKHcC2BG8&sig2=YaBT1is2uv_5Ih0HgmJeOQ&usg=AFQjCNHTXYr57xFrp2xEuILUhr-AS6zgcQ

It is just the private costs. But does not include the additional costs of parking both at work and at home in the extra 18-20m2 of house that adds $36-40,000 onto your mortgage.

Keep in mind this is calculated for Queensland where petrol costs less. So add the “Canberra Tax”.

You need to add all the taxpayer subsidies from the ACT Government, Federal Government, Ambulance and police costs, the deaths, 20% of hospital beds occupied by car victims and lifetime costs of the ACT’s share of the over 32,000 seriously injured every year in Australia.

Nice to see someone can do the elementary maths to arrive at the huge waste involved., even though I have given the total calculation also several times.

Thanks Rubaiyat,

So it’s the private costs, in other words completely irrelevant to the debate and incomparable to the costs of public transport unless you were to design a public transport system with the same flexibility and performance of a personal car. And that’s without even starting to look at individual choice and how people are free to spend their own money however they like. I can’t believe that some people buy Ferraris but it’s disingenuous to say they’re wasting money when they could have a Toyota that does the same job.

You are probably correct in stating that effective public transport is better than private transport over these high use routes but you do yourself and your argument a disservice posting such ridiculously inflated figures.

Well they do say “ignorance is bliss”.

Sorry to throw in the facts as a distraction from the commuter daydream.

The facts?

Hmmmm, did you know that the average Australian spends almost one month per year watching television?

Imagine if they were at work for that extra month per year, we could build multiple trams everywhere through Australia. What a massive waste.

We are just talking about random, irrelevant stuff right? Can we talk about how much we waste on junk food next?

We are just talking about the actual, rather than misunderstood, cost of alternative methods of commuting which YOU see as random and irrelevant, because you arrive at your conclusions by guesstimate, fudge and ignoring everything you don’t like to hear.

I am having trouble keeping up with all the facts (at least I hope that is what it is and not deliberate lies) about light rail.

The rambling catalogue of facts in no particular order:

Can’t operate in Canberra’s cold climate. Just Leningrad, Portland, Addis Ababa, Prague…

Road isn’t level the tram will fall over.

They won’t have enough passengers.

They’ll have too many passengers.

They won’t have enough seats, despite not having enough passengers.

Passengers can’t stand up at speed.

They are too slow.

They are too fast they’ll ram into things.

They break down, like cars/trucks/buses/traffic.

They block up cities, despite being in their own roght of way.

They only work in large cities, small cities, existing cities, old cities, new cities, cities far far away, any city but Canberra City.

They’ve never been done before.

They’ve been done before.

They’ve never been done before here.

People won’t ride on something that doesn’t exist, so stop them or they will.

They have sent Canberra bankrupt before they even exist, just imagine what it will be like after?

Businesses are leaving Canberra because of trams, just imagine what it will be like after?

Canberra has never done anything different.

Canberra needs to change.

Canberra can’t change.

They are in a suburb I don’t live, unlike the buses and roads in a suburb where I don’t live.

They are new untested technology.

They are not new untested technology.

Hundred year old is bad (tram).

Hundred year old is good (car).

They can’t get over our precipitously steep bridges.

They’ll break our precipitously steep bridges (heavier trucks just levitate over them)

They are noisy (if you put your ear on them you can hear them).

They are dangerous sources of crime and will distract our police from dealing with all the car crime.

They are deadly, one person was killed in Melbourne last year.

They are too expensive (insert made up figure here).

You can’t go shopping on them. Melbourne’s shops are all broke, lifeless and empty unlike in Civic.

The substations are noisy, we won’t be able to hear our suburban substations.

They are ugly, we won’t be able to see or smell all the bitumen, concrete, road kill, parking lots, parking metres, parking signs, abandoned vehicles, service stations…

They pollute!!!! (apparently).

The money is needed for more hospital beds for road victims.

They are too expensive to run, unlike cheap cars.

They’ll never make money unlike all Canberra’s tollways and cars.

They’ll never be able to compete wuth Uber.

If you let the government put in trams they’ll come around and take away all your cars.

FINALLY:

“We” JUST KNOW they don’t work.

How do we know that? Because “We” keep saying it…

…until of course they get built and work (The Gold Coast), then they become THAT’S DIFFERENT.

Firstly,
You seem to believe that I’m against public transport. I’m not and use our average bus system daily.

But you are somehow claiming that the figure for running a car ($11-16k per year) can be compared against the light rail (or other public transport) cost as if they were equal and as if the light rail and other public transport are an alternative to all private car usage.

The people who use the light rail will still mostly own cars. Most people who live in along the route aren’t going to suddenly sell their cars because public transport is the future.

And the reason is simple. Flexibility and performance. No public transport in this city is going to have the flexibility to take me from point A to point B at time X with anywhere near the consistency that a car will. Public transport is a long way off meeting it’s customer requirements in this city and you know it.

You can support the light rail, public transport and the reduction in reliance on private cars all you want. But you can’t use ridiculous and irrelevant “facts” to support it if you want your argument to hold any weight.

Dreadnaught1905 said :

rubaiyat said :

, 20% of hospital beds occupied by car victims .

Ive seen you quote that one once or twice, and I’m sure you have a good reason to quote it. I did some reading through the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s hospital reports to try and see if I could find some corroboration for this very high number. Here’s what I found:

The AIHW report on “Trends in Hospitalised Injury, 1999-00 to 2012-13” shows that 12.2% of all Injury cases at hospital for 2012-13 are Transport Related.
Transport includes Road, Rail, Air, Sea, Footpath, Horse Drawn… etc.
Of course, the figures bear out that cars and motorcycles are by far the highest contributors at 34% and 25% (of that 12.2%) respectively. Surprisingly animal related transport injuries are at a little over 6%. Who knew horse riding was so dangerous?!

Anyway, 12.2% of all hospitalised injury cases are Transport related. Injury related hospitalisation accounts for around 13% of all hospitalisation in Australia (AIHW “Australia’s Hospitals at a Glance 2013-14”).

That leaves me with a figure of 1.5% of hospital cases being taken up by transport related cases. Not quite the 20% your source has claimed.

