Light rail - Yes, go ahead. No, stop now.

aussie2 said :

Funny, but I don’t see anything about signing contracts pre 2016 Election, and I had thought 8 seats on both sides shows equally divided. We did not vote for Rattenbury, and he was the winner-his other compatriots all lost their seats. NO MANDATE! NO DEMOCRACY NOW!

Umm its 9-8 in favour of parties who support light rail. That is a majority and people did vote for the greens. In fact over 10% voted for the greens so they are probably the ones underrepresented in the government as 10% vote equals 1.7 members in the government. Meanwhile 41 more people (yes just 41 individuals) voted for Liberal ACT wide versus Labor ACT wide. That was mostly due to the residents in Brindbella because they aren’t getting light rail, but are too stupid to understand how light rail actually helps them also. However you look at it you have to respect the fact that 10% voted for the greens as well, so you get a Labor-Greens government. Looks like democracy worked and if anything failed the Greens.

I’ll also point out that only the residents of Brindabella voted for Liberal ahead of Labor, so only voters in 5 of the 17 seats voted Liberal ahead of Labor. The liberals really only won that third seat in Brindabella because Zed moved there. promised a swimming pool, lost the election, spat the dummy and took another well respected liberal senators position, to look after himself only. Yet these same lemmings will probably vote the liberals again because they are not smart enough to look at policies and will fall for the three word slogans of Jeremy Hanson.

aussie2 said :

This is what you knew when you voted: “ACT ALP After eleven years and several failed pro-bus public transport policies, the ALP has accepted
that light rail with integrated bus services offers the best mass transit option for Canberra’s future. The ALP
now have a policy that proposes that if they are reelected this year:
? They will begin an examination of constructing a light rail line with public private partnership
options(
? If elected again in 2016, would actually begin construction of the Gungahlin to Civic light rail
link with an aim for completion by 2018.
? They will commit 30 million dollars over the next two years for further work on these proposals.
? The name of the proposed light rail is Capital Metro.
? Initial link will run from Gungahlin to Civic along Northbourne Avenue
Funny, but I don’t see anything about signing contracts pre 2016 Election, and I had thought 8 seats on both sides shows equally divided. We did not vote for Rattenbury, and he was the winner-his other compatriots all lost their seats. NO MANDATE! NO DEMOCRACY NOW!

If you are going to quote sources, can you do it clearly, accurately and provide links?

You may not have voted for the Greens but certainly a lot of people did. In fact far above Rattenbury’s quota. In all the other electorates they were just under their quota, but due to the uneven way the electorates were divided they didn’t make it.

Since the Greens and Labor vote, both of which are for the Light Rail, are a clear majority, and the Liberals were clearly the minority, that is the democratic choice.

Unlike the conservatives, the Greens and Labor do not believe in a God given right to rule, for which our democracy is an irritating hindrance.

The Liberals on their own in federal politics hardly ever make a majority without their National coalition.

Barnaby Joyce constantly attacks the Greens as an unrepresentative minority unfairly influencing government. Seems most Australians are too dense to notice the barefaced hypocrisy of it all. The Nationals can only dream of getting the votes the Greens get, mostly they get barely a quarter of the Greens. Not that the Liberals and Nationals are rusted on coalition partners, as was demonstrated previously in Queensland.

Of course extreme conservatives play the cynical political game of accusing the Greens of being some secret puppet masters behind the scenes controlling everything and being responsible for everything that their Labor senior partners do. The Greens can only dream of having that much real say in what goes on, mostly they are just intensely frustrated by the bizarre and self defeating policies of both Labor and Liberal Parties. The current redistribution to disenfranchise Green voters, being one glaring example.

aussie2 said :

watto23 said :

Richard Fox said :

“I do not believe ACT voters have been given any opportunity to collectively vote on whether they want a light rail network or not.”

I do believe it was a major policy of the ACT Labor Party in 2012 and, as such, ACT voters have already voted on it. Here’s then Chief Minister Katy Gallagher’s media release on it http://web.archive.org/web/20141101011336/http://www.katygallagher.net/?p=2285

+1 it was announced well and truly before the previous election. So while the public were effectively divided 8-8-1 (Lab-Lib-Grn), Labor were federally on the nose as well, there was the triple your rates slogan (While Joe Hockey has commended the ACT government on the tax reform, this will be interesting to see how Jeremy Hanson plays it) and the libs still didn’t get enough to form government. If they put up some visions, plans etc, then we could assess what they want to do.

A solution is needed to transport. I fear the libs solution is to just let things stay as they are, or increase parking costs to encourage bus use. Parking is getting scarce in the city, its not going to improve in either costs or number of car parks. For all the Tuggeranongites out there (myself included), the benefit we get from light rail is parking will be cheaper and more available. Without it parking will get scarcer and more expensive.

I’ve said in many posts I’m more in favor of an intercity rapid transport network, whether that be dedicated bus roads or rail of some kind. That may in fact be the solution for Tuggeranong as light rail from Tuggeranong to the city would not be viable (if it takes longer than 30-40 minutes I can’t see it being used, unless forced to by parking costs).

I completely understand why there are concerns with the light rail. What I have a real trouble with in this country is right now the Liberals at local and federal level have absolutely no vision or plans for the country, other than relying on what has worked in the past. Hopefully it will change next year when we are likely to have both elections, we’ll see though.

watto23 said :

Richard Fox said :

“I do not believe ACT voters have been given any opportunity to collectively vote on whether they want a light rail network or not.”

I do believe it was a major policy of the ACT Labor Party in 2012 and, as such, ACT voters have already voted on it. Here’s then Chief Minister Katy Gallagher’s media release on it http://web.archive.org/web/20141101011336/http://www.katygallagher.net/?p=2285

+1 it was announced well and truly before the previous election. So while the public were effectively divided 8-8-1 (Lab-Lib-Grn), Labor were federally on the nose as well, there was the triple your rates slogan (While Joe Hockey has commended the ACT government on the tax reform, this will be interesting to see how Jeremy Hanson plays it) and the libs still didn’t get enough to form government. If they put up some visions, plans etc, then we could assess what they want to do.

A solution is needed to transport. I fear the libs solution is to just let things stay as they are, or increase parking costs to encourage bus use. Parking is getting scarce in the city, its not going to improve in either costs or number of car parks. For all the Tuggeranongites out there (myself included), the benefit we get from light rail is parking will be cheaper and more available. Without it parking will get scarcer and more expensive.

I’ve said in many posts I’m more in favor of an intercity rapid transport network, whether that be dedicated bus roads or rail of some kind. That may in fact be the solution for Tuggeranong as light rail from Tuggeranong to the city would not be viable (if it takes longer than 30-40 minutes I can’t see it being used, unless forced to by parking costs).

I completely understand why there are concerns with the light rail. What I have a real trouble with in this country is right now the Liberals at local and federal level have absolutely no vision or plans for the country, other than relying on what has worked in the past. Hopefully it will change next year when we are likely to have both elections, we’ll see though.

TrevaQ said :

I don’t know if you would call it a “network” but… whatever.

If you read Mick Gentleman’s Master Plan document you will see there is 120km of track laid out across the Territory-by the way, using the same old bus routes at a cheap as chips price of $20Billion-that’s an awful lot of swimming pools, schools,k policemen, community facilities etc. Chair Canberra Public Transport Alliance

This is what you knew when you voted: “ACT ALP After eleven years and several failed pro-bus public transport policies, the ALP has accepted
that light rail with integrated bus services offers the best mass transit option for Canberra’s future. The ALP
now have a policy that proposes that if they are reelected this year:
? They will begin an examination of constructing a light rail line with public private partnership
options(
? If elected again in 2016, would actually begin construction of the Gungahlin to Civic light rail
link with an aim for completion by 2018.
? They will commit 30 million dollars over the next two years for further work on these proposals.
? The name of the proposed light rail is Capital Metro.
? Initial link will run from Gungahlin to Civic along Northbourne Avenue
Funny, but I don’t see anything about signing contracts pre 2016 Election, and I had thought 8 seats on both sides shows equally divided. We did not vote for Rattenbury, and he was the winner-his other compatriots all lost their seats. NO MANDATE! NO DEMOCRACY NOW!

The double standards of the Abbott Government are demonstrated in their denial of funding for the Gold Coast Light Rail Extension in time for the next Commonwealth Games to be held there.

Tony Abbott has refused funds for the Light Rail unless the Queensland Government sells off assets.

At the same time he is funding Adani’s railway to cart coal to the ports on the Great Barrier Reef. No asset sales necessary!

The Gold Coast council needs to resubmit their proposal to include the apparent requisite trip to the pawnbroker, using the maximum amount of pollution and destruction of World Heritage Listed national treasures that P.M. Abbott and the Coal-ition loves so much.

“Coal… my preeecious!”

MarkE said :

According to the Canberra Times Phase 1 will cost $870M and there are 151,000 households in the ACT so the cost per household will be $5,166 plus interest plus the ongoing operating losses.

Why do the anti Light Rail opponents feel the need to constantly make things up?

Where is your reference, and what is the evidence?

When the Canberra Times does its own research, can write to the point of getting basic facts, grammar and spelling right, I’ll pay them a little more attention.

Here are researched facts:

On your figures the Majura Parkway ($288m) is costing each ACT household $1907 plus interest plus the ongoing operating losses. There is already a road there, so this is just gold plating, and will 100% lose money because it has no income. Unlike Light Rail which charges users.

The Gungahlin Drive extension ($200+m) cost each ACT household $1325 plus interest plus the ongoing operating losses. It was a mere 8.3km and will 100% lose money.

The Cotter Road Duplication Stage 1, a tiny 800m, ($11m) cost each ACT household $73 plus interest plus the ongoing operating losses. It will 100% lose money. There is more to come with Stage 2 duplication in planning.

The Constitution Ave road upgrades ($40m) will cost each ACT household $285 plus interest plus the ongoing operating losses. It is only a few kilometres of existing road and will 100% lose money.

The Kings Avenue overpass ($30m), cost each ACT household $199 plus interest plus the ongoing operating losses. It was just an intersection replacing an existing roundabout and will 100% lose money.

The Fairbairn Avenue on and off ramps ($14m) at the Airport cost each ACT household $93 plus interest plus the ongoing operating losses. It is also just an intersection replacing an existing roundabout and will 100% lose money.

All the above are only the roads, they do not include the vehicles, fuel, policing, ambulance services and other real operating costs to make them operate.

The RACQ has published the following study of the costs of driving:

http://www.racq.com.au/cars-and-driving/cars/owning-and-maintaining-a-car/car-running-costs

The Average weekly running cost of a medium size passenger vehicle is $225.08/wk or $11,736/yr.

The ACT has 283,572 registered vehicles costing approx. $4 billion/yr to run (not all are mere passenger cars).

Or to put it as you have, costs each ACT household $26,490 per year just for the vehicles.

Add to that the deaths, the 20% of hospital beds taken up by the seriously injured road victims who will continue to add to all the other costs associated with roads for the rest of their lives.

MarkE said :

Does your family really want to pay $5,166 for a rail line you may never use? You will pay, look at rising rates and parking charges. The money will be extracted from you. Even renters will pay as landlords pass on rates rises in rent rises.

Any part of any transport system will not be used by the entire community. You will never use most of the road network which takes up 54% Canberra by area.

This is an oft repeated logical fallacy. “I’m not going to use it, therefore those who will, should not have it”.

So you should in turn not have your infrastructure, because someone else will not use it.

MarkE said :

Even in the government’s own calculations the return on investment is only half as effective as widening roads for new bus lanes.

The Belconnen busway was only 7.5km long and was costed at $120 million in 2006, so you can more than double that. That was only for partially separated roadway and did not include the buses, fuel and ongoing costs to operate it. It relied on fossil fuel burning vehicles, the existing poor bus transport that ACT commuters are not using. Only 6.8% currently take public transport (ie buses in the ACT), far short of every other major city in Australia. So as a solution it is “more of the same” ie Something that isn’t working.

MarkE said :

HOW MANY PEOPLE WILL DIE EACH YEAR ON ALL THE LEVEL CROSSINGS?
Light rail will be more dangerous than issuing guns to school kids! (They actually did that in the 1960’s. Each school cadet was given a real .303 rifle that he took home with him on the bus.)

Good question, even if it is in SHOUTY TYPE.

Melbourne Trams, most of which are in road and not grade separated as the ACT’s will be, only one person is killed in most years in the ENTIRE 250km NETWORK.

Just in the last few weeks how many people have been killed by automobiles in the A.C.T.?

There is a lot of hysteria and wild exageration as well as plain “making it up” in the anti-Light Rail camp. You all need to take a deep breath and actually look at what a real sustainable transport network can do to transform the, up to now, haphazard planning in the ACT. It will be part of the consolidation of housing closer in to the City and has been proven to work thoughout the world.

The current Liberal National Party Mayor of the Gold Coast was against their Light Rail and is now 100% behind it and pushing for Stage 2 now that the “Reality Study” is well and truly over and he has declared extending the system “a No-Brainer”.

Typically conservatives, usually older men wedded to their cars, oppose just about every “waste of money” other than their own. We can’t ever expect them to ever actually seriously study or research anything, nor look beyond the ends of their own noses or wallets, we just have to let the results sweep them into irrelevance.

After it is in place it will be just like the Gold Coast Light Rail. You will all wonder what all the fuss was about and be clamouring for more. You just can’t see that far ahead.

MarkE said :

According to the Canberra Times Phase 1 will cost $870M and there are 151,000 households in the ACT so the cost per household will be $5,166 plus interest plus the ongoing operating losses.

Does your family really want to pay $5,166 for a rail line you may never use? You will pay, look at rising rates and parking charges. The money will be extracted from you. Even renters will pay as landlords pass on rates rises in rent rises.

Think you will find the cost is total cost including interest etc based on 10 years. So in essence the $5,166 is $516 per annum per house hold. Oh you also need to take off the money from the Feds through the asset recycling program.

MarkE said :

According to the Canberra Times Phase 1 will cost $870M and there are 151,000 households in the ACT so the cost per household will be $5,166 plus interest plus the ongoing operating losses.

Does your family really want to pay $5,166 for a rail line you may never use? You will pay, look at rising rates and parking charges. The money will be extracted from you. Even renters will pay as landlords pass on rates rises in rent rises.

Even in the government’s own calculations the return on investment is only half as effective as widening roads for new bus lanes.

HOW MANY PEOPLE WILL DIE EACH YEAR ON ALL THE LEVEL CROSSINGS?
Light rail will be more dangerous than issuing guns to school kids! (They actually did that in the 1960’s. Each school cadet was given a real .303 rifle that he took home with him on the bus.)

I think that even if the Light Rail proposal were cancelled tomorrow, then far, far from all of that $870M would be removed from the budget. No doubt there is an amount of that $870M which is a) already spent or already committed to (in a legal sense). And surely the government would simply find something else to spend three quarters of a billion dollars on, anyway…

When people talk about households, the implication is “rates”. That’s a bit of a one dimensional look at the Territory’s revenue.
A glance at the published ACT Financials (Consolidated annual financial statements FY14-15) shows that only approximately 8% of ACT revenue is from rates.

Also, I can only assume that your comment re: level crossings killing people was intended to be ironic? I’m no fan of the Tram, as the proposal currently stands, but seriously, the idea that light rail level crossings in the ACT might cause an increase in transit related fatal injuries is quite ludicrous.

I missed the 60’s by a few years, but I had always thought that the rifle of choice for issue to Cadets was the .310 Martini (I make no claim toward accuracy on this, mind you!)

According to the Canberra Times Phase 1 will cost $870M and there are 151,000 households in the ACT so the cost per household will be $5,166 plus interest plus the ongoing operating losses.

Does your family really want to pay $5,166 for a rail line you may never use? You will pay, look at rising rates and parking charges. The money will be extracted from you. Even renters will pay as landlords pass on rates rises in rent rises.

Even in the government’s own calculations the return on investment is only half as effective as widening roads for new bus lanes.

HOW MANY PEOPLE WILL DIE EACH YEAR ON ALL THE LEVEL CROSSINGS?
Light rail will be more dangerous than issuing guns to school kids! (They actually did that in the 1960’s. Each school cadet was given a real .303 rifle that he took home with him on the bus.)

JC said :

dungfungus said :

JC said :

rubaiyat said :

JC said :

What so you don’t think the IMF are economic experts hey?

Certainly better judges than Joe Jockey and Tony Maggot, but really scary that Joe Jockey is our representative in the IMF.

I think dungfungus is referring to the “vibe”.

The trouble with the IMF and all the other experts is that they foolishly rely on research and facts instead of how deeply resentful individuals “feel” about things.

Ah good point. Is that why the current Liebrals in Canberra object to light rail? The vibe is there is resentment and jealousy in parts of the community (Tuggeranong in particular) and they can exploit that vibe to convert into votes to get into power.

Having in the past, when in government (many moons ago now thankfully) actually supported light rail to Gungahlin.

Did you vote for the Liberals then because they (allegedly) supported light rail to Gungahlin?

Two points. Back then they supported it, but there were no actual plans to build it, so not an issue. Next election won’t be an issue for me either as it has already been taken to the people at the last election.

Secondly when I vote I look at the big picture, not individual issues as well as the people running the show and the alternative. For me in the ACT the alternative for many years has been unpalatable.

I’ve been on record before saying the only time I voted Liebral was at the NSW state election in 1995. Of course John Fahey, the Liebral premier lost. My reason for voting for him was his actions in saving Charlie the year before. Well not really, but at the time I didn’t thought the NSW Libs were doing a good job and of course it was the Liebrals who started construction of the Sydney light rail line!

Though turns out Carr, who won did do a good job for NSW for a number of years (then turned to custard). I had returned to Canberra before the next election, having only lived in Sydney in 1995, 1996 and 1997.

My issue with Liberals currently at both Federal and Liberal level is the lack of planning. Its mostly the same thing as before but the only things planned for well in advance are vague promises they don’t want to keep.

The stupidity is Tuggeranong residents (including myself) will benefit from light rail as pressure on car parking will be less. Also they already pay rates in general much less than other parts of Canberra. I’m sure the libs will offer a swimming pool in Lanyon, because the 5 minute drive to the Tuggeranong pool, or the river is too hard. I’d like a party to commit to a public transport plan, preferably one with rapid transit from Tuggeranong to Woden to the City, light rail won’t work in Tuggers there is no scope for a high density transit way.

As much as I want FTTP NBN in Tuggeranong also, I realise the ACT government have little say in this, but the ACT gov could offer to pay the fibre upgrade costs or cut a deal of some kind to get the ACT on FTTP NBN.

Reality is we have pretty good road infrastructure in Tuggers. I’d like for Erindale to be fixed up to become similar to Dickson restaurant area. At least fix the roads, parking and get rid of the dirt. a few gardens and walkways.

JC said :

I’ve been on record before saying the only time I voted Liebral was at the NSW state election in 1995. Of course John Fahey, the Liebral premier lost. My reason for voting for him was his actions in saving Charlie the year before. Well not really, but at the time I didn’t thought the NSW Libs were doing a good job and of course it was the Liebrals who started construction of the Sydney light rail line!
quote]

Re above , I meant I didn’t think the Libs were doing a bad job.

dungfungus said :

JC said :

rubaiyat said :

JC said :

What so you don’t think the IMF are economic experts hey?