I agree with you 100% that road related injuries and fatalities are far too high, and we should endeavour to reduce them. Improved safety devices, appropriate road user education, viable alternatives for commuters all play a part in this – but we need a holistic approach to it.

You are right. In part.

I got my data from the bitre “Road Trauma Australia – Annual Summaries” and AIHW “Obesity and injury in the National Hospital Morbidity Database”. I made an allowance for the proportion of obese individuals with cardiac and diabetic admissions due to a largely exerciseless lifestyle, principally from using cars instead of walking or walking-using public transport.

You are too quick to dismiss the pedestrian/cycling etc portion of the statistics. My reading is those are victims of cars, the specifically car statistics are for the occupants of cars.

Where you are right is the statistics (except the obesity stats) are a proportion of the total injury cases. I was lead by the anacdotal evidence of hospital staff I know who say a large proportion of emergency admissions are car related.

The over 32,000 serious trama cases per year for Australia is not however a proportion, it comes from ABS stats (Road_trauma_Australia_2014_statistical_summary_N_ISSN.pdf). Unlike deaths this is steadily rising, not falling, a sign that the incidents are increasing but medical intervention is improving. That still leaves huge numbers of people permanently wholly or partially severely incapacitated.

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/theurbanist/2014/05/06/which-road-users-are-most-likely-to-end-up-in-hospital/

Social Cost of Road Crashes – Tim Risbey, Mark Cregan and Hema de Silva:

http://atrf.info/papers/2010/2010_Risbey_Cregan_deSilva.pdf

http://www.allianz.com.au/life-insurance/accidents-injuries-and-fatalities-in-victoria

PS I thought it was a well known that Horse Riding is the most dangerous sport, by far.

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

Where have you got the cost figure of $11-16K per driver from?

That would equate to about $3-4.5B per year for the ACT.

Are you talking about private or public costs? The total ACT government budget for 2015-16 is only $4.6B.

I have posted this innumerable times, this is the updated link:

http://www.google.com.au/url?q=http://www.racq.com.au/cars-and-driving/cars/owning-and-maintaining-a-car/car-running-costs&sa=U&ved=0CBQQFjAAahUKEwig7dSPi5_IAhUnn6YKHcC2BG8&sig2=YaBT1is2uv_5Ih0HgmJeOQ&usg=AFQjCNHTXYr57xFrp2xEuILUhr-AS6zgcQ

It is just the private costs. But does not include the additional costs of parking both at work and at home in the extra 18-20m2 of house that adds $36-40,000 onto your mortgage.

Keep in mind this is calculated for Queensland where petrol costs less. So add the “Canberra Tax”.

You need to add all the taxpayer subsidies from the ACT Government, Federal Government, Ambulance and police costs, the deaths, 20% of hospital beds occupied by car victims and lifetime costs of the ACT’s share of the over 32,000 seriously injured every year in Australia.

Nice to see someone can do the elementary maths to arrive at the huge waste involved., even though I have given the total calculation also several times.

Thanks Rubaiyat,

So it’s the private costs, in other words completely irrelevant to the debate and incomparable to the costs of public transport unless you were to design a public transport system with the same flexibility and performance of a personal car. And that’s without even starting to look at individual choice and how people are free to spend their own money however they like. I can’t believe that some people buy Ferraris but it’s disingenuous to say they’re wasting money when they could have a Toyota that does the same job.

You are probably correct in stating that effective public transport is better than private transport over these high use routes but you do yourself and your argument a disservice posting such ridiculously inflated figures.

Well they do say “ignorance is bliss”.

Sorry to throw in the facts as a distraction from the commuter daydream.

The facts?

Hmmmm, did you know that the average Australian spends almost one month per year watching television?

Imagine if they were at work for that extra month per year, we could build multiple trams everywhere through Australia. What a massive waste.

We are just talking about random, irrelevant stuff right? Can we talk about how much we waste on junk food next?

We are just talking about the actual, rather than misunderstood, cost of alternative methods of commuting which YOU see as random and irrelevant, because you arrive at your conclusions by guesstimate, fudge and ignoring everything you don’t like to hear.

I am having trouble keeping up with all the facts (at least I hope that is what it is and not deliberate lies) about light rail.

The rambling catalogue of facts in no particular order:

Can’t operate in Canberra’s cold climate. Just Leningrad, Portland, Addis Ababa, Prague…

Road isn’t level the tram will fall over.

They won’t have enough passengers.

They’ll have too many passengers.

They won’t have enough seats, despite not having enough passengers.

Passengers can’t stand up at speed.

They are too slow.

They are too fast they’ll ram into things.

They break down, like cars/trucks/buses/traffic.

They block up cities, despite being in their own roght of way.

They only work in large cities, small cities, existing cities, old cities, new cities, cities far far away, any city but Canberra City.

They’ve never been done before.

They’ve been done before.

They’ve never been done before here.

People won’t ride on something that doesn’t exist, so stop them or they will.

They have sent Canberra bankrupt before they even exist, just imagine what it will be like after?

Businesses are leaving Canberra because of trams, just imagine what it will be like after?

Canberra has never done anything different.

Canberra needs to change.

Canberra can’t change.

They are in a suburb I don’t live, unlike the buses and roads in a suburb where I don’t live.

They are new untested technology.

They are not new untested technology.

Hundred year old is bad (tram).

Hundred year old is good (car).

They can’t get over our precipitously steep bridges.

They’ll break our precipitously steep bridges (heavier trucks just levitate over them)

They are noisy (if you put your ear on them you can hear them).

They are dangerous sources of crime and will distract our police from dealing with all the car crime.

They are deadly, one person was killed in Melbourne last year.

They are too expensive (insert made up figure here).

You can’t go shopping on them. Melbourne’s shops are all broke, lifeless and empty unlike in Civic.

The substations are noisy, we won’t be able to hear our suburban substations.

They are ugly, we won’t be able to see or smell all the bitumen, concrete, road kill, parking lots, parking metres, parking signs, abandoned vehicles, service stations…

They pollute!!!! (apparently).

The money is needed for more hospital beds for road victims.

They are too expensive to run, unlike cheap cars.

They’ll never make money unlike all Canberra’s tollways and cars.

They’ll never be able to compete wuth Uber.

If you let the government put in trams they’ll come around and take away all your cars.

FINALLY:

“We” JUST KNOW they don’t work.

How do we know that? Because “We” keep saying it…

…until of course they get built and work (The Gold Coast), then they become THAT’S DIFFERENT.

On arrival in Canberra to live early in ’66,I had time on my hands at night until I found a permament base, so I drove around every night getting my bearings and finished up scribbling a very rough draft of a train system.It was in the shape of ‘Y’,starting near Watson,which I seem to have read more about in later years.Why am I not surprised you are still talking about it?

rubaiyat said :

, 20% of hospital beds occupied by car victims .

Ive seen you quote that one once or twice, and I’m sure you have a good reason to quote it. I did some reading through the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s hospital reports to try and see if I could find some corroboration for this very high number. Here’s what I found:

The AIHW report on “Trends in Hospitalised Injury, 1999-00 to 2012-13” shows that 12.2% of all Injury cases at hospital for 2012-13 are Transport Related.
Transport includes Road, Rail, Air, Sea, Footpath, Horse Drawn… etc.
Of course, the figures bear out that cars and motorcycles are by far the highest contributors at 34% and 25% (of that 12.2%) respectively. Surprisingly animal related transport injuries are at a little over 6%. Who knew horse riding was so dangerous?!

Anyway, 12.2% of all hospitalised injury cases are Transport related. Injury related hospitalisation accounts for around 13% of all hospitalisation in Australia (AIHW “Australia’s Hospitals at a Glance 2013-14”).

That leaves me with a figure of 1.5% of hospital cases being taken up by transport related cases. Not quite the 20% your source has claimed.

I agree with you 100% that road related injuries and fatalities are far too high, and we should endeavour to reduce them. Improved safety devices, appropriate road user education, viable alternatives for commuters all play a part in this – but we need a holistic approach to it.

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

Where have you got the cost figure of $11-16K per driver from?

That would equate to about $3-4.5B per year for the ACT.

Are you talking about private or public costs? The total ACT government budget for 2015-16 is only $4.6B.

I have posted this innumerable times, this is the updated link:

http://www.google.com.au/url?q=http://www.racq.com.au/cars-and-driving/cars/owning-and-maintaining-a-car/car-running-costs&sa=U&ved=0CBQQFjAAahUKEwig7dSPi5_IAhUnn6YKHcC2BG8&sig2=YaBT1is2uv_5Ih0HgmJeOQ&usg=AFQjCNHTXYr57xFrp2xEuILUhr-AS6zgcQ

It is just the private costs. But does not include the additional costs of parking both at work and at home in the extra 18-20m2 of house that adds $36-40,000 onto your mortgage.

Keep in mind this is calculated for Queensland where petrol costs less. So add the “Canberra Tax”.

You need to add all the taxpayer subsidies from the ACT Government, Federal Government, Ambulance and police costs, the deaths, 20% of hospital beds occupied by car victims and lifetime costs of the ACT’s share of the over 32,000 seriously injured every year in Australia.

Nice to see someone can do the elementary maths to arrive at the huge waste involved., even though I have given the total calculation also several times.

Thanks Rubaiyat,

So it’s the private costs, in other words completely irrelevant to the debate and incomparable to the costs of public transport unless you were to design a public transport system with the same flexibility and performance of a personal car. And that’s without even starting to look at individual choice and how people are free to spend their own money however they like. I can’t believe that some people buy Ferraris but it’s disingenuous to say they’re wasting money when they could have a Toyota that does the same job.

You are probably correct in stating that effective public transport is better than private transport over these high use routes but you do yourself and your argument a disservice posting such ridiculously inflated figures.

Well they do say “ignorance is bliss”.

Sorry to throw in the facts as a distraction from the commuter daydream.

The facts?

Hmmmm, did you know that the average Australian spends almost one month per year watching television?

Imagine if they were at work for that extra month per year, we could build multiple trams everywhere through Australia. What a massive waste.

We are just talking about random, irrelevant stuff right? Can we talk about how much we waste on junk food next?

chewy14 said :

The facts?

Hmmmm, did you know that the average Australian spends almost one month per year watching television?

Imagine if they were at work for that extra month per year, we could build multiple trams everywhere through Australia. What a massive waste.

We are just talking about random, irrelevant stuff right? Can we talk about how much we waste on junk food next?

Thats the point. Infrastructure projects are rarely as wasteful as what people think they are. It usually political motivation that drives the argument, because its an easy political wedge to push. Even if they operate at a loss, it doesn’t mean its wasteful spending, because most of the other benefits never get included, like less cars on the road.

Wasteful spending IMO is the stupid middle class welfare that just drives up inflation and means there is more demand for welfare because its too expensive. Childcare is a good one.

Or the tax incentives we give wealthy people because they say they need it to employ more people. IMO drive more business, don’t help out existing business with poor business models. Provide infrastructure and incentives to create new business and employ more people, rather than relying on existing business to do it.

One day the Libs are going to realise that their political attack on the NBN was poorly done. By all means they should have attacked it for the poor management and rollout plan, but not based on cost or technology used. The NBN is the kind of infrastructure that drives new buisness, which in turn creates jobs. Its far from a white elephant many believe it is.

I’m not so sure on the light rail plan for Canberra, but rather than attack it with no facts and political ideology and personal opinion, I’m waiting to hear the Liberal solution, which so far is non existant or really stupid, like buy more buses, which is a waste of money.

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

Where have you got the cost figure of $11-16K per driver from?

That would equate to about $3-4.5B per year for the ACT.

Are you talking about private or public costs? The total ACT government budget for 2015-16 is only $4.6B.

I have posted this innumerable times, this is the updated link:

http://www.google.com.au/url?q=http://www.racq.com.au/cars-and-driving/cars/owning-and-maintaining-a-car/car-running-costs&sa=U&ved=0CBQQFjAAahUKEwig7dSPi5_IAhUnn6YKHcC2BG8&sig2=YaBT1is2uv_5Ih0HgmJeOQ&usg=AFQjCNHTXYr57xFrp2xEuILUhr-AS6zgcQ

It is just the private costs. But does not include the additional costs of parking both at work and at home in the extra 18-20m2 of house that adds $36-40,000 onto your mortgage.