Certainly better judges than Joe Jockey and Tony Maggot, but really scary that Joe Jockey is our representative in the IMF.

I think dungfungus is referring to the “vibe”.

The trouble with the IMF and all the other experts is that they foolishly rely on research and facts instead of how deeply resentful individuals “feel” about things.

Ah good point. Is that why the current Liebrals in Canberra object to light rail? The vibe is there is resentment and jealousy in parts of the community (Tuggeranong in particular) and they can exploit that vibe to convert into votes to get into power.

Having in the past, when in government (many moons ago now thankfully) actually supported light rail to Gungahlin.

Did you vote for the Liberals then because they (allegedly) supported light rail to Gungahlin?

Two points. Back then they supported it, but there were no actual plans to build it, so not an issue. Next election won’t be an issue for me either as it has already been taken to the people at the last election.

Secondly when I vote I look at the big picture, not individual issues as well as the people running the show and the alternative. For me in the ACT the alternative for many years has been unpalatable.

I’ve been on record before saying the only time I voted Liebral was at the NSW state election in 1995. Of course John Fahey, the Liebral premier lost. My reason for voting for him was his actions in saving Charlie the year before. Well not really, but at the time I didn’t thought the NSW Libs were doing a good job and of course it was the Liebrals who started construction of the Sydney light rail line!

Though turns out Carr, who won did do a good job for NSW for a number of years (then turned to custard). I had returned to Canberra before the next election, having only lived in Sydney in 1995, 1996 and 1997.

dungfungus said :

JC said :

rubaiyat said :

JC said :

What so you don’t think the IMF are economic experts hey?

Certainly better judges than Joe Jockey and Tony Maggot, but really scary that Joe Jockey is our representative in the IMF.

I think dungfungus is referring to the “vibe”.

The trouble with the IMF and all the other experts is that they foolishly rely on research and facts instead of how deeply resentful individuals “feel” about things.

Ah good point. Is that why the current Liebrals in Canberra object to light rail? The vibe is there is resentment and jealousy in parts of the community (Tuggeranong in particular) and they can exploit that vibe to convert into votes to get into power.

Having in the past, when in government (many moons ago now thankfully) actually supported light rail to Gungahlin.

Did you vote for the Liberals then because they (allegedly) supported light rail to Gungahlin?

Difficult to vote for them when they were too fiscally profligate and incompetent to get the job done.

I remember Kate Carnell lying about how environmentally well designed Gungahlin was. When challenged, all she could say was “It has natural gas”. Where didn’t?

JC said :

rubaiyat said :

JC said :

What so you don’t think the IMF are economic experts hey?

Certainly better judges than Joe Jockey and Tony Maggot, but really scary that Joe Jockey is our representative in the IMF.

I think dungfungus is referring to the “vibe”.

The trouble with the IMF and all the other experts is that they foolishly rely on research and facts instead of how deeply resentful individuals “feel” about things.

Ah good point. Is that why the current Liebrals in Canberra object to light rail? The vibe is there is resentment and jealousy in parts of the community (Tuggeranong in particular) and they can exploit that vibe to convert into votes to get into power.

Having in the past, when in government (many moons ago now thankfully) actually supported light rail to Gungahlin.

Did you vote for the Liberals then because they (allegedly) supported light rail to Gungahlin?

rubaiyat said :

JC said :

What so you don’t think the IMF are economic experts hey?

Certainly better judges than Joe Jockey and Tony Maggot, but really scary that Joe Jockey is our representative in the IMF.

I think dungfungus is referring to the “vibe”.

The trouble with the IMF and all the other experts is that they foolishly rely on research and facts instead of how deeply resentful individuals “feel” about things.

Ah good point. Is that why the current Liebrals in Canberra object to light rail? The vibe is there is resentment and jealousy in parts of the community (Tuggeranong in particular) and they can exploit that vibe to convert into votes to get into power.

Having in the past, when in government (many moons ago now thankfully) actually supported light rail to Gungahlin.

rubaiyat said :

JC said :

What so you don’t think the IMF are economic experts hey?

Certainly better judges than Joe Jockey and Tony Maggot, but really scary that Joe Jockey is our representative in the IMF.

I think dungfungus is referring to the “vibe”.

The trouble with the IMF and all the other experts is that they foolishly rely on research and facts instead of how deeply resentful individuals “feel” about things.

Well, Joseph Stiglitz, a doyen expert economist of the left tends not to agree with you.
https://clg.portalxm.com/library/keytext.cfm?keytext_id=33

JC said :

What so you don’t think the IMF are economic experts hey?

Certainly better judges than Joe Jockey and Tony Maggot, but really scary that Joe Jockey is our representative in the IMF.

I think dungfungus is referring to the “vibe”.

The trouble with the IMF and all the other experts is that they foolishly rely on research and facts instead of how deeply resentful individuals “feel” about things.

dungfungus said :

JC said :

watto23 said :

Yes Rudd cut PS jobs (I’m not a PS and actually think they get paid far too much) and Abbott cut more. I’m not blaming Abbott, its a liberal party ideology. You’ll find that PS job losses are generally higher under a coalition government, or at least perceived to be higher and many people leave Canberra before they even lose their job. I personally think the job cuts are a ridiculous chest beating expensive political points scoring exercise. I know a few people who got redundancies and were hired straight back in as a contractor to do the same job. If they froze pays for a couple of years they’d get natural attrition. it would save more money and stop the PS from being overpaid, pushing prices of everything up in Canberra.

You always have anecdotal evidence supporting your opinion. You really need to get out more. I know a few in the building industry and they have too much work on and can’t find anyone to hire.

I don’t think immigration rates are that high. Only those that seem to think that immigrants are here to take their jobs have that issue. I see them as growing the countries economy, many of them harder workers than many Australians. Our issue is we have no infrastructure in Australia to support living in regional cities and to build them up to be bigger places. Instead we have a few really big cities, that puts a lot more pressure on housing and jobs.

The whole thing is a nonesense really, same too with the nonsense that Liebrals are better economic managers.

Simple fact Howard cut massively that effected Canberra quite a bit, Rudd and Co built it back up to an extent, so the perception is Liebral cuts, Labor builds. Both statements when looked over time can be proven false.

Same too as I said about Liebral=better economic managers, Labor=bad.

Reality is Liebral under Howard as treaurer, were bad, Liebral under Howard as PM were in power during an unprecedented period of growth and riding on the back of reforms done by previous Labor government. Labor under Rudd comes in during GFC.

Reality no one party has the mortgage on good economic management and besides who measures it? Take the last Labor governments for example, Liebral says they were bad due to debit, world economic experts say Labor did well to keep the economy going and to have such a low (realtivly speaking) debit. end of the day it is all just political sloganeering and is done by both sides on many issues just to push their barrow.

“world economic experts”???????? ha ha.

What so you don’t think the IMF are economic experts hey?

Certainly better judges than Joe Jockey and Tony Maggot, but really scary that Joe Jockey is our representative in the IMF.

JC said :

watto23 said :

Yes Rudd cut PS jobs (I’m not a PS and actually think they get paid far too much) and Abbott cut more. I’m not blaming Abbott, its a liberal party ideology. You’ll find that PS job losses are generally higher under a coalition government, or at least perceived to be higher and many people leave Canberra before they even lose their job. I personally think the job cuts are a ridiculous chest beating expensive political points scoring exercise. I know a few people who got redundancies and were hired straight back in as a contractor to do the same job. If they froze pays for a couple of years they’d get natural attrition. it would save more money and stop the PS from being overpaid, pushing prices of everything up in Canberra.

You always have anecdotal evidence supporting your opinion. You really need to get out more. I know a few in the building industry and they have too much work on and can’t find anyone to hire.

I don’t think immigration rates are that high. Only those that seem to think that immigrants are here to take their jobs have that issue. I see them as growing the countries economy, many of them harder workers than many Australians. Our issue is we have no infrastructure in Australia to support living in regional cities and to build them up to be bigger places. Instead we have a few really big cities, that puts a lot more pressure on housing and jobs.

The whole thing is a nonesense really, same too with the nonsense that Liebrals are better economic managers.

Simple fact Howard cut massively that effected Canberra quite a bit, Rudd and Co built it back up to an extent, so the perception is Liebral cuts, Labor builds. Both statements when looked over time can be proven false.

Same too as I said about Liebral=better economic managers, Labor=bad.

Reality is Liebral under Howard as treaurer, were bad, Liebral under Howard as PM were in power during an unprecedented period of growth and riding on the back of reforms done by previous Labor government. Labor under Rudd comes in during GFC.

Reality no one party has the mortgage on good economic management and besides who measures it? Take the last Labor governments for example, Liebral says they were bad due to debit, world economic experts say Labor did well to keep the economy going and to have such a low (realtivly speaking) debit. end of the day it is all just political sloganeering and is done by both sides on many issues just to push their barrow.

“world economic experts”???????? ha ha.

watto23 said :

Yes Rudd cut PS jobs (I’m not a PS and actually think they get paid far too much) and Abbott cut more. I’m not blaming Abbott, its a liberal party ideology. You’ll find that PS job losses are generally higher under a coalition government, or at least perceived to be higher and many people leave Canberra before they even lose their job. I personally think the job cuts are a ridiculous chest beating expensive political points scoring exercise. I know a few people who got redundancies and were hired straight back in as a contractor to do the same job. If they froze pays for a couple of years they’d get natural attrition. it would save more money and stop the PS from being overpaid, pushing prices of everything up in Canberra.

You always have anecdotal evidence supporting your opinion. You really need to get out more. I know a few in the building industry and they have too much work on and can’t find anyone to hire.

I don’t think immigration rates are that high. Only those that seem to think that immigrants are here to take their jobs have that issue. I see them as growing the countries economy, many of them harder workers than many Australians. Our issue is we have no infrastructure in Australia to support living in regional cities and to build them up to be bigger places. Instead we have a few really big cities, that puts a lot more pressure on housing and jobs.

The whole thing is a nonesense really, same too with the nonsense that Liebrals are better economic managers.

Simple fact Howard cut massively that effected Canberra quite a bit, Rudd and Co built it back up to an extent, so the perception is Liebral cuts, Labor builds. Both statements when looked over time can be proven false.

Same too as I said about Liebral=better economic managers, Labor=bad.

Reality is Liebral under Howard as treaurer, were bad, Liebral under Howard as PM were in power during an unprecedented period of growth and riding on the back of reforms done by previous Labor government. Labor under Rudd comes in during GFC.

Reality no one party has the mortgage on good economic management and besides who measures it? Take the last Labor governments for example, Liebral says they were bad due to debit, world economic experts say Labor did well to keep the economy going and to have such a low (realtivly speaking) debit. end of the day it is all just political sloganeering and is done by both sides on many issues just to push their barrow.

dungfungus said :

Current immigration numbers to Australia are between 200 and 300 thousand a year (which is way too high). Not many seem to come to Canberra yet we have the lowest unemployment rate in the country.
I guess when they scope the cost of housing down here compared to the coastal state capitals they decide on the milder climate as the place to settle.
I have been told a lot of subcontractors in the building industry have “hit the Hume”.
The only migration we have is internal – Tuggers to Gunners.
I don’t think it has anything to do with the Federal government being a Liberal one (public service job cuts were initiated by the first Rudd government – an election promise he didn’t break) but hey, let’s blame Tony Abbott for it anyway.

Yes Rudd cut PS jobs (I’m not a PS and actually think they get paid far too much) and Abbott cut more. I’m not blaming Abbott, its a liberal party ideology. You’ll find that PS job losses are generally higher under a coalition government, or at least perceived to be higher and many people leave Canberra before they even lose their job. I personally think the job cuts are a ridiculous chest beating expensive political points scoring exercise. I know a few people who got redundancies and were hired straight back in as a contractor to do the same job. If they froze pays for a couple of years they’d get natural attrition. it would save more money and stop the PS from being overpaid, pushing prices of everything up in Canberra.

You always have anecdotal evidence supporting your opinion. You really need to get out more. I know a few in the building industry and they have too much work on and can’t find anyone to hire.

I don’t think immigration rates are that high. Only those that seem to think that immigrants are here to take their jobs have that issue. I see them as growing the countries economy, many of them harder workers than many Australians. Our issue is we have no infrastructure in Australia to support living in regional cities and to build them up to be bigger places. Instead we have a few really big cities, that puts a lot more pressure on housing and jobs.

Rotten_berry said :

rubaiyat said :

Rotten_berry said :

http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_40.html
http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_02_35.html

I’d love to know how you extracted any relevant data from the American only statistics above and your previous link.

The categories do not match and in some key categories [Passenger Cars mileage] there is no data since 2007.

The Figure 1 on Page 7 does not even have a category for Trams or Light Rail. Commuter Rail is something else.

On top of that Americans have widely varying names for the transport we are interested in.

What we call a Tram they call a Trolley Car and that category does not even appear. There is a Trolley Bus which is an old form of electric catenary bus.

Light Rail may or may not match our Light Rail. In San Francisco for example their Trolley Cars/Light Rail may or may not be in the street, underground or both. How do you separate them?

Motor Bus [Transit] only appears in mileage with no fatalities category, just trauma.

———————————————-

What we do have is some local data for Melbourne Trams which mostly run in streets but also have their own right of way in the case of the St Kilda Light Rail for part of the journey:

http://www.transportsafety.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/272948/TSV-annual-incident-statistics-TRAM-2014.pdf

Public fatalities were 1 in 2010, 2 in 2011, 1 in 2012, 3 in 2013 and 1 in 2014.

There were 182.7 million passenger trips in 2012/13.

224 Victorians died in car crashes in the same period, approx 8,500 were severely injured.

75% of Victorians live in Melbourne, 37% of those use public transport.

That can only give you a guide, to digest it is beyond my current time and resources.

Seems to me that trams are extremely safe. The Canberra Light Rail which will have even less interaction with pedestrians and cars, because it runs mostly in its own right of way, should be safer.

One thing I did note was that over 60% of the on “grade accidents” were almost certainly driver fault. The usual driver trying to cut across the path of the oncoming rail transport. Signal faults are not unknown, but are very rare.

Cars “being able to swerve” seems to me to be more a cause of accidents than a solution.

A Melbourne D-Class tram weighs 35 tonnes and carries 186 passengers. The equivalent of over 2.5 buses.

A standard bus, the only alternative here, weighs 18 tonnes and carries approx 70 people. Rubber on road is much less efficient than steel on rail, but it can break more quickly. Unfortunately it needs to as it is in traffic along with all the cars.

I simply took the light rail fatalities reported in one table and divided by light rail pax-km in the other, and compared it with the data in Fig 1 of the VTPI paper, to try and fill in the “light rail” gap. The Americans seems to include streetcars (trams to us) under light rail, but I’m not 100% sure. What they call commuter rail seems to be what we call heavy rail, e.g. Sydney or Melbourne’s suburban rail.

Thanks for the Melb data, this stuff is both interesting and hard to find. It does look quite safe, interestingly in America everything seems to be more dangerous, to go with their higher murder rates and generally lower life expectancies.

I also found an article [1] which puts Melb tram deaths from 2000-2008 at 15 along with 1769 injuries requiring hospitalisation. If we assume 180 million pax/year and a average 5 km trip, that’s 2.1 deaths and 245.7 hospitalisations per billion pax-km.

Vic road toll is 278 average over the last 5 years [2] and 126 of these in Melb. Vehicle kilometres are around 55 billion/yr in Vic and 33.6 billion in Melb [3] (this includes all road vehicles, but the average car has a bit over one person, so I will assume that total vehicle-km = passenger km for simplicity, it’s close enough). There were 5594 claims/year involving hospitalisation in all of Vic [2] – I will assume 2 people hospitalised per “claim”.

This equals 5.05 deaths and 203.4 hospitalisations per billion pax-km, so more dangerous than the trams but a few less hospitalisations. But rural driving is more dangerous than urban – the Melbourne data show 3.75 deaths/billion pax-km and this is probably a more relevant comparison with trams. Still more dangerous but not a huge difference. For rural travel, rail, bus or air is definitely safer – no argument there (but not always possible).

Worth noting that a fair chunk of the road toll is motorcyclists – these are much more dangerous per than cars km but I won’t subtract them out, because some are killed by at-fault cars.

Regarding the graph in the VTPI paper showing traffic deaths/capita declining with transit (public transport) use, I’m less than convinced because there are confounding variables at work here. I can also plot traffic deaths/capita vs cars/capita for countries around the world and show that increasing car ownership is associated with lower traffic deaths (the US is an outlier – again everything is more dangerous over there). But correlation is not causation and the confounding variable is wealth. The US suffers from high inequality and it may be that the cities with higher transit use are larger, older, wealthy ones. The death range in the Europe data is much smaller.

Interestingly if you plot Canberra on that graph (page 8 VTPI) we do VERY well for road deaths! The 5 yr average ACT road toll is 9.66, divided by pop of 380k gives 2.54 deaths/100,000 people which is the same as the best European cities. This comes despite only about 200 transit pax-mile/capita/year [4], similar to the “worst” US cities, which makes me wonder how the yanks manage to have so many more car accidents than we do. It may be the wealth variable at work.

I’m not saying the streets will be running with blood, body parts, soy lattes, and pieces of single speed bicycle if we have a tram. But it probably won’t make a difference either way. If people don’t want to expose themselves to the risk and cost of driving then they don’t have to, but convient locations come at the cost of higher land prices (location premiums are always “priced in”) and hence less space per $. Some people prefer apartments, some prefer houses, preference changes throughout life (especially when kids come along).

Anyway I’m going to leave it at that because this is becoming too much of a time sink. I just don’t think cars are the great evil they are made out to be, and that our buses work well enough and could be improved much more cheaply than installing light rail. Renewable energy investments are a more cost-effective way of reducing GHG emissions. Electrification has great promise for reducing the environmental impacts of cars and buses in the near future, and advanced driver aids, semi-autonomous capabilities (already found in high-end vehicles) and maybe one day fully autonomous capabilities will continue to reduce the road toll. Others may disagree. Hopefully the data and arguments thrown back and forth have at least been interesting.

[1] http://www.smh.com.au//breaking-news-national/tram-injuries-deaths-on-the-rise-20100824-13isj.html

[2] http://www.tac.vic.gov.au/road-safety/statistics/road-toll-annual

[3] https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2011/files/report_124.pdf

[4] https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2009/files/is_033.pdf

Trying to make any correlation to what may or may not happen in Canberra is very difficult with this kind of data. The reason being Melbourne does not have a light rail network. It has two sections of light rail line, BUT for the most part it has an extensive tramway network.

The core difference is the tramway network does not operate in it’s own right of way, so more chance of collision with other vehicles. Coupled to this many parts of Melbourne still do not have safety zones for disembarking trams, meaning passengers in these areas step onto the roadway putting them at far greater risk of being cleaned up by vehicles. (in fact read the SMH article linked and it does state the majority of serious trauma is of this nature) And finally a good potion of Melbournes tram fleet (300+ out of a fleet of of 450+) is still high floor. Compare that to buses, where the bulk of most sizeable fleets is low floor. Canberra by comparsion has about 150 high floor buses out of a fleet of 420, but even then the floors on the “high floor” buses is nothing like the Melbourne trams. The trams are like the buses Action got rid of in the 80’s.

As a result there are lots more incidents with people boarding and alighting from these vehicles, again the article mentions that falling accounts for 46% of injuries, I would lay go money many of this 46% is on the older hight floor vehicles.

A comparison with Sydney light rail would be more useful.

switch said :

dungfungus said :

The only migration we have is internal – Tuggers to Gunners.

Are they seeking tram vibrancy?

The transit hipsters in search of the coolest way to travel are in this group.

dungfungus said :

The only migration we have is internal – Tuggers to Gunners.

Are they seeking tram vibrancy?

rubaiyat said :

Rotten_berry said :

http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_40.html
http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_02_35.html

I’d love to know how you extracted any relevant data from the American only statistics above and your previous link.

The categories do not match and in some key categories [Passenger Cars mileage] there is no data since 2007.

The Figure 1 on Page 7 does not even have a category for Trams or Light Rail. Commuter Rail is something else.

On top of that Americans have widely varying names for the transport we are interested in.

What we call a Tram they call a Trolley Car and that category does not even appear. There is a Trolley Bus which is an old form of electric catenary bus.

Light Rail may or may not match our Light Rail. In San Francisco for example their Trolley Cars/Light Rail may or may not be in the street, underground or both. How do you separate them?

Motor Bus [Transit] only appears in mileage with no fatalities category, just trauma.

———————————————-

What we do have is some local data for Melbourne Trams which mostly run in streets but also have their own right of way in the case of the St Kilda Light Rail for part of the journey:

http://www.transportsafety.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/272948/TSV-annual-incident-statistics-TRAM-2014.pdf

Public fatalities were 1 in 2010, 2 in 2011, 1 in 2012, 3 in 2013 and 1 in 2014.

There were 182.7 million passenger trips in 2012/13.

224 Victorians died in car crashes in the same period, approx 8,500 were severely injured.

75% of Victorians live in Melbourne, 37% of those use public transport.

That can only give you a guide, to digest it is beyond my current time and resources.

Seems to me that trams are extremely safe. The Canberra Light Rail which will have even less interaction with pedestrians and cars, because it runs mostly in its own right of way, should be safer.

One thing I did note was that over 60% of the on “grade accidents” were almost certainly driver fault. The usual driver trying to cut across the path of the oncoming rail transport. Signal faults are not unknown, but are very rare.

Cars “being able to swerve” seems to me to be more a cause of accidents than a solution.

A Melbourne D-Class tram weighs 35 tonnes and carries 186 passengers. The equivalent of over 2.5 buses.

A standard bus, the only alternative here, weighs 18 tonnes and carries approx 70 people. Rubber on road is much less efficient than steel on rail, but it can break more quickly. Unfortunately it needs to as it is in traffic along with all the cars.

I simply took the light rail fatalities reported in one table and divided by light rail pax-km in the other, and compared it with the data in Fig 1 of the VTPI paper, to try and fill in the “light rail” gap. The Americans seems to include streetcars (trams to us) under light rail, but I’m not 100% sure. What they call commuter rail seems to be what we call heavy rail, e.g. Sydney or Melbourne’s suburban rail.

Thanks for the Melb data, this stuff is both interesting and hard to find. It does look quite safe, interestingly in America everything seems to be more dangerous, to go with their higher murder rates and generally lower life expectancies.

I also found an article [1] which puts Melb tram deaths from 2000-2008 at 15 along with 1769 injuries requiring hospitalisation. If we assume 180 million pax/year and a average 5 km trip, that’s 2.1 deaths and 245.7 hospitalisations per billion pax-km.

Vic road toll is 278 average over the last 5 years [2] and 126 of these in Melb. Vehicle kilometres are around 55 billion/yr in Vic and 33.6 billion in Melb [3] (this includes all road vehicles, but the average car has a bit over one person, so I will assume that total vehicle-km = passenger km for simplicity, it’s close enough). There were 5594 claims/year involving hospitalisation in all of Vic [2] – I will assume 2 people hospitalised per “claim”.

This equals 5.05 deaths and 203.4 hospitalisations per billion pax-km, so more dangerous than the trams but a few less hospitalisations. But rural driving is more dangerous than urban – the Melbourne data show 3.75 deaths/billion pax-km and this is probably a more relevant comparison with trams. Still more dangerous but not a huge difference. For rural travel, rail, bus or air is definitely safer – no argument there (but not always possible).

Worth noting that a fair chunk of the road toll is motorcyclists – these are much more dangerous per than cars km but I won’t subtract them out, because some are killed by at-fault cars.

Regarding the graph in the VTPI paper showing traffic deaths/capita declining with transit (public transport) use, I’m less than convinced because there are confounding variables at work here. I can also plot traffic deaths/capita vs cars/capita for countries around the world and show that increasing car ownership is associated with lower traffic deaths (the US is an outlier – again everything is more dangerous over there). But correlation is not causation and the confounding variable is wealth. The US suffers from high inequality and it may be that the cities with higher transit use are larger, older, wealthy ones. The death range in the Europe data is much smaller.

Interestingly if you plot Canberra on that graph (page 8 VTPI) we do VERY well for road deaths! The 5 yr average ACT road toll is 9.66, divided by pop of 380k gives 2.54 deaths/100,000 people which is the same as the best European cities. This comes despite only about 200 transit pax-mile/capita/year [4], similar to the “worst” US cities, which makes me wonder how the yanks manage to have so many more car accidents than we do. It may be the wealth variable at work.

I’m not saying the streets will be running with blood, body parts, soy lattes, and pieces of single speed bicycle if we have a tram. But it probably won’t make a difference either way. If people don’t want to expose themselves to the risk and cost of driving then they don’t have to, but convient locations come at the cost of higher land prices (location premiums are always “priced in”) and hence less space per $. Some people prefer apartments, some prefer houses, preference changes throughout life (especially when kids come along).

Anyway I’m going to leave it at that because this is becoming too much of a time sink. I just don’t think cars are the great evil they are made out to be, and that our buses work well enough and could be improved much more cheaply than installing light rail. Renewable energy investments are a more cost-effective way of reducing GHG emissions. Electrification has great promise for reducing the environmental impacts of cars and buses in the near future, and advanced driver aids, semi-autonomous capabilities (already found in high-end vehicles) and maybe one day fully autonomous capabilities will continue to reduce the road toll. Others may disagree. Hopefully the data and arguments thrown back and forth have at least been interesting.

[1] http://www.smh.com.au//breaking-news-national/tram-injuries-deaths-on-the-rise-20100824-13isj.html

[2] http://www.tac.vic.gov.au/road-safety/statistics/road-toll-annual

[3] https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2011/files/report_124.pdf

[4] https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2009/files/is_033.pdf

watto23 said :

dungfungus said :

watto23 said :

dungfungus said :

It is reported tin today’s Canberra Times that the ABS has calculated that Canberra’s population is in decline.
This alone should influence the ACT Government to drop the visionary policy mindset and instead plan for a period of consolidation.
The light rail should be the first project to be abandoned.
I hope IKEA read the report.

Yep that ~2,000 is going to make a huge difference, especially when the average wage in Canberra is $20k more than the Australian average. Ikea is going to do a roaring trade in Canberra.

Yeah, I guess they will initially.
While Canberra wage earners might earn $20k more than others in Australia they will at least pay tax on that.
The money that IKEA will reap from that will of course be tax free.
It’s a winning equation is it not?
Any thoughts on the population down-trend?

dungfungus said :

watto23 said :

dungfungus said :

It is reported tin today’s Canberra Times that the ABS has calculated that Canberra’s population is in decline.
This alone should influence the ACT Government to drop the visionary policy mindset and instead plan for a period of consolidation.
The light rail should be the first project to be abandoned.
I hope IKEA read the report.

Yep that ~2,000 is going to make a huge difference, especially when the average wage in Canberra is $20k more than the Australian average. Ikea is going to do a roaring trade in Canberra.

Yeah, I guess they will initially.
While Canberra wage earners might earn $20k more than others in Australia they will at least pay tax on that.
The money that IKEA will reap from that will of course be tax free.
It’s a winning equation is it not?
Any thoughts on the population down-trend?

Population trends tend to be down when a federal liberal government is in charge. there are generally a loss of jobs in the town. A decrease of 2,000 people isn’t really that significant. A trend of year on year decrease would be an issue. Especially when the figures for migration to Canberra are similar to previous years.

If the federal government either current or future doesn’t crack down on big global companies then you can’t blame Ikea for minimising its tax. Seriously the majority of wealth in this country is built via tax concessions. Ikea re just doing what the wealthy Australia citizens also do (many of which wealthier Canberrans also do so that extra $20k is before they start making tax deductions for their super and investment properties etc). I’m completely in agreement of making global companies pay their fair share of tax. I’ve just not see either major party try, just like they are unwilling to remove tax concessions for the wealthy. I still think removing all tax deductions and then dropping tax rates to around 20% is a much fairer system.

Instead the government is trying to force people to pay GST on all overseas purchase (its an easier target) under the guise of helping Australian businesses, but in reality won’t affect my spending habits, because I buy from overseas to save 30-50% in most cases.

Current immigration numbers to Australia are between 200 and 300 thousand a year (which is way too high). Not many seem to come to Canberra yet we have the lowest unemployment rate in the country.
I guess when they scope the cost of housing down here compared to the coastal state capitals they decide on the milder climate as the place to settle.
I have been told a lot of subcontractors in the building industry have “hit the Hume”.
The only migration we have is internal – Tuggers to Gunners.
I don’t think it has anything to do with the Federal government being a Liberal one (public service job cuts were initiated by the first Rudd government – an election promise he didn’t break) but hey, let’s blame Tony Abbott for it anyway.

dungfungus said :

watto23 said :

dungfungus said :

It is reported tin today’s Canberra Times that the ABS has calculated that Canberra’s population is in decline.
This alone should influence the ACT Government to drop the visionary policy mindset and instead plan for a period of consolidation.
The light rail should be the first project to be abandoned.
I hope IKEA read the report.

Yep that ~2,000 is going to make a huge difference, especially when the average wage in Canberra is $20k more than the Australian average. Ikea is going to do a roaring trade in Canberra.

Yeah, I guess they will initially.
While Canberra wage earners might earn $20k more than others in Australia they will at least pay tax on that.
The money that IKEA will reap from that will of course be tax free.
It’s a winning equation is it not?
Any thoughts on the population down-trend?

dungfungus said :

watto23 said :

dungfungus said :

It is reported tin today’s Canberra Times that the ABS has calculated that Canberra’s population is in decline.
This alone should influence the ACT Government to drop the visionary policy mindset and instead plan for a period of consolidation.
The light rail should be the first project to be abandoned.
I hope IKEA read the report.

Yep that ~2,000 is going to make a huge difference, especially when the average wage in Canberra is $20k more than the Australian average. Ikea is going to do a roaring trade in Canberra.

Yeah, I guess they will initially.
While Canberra wage earners might earn $20k more than others in Australia they will at least pay tax on that.
The money that IKEA will reap from that will of course be tax free.
It’s a winning equation is it not?
Any thoughts on the population down-trend?

Population trends tend to be down when a federal liberal government is in charge. there are generally a loss of jobs in the town. A decrease of 2,000 people isn’t really that significant. A trend of year on year decrease would be an issue. Especially when the figures for migration to Canberra are similar to previous years.

If the federal government either current or future doesn’t crack down on big global companies then you can’t blame Ikea for minimising its tax. Seriously the majority of wealth in this country is built via tax concessions. Ikea re just doing what the wealthy Australia citizens also do (many of which wealthier Canberrans also do so that extra $20k is before they start making tax deductions for their super and investment properties etc). I’m completely in agreement of making global companies pay their fair share of tax. I’ve just not see either major party try, just like they are unwilling to remove tax concessions for the wealthy. I still think removing all tax deductions and then dropping tax rates to around 20% is a much fairer system.

Instead the government is trying to force people to pay GST on all overseas purchase (its an easier target) under the guise of helping Australian businesses, but in reality won’t affect my spending habits, because I buy from overseas to save 30-50% in most cases.

Rotten_berry said :

rubaiyat said :

Rotten_berry said :

and they probably also emit less CO2 per passenger-km than trams running on Australia’s mostly coal-fired power grid, but I can’t be calculating that at the moment. You can have a crack if you want.

They “probably” do not. The Canberra Light Rail will purchase Green energy from solar, wind and hydro and will NOT be using the “coal-fired power grid”.

That statement is getting beyond “Not true”. In fact I would use the alternate shorter word for “Not true” for all the above.

The ACT’s power grid does not exist in isolation, as I’m sure you know. The ACT’s investment in renewable energy (which I fully support BTW) will help decrease the CO2 intensity of the east coast electricity grid, from which the tram will draw power. The CO2 intensity of marginal additional load is the CO2 intensity of the grid from which it draws. Wind power costs around $50 per tonne of CO2 abated which is quite reasonable. I have never seen the light railers promote the CO2 abatement cost of light rail which means it is probably very high.

The 1 billion that the tram is likely to cost would buy 2 GW of wind turbines (2$/watt nameplate is typical); at a 33% capacity factor 660 MW of average power which is enough to offset the entire ACT electricity consumption twice over (last I checked we use a bit over 300 MW average)!

Getting the entire grid to 100% renewable energy is much more difficult and expensive. Cheap storage would help a lot, and would make electric cars look much better too. Per passenger-kilometer energy use of electric cars is similar to light rail. A fully loaded rail car is more efficient, but on average their occupancy factor is around 20% – i.e. the same as a 5 seater car with one person, and the weight per passenger is similar.

That is the most compelling opportunity cost argument that has been put on these pages. Of course the Hanrahans on here are, if i’m not mistaken, almost entirely opposed to renewable energy too.

It would pay you to go back and read the later graphs, after page 7, in the report you sited, rather than cherry pick the graph on page 7 that actually showed nothing for lack of the right categories.

Those later graphs showed the overall relationship between more or less use of Public Transport.

The curve is quite clear. The more Public Transport used, the lower the Transit death rate.

Rotten_berry said :

rubaiyat said :

Rotten_berry said :

and they probably also emit less CO2 per passenger-km than trams running on Australia’s mostly coal-fired power grid, but I can’t be calculating that at the moment. You can have a crack if you want.

They “probably” do not. The Canberra Light Rail will purchase Green energy from solar, wind and hydro and will NOT be using the “coal-fired power grid”.

That statement is getting beyond “Not true”. In fact I would use the alternate shorter word for “Not true” for all the above.

The ACT’s power grid does not exist in isolation, as I’m sure you know. The ACT’s investment in renewable energy (which I fully support BTW) will help decrease the CO2 intensity of the east coast electricity grid, from which the tram will draw power. The CO2 intensity of marginal additional load is the CO2 intensity of the grid from which it draws. Wind power costs around $50 per tonne of CO2 abated which is quite reasonable. I have never seen the light railers promote the CO2 abatement cost of light rail which means it is probably very high.

The 1 billion that the tram is likely to cost would buy 2 GW of wind turbines (2$/watt nameplate is typical); at a 33% capacity factor 660 MW of average power which is enough to offset the entire ACT electricity consumption twice over (last I checked we use a bit over 300 MW average)!

Getting the entire grid to 100% renewable energy is much more difficult and expensive. Cheap storage would help a lot, and would make electric cars look much better too. Per passenger-kilometer energy use of electric cars is similar to light rail. A fully loaded rail car is more efficient, but on average their occupancy factor is around 20% – i.e. the same as a 5 seater car with one person, and the weight per passenger is similar.

If the ACT buys Green Energy for the Light Rail that is what it uses.

The same as if you bought fresh vegetables from your supermarket instead of the usual junk food.

The delivery method has nothing to do with it.

You may choose to burn more coal or oil out of spite, but that has nothing to do with the Light Rail.

Rotten_berry said :

http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_40.html
http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_02_35.html

I’d love to know how you extracted any relevant data from the American only statistics above and your previous link.

The categories do not match and in some key categories [Passenger Cars mileage] there is no data since 2007.

The Figure 1 on Page 7 does not even have a category for Trams or Light Rail. Commuter Rail is something else.

On top of that Americans have widely varying names for the transport we are interested in.

What we call a Tram they call a Trolley Car and that category does not even appear. There is a Trolley Bus which is an old form of electric catenary bus.

Light Rail may or may not match our Light Rail. In San Francisco for example their Trolley Cars/Light Rail may or may not be in the street, underground or both. How do you separate them?

Motor Bus [Transit] only appears in mileage with no fatalities category, just trauma.

———————————————-

What we do have is some local data for Melbourne Trams which mostly run in streets but also have their own right of way in the case of the St Kilda Light Rail for part of the journey:

http://www.transportsafety.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/272948/TSV-annual-incident-statistics-TRAM-2014.pdf

Public fatalities were 1 in 2010, 2 in 2011, 1 in 2012, 3 in 2013 and 1 in 2014.

There were 182.7 million passenger trips in 2012/13.

224 Victorians died in car crashes in the same period, approx 8,500 were severely injured.

75% of Victorians live in Melbourne, 37% of those use public transport.

That can only give you a guide, to digest it is beyond my current time and resources.

Seems to me that trams are extremely safe. The Canberra Light Rail which will have even less interaction with pedestrians and cars, because it runs mostly in its own right of way, should be safer.

One thing I did note was that over 60% of the on “grade accidents” were almost certainly driver fault. The usual driver trying to cut across the path of the oncoming rail transport. Signal faults are not unknown, but are very rare.

Cars “being able to swerve” seems to me to be more a cause of accidents than a solution.

A Melbourne D-Class tram weighs 35 tonnes and carries 186 passengers. The equivalent of over 2.5 buses.

A standard bus, the only alternative here, weighs 18 tonnes and carries approx 70 people. Rubber on road is much less efficient than steel on rail, but it can break more quickly. Unfortunately it needs to as it is in traffic along with all the cars.

rubaiyat said :

Short of building another Canberra exactly in the same place as Canberra how are you ever going to find the exact matching example you eternally demand?

How much proof do you need before you change?

As an aside, what percentage of canberrans/Australians do you think have the same views you express in this forum?

rubaiyat said :

Rotten_berry said :

and they probably also emit less CO2 per passenger-km than trams running on Australia’s mostly coal-fired power grid, but I can’t be calculating that at the moment. You can have a crack if you want.

They “probably” do not. The Canberra Light Rail will purchase Green energy from solar, wind and hydro and will NOT be using the “coal-fired power grid”.

That statement is getting beyond “Not true”. In fact I would use the alternate shorter word for “Not true” for all the above.

The ACT’s power grid does not exist in isolation, as I’m sure you know. The ACT’s investment in renewable energy (which I fully support BTW) will help decrease the CO2 intensity of the east coast electricity grid, from which the tram will draw power. The CO2 intensity of marginal additional load is the CO2 intensity of the grid from which it draws. Wind power costs around $50 per tonne of CO2 abated which is quite reasonable. I have never seen the light railers promote the CO2 abatement cost of light rail which means it is probably very high.

The 1 billion that the tram is likely to cost would buy 2 GW of wind turbines (2$/watt nameplate is typical); at a 33% capacity factor 660 MW of average power which is enough to offset the entire ACT electricity consumption twice over (last I checked we use a bit over 300 MW average)!