Keep in mind this is calculated for Queensland where petrol costs less. So add the “Canberra Tax”.

You need to add all the taxpayer subsidies from the ACT Government, Federal Government, Ambulance and police costs, the deaths, 20% of hospital beds occupied by car victims and lifetime costs of the ACT’s share of the over 32,000 seriously injured every year in Australia.

Nice to see someone can do the elementary maths to arrive at the huge waste involved., even though I have given the total calculation also several times.

Thanks Rubaiyat,

So it’s the private costs, in other words completely irrelevant to the debate and incomparable to the costs of public transport unless you were to design a public transport system with the same flexibility and performance of a personal car. And that’s without even starting to look at individual choice and how people are free to spend their own money however they like. I can’t believe that some people buy Ferraris but it’s disingenuous to say they’re wasting money when they could have a Toyota that does the same job.

You are probably correct in stating that effective public transport is better than private transport over these high use routes but you do yourself and your argument a disservice posting such ridiculously inflated figures.

Well they do say “ignorance is bliss”.

Sorry to throw in the facts as a distraction from the commuter daydream.

The facts?

Hmmmm, did you know that the average Australian spends almost one month per year watching television?

Imagine if they were at work for that extra month per year, we could build multiple trams everywhere through Australia. What a massive waste.

We are just talking about random, irrelevant stuff right? Can we talk about how much we waste on junk food next?

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

Where have you got the cost figure of $11-16K per driver from?

That would equate to about $3-4.5B per year for the ACT.

Are you talking about private or public costs? The total ACT government budget for 2015-16 is only $4.6B.

I have posted this innumerable times, this is the updated link:

http://www.google.com.au/url?q=http://www.racq.com.au/cars-and-driving/cars/owning-and-maintaining-a-car/car-running-costs&sa=U&ved=0CBQQFjAAahUKEwig7dSPi5_IAhUnn6YKHcC2BG8&sig2=YaBT1is2uv_5Ih0HgmJeOQ&usg=AFQjCNHTXYr57xFrp2xEuILUhr-AS6zgcQ

It is just the private costs. But does not include the additional costs of parking both at work and at home in the extra 18-20m2 of house that adds $36-40,000 onto your mortgage.

Keep in mind this is calculated for Queensland where petrol costs less. So add the “Canberra Tax”.

You need to add all the taxpayer subsidies from the ACT Government, Federal Government, Ambulance and police costs, the deaths, 20% of hospital beds occupied by car victims and lifetime costs of the ACT’s share of the over 32,000 seriously injured every year in Australia.

Nice to see someone can do the elementary maths to arrive at the huge waste involved., even though I have given the total calculation also several times.

Thanks Rubaiyat,

So it’s the private costs, in other words completely irrelevant to the debate and incomparable to the costs of public transport unless you were to design a public transport system with the same flexibility and performance of a personal car. And that’s without even starting to look at individual choice and how people are free to spend their own money however they like. I can’t believe that some people buy Ferraris but it’s disingenuous to say they’re wasting money when they could have a Toyota that does the same job.

You are probably correct in stating that effective public transport is better than private transport over these high use routes but you do yourself and your argument a disservice posting such ridiculously inflated figures.

Well they do say “ignorance is bliss”.

Sorry to throw in the facts as a distraction from the commuter daydream.

HenryBaits said :

Strange, when Joe Hockey says poor people don’t drive cars, he gets slammed. When Steven stands up for poor drivers he get slammed too… and probably by the same people.

The “persecution” of these noble humanitarians is as confected as their standing up for poor anyone.

For those who can’t or don’t want to read the RACQ’s 2015 Car Ownership costs, the annual total costs for owners range from:

Suzuki Celerio 1.0L Micro $5,187.87

Ave cost: $0.35/km

up to

Toyota Landcruiser GXL (4WD) 4.6L $19,099.09

Ave cost: $1.27/km

Electric cars range from:

Mitsubishi Outlander Phev Hybrid 2L $12,965.81

Ave cost: $0.86/km

up to

BMW i3 Electric $15,103.42

Ave cost: $1.01/km

Over half of registered cars are now larger 4WDs, so the overall average would be over $12,000/year and $0.82/km.

This is purely owner driving costs, add in all the costs of parking both at work and at home in the extra 18-20 m2 of garage that adds $36-40,000 onto the average mortgage.

Keep in mind this is calculated for Queensland where petrol costs less. So add on the “Canberra Tax”.

Also add on the taxpayer subsidies from the ACT Government, Federal Government, Ambulance and police costs, deaths, 20% of hospital beds occupied by car victims and lifetime costs of the ACT’s share of the over 32,000 seriously injured every year in Australia.

rubaiyat said :

You can thank Liberal MLA Giulia Jones for standing up for the little guy, the Oil Companies and the Automobile Industry, who seem to be relentlessly under fire from the Out-a-Control Big Bully Greens.

You can also thank the tireless protectors of the little guy Oil Companies, US law firm Kirkland & Ellis who defended BP after BP’s $40 billion Gulf oil spill and are now about to come to the aid of Volkswagen after they innocently faked their car emissions.

Time to put an end to the persecution of these selfless companies, who are only trying to make this world a better place for all!

…sorry that was a typo, should have been:

“… a better place for oil!”

OpenYourMind said :

Rubaiyat, no matter how much lipstick you put on the pig that is light rail, it’s still an ugly wart on the financial landscape. Even if we are are financially suicidal to build it, a tram is highly unlikely to be the choice mode of transport in 100 years. Like I said before. The Tram is fine, so long as our rates are locked to CPI and we don’t have to fund this disaster plus Mr Fluffy, on top of all that the city already has to pay including our existing underutiised and expensive public transport that actually goes where a decent percentage of the ratepayers live!

That lipstick is crudely smeared all over the face of the driver sitting behind the wheel of his 2 tonne 4WD gas guzzler that he insists he has the right to park wherever he wants.

Even when it isn’t Floriade but he has an urgent case of the “I Wanna!”s.

rubaiyat said :

chewy14 said :

Where have you got the cost figure of $11-16K per driver from?