Getting the entire grid to 100% renewable energy is much more difficult and expensive. Cheap storage would help a lot, and would make electric cars look much better too. Per passenger-kilometer energy use of electric cars is similar to light rail. A fully loaded rail car is more efficient, but on average their occupancy factor is around 20% – i.e. the same as a 5 seater car with one person, and the weight per passenger is similar.

rubaiyat said :

Rotten_berry said :

CTP insurance covers most of the financial costs. Yes there are large non-financial costs of road trauma, but what of the pedestrians maimed and killed, sliced and diced by light rail vehicles? Please see the graph on page 7 here, from VTPI – a pro-transit, anti-sprawl lobby group. The overall fatality rate (including peds) of commuter rail is similar to cars, and higher than buses! They of course try to downplay it, but the data show most car fatalities are inflicted on the users, whereas most commuter rail fatalities are inflicted on non-users. This is one of those externalities that green types normally get so upset over – why does light rail get a free pass?

http://www.vtpi.org/safer.pdf

Not true. Quoting from your own source:

“Public transportation is overall a relatively safe (low crash risk) and secure (low crime risk) mode of transport. Transit travel has about a tenth the traffic casualty (death or injury) rate as automobile travel, and residents of transit-oriented communities have about a fifth the per capita crash casualty rate as in automobile-oriented communities. Transit also tends to have lower overall crime rates than automobile travel, and many transit service improvements can further increase security by improving surveillance and economic opportunities for at-risk populations.”

You have misread the data in your eagerness to arrive at your inaccurate conclusion.

Commuter Rail (particularly as defined in North America) is NOT Light Rail which apparently has been lumped in with the commuter buses and is indeed the safest option, as shown by the graph, other than catching school buses.

I did not misread the data. You are looking at a different graph. The data you refer to (pg 6 Fig 2), and that referred to in the paper abstract you quote above, are passenger risk only i.e. internal risk. Fig 1 on pg 7, which I referred to earlier, gives internal + external risk i.e. including risk to other road users. Of course rail pax are safe, they are surrounded by 40 tons of steel, but trains take longer to stop than buses and cannot swerve, which makes them riskier to other road users as shown on pg 7. Total risk is more important than pax-only risk but VTPI choose to spin the former in their abstract.

Commuter rail includes heavier rail yes – but these tend to run in separated ROW and mix less with other road users which should make them safer than light rail/trams. According to the data I dug up (links below), US light rail over the 2002-2012 period killed 12.1 people per billion passenger-miles which makes it worse than commuter rail and bus, and also worse than cars! Some are probably suicides, but overall it does indeed look like buses are riskier than rail when pedestrian fatalities are included.

http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_40.html
http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_02_35.html

watto23 said :

dungfungus said :

It is reported tin today’s Canberra Times that the ABS has calculated that Canberra’s population is in decline.
This alone should influence the ACT Government to drop the visionary policy mindset and instead plan for a period of consolidation.
The light rail should be the first project to be abandoned.
I hope IKEA read the report.

Yep that ~2,000 is going to make a huge difference, especially when the average wage in Canberra is $20k more than the Australian average. Ikea is going to do a roaring trade in Canberra.

Yeah, I guess they will initially.
While Canberra wage earners might earn $20k more than others in Australia they will at least pay tax on that.
The money that IKEA will reap from that will of course be tax free.
It’s a winning equation is it not?
Any thoughts on the population down-trend?

dungfungus said :

It is reported tin today’s Canberra Times that the ABS has calculated that Canberra’s population is in decline.
This alone should influence the ACT Government to drop the visionary policy mindset and instead plan for a period of consolidation.
The light rail should be the first project to be abandoned.
I hope IKEA read the report.

Yep that ~2,000 is going to make a huge difference, especially when the average wage in Canberra is $20k more than the Australian average. Ikea is going to do a roaring trade in Canberra.

dungfungus said :

“…….90% over 65 and male”.
Definitely ratepayers.

Definitely something.

Yay! I know you are not a scientist but… another record broken:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/environment/weather/flurry-of-tropical-cyclones-give-super-el-nino-another-boost-20150830-gjbb82.html

“…….90% over 65 and male”.
Definitely ratepayers.

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

It is reported tin today’s Canberra Times that the ABS has calculated that Canberra’s population is in decline.
This alone should influence the ACT Government to drop the visionary policy mindset and instead plan for a period of consolidation.

Abbott’s plan is working!

Time to stop all the unnecessary gold plated freeways.

I am not a scientist but… we will all be getting around in a public self-driving 4WD car network.

That was ABS, not ABBOTT.
Better go to SpecSavers.

dungfungus said :

It is reported tin today’s Canberra Times that the ABS has calculated that Canberra’s population is in decline.
This alone should influence the ACT Government to drop the visionary policy mindset and instead plan for a period of consolidation.

Abbott’s plan is working!

Time to stop all the unnecessary gold plated freeways.

I am not a scientist but… we will all be getting around in a public self-driving 4WD car network.

damien haas said :

Demographics in the room were 90% over 65 and male.

…and “not scientists, but…” ROTFL

Postalgeek said :

Got a link for the “utterly offensive” that you have quoted?

Joe Hockey – Lake George wind farm.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/joe-hockey-attacks-wind-turbines-as-utterly-offensive-20140502-zr3co.html

Postalgeek said :

I think somewhere a long the line (all 12km of it), you’ve lost sight of the difference between the libs and labor. Labor people generally vote for government providing things for everyone, so everyone has the same.

What you mean is the Liberals take all the assets to the pawnshop and claim ‘fiscal responsibility” before blowing it all on things they like, and their little group of wealthy mates like: freeways, gifts to coal miners, ruining the NBN at huge expense, internment camps, massively expensive G20 and APEC forums so they can look fools on an international scale, etc

Postalgeek said :

This costs a vast amount of money, public transport is very costly in terms of financial outlay and has the lowest quality of use for those concerned

The Liberals blow massively more money on traffic jammed freeways to ruin our cities because they can’t smoke cigars on Public Transport. Sitting in an expensive gas guzzler in traffic on freeways with 4m high concrete walls on both sides is “quality of use”?

Postalgeek said :

…until you have a city of about 2 million people.

Got a link for that “fact”?

Been anywhere else?

Postalgeek said :

Libs believe in minimal governance, they know that some proportion of the population will need someone else to drive them around, most of the time that’s on government handouts anyway.

Surprising amount of secret police, security and interference in people’s private lives (SSM) for people who “believe in minimal governance”. Also an amazing amount of handouts to their mates. But then that’s mates for you, I’m sure the mates all do the same for them.

How else do you get into power when you have so few Party members?

Postalgeek said :

However they also know that people like to do their own thing.

And stop it when they try (SSM). The Liberals just use the chin music of ‘freedom’ to fool the easily fooled.

Postalgeek said :

You can’t force everyone to use and support public transport the same as you can’t force everyone to send their kids to public schools.

Nobody is forced to do anything. Unless they have no choice because you have been stopped or there is no choice. This is the ultimate nonsense that if others have the option it is being taken away from YOU!

Postalgeek said :

Once understand the above, you’ll realise that in providing public transport Labor are prone to waste and libs are trying to get bang for the buck.

Understanding doesn’t deem to play any part in these “reasons”. Nor does reason when it comes to it.

Public transport is the least wasteful option, as well as the cleanest and most efficient in cities. Cars destroy cities and and freeways are the eternal hope that this time they won’t end up being pollution belching slow motion car parks.

btw Prone to waste? Ha! One of the first things the Liberals did when gaining government was ask for a huge increase in debt. Debt they said in opposition they would eliminate. The NBN has now blown out to $42 billion in their current plan to sabotage it. An NBN that was needed to fix the problem the Liberals created when they pawned off Telstra.

rubaiyat said :

btw We never heard back from the triumph that must have been the Tuggeranong Anti Everybody Else Working Group.

What was the vote on building Fort Sumter straddling the Tuggeranong Parkway?

Let me guess who turned up.

I was one of the 14 people that attended. There were 4 other light rail supporters that I recognised, and one other pro light rail person, that I hadn’t met before. I recognised several of the other people in attendance as long running anti light rail proponents. Demographics in the room were 90% over 65 and male.

It is reported tin today’s Canberra Times that the ABS has calculated that Canberra’s population is in decline.
This alone should influence the ACT Government to drop the visionary policy mindset and instead plan for a period of consolidation.
The light rail should be the first project to be abandoned.
I hope IKEA read the report.

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

By the way you make the usual mistake of ignoring that the ACT government is uniquely BOTH Territory and Local government in one.

There are no local governments that receive GST revenues or Stamp Duty etc.

But local governments assess rates, state govts don’t.
But the ACT Government receives revenue from rates, stamp duty and GST.

You are telling me what I just told you?

What do I do now? Tell you, what you told me, that I told you?

You just did.

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

By the way you make the usual mistake of ignoring that the ACT government is uniquely BOTH Territory and Local government in one.

There are no local governments that receive GST revenues or Stamp Duty etc.

But local governments assess rates, state govts don’t.
But the ACT Government receives revenue from rates, stamp duty and GST.

You are telling me what I just told you?

What do I do now? Tell you, what you told me, that I told you?

rubaiyat said :

rommeldog56 said :

Dreadnaught1905 said :

I have often said that I don’t think the Capital Metro is financially viable, and that’s my primary argument against it. However, if the Gold Coast light rail really is successful, then maybe we have half a chance of making this potential white elephant slightly more grey. The arguments around how many people will actually use it once it’s there are an entirely different set of fish, in entirely different kettles. I have confined myself to looking (and only a fairly cursory look, at that) into the financial aspects to date.

So… any chance the Commonwealth might chip in 25% of the total cost, as they did for our light rail brethren a few borders north?

Agreed – the finanial viability (ie. the $ that ACT ratepayers are expected to tip in for this initial 12Ks of track – and i include the m$380 odd fvrom the recent sale of assets in that) & the affordability of that given the ACTs very narrow/small revenue raising base (compared to the States & NT), is the over riding consideration to me. I like public transport – I just dont think the tram is suitable or affordable for the ACT.

Because of affordability, it will never spread to the whole of the ACT anyway, so the ACT Labor/Greens Govt & Canberra Metro can stop that spin.

Re possibility of Fed’s funding : The ACT Gov’t applied for Federal funding through Infrastructure Australia. It was rejected as the Business case was not viable. That says it all really. Instead, the Gold Coast proposal was (substantially) part funded Federally. The ACT Gov’t then pursued a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model to make it happen.

The Liberals have also stopped the extension to the Gold Coast Light Rail that the local LNP local Mayor says is “A no brainer”.

The Liberals are absolutely against all Public Transport, alternate energy sources, scientific research, University research, the ABC… etc etc not because they are bad for Australia but because they “utterly offensive”.

The reason they give as to why there is no money for worthwhile projects is they have blown it all on internment camps, black clad storm troopers in inner city streets, and fraudulent University Schools to “prove” what they want to hear.

…and Bronwyn’s one lady Public Transport.

utterly offensive = doesn’t agree with me

rubaiyat said :

The arguments against everything different nearly always falls into the above sequence. The vast majority of people don’t weigh up the evidence, they only look for reinforcement, no matter how false or ridiculous, of their emotional responses.

So if someone were to prefer to see the money go towards something new and different like a public self-driving car network, would that mean your sequence would apply to people arguing for a more conventional light rail?

dungfungus said :

These tourists would be mainly staying in the high rise apartments abutting the light rail tracks.
How many tourists visit the area of Canberra adjacent to the proposed Capital Metro route?
The current patronage for the Gold Coast light rail is about 18,000 a day which must include a lot of tourists, a factor that makes any positive comparisons between Canberra and the Gold Coast totally spurious.

Given the number of hotels on Northbourne and the likely development of more, the biggest issue is why have they not extended this to Russell and the airport initially, plus then the parliamentary triangle. I suspect the bigger number would give more fuel to the right wing “say no to everything and be negative” brigade. What infrastructure is deemed acceptable by the Liberals? just roads I’m guessing because they need them for their limos.

rubaiyat said :

rommeldog56 said :

Dreadnaught1905 said :

I have often said that I don’t think the Capital Metro is financially viable, and that’s my primary argument against it. However, if the Gold Coast light rail really is successful, then maybe we have half a chance of making this potential white elephant slightly more grey. The arguments around how many people will actually use it once it’s there are an entirely different set of fish, in entirely different kettles. I have confined myself to looking (and only a fairly cursory look, at that) into the financial aspects to date.

So… any chance the Commonwealth might chip in 25% of the total cost, as they did for our light rail brethren a few borders north?

Agreed – the finanial viability (ie. the $ that ACT ratepayers are expected to tip in for this initial 12Ks of track – and i include the m$380 odd fvrom the recent sale of assets in that) & the affordability of that given the ACTs very narrow/small revenue raising base (compared to the States & NT), is the over riding consideration to me. I like public transport – I just dont think the tram is suitable or affordable for the ACT.

Because of affordability, it will never spread to the whole of the ACT anyway, so the ACT Labor/Greens Govt & Canberra Metro can stop that spin.

Re possibility of Fed’s funding : The ACT Gov’t applied for Federal funding through Infrastructure Australia. It was rejected as the Business case was not viable. That says it all really. Instead, the Gold Coast proposal was (substantially) part funded Federally. The ACT Gov’t then pursued a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model to make it happen.

The Liberals have also stopped the extension to the Gold Coast Light Rail that the local LNP local Mayor says is “A no brainer”.

The Liberals are absolutely against all Public Transport, alternate energy sources, scientific research, University research, the ABC… etc etc not because they are bad for Australia but because they “utterly offensive”.

The reason they give as to why there is no money for worthwhile projects is they have blown it all on internment camps, black clad storm troopers in inner city streets, and fraudulent University Schools to “prove” what they want to hear.

…and Bronwyn’s one lady Public Transport.

Got a link for the “utterly offensive” that you have quoted?

I think somewhere a long the line (all 12km of it), you’ve lost sight of the difference between the libs and labor. Labor people generally vote for government providing things for everyone, so everyone has the same. This costs a vast amount of money, public transport is very costly in terms of financial outlay and has the lowest quality of use for those concerned until you have a city of about 2 million people.

Libs believe in minimal governance, they know that some proportion of the population will need someone else to drive them around, most of the time that’s on government handouts anyway. However they also know that people like to do their own thing.

You can’t force everyone to use and support public transport the same as you can’t force everyone to send their kids to public schools.

Once understand the above, you’ll realise that in providing public transport Labor are prone to waste and libs are trying to get bang for the buck.

rommeldog56 said :

Dreadnaught1905 said :

I have often said that I don’t think the Capital Metro is financially viable, and that’s my primary argument against it. However, if the Gold Coast light rail really is successful, then maybe we have half a chance of making this potential white elephant slightly more grey. The arguments around how many people will actually use it once it’s there are an entirely different set of fish, in entirely different kettles. I have confined myself to looking (and only a fairly cursory look, at that) into the financial aspects to date.

So… any chance the Commonwealth might chip in 25% of the total cost, as they did for our light rail brethren a few borders north?

Agreed – the finanial viability (ie. the $ that ACT ratepayers are expected to tip in for this initial 12Ks of track – and i include the m$380 odd fvrom the recent sale of assets in that) & the affordability of that given the ACTs very narrow/small revenue raising base (compared to the States & NT), is the over riding consideration to me. I like public transport – I just dont think the tram is suitable or affordable for the ACT.

Because of affordability, it will never spread to the whole of the ACT anyway, so the ACT Labor/Greens Govt & Canberra Metro can stop that spin.

Re possibility of Fed’s funding : The ACT Gov’t applied for Federal funding through Infrastructure Australia. It was rejected as the Business case was not viable. That says it all really. Instead, the Gold Coast proposal was (substantially) part funded Federally. The ACT Gov’t then pursued a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model to make it happen.

Yep, not to mention the cost-benifit analysis which concluded that BRT would have similar benifits for half the cost. The light rail appears to be more about vanity than practical transport. Sure trams might be cooler and more “vibrant”, and arguably stimulate more development, but that’s mostly a wealth transfer from ratepayers to developers and landholders. If the fares were high enough to cover most of the cost those land value uplifts would disappear. Would people still prefer trams if the fares were twice that of a bus?

BRT also allows feeder buses to continue down the bus line, rather than dumping passengers at the light rail station. Like it or not we aren’t going to bulldoze the suburbs into a pile of apartments within walking distance of the tram. Buses can also pass each other allowing express and regular services to run at the same time. The current express bus takes 20 min in off-peak times and 25 in peak hour (according to Action’s timetables) – with a dedicated right of way it could do sub-20 minutes all the time. Remains to be seen if the tram will actually make its 25 minute target.

One option would be to reclaim the Northbourne cycle lanes of death, and widen the road sufficiently to run buses in what is now the bike lane. Only half a lane’s worth of widening is needed, which shouldn’t cost too much or require removal of trees. A bike path can then be built down the median, between the trees, creating a much safer and more pleasant environment for cyclists. Intersections would need some thought but it seems workable. With the money saved over the tram we could probably even afford some attractive cycle/ped bridges at a couple of the major intersections.

Short of building another Canberra exactly in the same place as Canberra how are you ever going to find the exact matching example you eternally demand?

How much proof do you need before you change?

dungfungus said :

I am assuming your figure of 124,000 people living adjacent to the Gold Coast light rail does not include the 10 million tourists that visit the gold coast every year?
These tourists would be mainly staying in the high rise apartments abutting the light rail tracks.
How many tourists visit the area of Canberra adjacent to the proposed Capital Metro route?
The current patronage for the Gold Coast light rail is about 18,000 a day which must include a lot of tourists, a factor that makes any positive comparisons between Canberra and the Gold Coast totally spurious.

Obviously the fact that the Gold Coast’s tourist numbers have taken a recent surge must be due to the fantastically popular Light Rail! So easy and pleasant to get around now.

But wasn’t it not so long ago one of your endless Light Rail “failures”?

You don’t research these things but Canberra gets 4.7 million visitors a year.

http://www.tra.gov.au

Conversely the Gold Coast has no real industry, public servants or offices, and the tourists only stay there a short time, they don’t live there.

So swings and roundabouts.

rommeldog56 said :

Dreadnaught1905 said :

I have often said that I don’t think the Capital Metro is financially viable, and that’s my primary argument against it. However, if the Gold Coast light rail really is successful, then maybe we have half a chance of making this potential white elephant slightly more grey. The arguments around how many people will actually use it once it’s there are an entirely different set of fish, in entirely different kettles. I have confined myself to looking (and only a fairly cursory look, at that) into the financial aspects to date.

So… any chance the Commonwealth might chip in 25% of the total cost, as they did for our light rail brethren a few borders north?

Agreed – the finanial viability (ie. the $ that ACT ratepayers are expected to tip in for this initial 12Ks of track – and i include the m$380 odd fvrom the recent sale of assets in that) & the affordability of that given the ACTs very narrow/small revenue raising base (compared to the States & NT), is the over riding consideration to me. I like public transport – I just dont think the tram is suitable or affordable for the ACT.

Because of affordability, it will never spread to the whole of the ACT anyway, so the ACT Labor/Greens Govt & Canberra Metro can stop that spin.

Re possibility of Fed’s funding : The ACT Gov’t applied for Federal funding through Infrastructure Australia. It was rejected as the Business case was not viable. That says it all really. Instead, the Gold Coast proposal was (substantially) part funded Federally. The ACT Gov’t then pursued a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model to make it happen.

The Liberals have also stopped the extension to the Gold Coast Light Rail that the local LNP local Mayor says is “A no brainer”.

The Liberals are absolutely against all Public Transport, alternate energy sources, scientific research, University research, the ABC… etc etc not because they are bad for Australia but because they “utterly offensive”.

The reason they give as to why there is no money for worthwhile projects is they have blown it all on internment camps, black clad storm troopers in inner city streets, and fraudulent University Schools to “prove” what they want to hear.

…and Bronwyn’s one lady Public Transport.

rommeldog56 said :

rubaiyat said :

When I am working late or on weekends, there are no Public Servant “Workplace Warriors” in the building.Simple.

I work at least 4 hours each Saturday – as a non ongoing public servant – without pay. Last Saturday, there were 3 of us in.

I have never seen a contractor there on weekends. However, I don’t run around saying that contractors dont work hard or long enough hours. Simple.

I work late at night as required to meet a “deadline”, including Saturday and Sunday, which is probably why I have not seen you there. Simple.

JC said :

If the money that is earned from the development and is saved by the development (in not providing more and more roads and carparking) then why not?

The advent of the Tram will do little if anything, to stop or slow the building of roads. Maybe a tad on the maintenance side. Already, there are substantial roadworks being undertaken in Gunners – despite the tram plans.

rubaiyat said :

When I am working late or on weekends, there are no Public Servant “Workplace Warriors” in the building.Simple.

I work at least 4 hours each Saturday – as a non ongoing public servant – without pay. Last Saturday, there were 3 of us in. I have never seen a contractor there on weekends. However, I don’t run around saying that contractors dont work hard or long enough hours. Simple.

Dreadnaught1905 said :

I have often said that I don’t think the Capital Metro is financially viable, and that’s my primary argument against it. However, if the Gold Coast light rail really is successful, then maybe we have half a chance of making this potential white elephant slightly more grey. The arguments around how many people will actually use it once it’s there are an entirely different set of fish, in entirely different kettles. I have confined myself to looking (and only a fairly cursory look, at that) into the financial aspects to date.

So… any chance the Commonwealth might chip in 25% of the total cost, as they did for our light rail brethren a few borders north?

Agreed – the finanial viability (ie. the $ that ACT ratepayers are expected to tip in for this initial 12Ks of track – and i include the m$380 odd fvrom the recent sale of assets in that) & the affordability of that given the ACTs very narrow/small revenue raising base (compared to the States & NT), is the over riding consideration to me. I like public transport – I just dont think the tram is suitable or affordable for the ACT. Because of affordability, it will never spread to the whole of the ACT anyway, so the ACT Labor/Greens Govt & Canberra Metro can stop that spin.

Re possibility of Fed’s funding : The ACT Gov’t applied for Federal funding through Infrastructure Australia. It was rejected as the Business case was not viable. That says it all really. Instead, the Gold Coast proposal was (substantially) part funded Federally. The ACT Gov’t then pursued a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model to make it happen.

Dreadnaught1905 said :

dungfungus said :

“over 20%”?
I think you mean “through and adjacent to” unless you are thinking of Skywhale or monorail.

I was amused by this as well (thanks as always, Dungers).

But it got me thinking – how lose to accurate is the 20% figure we’ve seen, and how does that compare the the apparently* successful Gold Coast Light Rail.

So I had a look at some census data, and some maps, and I looked for suburbs who’s majority (sure it’s a little subjective) was within 1km of the track. I did this for both Canberra and the Gold Coast.

For Canberra I came up with a figure of around eighty thousand people (give or take a bit). That’s pretty darn close (a touch over, in fact) to 20% of the population.
For the Gold Coast, I came up with a figure of around one hundred and twenty four thousand people. That, as luck would have it, is also around or a touch over 20% of the Gold Coast population.

This made me think. The cost of the Gold Coast tram is “estimated” at 1.6 Billion AUD. The numbers that are concrete in that are $464M from the QLD government, $365M from the commonwealth government and $120M from the city council.

The costs for the Capital Metro are estimated to be slightly lower than that, but with no additional governments to defray the costs across. Maybe they are, prima facie, comparable transport solutions?

I have often said that I don’t think the Capital Metro is financially viable, and that’s my primary argument against it. However, if the Gold Coast light rail really is successful, then maybe we have half a chance of making this potential white elephant slightly more grey. The arguments around how many people will actually use it once it’s there are an entirely different set of fish, in entirely different kettles. I have confined myself to looking (and only a fairly cursory look, at that) into the financial aspects to date.

So… any chance the Commonwealth might chip in 25% of the total cost, as they did for our light rail brethren a few borders north?

* apparently successful as I can’t find any published financials from the PPP running the G:Link. I also presume this is why the costs are only ‘estimated’.
Does anyone know if they will publish them in time, will it be part of the QLD and Gold Coast governments’ financial reporting? Or is it destined to be a mystery forever?

I am assuming your figure of 124,000 people living adjacent to the Gold Coast light rail does not include the 10 million tourists that visit the gold coast every year?
These tourists would be mainly staying in the high rise apartments abutting the light rail tracks.
How many tourists visit the area of Canberra adjacent to the proposed Capital Metro route?
The current patronage for the Gold Coast light rail is about 18,000 a day which must include a lot of tourists, a factor that makes any positive comparisons between Canberra and the Gold Coast totally spurious.

The Gold Coast Rapid Transit fleet consists of 14 Flexity 2 trams built by Bombardier Transportation in Bautzen, Germany. The trams feature low floors and have dedicated spaces for wheelchairs, prams and surfboards. They have a top speed of 70 km/h and room for 309 passengers with seating for 80.

Operating at the current best interval of 7.5 minute, the 14 trams have a capacity to move 33,600 passengers an hour/track, double that (2 tracks) and it is an equivalent to 56,000 cars on the road.

If they run more frequently or extend the carriages their capacity rises exponentially without any change to the existing infrastructure which occupies 2 lanes in the road.

Freeways under ideal conditions move 2,200 vehicles per lane/hour. 2,640 passengers at the average 1.2 occupants per car. NB this is “ideal” not in practice as the more cars the rate drops significantly.

http://atrf.info/papers/2007/2007_laufer.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_flow

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_congestion_reconstruction_with_Kerner%27s_three-phase_theory

So under “ideal” conditions you need over 24 lanes of freeway to move what you can in 2 Light Rail tracks. Well over 110 metres plus divider plus emergency lanes plus setbacks, 4m high concrete walls ‘contain’ the noise and pollution. Impossible to cross without the infrequent expensive bridges or underpasses.

Dual Light Rail track uses 6m right of way that you can walk across.

Capacity easily doubles with more frequent services or longer trams.

That is a lot of growth potential, all built into the cost of the one “expensive” Light Rail system

rubaiyat said :

By the way you make the usual mistake of ignoring that the ACT government is uniquely BOTH Territory and Local government in one.

There are no local governments that receive GST revenues or Stamp Duty etc.

But local governments assess rates, state govts don’t.
But the ACT Government receives revenue from rates, stamp duty and GST.

The Financial Review quotes Mayor Tom Tates (LNP) as a self-confessed sceptic, now won over and says the Light Rail is now driving growth on Sunset Strip.

“It’s proof that if you build transport infrastructure, passengers ride on it and developers build next door to it.

The light rail, which was funded by state, local and federal governments, as well as a private consortium, is carrying 18,200 passengers a day, well above the 14,000 passengers forecast by the state government.

As other cities including Sydney, Canberra and Adelaide take the plunge into light rail, or give it serious consideration, the Gold Coast experience has shown how the fixed transport network can lay the foundation for an economic and property-led resurgence.

Not only does the rail system get cars off the road, it’s also a catalyst for growth, the man running the company that built and runs the Gold Coast light rail system says.

SEE THE VALUE IT BRINGS

“A lot of the businesses on the coast that were originally concerned about the light rail now see the value it brings,” GoldlinQ chief executive Phil Mumford told AFR Weekend.

“It’s a catalyst for growth,” Mr Mumford said. “The number of high rises and the cranes in the air. It’s like the crane count used by [former premier] Joh Bjelke-Petersen.”

There were 23 developments planned along the 14-kilometre first stage of the Gold Coast light rail route from Broadbeach to Southport, he said. Asian investors were also diving into the Gold Coast market to levels not seen before the global financial crisis.

Urban Development Institute of Australia’s Queensland vice-president and property developer Steve Harrison said banks and investors preferred projects on a fixed infrastructure project, like the light rail, with urban renewal and new businesses springing up across the route.

“In the past we’ve seen a lot of talk about these development projects happening, but the light rail is actually stimulating a decision,” Mr Harrison said.

“There is also an appetite for that to continue if there was an extension to stage one. Public transport has not been historically great on the Gold Coast but this really does provide a viable alternative to the road.”

Public transport use on the Gold Coast has increased by 20 per cent in the past year and has become crucial for signature events such as the Gold Coast Marathon and V8 Super Cars.”

http://www.afr.com/news/politics/light-rail-drives-growth-on-sunset-strip-20150723-giirgg

Public Transport is not meant to make a profit, any more than the roads and freeways in the ACT which definitely make a 100% loss as there is no toll.

Some Fact checking.

The Gold Coast Light Rail cost $1.2 billion according to the Rupert owned Gold Coast Bulletin:

http://www.goldcoastbulletin.com.au/news/traffic-reports/exclusive-figures-show-gold-coast-light-rails-first-year-a-success/story-fnl6qvfc-1227448259597

The Gold Coast Light Rail is paid for by Go Card, which works on zones.

The LR spans 4 zones and I am not clear as to whether the maximum zones charged is 3 or 4.

http://translink.com.au/sites/default/files/assets/resources/travel-information/network-information/maps/140721-gclr-network-map.pdf

There are concessions and discounts but fares range from $1.34 to $5.34. Very cheap.

http://translink.com.au/tickets-and-fares/fares/current-fares

The same Gold Coast Bulletin article reported 6.18 million trips during its first year of operation and growing. It is well above projection with an expected 7 million trips next year.

“(Gold Coast) Mayor Tom Tate, speaking from the UK, demanded the state and federal Governments “do the math” and fund the link between Griffith University and Helensvale.

“Everyone needs to do the math because these figures show there is no need for a feasibility study because we have a reality study,” he said.

“These figures show it will only grow in the future and I do not know of any business, be it public or private, that has been so much more successful than the prediction.

“This is a dream come true … we need to do stage two soon, and start planning for a future link to the airport.

“It is a no-brainer.””

By the way you make the usual mistake of ignoring that the ACT government is uniquely BOTH Territory and Local government in one.

There are no local governments that receive GST revenues or Stamp Duty etc.

Dreadnaught1905 said :

dungfungus said :

“over 20%”?
I think you mean “through and adjacent to” unless you are thinking of Skywhale or monorail.

I was amused by this as well (thanks as always, Dungers).

But it got me thinking – how lose to accurate is the 20% figure we’ve seen, and how does that compare the the apparently* successful Gold Coast Light Rail.

So I had a look at some census data, and some maps, and I looked for suburbs who’s majority (sure it’s a little subjective) was within 1km of the track. I did this for both Canberra and the Gold Coast.

For Canberra I came up with a figure of around eighty thousand people (give or take a bit). That’s pretty darn close (a touch over, in fact) to 20% of the population.
For the Gold Coast, I came up with a figure of around one hundred and twenty four thousand people. That, as luck would have it, is also around or a touch over 20% of the Gold Coast population.

This made me think. The cost of the Gold Coast tram is “estimated” at 1.6 Billion AUD. The numbers that are concrete in that are $464M from the QLD government, $365M from the commonwealth government and $120M from the city council.

The costs for the Capital Metro are estimated to be slightly lower than that, but with no additional governments to defray the costs across. Maybe they are, prima facie, comparable transport solutions?

I have often said that I don’t think the Capital Metro is financially viable, and that’s my primary argument against it. However, if the Gold Coast light rail really is successful, then maybe we have half a chance of making this potential white elephant slightly more grey. The arguments around how many people will actually use it once it’s there are an entirely different set of fish, in entirely different kettles. I have confined myself to looking (and only a fairly cursory look, at that) into the financial aspects to date.

So… any chance the Commonwealth might chip in 25% of the total cost, as they did for our light rail brethren a few borders north?

* apparently successful as I can’t find any published financials from the PPP running the G:Link. I also presume this is why the costs are only ‘estimated’.
Does anyone know if they will publish them in time, will it be part of the QLD and Gold Coast governments’ financial reporting? Or is it destined to be a mystery forever?

Nice to see you doing some research.

Canberra’s LR should be cheaper, it uses the existing green centre verge of divided roadway most of the route.

The Gold Coast LR had to go down the centre of existing heavily used paved highway and roadways, plus deal with major alterations near the hospital and another stop.

The major difference will be relandscaping Northbourne Avenue with the what appears to be totally inappropriate Brittle Gums.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-04/brittle-gum-trees-chosen-to-line-northbourne-avenue/6520846

“Large trees may drop branches, especially on warm, still days”:

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/resources/private-forestry/paddock-plants/Eucalyptus-mannifera-Brittle-Gum.pdf

dungfungus said :

“over 20%”?
I think you mean “through and adjacent to” unless you are thinking of Skywhale or monorail.

I was amused by this as well (thanks as always, Dungers).

But it got me thinking – how lose to accurate is the 20% figure we’ve seen, and how does that compare the the apparently* successful Gold Coast Light Rail.

So I had a look at some census data, and some maps, and I looked for suburbs who’s majority (sure it’s a little subjective) was within 1km of the track. I did this for both Canberra and the Gold Coast.

For Canberra I came up with a figure of around eighty thousand people (give or take a bit). That’s pretty darn close (a touch over, in fact) to 20% of the population.
For the Gold Coast, I came up with a figure of around one hundred and twenty four thousand people. That, as luck would have it, is also around or a touch over 20% of the Gold Coast population.

This made me think. The cost of the Gold Coast tram is “estimated” at 1.6 Billion AUD. The numbers that are concrete in that are $464M from the QLD government, $365M from the commonwealth government and $120M from the city council.

The costs for the Capital Metro are estimated to be slightly lower than that, but with no additional governments to defray the costs across. Maybe they are, prima facie, comparable transport solutions?

I have often said that I don’t think the Capital Metro is financially viable, and that’s my primary argument against it. However, if the Gold Coast light rail really is successful, then maybe we have half a chance of making this potential white elephant slightly more grey. The arguments around how many people will actually use it once it’s there are an entirely different set of fish, in entirely different kettles. I have confined myself to looking (and only a fairly cursory look, at that) into the financial aspects to date.

So… any chance the Commonwealth might chip in 25% of the total cost, as they did for our light rail brethren a few borders north?

* apparently successful as I can’t find any published financials from the PPP running the G:Link. I also presume this is why the costs are only ‘estimated’.
Does anyone know if they will publish them in time, will it be part of the QLD and Gold Coast governments’ financial reporting? Or is it destined to be a mystery forever?

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

Mysteryman said :

JC said :

Mysteryman said :

[

They also have higher population density, and better zoning, which allows for people to live closer to the things they need access to. Canberra doesn’t.

Canberra as a whole doesn’t, but the Northborne Ave/Flemmington Road corridor does.

Next.

If you think that small, small part of Canberra justifies the spending of what will undoubtedly blow out to more than $1b, then you are mistaken. Or you’re just party-blind. I suspect it’s both.

“Undoubtedly” if the Liberals are voted in they will recreate their triumphs of Bruce Stadium and the Canberra Hospital implosion and undoubtedly will stop all efforts at clean handy transport, blowing out the ACT budget by many billions of dollars on their favourite projects that will favour the small, small, tiny, tiny, teensy, fits in a phone booth, part of Canberra that finances them.

Not that it is my favourite route but the Gungahlin LR passes over 20% of the PRESENT population of Canberra, much the same as the successful Gold Coast LR. Way more than any of the very expensive and polluting freeways.

“over 20%”?
I think you mean “through and adjacent to” unless you are thinking of Skywhale or monorail.

Now that genuinely amuses me. 🙂

rubaiyat said :

There is a fascinating human behaviour when confronted with even the most obvious problems:

1. Denial

2. Obfuscation

3. Lying to self

4. Tempering

5. Deflection

6. Misdirection

7. Massive exaggeration of the costs of remedies

8. Predictions of catastrophe if any change is attempted

9. Mild concession if the evidence is totally damning

10. Finally, given no other choice, backs to the wall, noses forced into the mess, conceding in a manner where they can sabotage the fix and claim they were right all along.

I have recently been reading up on another unrelated, heavily and passionately debated change, the end of slavery. You’d be amazed to see how this issue, what we consider to be obviously black and white, wasn’t to the people who were involved.

Sadly my Point 10 kicked in and we still have slavery, and still have people either arguing for it or even practicing it.

My “everything is connected and simply another dimension of everything else”.

A case of not seeing the wood for the trees.

YOUR issue is always “different”.

The arguments against everything different nearly always falls into the above sequence. The vast majority of people don’t weigh up the evidence, they only look for reinforcement, no matter how false or ridiculous, of their emotional responses.

I’m not claiming to be immune to the behaviour, it can be quite hard work to try and step outside of the immediate response. That is why we have advanced, often not successfully, to testing, examining and measuring using scientific methods to remove the clearly false from the probably true.

Simply because the results of that research so often conflicts with the gut instincts of the many we have had a wild clawing back of the irrational view. But because our whole society so evidently proves the effectiveness of the scientific method and rational scepticism, those who oppose it have hit on the methods espoused by Edward Bernays (using his uncle’s theories) to cynically manipulate with pseudo scientific language the lazy masses,. Those who understand so little they rely on someone else to do their thinking for them.

When you can’t read, research, examine and think for yourself, “facts” become an auction. A market where you just pick the “nice” ones. Marketing steps in as the modern version of husbandry. People are herded to where you want them, by giving them apparent “choices”. “Choices” which they don’t get to choose.

That is why the choice of a clean, convenient transport system can not be allowed to get out of the gate or all the arguments against it will be shown for what they are, and the possible will not have doomed us all, as promised.

If all the sun tanned denizens of the Gold Coast can have gotten past the fear and loathing, I don’t see why we can’t.

rubaiyat said :

Mysteryman said :

JC said :

Mysteryman said :

[

They also have higher population density, and better zoning, which allows for people to live closer to the things they need access to. Canberra doesn’t.

Canberra as a whole doesn’t, but the Northborne Ave/Flemmington Road corridor does.

Next.

If you think that small, small part of Canberra justifies the spending of what will undoubtedly blow out to more than $1b, then you are mistaken. Or you’re just party-blind. I suspect it’s both.

“Undoubtedly” if the Liberals are voted in they will recreate their triumphs of Bruce Stadium and the Canberra Hospital implosion and undoubtedly will stop all efforts at clean handy transport, blowing out the ACT budget by many billions of dollars on their favourite projects that will favour the small, small, tiny, tiny, teensy, fits in a phone booth, part of Canberra that finances them.

Not that it is my favourite route but the Gungahlin LR passes over 20% of the PRESENT population of Canberra, much the same as the successful Gold Coast LR. Way more than any of the very expensive and polluting freeways.

“over 20%”?
I think you mean “through and adjacent to” unless you are thinking of Skywhale or monorail.

“About one in every three users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation’s rail riders are residents of New York City, or its suburbs. Data from the 2000 U.S. Census reveals that New York is the only locality in the United States where more than half of all households do not own a car (the figure is even higher in Manhattan, over 75 percent).