That would equate to about $3-4.5B per year for the ACT.

Are you talking about private or public costs? The total ACT government budget for 2015-16 is only $4.6B.

I have posted this innumerable times, this is the updated link:

http://www.google.com.au/url?q=http://www.racq.com.au/cars-and-driving/cars/owning-and-maintaining-a-car/car-running-costs&sa=U&ved=0CBQQFjAAahUKEwig7dSPi5_IAhUnn6YKHcC2BG8&sig2=YaBT1is2uv_5Ih0HgmJeOQ&usg=AFQjCNHTXYr57xFrp2xEuILUhr-AS6zgcQ

It is just the private costs. But does not include the additional costs of parking both at work and at home in the extra 18-20m2 of house that adds $36-40,000 onto your mortgage.

Keep in mind this is calculated for Queensland where petrol costs less. So add the “Canberra Tax”.

You need to add all the taxpayer subsidies from the ACT Government, Federal Government, Ambulance and police costs, the deaths, 20% of hospital beds occupied by car victims and lifetime costs of the ACT’s share of the over 32,000 seriously injured every year in Australia.

Nice to see someone can do the elementary maths to arrive at the huge waste involved., even though I have given the total calculation also several times.

Thanks Rubaiyat,

So it’s the private costs, in other words completely irrelevant to the debate and incomparable to the costs of public transport unless you were to design a public transport system with the same flexibility and performance of a personal car. And that’s without even starting to look at individual choice and how people are free to spend their own money however they like. I can’t believe that some people buy Ferraris but it’s disingenuous to say they’re wasting money when they could have a Toyota that does the same job.

You are probably correct in stating that effective public transport is better than private transport over these high use routes but you do yourself and your argument a disservice posting such ridiculously inflated figures.

Just a teensy few examples, in case you’ve forgotten, or never knew, of where that magic unicorn dust comes from that makes your car go:

Gulf of Mexico fire:

http://fuelfix.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/731/files/tourists-returning-to-gulf-coast/4ccdddac68255315760f6a70670008c6.jpg

Kuwait:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/USAF_F-16A_F-15C_F-15E_Desert_Storm_edit2.jpg

Two and half month Montara oil spill in Timor Sea:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/West_Atlas_Oil_Spill_1.JPG

But I know what is really concerning you, not to worry, you can rest easy that those responsible are not paying taxes. At least not in this country.

Oh dear I spoke too soon, Looks like BP’s bill for the Gulf oil fire could top $68.2 billion.

Plus another $3.5 – $5.5 billion in a lawsuit from BP’s own shareholders!

Outrageous, just over a little environmental damage, not like I’m ever going to ever be affected! Oh, wait…

You can thank Liberal MLA Giulia Jones for standing up for the little guy, the Oil Companies and the Automobile Industry, who seem to be relentlessly under fire from the Out-a-Control Big Bully Greens.

You can also thank the tireless protectors of the little guy Oil Companies, US law firm Kirkland & Ellis who defended BP after BP’s $40 billion Gulf oil spill and are now about to come to the aid of Volkswagen after they innocently faked their car emissions.

Time to put an end to the persecution of these selfless companies, who are only trying to make this world a better place for all!

chewy14 said :

Where have you got the cost figure of $11-16K per driver from?

That would equate to about $3-4.5B per year for the ACT.

Are you talking about private or public costs? The total ACT government budget for 2015-16 is only $4.6B.

I have posted this innumerable times, this is the updated link:

http://www.google.com.au/url?q=http://www.racq.com.au/cars-and-driving/cars/owning-and-maintaining-a-car/car-running-costs&sa=U&ved=0CBQQFjAAahUKEwig7dSPi5_IAhUnn6YKHcC2BG8&sig2=YaBT1is2uv_5Ih0HgmJeOQ&usg=AFQjCNHTXYr57xFrp2xEuILUhr-AS6zgcQ

It is just the private costs. But does not include the additional costs of parking both at work and at home in the extra 18-20m2 of house that adds $36-40,000 onto your mortgage.

Keep in mind this is calculated for Queensland where petrol costs less. So add the “Canberra Tax”.

You need to add all the taxpayer subsidies from the ACT Government, Federal Government, Ambulance and police costs, the deaths, 20% of hospital beds occupied by car victims and lifetime costs of the ACT’s share of the over 32,000 seriously injured every year in Australia.

Nice to see someone can do the elementary maths to arrive at the huge waste involved., even though I have given the total calculation also several times.

chewy14 said :

rubaiyat said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

Grail said :

The Tuggernong to Civic commute has nothing on the Gungahlin to Civic nightmare, don’t kid yourself. Traffic banked up from Belconnen Way to Ginninderra Drice is a regular feature awaiting Gunghalin commuters.

Bus trips from Tuggeranong to Civic are comparable with driving and searching for parking outside the Canberra Centre car parks. My trip between Tuggeranong and Dickson is an hour, which means I save half an hour each way for my reading (which is time I would otherwise have spent driving).

These transit problems are not the result of a poorly planned city, but poorly organised society. Why is everyone from Tuggeranong and Gungahlin trying to get to Civic? Surely not all the jobs are in the city. Well, if they are, then we have a problem.
Government has gone and globalized everything. All the satellite operations in Tuggers and other non-central areas have been migrated back into a one-building-fits-all approach. Budget targets have been met by cutting, merging and relocating staff but now people have to work further from home. That means more cars on the road. Wasn’t there a push some years ago to make Gungahlin a government hub where employment opportunities would be available for local residents? Where have all those jobs gone? Were they ever even created? Tuggeranong also has a huge Centerlink building, but I wonder how many people actually work there.
It isn’t just the government, but also retail and financial sectors causing the issues. Is it because Civic has NBN that business doesn’t want to set up out in the burbs?
Still, I have to wonder why some people would live in one end of Canberra to have to work on the other side. Indeed, just getting to the major hub of Civic seems to be a hurdle for most Canberrans. Is public transport simply not efficient enough? Do people just accept that a half hour in a car beats 2 hours and three different interchanges by bus?
One prohibitively expensive tram to fix the problems of a fraction of one sixth of the state is not going to do squat to the congestion woes. Majura Parkway and Gungahlin Drive will still be gridlocked both morning and evening times. If 50,000 people end up using the billion dollar tramway, it will have come at a cost of $20,000 per head. What that figure means I don’t know, but it sounds very expensive.