While nearly 90 percent of Americans drive to their jobs, mass transit is the primary form of travel for New Yorkers.[1] New York’s uniquely high rate of public transit makes it one of the most energy efficient cities in the country.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_transit_in_New_York_City

Public Transport is the healthy option precisely because it is not a point to point transport, it involves considerable daily exercise to get to and use.

A simple observation of a mass of people walking in all directions.

New Yorkers are justifiably proud of their city and their Subway.

Maybe we need a study on the link between driving and the resulting obesity and poor health clouding normal thinking processes. Like with all addictions, “Just a bit more won’t hurt” and probably will fix everything.

…and the massive number of New Yorkers using the subways are all old, unhealthy and poor.

Obviously!!!!

btw We never heard back from the triumph that must have been the Tuggeranong Anti Everybody Else Working Group.

What was the vote on building Fort Sumter straddling the Tuggeranong Parkway?

Let me guess who turned up.

Mysteryman said :

JC said :

Mysteryman said :

[

They also have higher population density, and better zoning, which allows for people to live closer to the things they need access to. Canberra doesn’t.

Canberra as a whole doesn’t, but the Northborne Ave/Flemmington Road corridor does.

Next.

If you think that small, small part of Canberra justifies the spending of what will undoubtedly blow out to more than $1b, then you are mistaken. Or you’re just party-blind. I suspect it’s both.

“Undoubtedly” if the Liberals are voted in they will recreate their triumphs of Bruce Stadium and the Canberra Hospital implosion and undoubtedly will stop all efforts at clean handy transport, blowing out the ACT budget by many billions of dollars on their favourite projects that will favour the small, small, tiny, tiny, teensy, fits in a phone booth, part of Canberra that finances them.

Not that it is my favourite route but the Gungahlin LR passes over 20% of the PRESENT population of Canberra, much the same as the successful Gold Coast LR. Way more than any of the very expensive and polluting freeways.

dungfungus said :

Fascinating reading here about the way local government runs in Phoenix, Arizona.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2015/08/29/phoenix-election-results-what-if/71334008/
It sounds a lot like the ACT, especially the bit where only 2% of the population use public transport yet 95% of the budget is being spent on bus and light rail transit.

How do you find all these extreme right wing “think pieces”, which by the way is greyed out.

“Think” not being a word they would use by choice.

dungfungus said :

Mysteryman said :

JC said :

Mysteryman said :

[

They also have higher population density, and better zoning, which allows for people to live closer to the things they need access to. Canberra doesn’t.

Canberra as a whole doesn’t, but the Northborne Ave/Flemmington Road corridor does.

Next.

If you think that small, small part of Canberra justifies the spending of what will undoubtedly blow out to more than $1b, then you are mistaken. Or you’re just party-blind. I suspect it’s both.

Yeah, most people who choose to live in the high density Northbourne Avenue area do so because it is in walking distance of the city, Braddon and Dickson. They don’t need buses, cars (or light rail to no-where).

…and most of the people who live in Canberra, at one stage did not.

What’s your point, if any?

rommeldog56 said :

rubaiyat said :

Sydney University and the CSIRO have done actual research (not “Chances are”) and they have shown that users of public transport have less obesity problems than drivers. There is a lot of research on this but simple observation would verify the obvious:

From your bedroom to the garage and from the car park in your office or near your office, or the shopping mall does not constitute exercise to any useful degree.

I observed in New York where most people use public transport to get around, how much slimmer and fitter New Yorkers looked than most Americans. Jump across the river to New Jersey where they drive and the difference is chalk and cheese. Think Chris Christie.

That is a reason why you will see much greater obesity in rural towns where a combination of bad diet and obsessive driving even from shop to shop in the same street has them packing on the kilos.

There is a huge amount of denial that goes on as to how much exercise you do and whether you should or should not take public transport. My wife claimed the walk back and forth to the photo copier and refused for a long time to take the buses, despite we have one almost outside our door.

Going to the gym is no substitute for constant exercise as a normal part of your life. Unless you are the companies selling you your “health” back, which other companies have taken away.

If the case that public transport (or is it just your beloved trams ?) is a magical solution for health/obesity, then why does it not get any more than a cursory acklnowledgement on page 97 of the Business Case (which still makes me wanna’ chuck up every time I read it !). It’s not even costed ! :

http://www.capitalmetro.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/655650/Capital-Metro-Business-Case-In-Full.pdf

Which just goes to show that the tram is not about solving traffic – or health problems at all. Its about densification, benefit to developers & a means of helping to untangle the appaling planning stuff ups by successive ACT Gov’ts (which have mostly been Labor). Stuff what ACT residents/ratepayers want.

Science is what seems to be under attack anyway here, whether stated or not, by most of the opponents because the agenda really is “Burn, baby burn”, and all climate scientists are liars. We go round and round and round on why Light Rail is not buses because of the deafness that has nothing to do with your ears or blindness that has nothing to do with your eyes

You will never ever do it because it would involve actual research, but it is a simple matter of wearing one of the countless exercise bands and measuring your daily exercise with and without cars.

I just watched last night the promos for the “World’s Greatest Losers”. That is our usual stupid response to a serious problem of an insane lifestyle. But cling to to it you must.

rommeldog56 said :

rubaiyat said :

The REAL PROBLEM in this town is half the population is public servants and the other half thinks like them.

Half of the Public Service exists simply to stop the other half getting anything done.

The burden of being the only logically thinking, hard working (what John Howard once called a “workplace Warrior” ?), intelligent person in Canberra, must weigh heavily on your shoulders.

Thanks for the pat on the back, I just have my eyes open, and your constant sour responses and sloganeering “ORL CARS ARE EEEEVIL”, doesn’t change that.

When I am working late or on weekends, there are no Public Servant “Workplace Warriors” in the building.

Simple.

Mysteryman said :

JC said :

Mysteryman said :

[

They also have higher population density, and better zoning, which allows for people to live closer to the things they need access to. Canberra doesn’t.

Canberra as a whole doesn’t, but the Northborne Ave/Flemmington Road corridor does.

Next.

If you think that small, small part of Canberra justifies the spending of what will undoubtedly blow out to more than $1b, then you are mistaken. Or you’re just party-blind. I suspect it’s both.

Yeah, most people who choose to live in the high density Northbourne Avenue area do so because it is in walking distance of the city, Braddon and Dickson. They don’t need buses, cars (or light rail to no-where).

Fascinating reading here about the way local government runs in Phoenix, Arizona.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2015/08/29/phoenix-election-results-what-if/71334008/
It sounds a lot like the ACT, especially the bit where only 2% of the population use public transport yet 95% of the budget is being spent on bus and light rail transit.

Mysteryman said :

JC said :

Mysteryman said :

[

They also have higher population density, and better zoning, which allows for people to live closer to the things they need access to. Canberra doesn’t.

Canberra as a whole doesn’t, but the Northborne Ave/Flemmington Road corridor does.

Next.

If you think that small, small part of Canberra justifies the spending of what will undoubtedly blow out to more than $1b, then you are mistaken. Or you’re just party-blind. I suspect it’s both.

If the money that is earned from the development and is saved by the development (in not providing more and more roads and carparking) then why not?

If you think we can go in with more and more urban sprawl then you are mistaken it partially (or did you really mean party as in political party) blind. I suspect both.

JC said :

Mysteryman said :

[

They also have higher population density, and better zoning, which allows for people to live closer to the things they need access to. Canberra doesn’t.

Canberra as a whole doesn’t, but the Northborne Ave/Flemmington Road corridor does.

Next.

If you think that small, small part of Canberra justifies the spending of what will undoubtedly blow out to more than $1b, then you are mistaken. Or you’re just party-blind. I suspect it’s both.

There is a fascinating human behaviour when confronted with even the most obvious problems:

1. Denial

2. Obfuscation

3. Lying to self

4. Tempering

5. Deflection

6. Misdirection

7. Massive exaggeration of the costs of remedies

8. Predictions of catastrophe if any change is attempted

9. Mild concession if the evidence is totally damning

10. Finally, given no other choice, backs to the wall, noses forced into the mess, conceding in a manner where they can sabotage the fix and claim they were right all along.

rubaiyat said :

Sydney University and the CSIRO have done actual research (not “Chances are”) and they have shown that users of public transport have less obesity problems than drivers. There is a lot of research on this but simple observation would verify the obvious:

From your bedroom to the garage and from the car park in your office or near your office, or the shopping mall does not constitute exercise to any useful degree.

I observed in New York where most people use public transport to get around, how much slimmer and fitter New Yorkers looked than most Americans. Jump across the river to New Jersey where they drive and the difference is chalk and cheese. Think Chris Christie.

That is a reason why you will see much greater obesity in rural towns where a combination of bad diet and obsessive driving even from shop to shop in the same street has them packing on the kilos.

There is a huge amount of denial that goes on as to how much exercise you do and whether you should or should not take public transport. My wife claimed the walk back and forth to the photo copier and refused for a long time to take the buses, despite we have one almost outside our door.

Going to the gym is no substitute for constant exercise as a normal part of your life. Unless you are the companies selling you your “health” back, which other companies have taken away.

If the case that public transport (or is it just your beloved trams ?) is a magical solution for health/obesity, then why does it not get any more than a cursory acklnowledgement on page 97 of the Business Case (which still makes me wanna’ chuck up every time I read it !). It’s not even costed ! :

http://www.capitalmetro.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/655650/Capital-Metro-Business-Case-In-Full.pdf

Which just goes to show that the tram is not about solving traffic – or health problems at all. Its about densification, benefit to developers & a means of helping to untangle the appaling planning stuff ups by successive ACT Gov’ts (which have mostly been Labor). Stuff what ACT residents/ratepayers want.

rubaiyat said :

The contract is the contract. After the private investor signs off on the project that is their budget.

And surprise surprise, detail comes after initial proposal.

Add up what it actually costs to run freeways as a transport system, and no its not just the roads.

The comment “The contract is the contract. After the private investor signs off on the project that is their budget”, is naive It is a competitive tendering process. The successful tenderer will spend the next 20 years clawing back profit/costs from the ACT Government/Ratepayers. The ACt Gov’t has no hope of contract managing that because they will be outskilled by the contractor. The contractor is of course, under constant presure to increase return on investment for shareholderrs each year.

Re detail : Yes, more will be known when tenders are evaluated & Ratepayers will only know that after contracts are signed (but it is inevitable that much of that detail will be “commercial in confidence”). What I was talking about is the detail that has been revealed since the 2012 election light rail “cocept” was unveiled. Like the Business case, the environmental impact statement, the engineering & consultants reports, additional work necessary under Northborne Ave because they have found more pipes, etc.

Re cost of roads/transport : I’m sure you are right. But roads/transport just don’t run from Gunners-Civic. Maybe all the roads connecting Gunners-Civic should be ripped up & that land used for infill once the light rail starts ? Instead, there is also massive roadworks to be commenced soon in Gunners, despite the impending light rail.

rubaiyat said :

Sydney University and the CSIRO have done actual research (not “Chances are”) and they have shown that users of public transport have less obesity problems than drivers. There is a lot of research on this but simple observation would verify the obvious:

Correlation doesn’t imply causality.

If someone has a health problem, doesn’t earn that much, is older in age they are more likely to be lower in weight and also more likely to catch a bus.

If you take public transport your 10 times more likely to get hit by a bus or train than someone that doesn’t.

rubaiyat said :

From your bedroom to the garage and from the car park in your office or near your office, or the shopping mall does not constitute exercise to any useful degree.

And a 2 minute walk from one’s bedroom to the bus stop followed by a 30 second walk from the bus stop right outside one’s office building does?

The papers you cite are about the walking and cycling to/from the transit stop that is often (though not always) associated with public transport.

Paper 1: The use of public transit (trains, subways, and buses) usually involves walking or cycling to and from transit stops and, hence, would also be expected to promote weight control, as well as a host of other physical and mental health benefits.

Paper 2: The purpose of this paper is to systematically examine the extent of association between the use of public transport and time spent in physical activity (walking/cycling to transport stops/stations) among adults.

Paper 3: The Victorian Integrated Survey of Travel and Activity (VISTA) of 43,800 Melbournians found that people who used public transport on a given day also spent an average of 41 minutes walking or cycling as part of their travel.

Getting to and from the transport is the type of activity being discussed – the actual mode of motorised transport shouldn’t matter. When parking is far from one’s destination (e.g. in the next suburb), exercise is just as capable of association with driving as with public transport. I park a 10 minute walk from my office and used to park even further away, whereas there is a bus stop right outside the door. I would barely need to walk at all if I took the bus.

When I drive to Civic, I park in a distant car park that is (for a few more days) free, then walk to the shops and wander around till I’m ready to go home, when I walk back to where I left the car. If I caught the bus, I’d get off at the interchange, which is much closer to the shops.

If I caught the bus to work, I’d have no choice but to come straight home. After spending all day at work plus an hour each way on an ‘express’ bus, I wouldn’t want to go out again – so my daily exercise would amount to 5 minutes walking to/from the bus plus a bit of walking around the house. I drive mainly because I go to the gym, dance class or sports training after work almost every day (as well as on weekends). These activities are not near my home, and trying to get there on time and then home later in the evening by bus would be a nightmare. Regardless of what New Yorkers do, my life is far more active and rich through using my car.

I lived in the US for 9 years and didn’t have a car for most of that time. It worked best when I worked in a small college town where I lived centrally and could walk almost everywhere. I walked 20 minutes to work, carried my groceries home from the shops and my washing to the laundromat. Yes, I got lots of exercise – though it wasn’t through catching public transport. When I moved to a bigger city and needed to catch buses to get around, it didn’t work nearly as well. While I still walked to the grocery store and carried my shopping home, most destinations were too far away to walk and it was only a block to the bus stop. That wasn’t much exercise at all. I saved a lot of money by not owning a car, but my life was restricted in many ways and I feel now that I paid a high price for that lack of mobility. Life is vastly better with my own transport.

Mysteryman said :

Light rail has the potential to be very useful in Canberra. But this government has a terrible track record with public infrastructure projects, so I and many others, are justifiably doubtful that it will be done properly, on time, or even close to budget.

Just come back from the City and observed the lack of progress on the Sydney Building which was damaged by fire over one and a half years ago. It got me thinking about similar failed or perpetually incomplete private enterprise projects.

There is a confected reputation of “this Government” being responsible for every delay, or even rumoured delay, of any project that they are associated with. When of course they are not managing or supervising the actual construction, or have been forced into delays, eg in Bunda Street, by the very same businesses and politicians that then complain about the delays.

Whilst I also do not have a high opinion of this Government’s professional abilities, I don’t see it as being uniquely “this Government”. The Liberals cocked up so many of their projects that we had to get rid of them.

In the rush to scapegoat the “usual suspects” nobody has shown how Private Companies or Developers or Property Trusts are any better.

Near where I live there is a property next to the shops and offices that has been vacant and weed infested for over a decade with still no sign of anything happening. There are plenty of other commercial/residential blocks in similar limbo.

Just a case of finding fault selectively, and hoping nobody notices the hypocrisy.

rubaiyat said :

The REAL PROBLEM in this town is half the population is public servants and the other half thinks like them.

Half of the Public Service exists simply to stop the other half getting anything done.

The burden of being the only logically thinking, hard working (what John Howard once called a “workplace Warrior” ?), intelligent person in Canberra, must weigh heavily on your shoulders.

Nightshade said :

rubaiyat said :

Where is the 18% of people in hospitals directly because of car accidents, plus all those with diabetes and cardiac problems due to the lack of exercise due to driving everywhere?
damage they cause, but not ALL the damage they cause.

Not sure why you keep arguing that driving = lack of exercise compared to catching public transport – it’s not like bus passengers have to peddle! Chances are people walk much further from car parks to their final destination than they would from a bus stop, especially if travelling in to Civic.

Sydney University and the CSIRO have done actual research (not “Chances are”) and they have shown that users of public transport have less obesity problems than drivers. There is a lot of research on this but simple observation would verify the obvious:

http://www.cycle-helmets.com/walk-bike-obesity-rates.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3407915/

http://bic.asn.au/information-for-moving-people/health-and-public-transport

From your bedroom to the garage and from the car park in your office or near your office, or the shopping mall does not constitute exercise to any useful degree.

I observed in New York where most people use public transport to get around, how much slimmer and fitter New Yorkers looked than most Americans. Jump across the river to New Jersey where they drive and the difference is chalk and cheese. Think Chris Christie.

That is a reason why you will see much greater obesity in rural towns where a combination of bad diet and obsessive driving even from shop to shop in the same street has them packing on the kilos.

There is a huge amount of denial that goes on as to how much exercise you do and whether you should or should not take public transport. My wife claimed the walk back and forth to the photo copier and refused for a long time to take the buses, despite we have one almost outside our door.

It even splits families. We have friends where the wife cooks massively, she is Italian, even the cat is fat, but the husband is not. He cycles to work. We travelled with her to Melbourne where of course we walked around the city a lot and caught the trams. She was clearly out of her element and soon asked to go off on her own and sit in a cafe somewhere.

It is not rocket science.

Studies have been done of the Blue Zones. Areas where the people live long and healthy lives:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone

There are many reasons, all good, why they do live longer happier lives but key is the people are very active and almost all do not use cars for various reasons.

Going to the gym is no substitute for constant exercise as a normal part of your life. Unless you are the companies selling you your “health” back, which other companies have taken away.

Rotten_berry said :

I agree that the old clunker diesel buses are noisy and polluting, but CNG buses (we already have some) are affordable, clean, reasonably quiet (trams can be noisy too especially if the track joints are less than perfect), and don’t fund middle eastern oil sheiks. They kill fewer pedestrians as per VTPI data, and they probably also emit less CO2 per passenger-km than trams running on Australia’s mostly coal-fired power grid, but I can’t be calculating that at the moment. You can have a crack if you want.

Not sure if you have noticed but CNG fell out of vogue around the world a few years back. The last gas buses delivered to Australia were (if I am not mistaken) delivered to the Brisbane City Council in 2010.

These days Euro V and VI diesels are ‘cleaner’ than CNG and lets not forget the cost of natural gas has gone through the roof in recent years. Thanks carbon tax. Not….

Mysteryman said :

Disengage the emotion, for a minute, and recognise that the real problem is that Canberra was built around the use of cars. The city is spread fairly thin, and a lot of things are not within walking distance for the vast majority of Canberrans. The poorly thought out zoning means that corner shops don’t exist in most suburbs – you need the time for an hour round trip walk to pick up the milk and bread, unless you take the car. Walking to a town centre is out of the question for most residents, because it’s too far and impractical compared to a 10 minute drive. The bus network rarely presents an attractive alternative. I can get to work in the car in 25 mins on a busy day, but when there is absolutely no traffic congestion, it will still take a minimum of 1 hour and 10 mins. That’s a minimum of an extra hour or more commute, every day. Most people aren’t going to willingly sacrifice 5, 10, or 15 hours a week in travel time. And they shouldn’t be expected to.

Light rail has the potential to be very useful in Canberra. But this government has a terrible track record with public infrastructure projects, so I and many others, are justifiably doubtful that it will be done properly, on time, or even close to budget. So while you’re singing the praises of the the light rail that hasn’t yet been built, will only service a small part of Canberra, and will cost a lot of money, sensible people are hesitant.

Again except for the Northborne Ave/Flemmington Road corridor. It will work there, but hey it won’t work anywhere else so we should just ignore it and carry on as we have before, which as you point out is quite poorly planned, measured against modern day standards.