$11-16,000 every single year for every driver for the next how many years, not even including the cost of the roads and resultant hospital beds, now that sounds expensive to me.

Light Rail seems to be good for well over a hundred years, so how much does that actually work out to as the number of commuters grows steadily en-route?

Do the arithmetic, not the “dunno, but I rickn”.

Where have you got the cost figure of $11-16K per driver from?

That would equate to about $3-4.5B per year for the ACT.

Are you talking about private or public costs? The total ACT government budget for 2015-16 is only $4.6B.

Theres nothing visionary about a method of public transport thats 100 years old, so it must be a war on cars.

Yeah, the world is edging towards that low carbon future loved by some, loathed by others. This means more renewables and less petrol engines. But societies attitudes change towards these sort of things changes, like gay marriage.

The only reason I’d vote for the tram would be a) If the business case for it stacked up and b) if I could see the long term benefit for the majority from it. Neither of these conditions are met, so the ACT ratepayer will be on the hook for another white elephant…so its a no from me.

I think the under one hour during peak times bus ride to Civic is only available to some commuters from the Valley.

The more limited Bus stops of Tuggeranong are often poorly situated, there are less services than there used to be and a lot of stops picking up commuters on the journey before you get to your destination. Bus takes many tuggeranong residents twice as long as a drive commute.

Strange, when Joe Hockey says poor people don’t drive cars, he gets slammed. When Steven stands up for poor drivers he get slammed too… and probably by the same people.

rubaiyat said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

Grail said :

The Tuggernong to Civic commute has nothing on the Gungahlin to Civic nightmare, don’t kid yourself. Traffic banked up from Belconnen Way to Ginninderra Drice is a regular feature awaiting Gunghalin commuters.

Bus trips from Tuggeranong to Civic are comparable with driving and searching for parking outside the Canberra Centre car parks. My trip between Tuggeranong and Dickson is an hour, which means I save half an hour each way for my reading (which is time I would otherwise have spent driving).

These transit problems are not the result of a poorly planned city, but poorly organised society. Why is everyone from Tuggeranong and Gungahlin trying to get to Civic? Surely not all the jobs are in the city. Well, if they are, then we have a problem.
Government has gone and globalized everything. All the satellite operations in Tuggers and other non-central areas have been migrated back into a one-building-fits-all approach. Budget targets have been met by cutting, merging and relocating staff but now people have to work further from home. That means more cars on the road. Wasn’t there a push some years ago to make Gungahlin a government hub where employment opportunities would be available for local residents? Where have all those jobs gone? Were they ever even created? Tuggeranong also has a huge Centerlink building, but I wonder how many people actually work there.
It isn’t just the government, but also retail and financial sectors causing the issues. Is it because Civic has NBN that business doesn’t want to set up out in the burbs?
Still, I have to wonder why some people would live in one end of Canberra to have to work on the other side. Indeed, just getting to the major hub of Civic seems to be a hurdle for most Canberrans. Is public transport simply not efficient enough? Do people just accept that a half hour in a car beats 2 hours and three different interchanges by bus?
One prohibitively expensive tram to fix the problems of a fraction of one sixth of the state is not going to do squat to the congestion woes. Majura Parkway and Gungahlin Drive will still be gridlocked both morning and evening times. If 50,000 people end up using the billion dollar tramway, it will have come at a cost of $20,000 per head. What that figure means I don’t know, but it sounds very expensive.

$11-16,000 every single year for every driver for the next how many years, not even including the cost of the roads and resultant hospital beds, now that sounds expensive to me.

Light Rail seems to be good for well over a hundred years, so how much does that actually work out to as the number of commuters grows steadily en-route?

Do the arithmetic, not the “dunno, but I rickn”.

Where have you got the cost figure of $11-16K per driver from?

That would equate to about $3-4.5B per year for the ACT.

Are you talking about private or public costs? The total ACT government budget for 2015-16 is only $4.6B.

rubaiyat said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

Grail said :

The Tuggernong to Civic commute has nothing on the Gungahlin to Civic nightmare, don’t kid yourself. Traffic banked up from Belconnen Way to Ginninderra Drice is a regular feature awaiting Gunghalin commuters.

Bus trips from Tuggeranong to Civic are comparable with driving and searching for parking outside the Canberra Centre car parks. My trip between Tuggeranong and Dickson is an hour, which means I save half an hour each way for my reading (which is time I would otherwise have spent driving).

These transit problems are not the result of a poorly planned city, but poorly organised society. Why is everyone from Tuggeranong and Gungahlin trying to get to Civic? Surely not all the jobs are in the city. Well, if they are, then we have a problem.
Government has gone and globalized everything. All the satellite operations in Tuggers and other non-central areas have been migrated back into a one-building-fits-all approach. Budget targets have been met by cutting, merging and relocating staff but now people have to work further from home. That means more cars on the road. Wasn’t there a push some years ago to make Gungahlin a government hub where employment opportunities would be available for local residents? Where have all those jobs gone? Were they ever even created? Tuggeranong also has a huge Centerlink building, but I wonder how many people actually work there.
It isn’t just the government, but also retail and financial sectors causing the issues. Is it because Civic has NBN that business doesn’t want to set up out in the burbs?
Still, I have to wonder why some people would live in one end of Canberra to have to work on the other side. Indeed, just getting to the major hub of Civic seems to be a hurdle for most Canberrans. Is public transport simply not efficient enough? Do people just accept that a half hour in a car beats 2 hours and three different interchanges by bus?
One prohibitively expensive tram to fix the problems of a fraction of one sixth of the state is not going to do squat to the congestion woes. Majura Parkway and Gungahlin Drive will still be gridlocked both morning and evening times. If 50,000 people end up using the billion dollar tramway, it will have come at a cost of $20,000 per head. What that figure means I don’t know, but it sounds very expensive.

$11-16,000 every single year for every driver for the next how many years, not even including the cost of the roads and resultant hospital beds, now that sounds expensive to me.

Light Rail seems to be good for well over a hundred years, so how much does that actually work out to as the number of commuters grows steadily en-route?

Do the arithmetic, not the “dunno, but I rickn”.

Rubaiyat, no matter how much lipstick you put on the pig that is light rail, it’s still an ugly wart on the financial landscape. Even if we are are financially suicidal to build it, a tram is highly unlikely to be the choice mode of transport in 100 years. Like I said before. The Tram is fine, so long as our rates are locked to CPI and we don’t have to fund this disaster plus Mr Fluffy, on top of all that the city already has to pay including our existing underutiised and expensive public transport that actually goes where a decent percentage of the ratepayers live!

Steven Bailey said :

Grail said :

I hope you get a job as speechwriter for the Liberals. Then discrediting their arguments becomes even easier!

The Tuggernong to Civic commute has nothing on the Gungahlin to Civic nightmare, don’t kid yourself. Traffic banked up from Belconnen Way to Ginninderra Drice is a regular feature awaiting Gunghalin commuters.

Bus trips from Tuggeranong to Civic are comparable with driving and searching for parking outside the Canberra Centre car parks. My trip between Tuggeranong and Dickson is an hour, which means I save half an hour each way for my reading (which is time I would otherwise have spent driving).

As for pricing and fees: welcome to capitalism and supply/demand. As demand for a resource increases, you can expect the price of that resource to increase. Every time a new apartment complex goes up or a new suburb is opened up, expect the price of land and parking spaces in Civic to go up.

Eventually people will wise up and move offices to Belconnen, Woden, Tuggeranong or Gunghalin. This will be facilitated by effective public transport.

Your complaint that public transport is somehow “inadequate” needs some support. It’s perfectly fine for me, and works in my favour since I gain significant portions of my day for doing things other than driving.

But don’t let the facts prevent you from bellyaching!

I’ll be happy to give you a quick response but I won’t bother with an ongoing invective.

Thank you for your lesson in economics but I’ll interpret its simplistic tone as a reflection of your understanding rather than mine. Some people like to apply an economic fundamentalism to every aspect of life; I don’t. The fees and fines to which I make reference are obvious inventions of Government to raise revenue. You need to discern between a publically owned asset and a privately owned asset.

Your assertion that people should ‘wise up’ and move away from Civic is repugnant and arrogant, and if you think so highly of Canberra’s public transport, some may thank you for making an argument against light rail unwittingly.

Regarding your reference to facts, it’s quite an irony that you haven’t supplied any facts to contradict my opinions… this is an opinion piece. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that the ACT’s size compared to the density of its population makes it difficult to maintain an efficient transport service.

Here are some facts:

In 2010, a report commissioned by the government found ACTION was spending more than 30 per cent of its $100 million annual budget on waste and inefficiency.

‘With recent concern by ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr over entrenched inefficiencies within Canberra’s bus service, it is timely to reflect on advice to the government in 2011, which it effectively ignored.’ Canberra Times, April 2015.

Only someone who is professionally, personally, or politically invested in Canberra’s bus service would defend it as you have done on this website.

Wow.

Grail said :

I hope you get a job as speechwriter for the Liberals. Then discrediting their arguments becomes even easier!

The Tuggernong to Civic commute has nothing on the Gungahlin to Civic nightmare, don’t kid yourself. Traffic banked up from Belconnen Way to Ginninderra Drice is a regular feature awaiting Gunghalin commuters.

Bus trips from Tuggeranong to Civic are comparable with driving and searching for parking outside the Canberra Centre car parks. My trip between Tuggeranong and Dickson is an hour, which means I save half an hour each way for my reading (which is time I would otherwise have spent driving).

As for pricing and fees: welcome to capitalism and supply/demand. As demand for a resource increases, you can expect the price of that resource to increase. Every time a new apartment complex goes up or a new suburb is opened up, expect the price of land and parking spaces in Civic to go up.

Eventually people will wise up and move offices to Belconnen, Woden, Tuggeranong or Gunghalin. This will be facilitated by effective public transport.

Your complaint that public transport is somehow “inadequate” needs some support. It’s perfectly fine for me, and works in my favour since I gain significant portions of my day for doing things other than driving.

But don’t let the facts prevent you from bellyaching!

I’ll be happy to give you a quick response but I won’t bother with an ongoing invective.

Thank you for your lesson in economics but I’ll interpret its simplistic tone as a reflection of your understanding rather than mine. Some people like to apply an economic fundamentalism to every aspect of life; I don’t. The fees and fines to which I make reference are obvious inventions of Government to raise revenue. You need to discern between a publically owned asset and a privately owned asset.

Your assertion that people should ‘wise up’ and move away from Civic is repugnant and arrogant, and if you think so highly of Canberra’s public transport, some may thank you for making an argument against light rail unwittingly.

Regarding your reference to facts, it’s quite an irony that you haven’t supplied any facts to contradict my opinions… this is an opinion piece. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that the ACT’s size compared to the density of its population makes it difficult to maintain an efficient transport service.

Here are some facts:

In 2010, a report commissioned by the government found ACTION was spending more than 30 per cent of its $100 million annual budget on waste and inefficiency.

‘With recent concern by ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr over entrenched inefficiencies within Canberra’s bus service, it is timely to reflect on advice to the government in 2011, which it effectively ignored.’ Canberra Times, April 2015.

Only someone who is professionally, personally, or politically invested in Canberra’s bus service would defend it as you have done on this website.

wildturkeycanoe said :

Grail said :

The Tuggernong to Civic commute has nothing on the Gungahlin to Civic nightmare, don’t kid yourself. Traffic banked up from Belconnen Way to Ginninderra Drice is a regular feature awaiting Gunghalin commuters.

Bus trips from Tuggeranong to Civic are comparable with driving and searching for parking outside the Canberra Centre car parks. My trip between Tuggeranong and Dickson is an hour, which means I save half an hour each way for my reading (which is time I would otherwise have spent driving).