As for the poor record of the government, want to give some examples? And don’t say Gungahlin Drive as the Liebral party Federally and locally had a lot to do with that cluster.

Mysteryman said :

[

They also have higher population density, and better zoning, which allows for people to live closer to the things they need access to. Canberra doesn’t.

Canberra as a whole doesn’t, but the Northborne Ave/Flemmington Road corridor does.

Next.

Postalgeek said :

And buses can be electric. There are even Australian electric bus manufacturers such as BCI and Bustech. So let’s stop pretending that LR is the only electric option.

Whilst BCI Australian owned, all their buses are designed and built in China and Bustech does not have an electric bus. They are though developing one.

Oh and electric buses wouldn’t work too well in Canberra, especially the reasonably flat route to Gungahlin. They really do need some hilly terrain to help recharge the batteries otherwise they need to spend more time recharging.

What would work though is hybrid bus technology, am surprised it hasn’t taken off in Australia like it has in Europe. Then again as others have pointed out there are some powerful lobby groups in this country with self interest at heart. The same groups that lobbied long and hard for the closure of the tram networks in the 50/60’s so not surprised a bus the uses less fuel isn’t all the popular in Australia.

Anyway one regular here wouldn’t like buses anyway as they are old technology. The use roads that have their originals in the 500’s and the concept of the omnibus comes from 1819. Which is a good 61 years before the first electric tram, which was in 1880 and of course rail roads are an invention from the 1300’s which is a good 800 years after the first road. But old technology hey?

rubaiyat said :

Where is the 18% of people in hospitals directly because of car accidents, plus all those with diabetes and cardiac problems due to the lack of exercise due to driving everywhere?
damage they cause, but not ALL the damage they cause.

Not sure why you keep arguing that driving = lack of exercise compared to catching public transport – it’s not like bus passengers have to peddle! Chances are people walk much further from car parks to their final destination than they would from a bus stop, especially if travelling in to Civic.

To state the obvious:

When comparing forms of transport for noise:

A single Light Rail Train equals 3-4 buses or over 200 cars (at 1.2 occupants average).

It is also infrequent. You only hear them every 10 – 15 minutes unlike car transport which is essentially non-stop.

In the case of Sydney’s upcoming CBD & South East Light Rail, quadruple the figures.

There are almost as many peak hour vehicles passing through Canberra’s city bus exchange as the busy Melbourne Bourke Street Mall – Swanston Street intersection.

If you want to experience the future Canberra, if it sticks to buses, experience the Sydney CBD streets at peak hour, choked with buses.

Loud, stinking, fuming, congested, bumper to bumper buses, having trouble even pulling up to the kerb.

We already get a strong whiff of that in all Canberra’s Town bus exchanges, which is what makes them the popular option that they are.

Rotten_berry said :

CTP insurance covers most of the financial costs. Yes there are large non-financial costs of road trauma, but what of the pedestrians maimed and killed, sliced and diced by light rail vehicles? Please see the graph on page 7 here, from VTPI – a pro-transit, anti-sprawl lobby group. The overall fatality rate (including peds) of commuter rail is similar to cars, and higher than buses! They of course try to downplay it, but the data show most car fatalities are inflicted on the users, whereas most commuter rail fatalities are inflicted on non-users. This is one of those externalities that green types normally get so upset over – why does light rail get a free pass?

http://www.vtpi.org/safer.pdf

Not true. Quoting from your own source:

“Public transportation is overall a relatively safe (low crash risk) and secure (low crime risk) mode of transport. Transit travel has about a tenth the traffic casualty (death or injury) rate as automobile travel, and residents of transit-oriented communities have about a fifth the per capita crash casualty rate as in automobile-oriented communities. Transit also tends to have lower overall crime rates than automobile travel, and many transit service improvements can further increase security by improving surveillance and economic opportunities for at-risk populations.”

You have misread the data in your eagerness to arrive at your inaccurate conclusion.

Commuter Rail (particularly as defined in North America) is NOT Light Rail which apparently has been lumped in with the commuter buses and is indeed the safest option, as shown by the graph, other than catching school buses.

Rotten_berry said :

Again, if cars are so horrible why does the ACT have the highest life expectancy in Australia – a country with one of the highest life expectancies in the world? Why is our per capita road toll similar to Singapore and Japan, and half that of South Korea?

The two sets of data are unrelated. Whilst our high rate of obesity, diabetes and cardiac problems is not.

Modern medicine keeps alive people on lung machines and in comas. Also the 33,000 people who are hospitalised with severe road trauma and the many more with cardiac problems and diabetes.

Rotten_berry said :

I agree that the old clunker diesel buses are noisy and polluting, but CNG buses (we already have some) are affordable, clean, reasonably quiet

Not true. I’ve ridden on them and you have trouble listening to your headphones anywhere near them let alone inside, and it is impossible to get any work done on them as they have the same rough and creaky ride as the “clunkers”.

Rotten_berry said :

(trams can be noisy too especially if the track joints are less than perfect), and don’t fund middle eastern oil sheiks.

Not true. Particularly as the Light Rail proposed will be on a virtually straight run of brand new track laid to modern standards.

You can carry on a normal conversation near or inside trams without raising your voice. You can also readily work on your laptop or listen to your headphones.

Rotten_berry said :

They (buses) kill fewer pedestrians as per VTPI data,

Again not true, you just misread the data.

Rotten_berry said :

and they probably also emit less CO2 per passenger-km than trams running on Australia’s mostly coal-fired power grid, but I can’t be calculating that at the moment. You can have a crack if you want.

They “probably” do not. The Canberra Light Rail will purchase Green energy from solar, wind and hydro and will NOT be using the “coal-fired power grid”.

That statement is getting beyond “Not true”. In fact I would use the alternate shorter word for “Not true” for all the above.

rubaiyat said :

Rotten_berry said :

Drivers pay for their own vehicles, fuel, maintenance, insurance, garaging, interest costs if applicable, and so on; these are all “priced in” to the cost of driving. Drivers also contribute plenty to the govt coffers via fuel tax, rego, and license fees. These user charges cover the cost of building and maintaining roads, so the complaints about free roads should be put to bed. See link below if you don’t believe me.

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

Where is the 18% of people in hospitals directly because of car accidents, plus all those with diabetes and cardiac problems due to the lack of exercise due to driving everywhere?

Where is the cost of the 33,000 seriously injured every year by cars, requiring support for the rest of their lives?

Where is the cost of all the ambulance services, police, paramedics, tow services, wreckers etc needed to pick up the broken bits left by cars?

The government pours vast amounts of money into roads, even some of the massive damage they cause, not accounted for in the report, but not ALL the damage they cause.

Besides the deaths, hospitalisation, permanently and seriously injured where is the cost of the alienation of land, and even larger areas around by the vast amounts of pollution and noise they cause? Where is all the time wasted on sitting in traffic?

Traffic noise alone is the principle complaint of people living in cities.

Drivers pour vastly more money yet than the Government into cars, even into some of the massive damage they cause, but not ALL the damage they cause.

Never doing the sums and simply ignoring the ACTUAL TOTAL cost of cars, does not make it all go away.

Certainly not the environmental costs.

CTP insurance covers most of the financial costs. Yes there are large non-financial costs of road trauma, but what of the pedestrians maimed and killed, sliced and diced by light rail vehicles? Please see the graph on page 7 here, from VTPI – a pro-transit, anti-sprawl lobby group. The overall fatality rate (including peds) of commuter rail is similar to cars, and higher than buses! They of course try to downplay it, but the data show most car fatalities are inflicted on the users, whereas most commuter rail fatalities are inflicted on non-users. This is one of those externalities that green types normally get so upset over – why does light rail get a free pass?

http://www.vtpi.org/safer.pdf

Again, if cars are so horrible why does the ACT have the highest life expectancy in Australia – a country with one of the highest life expectancies in the world? Why is our per capita road toll similar to Singapore and Japan, and half that of South Korea?

I agree that the old clunker diesel buses are noisy and polluting, but CNG buses (we already have some) are affordable, clean, reasonably quiet (trams can be noisy too especially if the track joints are less than perfect), and don’t fund middle eastern oil sheiks. They kill fewer pedestrians as per VTPI data, and they probably also emit less CO2 per passenger-km than trams running on Australia’s mostly coal-fired power grid, but I can’t be calculating that at the moment. You can have a crack if you want.

rubaiyat said :

The ultimate paradox is that if Canberrans had existed when Canberra was proposed they would have stopped it.

Will you please stop this deluge of postings with sensationalist slogans and claims criticising anyone who doesn’t think the rubaiyat way. Suggest u take a bex and have a lie down.

rubaiyat said :

The ultimate paradox is that if Canberrans had existed when Canberra was proposed they would have stopped it.

I can’t argue with that!

Odd how the same excuses never apply when building freeways!

There is nothing stopping you buying electric cars or electric buses if you want.

They are all there for you, I’ll even give all the links.

But you won’t, so stop using them as an excuse.

rubaiyat said :

The REAL PROBLEM in this town is half the population is public servants and the other half thinks like them.

Half of the Public Service exists simply to stop the other half getting anything done.

You could not have many friends in Canberra after saying that.

Most likely, automated vehicles will be on the road in the next few years eliminating employment costs. Battery technology too should have advanced enough to allow Canberra based public transport to operate from sustainable energy.

Same argument used against the NBN.

How’s all that cheap incredibly fast wireless network going for you?

Oh look, the crippled Liberal NBN is now costing more than the original NBN was going to! And is still isn’t built.

But like with the NBN let’s ask everyone who doesn’t intend using it, doesn’t know how to use it, and has no clue how it works, what we should build.

Nilrem said :

Mysteryman said :

rubaiyat said :

Postalgeek said :

Disengage the emotion, for a minute, and recognise that the real problem is that Canberra was built around the use of cars. The city is spread fairly thin, and a lot of things are not within walking distance for the vast majority of Canberrans. The poorly thought out zoning means that corner shops don’t exist in most suburbs – you need the time for an hour round trip walk to pick up the milk and bread, unless you take the car. .

It takes you half an hour to walk to your local shops?!

I know pilgrims that crawl the El Camino Santiago faster than that.

Mind you they are not hauling that 2 tonne SUV on their back.

The ultimate paradox is that if Canberrans had existed when Canberra was proposed they would have stopped it.

Mysteryman said :

rubaiyat said :

Postalgeek said :

Disengage the emotion, for a minute, and recognise that the real problem is that Canberra was built around the use of cars. The city is spread fairly thin, and a lot of things are not within walking distance for the vast majority of Canberrans. The poorly thought out zoning means that corner shops don’t exist in most suburbs – you need the time for an hour round trip walk to pick up the milk and bread, unless you take the car. .

It takes you half an hour to walk to your local shops?!

How did we actually even build Canberra in the first place when it hadn’t been done before?

The secret?

It wasn’t Canberrans that did it.

The REAL PROBLEM in this town is half the population is public servants and the other half thinks like them.

Half of the Public Service exists simply to stop the other half getting anything done.

Mysteryman said :

rubaiyat said :

Postalgeek said :

You’re not going to get most vehicles off roads with light rail.

You’re not going to get the tradies off the road.

You’re not going to get trucks off the roads, and you’re definitely not, repeat NOT, going to get anyone who isn’t catered for by the Gunghalin route, which is pretty much most of Canberra and all of regional drivers. And I imagine that will include people who are more than a 10-15 minute walk to the LR hub in Gunghalin.

I don’t see how LR is going to improve on that 6.8%.

But yes, we can go round and round and round in circles ignoring the problems.

And buses can be electric. There are even Australian electric bus manufacturers such as BCI and Bustech. So let’s stop pretending that LR is the only electric option.

Simple fact 16-18% of people in other Australian cities use public transport.

They also have tradies, trucks etc.

They also have better, cleaner public transport.

They also have higher population density, and better zoning, which allows for people to live closer to the things they need access to. Canberra doesn’t.

rubaiyat said :

The real problem is many Canberrans.

They think doing nothing is compulsory.

Disengage the emotion, for a minute, and recognise that the real problem is that Canberra was built around the use of cars. The city is spread fairly thin, and a lot of things are not within walking distance for the vast majority of Canberrans. The poorly thought out zoning means that corner shops don’t exist in most suburbs – you need the time for an hour round trip walk to pick up the milk and bread, unless you take the car. Walking to a town centre is out of the question for most residents, because it’s too far and impractical compared to a 10 minute drive. The bus network rarely presents an attractive alternative. I can get to work in the car in 25 mins on a busy day, but when there is absolutely no traffic congestion, it will still take a minimum of 1 hour and 10 mins. That’s a minimum of an extra hour or more commute, every day. Most people aren’t going to willingly sacrifice 5, 10, or 15 hours a week in travel time. And they shouldn’t be expected to.

Light rail has the potential to be very useful in Canberra. But this government has a terrible track record with public infrastructure projects, so I and many others, are justifiably doubtful that it will be done properly, on time, or even close to budget. So while you’re singing the praises of the the light rail that hasn’t yet been built, will only service a small part of Canberra, and will cost a lot of money, sensible people are hesitant.

How hard is it to read the hundreds of posts that have been put up on this?

Not on “light rail that hasn’t been built yet”, but light rail that exists in countless cities of all sizes and configurations, large, small, medium sized, dense and not so dense.

Oddly enough in a city almost the same size and density of Canberra, only recently. The Gold Coast.

It is even in Australia.

But amazingly none of them are exactly Canberra!

Are you saying we can nothing in Canberra until it has been done in an exact duplicate of Canberra? In exactly the same location, geographical and physical as Canberra?

Wouldn’t that actually be Canberra?

Are you saying you can not change anything, which is exactly what is being proposed, because that would change things?

If you are, then the problem, as I have observed, is not Canberra, but Canberrans.

It isn’t emotion then that I need to disengage it is total and utter exasperation.

rubaiyat said :

Postalgeek said :

You’re not going to get most vehicles off roads with light rail.

You’re not going to get the tradies off the road.

You’re not going to get trucks off the roads, and you’re definitely not, repeat NOT, going to get anyone who isn’t catered for by the Gunghalin route, which is pretty much most of Canberra and all of regional drivers. And I imagine that will include people who are more than a 10-15 minute walk to the LR hub in Gunghalin.

I don’t see how LR is going to improve on that 6.8%.

But yes, we can go round and round and round in circles ignoring the problems.

And buses can be electric. There are even Australian electric bus manufacturers such as BCI and Bustech. So let’s stop pretending that LR is the only electric option.

Simple fact 16-18% of people in other Australian cities use public transport.

They also have tradies, trucks etc.

They also have better, cleaner public transport.

They also have higher population density, and better zoning, which allows for people to live closer to the things they need access to. Canberra doesn’t.

rubaiyat said :

The real problem is many Canberrans.

They think doing nothing is compulsory.

Disengage the emotion, for a minute, and recognise that the real problem is that Canberra was built around the use of cars. The city is spread fairly thin, and a lot of things are not within walking distance for the vast majority of Canberrans. The poorly thought out zoning means that corner shops don’t exist in most suburbs – you need the time for an hour round trip walk to pick up the milk and bread, unless you take the car. Walking to a town centre is out of the question for most residents, because it’s too far and impractical compared to a 10 minute drive. The bus network rarely presents an attractive alternative. I can get to work in the car in 25 mins on a busy day, but when there is absolutely no traffic congestion, it will still take a minimum of 1 hour and 10 mins. That’s a minimum of an extra hour or more commute, every day. Most people aren’t going to willingly sacrifice 5, 10, or 15 hours a week in travel time. And they shouldn’t be expected to.

Light rail has the potential to be very useful in Canberra. But this government has a terrible track record with public infrastructure projects, so I and many others, are justifiably doubtful that it will be done properly, on time, or even close to budget. So while you’re singing the praises of the the light rail that hasn’t yet been built, will only service a small part of Canberra, and will cost a lot of money, sensible people are hesitant.

rubaiyat said :

Let’s face it the REAL problem is what people don’t see.

…and aren’t looking.

It grated me when I first came to Canberra, the small minded ignorant parochialism.

I thought it had gone away. I thought wrong.

I am glad you also had a problem finding a petrol station when you first moved to Canberra.

Ah! The brave new Canberra, the “Garden City”.

Reminiscent of the Golgafrinchams, in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, who sent off all their hairdressers, telephone sanitizers and middle managers in spaceship Ark B to colonise a new planet.

Which they proceeded to quickly trash once they got there.

Let’s face it the REAL problem is what people don’t see.

…and aren’t looking.

It grated me when I first came to Canberra, the small minded ignorant parochialism.

I thought it had gone away. I thought wrong.

Postalgeek said :

You’re not going to get most vehicles off roads with light rail.

You’re not going to get the tradies off the road.

You’re not going to get trucks off the roads, and you’re definitely not, repeat NOT, going to get anyone who isn’t catered for by the Gunghalin route, which is pretty much most of Canberra and all of regional drivers. And I imagine that will include people who are more than a 10-15 minute walk to the LR hub in Gunghalin.

I don’t see how LR is going to improve on that 6.8%.

But yes, we can go round and round and round in circles ignoring the problems.

And buses can be electric. There are even Australian electric bus manufacturers such as BCI and Bustech. So let’s stop pretending that LR is the only electric option.

Simple fact 16-18% of people in other Australian cities use public transport.

They also have tradies, trucks etc.

They also have better, cleaner public transport.

The Gungahlin Light Rail is the first step.

The real problem is many Canberrans.

They think doing nothing is compulsory.

Matt Watts said :

dungfungus said :

Matt Watts said :

Most people forget that the Canberra Liberals took a fully funded engineering study of potential light rail routes to the 2008 election. They hadn’t committed to it; they were willing to explore it, because for all the bluster about benefits, nobody knew what the potential costs would be. At the time, regular poster John Hargreaves and his ALP were dead against it!

The point is, nobody is claiming that the Canberra Liberals would have had a mandate to implement a rolled gold light rail network should they have won the 2008 election. The claim that the Labor/Green coalition have a mandate this term to implement their current proposal is nearly just as false.

Just because one questions this specific proposal, doesn’t make one anti-public transport. Just ask Hargreaves!

There were hybrid light rail proposals that Corbell ignored having already being seduced by the Euro-Tram lobby before the election.
At half the cost they would have been the perfect fit – even the Liberals would have approved of them.

It is well-known that Corbell had been wanting light rail for 20 years or so.

That along with everything else that doesn’t fit the outbreak of Green Puppet Master Anti-Light Rail hysteria here, just gets ignored.

Rotten_berry said :

Drivers pay for their own vehicles, fuel, maintenance, insurance, garaging, interest costs if applicable, and so on; these are all “priced in” to the cost of driving. Drivers also contribute plenty to the govt coffers via fuel tax, rego, and license fees. These user charges cover the cost of building and maintaining roads, so the complaints about free roads should be put to bed. See link below if you don’t believe me.

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

Where is the 18% of people in hospitals directly because of car accidents, plus all those with diabetes and cardiac problems due to the lack of exercise due to driving everywhere?

Where is the cost of the 33,000 seriously injured every year by cars, requiring support for the rest of their lives?

Where is the cost of all the ambulance services, police, paramedics, tow services, wreckers etc needed to pick up the broken bits left by cars?

The government pours vast amounts of money into roads, even some of the massive damage they cause, not accounted for in the report, but not ALL the damage they cause.