These transit problems are not the result of a poorly planned city, but poorly organised society. Why is everyone from Tuggeranong and Gungahlin trying to get to Civic? Surely not all the jobs are in the city. Well, if they are, then we have a problem.
Government has gone and globalized everything. All the satellite operations in Tuggers and other non-central areas have been migrated back into a one-building-fits-all approach. Budget targets have been met by cutting, merging and relocating staff but now people have to work further from home. That means more cars on the road. Wasn’t there a push some years ago to make Gungahlin a government hub where employment opportunities would be available for local residents? Where have all those jobs gone? Were they ever even created? Tuggeranong also has a huge Centerlink building, but I wonder how many people actually work there.
It isn’t just the government, but also retail and financial sectors causing the issues. Is it because Civic has NBN that business doesn’t want to set up out in the burbs?
Still, I have to wonder why some people would live in one end of Canberra to have to work on the other side. Indeed, just getting to the major hub of Civic seems to be a hurdle for most Canberrans. Is public transport simply not efficient enough? Do people just accept that a half hour in a car beats 2 hours and three different interchanges by bus?
One prohibitively expensive tram to fix the problems of a fraction of one sixth of the state is not going to do squat to the congestion woes. Majura Parkway and Gungahlin Drive will still be gridlocked both morning and evening times. If 50,000 people end up using the billion dollar tramway, it will have come at a cost of $20,000 per head. What that figure means I don’t know, but it sounds very expensive.

$11-16,000 every single year for every driver for the next how many years, not even including the cost of the roads and resultant hospital beds, now that sounds expensive to me.

Light Rail seems to be good for well over a hundred years, so how much does that actually work out to as the number of commuters grows steadily en-route?

Do the arithmetic, not the “dunno, but I rickn”.

Great article Steven – I am personally desperate for this kind of calling out of punitive measures without real alternatives.
I am particularly furious about after hours pay parking in Civic, surely a recipe for killing off already struggling businesses there. It makes no sense. Actually a lot of govt decisions lately seem to be of that ilk.
Weirdly Tuggers is only 20 mins by Xpresso to my workplace in Barton, so it’s remarkable that Tuggers keeps getting overlooked. It would be perfect for eg the new stadium or using Tuggeranong Town Park for Floriade as it is far superior than Glebe Pk. I just think decision makers are ignorant and don’t do any research.

OP, really “Yes, Gungahlin is growing at a rapid rate, but perhaps partly because Tuggeranong has been so neglected. “

Do you seriously think Gungahlin is growing because Tuggeranong has been neglected? Do you not think that the reason may well be because bulk development in Tuggeranong ended years ago, but still going strong in Gungahlin, because, umm it has land available for development. Coupled to that development started in Tuggeranong in the 70’s and parts are now shrinking (just like Belconnen) as the population ages and kids move on? No, take the populist view, certainly votes in that.

“..A massive influx of parking fees and fines coupled with a shortage of parking spaces; an unrestricted increase in speed cameras; an inadequate bus service; the introduction of 30 km/h speed zones; and un-enforceable mandatory distances for cars overtaking cyclists are but some of the punitive measures against Canberra drivers….”

As Grail has pointed out, some of this is almost inevitable in a growing city, but not all of it. If ACT Labor truly represented all the people the Labor Party was established to represent, instead of effectively echoing Joe Hockey’s memorable observations about “poor people” and cars, we would have much less gratuitous, tokenistic, gesture politics in the transport field.

Grail said :

The Tuggernong to Civic commute has nothing on the Gungahlin to Civic nightmare, don’t kid yourself. Traffic banked up from Belconnen Way to Ginninderra Drice is a regular feature awaiting Gunghalin commuters.

Bus trips from Tuggeranong to Civic are comparable with driving and searching for parking outside the Canberra Centre car parks. My trip between Tuggeranong and Dickson is an hour, which means I save half an hour each way for my reading (which is time I would otherwise have spent driving).

These transit problems are not the result of a poorly planned city, but poorly organised society. Why is everyone from Tuggeranong and Gungahlin trying to get to Civic? Surely not all the jobs are in the city. Well, if they are, then we have a problem.
Government has gone and globalized everything. All the satellite operations in Tuggers and other non-central areas have been migrated back into a one-building-fits-all approach. Budget targets have been met by cutting, merging and relocating staff but now people have to work further from home. That means more cars on the road. Wasn’t there a push some years ago to make Gungahlin a government hub where employment opportunities would be available for local residents? Where have all those jobs gone? Were they ever even created? Tuggeranong also has a huge Centerlink building, but I wonder how many people actually work there.
It isn’t just the government, but also retail and financial sectors causing the issues. Is it because Civic has NBN that business doesn’t want to set up out in the burbs?
Still, I have to wonder why some people would live in one end of Canberra to have to work on the other side. Indeed, just getting to the major hub of Civic seems to be a hurdle for most Canberrans. Is public transport simply not efficient enough? Do people just accept that a half hour in a car beats 2 hours and three different interchanges by bus?
One prohibitively expensive tram to fix the problems of a fraction of one sixth of the state is not going to do squat to the congestion woes. Majura Parkway and Gungahlin Drive will still be gridlocked both morning and evening times. If 50,000 people end up using the billion dollar tramway, it will have come at a cost of $20,000 per head. What that figure means I don’t know, but it sounds very expensive.

I hope you get a job as speechwriter for the Liberals. Then discrediting their arguments becomes even easier!

The Tuggernong to Civic commute has nothing on the Gungahlin to Civic nightmare, don’t kid yourself. Traffic banked up from Belconnen Way to Ginninderra Drice is a regular feature awaiting Gunghalin commuters.

Bus trips from Tuggeranong to Civic are comparable with driving and searching for parking outside the Canberra Centre car parks. My trip between Tuggeranong and Dickson is an hour, which means I save half an hour each way for my reading (which is time I would otherwise have spent driving).

As for pricing and fees: welcome to capitalism and supply/demand. As demand for a resource increases, you can expect the price of that resource to increase. Every time a new apartment complex goes up or a new suburb is opened up, expect the price of land and parking spaces in Civic to go up.

Eventually people will wise up and move offices to Belconnen, Woden, Tuggeranong or Gunghalin. This will be facilitated by effective public transport.

Your complaint that public transport is somehow “inadequate” needs some support. It’s perfectly fine for me, and works in my favour since I gain significant portions of my day for doing things other than driving.

But don’t let the facts prevent you from bellyaching!