Besides the deaths, hospitalisation, permanently and seriously injured where is the cost of the alienation of land, and even larger areas around by the vast amounts of pollution and noise they cause? Where is all the time wasted on sitting in traffic?

Traffic noise alone is the principle complaint of people living in cities.

Drivers pour vastly more money yet than the Government into cars, even into some of the massive damage they cause, but not ALL the damage they cause.

Never doing the sums and simply ignoring the ACTUAL TOTAL cost of cars, does not make it all go away.

Certainly not the environmental costs.

dungfungus said :

Matt Watts said :

Most people forget that the Canberra Liberals took a fully funded engineering study of potential light rail routes to the 2008 election. They hadn’t committed to it; they were willing to explore it, because for all the bluster about benefits, nobody knew what the potential costs would be. At the time, regular poster John Hargreaves and his ALP were dead against it!

The point is, nobody is claiming that the Canberra Liberals would have had a mandate to implement a rolled gold light rail network should they have won the 2008 election. The claim that the Labor/Green coalition have a mandate this term to implement their current proposal is nearly just as false.

Just because one questions this specific proposal, doesn’t make one anti-public transport. Just ask Hargreaves!

There were hybrid light rail proposals that Corbell ignored having already being seduced by the Euro-Tram lobby before the election.
At half the cost they would have been the perfect fit – even the Liberals would have approved of them.

It is well-known that Corbell had been wanting light rail for 20 years or so.

Postalgeek said :

You’re not going to get most vehicles off roads with light rail.

You’re not going to get the tradies off the road.

You’re not going to get trucks off the roads, and you’re definitely not, repeat NOT, going to get anyone who isn’t catered for by the Gunghalin route, which is pretty much most of Canberra and all of regional drivers. And I imagine that will include people who are more than a 10-15 minute walk to the LR hub in Gunghalin.

I don’t see how LR is going to improve on that 6.8%.

Well that is why the whole transport corridor is planned to be high density. Its increasing housing and providing public transport for those people. That helps Canberra by having more places to live, helps keep house prices from rising a lot. Its part of a solution. I can’t see light rail ever being extended to Tuggeranong, even if its wildly successful. Its too far, but by then maybe we’ll also integrate some rapid intercity transport systems to help.

People will use a park and ride station at Gungahlin also. Car parking is getting scarcer in the city and will only become more expensive. I can’t tell if the light rail will work but there is some logic behind what they are doing, but putting more buses on the road will not solve any issues we have right now. If the liberals go to the elction with a proposal to build dedicated bus roads between the town centres then that would be a great idea and probably win votes. Adding buses and bus lanes is not going to fix anything.

rubaiyat said :

Rotten_berry said :

Why not spend the money on bus infrastructure instead?

Because it pollutes, is noisy, occupies the same roads as the cars, which eat up the countryside etc etc etc

%u2026and because it demonstrably is not working. 6.8% of the population uses buses and falling.

The only transport solution being suggested here, is going round and round and round in circles ignoring the problems.

You’re not going to get most vehicles off roads with light rail.

You’re not going to get the tradies off the road. You’re not going to get trucks off the roads, and you’re definitely not, repeat NOT, going to get anyone who isn’t catered for by the Gunghalin route, which is pretty much most of Canberra and all of regional drivers. And I imagine that will include people who are more than a 10-15 minute walk to the LR hub in Gunghalin. I don’t see how LR is going to improve on that 6.8%.

But yes, we can go round and round and round in circles ignoring the problems.

And buses can be electric. There are even Australian electric bus manufacturers such as BCI and Bustech. So let’s stop pretending that LR is the only electric option.

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

Excuse my pedantic accuracy, but I have always been afflicted with an ability to read, do maths, do research combined with a natural curiosity and interest in a wide range of subjects, and to know what to do with all of them.

So, please tell us how cars have caused wars.

I forgot of course the protracted and really nasty conflicts in the Sudan and the Congo which have not stopped either.

The French and Italian invasions of North Africa.

I’m sure that there are even more that I don’t know about or were part of other actions.

Can you let us know exactly your education? We seem to be having to fill in a lot of the gaps yours left.

Re my education, I went to school.

The evidence indicates otherwise.

I take back the Italians, I checked and oil was discovered after Italian North Africa got its independence.

Besides the problem of the Pied Noir, the discovery of oil in Algeria in 1956 was one of the reasons France did not want to let go, like a monkey with its hand on the banana.

Both examples were after thoughts anyway.

Take back North/South Sudan as well because they signed a peace accord yesterday.

Which they’ve signed before, but now we can forget all the deaths, refugees and failed states.

Now let’s make the entire Middle East and the rest of Asia go away…

How many trillions of dollars thrown away, economies ruined, millions of lives slaughtered, many more homeless, and countless refugees created, just to feed the addiction to oil?

“How many trillions of dollars thrown away, economies ruined, millions of lives slaughtered, many more homeless, and countless refugees created, just to feed the addiction to oil?”
I really didn’t have a choice about moving to Canberra as I needed a job. It was hard to find a petrol station in those early days but now even our supermarkets sells the stuff.

rubaiyat said :

Rotten_berry said :

Why not spend the money on bus infrastructure instead?

Because it pollutes, is noisy, occupies the same roads as the cars, which eat up the countryside etc etc etc

…and because it demonstrably is not working. 6.8% of the population uses buses and falling.

The only transport solution being suggested here, is going round and round and round in circles ignoring the problems.

Better to spend $1 billion + and split the 6.8% of population that uses public transport evenly between buses and trams.
The government could then spin that “we are giving you choices”.

Rotten_berry said :

Why not spend the money on bus infrastructure instead?

Because it pollutes, is noisy, occupies the same roads as the cars, which eat up the countryside etc etc etc

…and because it demonstrably is not working. 6.8% of the population uses buses and falling.

The only transport solution being suggested here, is going round and round and round in circles ignoring the problems.

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

Excuse my pedantic accuracy, but I have always been afflicted with an ability to read, do maths, do research combined with a natural curiosity and interest in a wide range of subjects, and to know what to do with all of them.

So, please tell us how cars have caused wars.

I forgot of course the protracted and really nasty conflicts in the Sudan and the Congo which have not stopped either.

The French and Italian invasions of North Africa.

I’m sure that there are even more that I don’t know about or were part of other actions.

Can you let us know exactly your education? We seem to be having to fill in a lot of the gaps yours left.

Re my education, I went to school.

The evidence indicates otherwise.

I take back the Italians, I checked and oil was discovered after Italian North Africa got its independence.

Besides the problem of the Pied Noir, the discovery of oil in Algeria in 1956 was one of the reasons France did not want to let go, like a monkey with its hand on the banana.

Both examples were after thoughts anyway.

Take back North/South Sudan as well because they signed a peace accord yesterday.

Which they’ve signed before, but now we can forget all the deaths, refugees and failed states.

Now let’s make the entire Middle East and the rest of Asia go away…

How many trillions of dollars thrown away, economies ruined, millions of lives slaughtered, many more homeless, and countless refugees created, just to feed the addiction to oil?

Dreadnaught1905 said :

Putting aside the issues of who claimed 100% of what,

That would be because it was you.

Dreadnaught1905 said :

As I said in some other thread, I would like to know what the transport implications would be if we (i.e. Canberra) took the $120M earmarked in the tram business case for road upgrades and used it to improve the existing mass transit systems in Canberra.

…more pollution.

…more freeways carving up the countryside, creating more constant noise and more deaths and severely injured.

…more sprawling suburbia further and further from work, or anything else.

…more commuting, over longer distances.

…more of the same, until Canberra has consumed and killed off most of the countryside.

But just guessing.

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

Excuse my pedantic accuracy, but I have always been afflicted with an ability to read, do maths, do research combined with a natural curiosity and interest in a wide range of subjects, and to know what to do with all of them.

So, please tell us how cars have caused wars.

I forgot of course the protracted and really nasty conflicts in the Sudan and the Congo which have not stopped either.

The French and Italian invasions of North Africa.

I’m sure that there are even more that I don’t know about or were part of other actions.

Can you let us know exactly your education? We seem to be having to fill in a lot of the gaps yours left.

Re my education, I went to school.

The evidence indicates otherwise.

I take back the Italians, I checked and oil was discovered after Italian North Africa got its independence.

Besides the problem of the Pied Noir, the discovery of oil in Algeria in 1956 was one of the reasons France did not want to let go, like a monkey with its hand on the banana.

Both examples were after thoughts anyway.

Take back North/South Sudan as well because they signed a peace accord yesterday.

Rotten_berry said :

rubaiyat said :

I really need to repeat this.

The Light Rail is comprehensively priced. It is everything: land, construction, tracks, vehicles, interest, insurance, running costs, wages and fuel.

The only thing more expensive than driving is taking a Taxi or Limo.

Cars are not comprehensively priced for: land, construction, roads, vehicles, garaging, parking spaces, interest, insurance, running costs, accidents, repairs, wages, fuel and pollution.

Drivers pay for their own vehicles, fuel, maintenance, insurance, garaging, interest costs if applicable, and so on; these are all “priced in” to the cost of driving. Drivers also contribute plenty to the govt coffers via fuel tax, rego, and license fees. These user charges cover the cost of building and maintaining roads, so the complaints about free roads should be put to bed. See link below if you don’t believe me.

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

In more recent years the road spend has exceeded the tax take; this is likely due to removal of fuel excise indexation and increasing fuel efficiency combined with mining boom wage pressures, but note that through the early noughties the tax take exceeded the road spend significantly. The fuel tax should be re-indexed and perhaps bumped up a bit to cover this. It’s also debatable whether motorists should cover the full cost of roads; local streets also provide utility to cyclists (I enjoy cycling along the wide, leafy backstreets of the old suburbs), pedestrians, construction vehicles, etc. In any case, the light rail will be subsidised FAR more heavily than motorists on a per passenger-kilometer basis.

As for all the other stuff about externalities let’s not forget that people were freaking out over forecasts that streets would be piled high with horse manure before the evil cars came along, and that large portions of urban populations lived in crowded (road-free!) slums. Despite our car addiction and often unhealthy lifestyles Australia’s life expectancy (82) is amongst the highest in the world, and our road toll at 5.6 per 100,000 people is also quite low (according to Wikipedia). Super-dense Singapore, where cars are rationed and heavily taxed, is not much safer at 5.1 deaths per 100,000! Density increases traffic flows per unit area, and pedestrians go under trains and trams too. I don’t see much correlation between density and road toll in the data – the only obvious trend is that wealthy countries have lower road tolls.

I agree with you that oil is geopolitically problematic, to put it mildly, but in the long run electric cars seem like a more practical solution to this problem than trams which will only serve a small % of our population. I don’t have a problem with densifying transport corridors – the tram route already has a good bus service – but if I wanted to enjoy a latte-sipping lifestyle on some sort of car-free, tram-studded boulevard of mixed-use vibrancy then I’d move! Canberra works fine as a low-density garden city. The tram is an expensive solution to a mostly non-problem. If you believe Metro it will be slower than the current express bus in peak hour, and about 7-8 min faster than the regular bus, which includes MORE stops than the proposed tram.
Why not spend the money on bus infrastructure instead?

The USA is no longer dependant on imported oil thanks to exploitation of their massive oil shale reserves.The OPEC countries increased production to try and stop the USA move but in the process has created mayhem in Venezuela and Nigeria. Note, this is not the fault of the USA!
So, oil is no-longer the geopolitical problem it may have been.
Agree with your comments about trams being useless in Canberra.

MERC600 said :

Evilomlap said :

The segue from Canberra’s light rail project to global conflict over oil is one of the most tenuous and most amusing I think I’ve ever witnessed on these forums. Viva la revolucion.

You should have waited a little Evilo. We’re now into refugees from South and Central America, and slaughter of rhinoceroses, elephants, the sun bears, shark types , and so on.
(Yes I had to look up the plural for rhino.) No wonder Simon is walking.

And whales continue to massacre millions of krill.
Simon is walking? ha ha that is good so soon after his prediction in the Canberra Times this week that with the Canberra light rail in place, “a person could actually complete an extra three kilometres of walking per day….”
Does this means that people living along the first one and a half kilometres along Northbourne Avenue from the city can walk to the city?
So, why will a tram be needed at all?

rubaiyat said :

I really need to repeat this.

The Light Rail is comprehensively priced. It is everything: land, construction, tracks, vehicles, interest, insurance, running costs, wages and fuel.

The only thing more expensive than driving is taking a Taxi or Limo.

Cars are not comprehensively priced for: land, construction, roads, vehicles, garaging, parking spaces, interest, insurance, running costs, accidents, repairs, wages, fuel and pollution.

Drivers pay for their own vehicles, fuel, maintenance, insurance, garaging, interest costs if applicable, and so on; these are all “priced in” to the cost of driving. Drivers also contribute plenty to the govt coffers via fuel tax, rego, and license fees. These user charges cover the cost of building and maintaining roads, so the complaints about free roads should be put to bed. See link below if you don’t believe me.

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

In more recent years the road spend has exceeded the tax take; this is likely due to removal of fuel excise indexation and increasing fuel efficiency combined with mining boom wage pressures, but note that through the early noughties the tax take exceeded the road spend significantly. The fuel tax should be re-indexed and perhaps bumped up a bit to cover this. It’s also debatable whether motorists should cover the full cost of roads; local streets also provide utility to cyclists (I enjoy cycling along the wide, leafy backstreets of the old suburbs), pedestrians, construction vehicles, etc. In any case, the light rail will be subsidised FAR more heavily than motorists on a per passenger-kilometer basis.

As for all the other stuff about externalities let’s not forget that people were freaking out over forecasts that streets would be piled high with horse manure before the evil cars came along, and that large portions of urban populations lived in crowded (road-free!) slums. Despite our car addiction and often unhealthy lifestyles Australia’s life expectancy (82) is amongst the highest in the world, and our road toll at 5.6 per 100,000 people is also quite low (according to Wikipedia). Super-dense Singapore, where cars are rationed and heavily taxed, is not much safer at 5.1 deaths per 100,000! Density increases traffic flows per unit area, and pedestrians go under trains and trams too. I don’t see much correlation between density and road toll in the data – the only obvious trend is that wealthy countries have lower road tolls.

I agree with you that oil is geopolitically problematic, to put it mildly, but in the long run electric cars seem like a more practical solution to this problem than trams which will only serve a small % of our population. I don’t have a problem with densifying transport corridors – the tram route already has a good bus service – but if I wanted to enjoy a latte-sipping lifestyle on some sort of car-free, tram-studded boulevard of mixed-use vibrancy then I’d move! Canberra works fine as a low-density garden city. The tram is an expensive solution to a mostly non-problem. If you believe Metro it will be slower than the current express bus in peak hour, and about 7-8 min faster than the regular bus, which includes MORE stops than the proposed tram.
Why not spend the money on bus infrastructure instead?

Richard Fox said :

“I do not believe ACT voters have been given any opportunity to collectively vote on whether they want a light rail network or not.”

I do believe it was a major policy of the ACT Labor Party in 2012 and, as such, ACT voters have already voted on it. Here’s then Chief Minister Katy Gallagher’s media release on it http://web.archive.org/web/20141101011336/http://www.katygallagher.net/?p=2285

Its a propasal not a major policy Labour went to an election on.
and no doubt that page more than likely has been edited since its original release date to suit the cause.

Since you asked…

rubaiyat said :

Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies, Germany invaded the Caucasus and tried to invade Egypt to get oil.

Part of existing conflict – WW2 (or the Pacific war, as the Japanese refer to it) and was started for entirely different reasons than “because oil”.

rubaiyat said :

Russia invaded Iran and the Trans-Caucasus to get oil.

Also part of WW2, a much larger conflict that was started for reasons other than “oil”.

rubaiyat said :

Britain drove Turkey out of the Middle East, invaded both Iraq and Iran to control the oil and the USA toppled the democratically elected government of Iran to keep its control on the oil there. The whole escalation of arms and convoluted politics of the Middle East revolves around getting at oil or maintaining a grip on oil.

1. The Middle East has been an area of conflict for thousands of years before oil dependance. To draw a line in the sand at a particular point in time and claim all subsequent conflict was motivated by oil, would demonstrate a lack of understanding of the complex nature of the relationships and history of the region.
2. Britain drove the Ottoman empire out of the middle east after they had spent many years annexing parts of it, and decided to join the Central Powers of WWI (who Brittan were at war with). Another conflict that wasn’t caused by oil.

rubaiyat said :

Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and we drove him out over oil.

That one was mostly to do with oil.

rubaiyat said :

Nigeria had a civil war over Biafra because of oil.

Nope. They had a civil war following decolonisation, issues related to the persecution of the Igbo people, and other cultural, religious, and ethnic problems. Oil was simply used strategically.

rubaiyat said :

Angola had a civil war supported by multiple opposing powers and has grabbed neighboring country’s territory over its oil.

See above. This conflict was also not the result of wanting oil. It was about decolonisation and establishing power. Oil was just a tool.

rubaiyat said :

Israel grabbed the Sinai to get oil.

Possibly. One could argue that it was a response to Egypt’s aggression and blockading of the Suez Canal.

rubaiyat said :

ISIS has conquered the oil fields in Iraq and Syria and is using the income from those to support its further territorial and military gains.

Again, ANOTHER conflict that started for reasons other than oil. As I said in a previous post – oil is just being used as a tool in this case.

rubaiyat said :

China is aggressively grabbing and building islands in the South China Sea to secure potential undersea oil.

Not a war, or a conflict.

It’s convenient to ignore the factors that caused most of these conflicts to make your point. But it’s still wrong.

Evilomlap said :

The segue from Canberra’s light rail project to global conflict over oil is one of the most tenuous and most amusing I think I’ve ever witnessed on these forums. Viva la revolucion.

You should have waited a little Evilo. We’re now into refugees from South and Central America, and slaughter of rhinoceroses, elephants, the sun bears, shark types , and so on.
(Yes I had to look up the plural for rhino.) No wonder Simon is walking.

Dreadnaught1905 said :

Evilomlap said :

The segue from Canberra’s light rail project to global conflict over oil is one of the most tenuous and most amusing I think I’ve ever witnessed on these forums. Viva la revolucion.

Indeed. I have to say though, that even if 100% of the reasons for every single one the conflicts mentioned is oil, then that still isn’t directly attributable to cars.

According to OPEC’s world oil outlook 2012, Only 57% percent of Oil used globally is used for transportation. Of that, aviation accounts for 6%, 2% from Rail and Domestic Waterways and 4% is Marine Bunkerage. (Those percentages are of the whole, not of the transportation sector) So only 45% can be attributable to ‘cars’.

Except, that’s not just cars… It’s “Road Transportation”. The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Model 2013 indicates that, globally, 40% of oil usage for Road Transportation is attributable to Commercial Goods Vehicles.

That only leaves 27% percent of global oil usage for Passenger Light Duty Vehicles (i.e. Private cars, taxis, limousines etc).

It’s a long bow to draw to suggest that 100% of the listed conflicts are caused by ‘cars’.

It would require the power from a hundred wind turbines to draw that bow.

rubaiyat said :

And not 100% of the violence, corruption and refugees from South and Central America is caused by the Drug Wars and America’s appetite for recreational chemical amusement.

And not 100% of the slaughter of rhinos, elephants, sun bears, sharks, and many other species is caused by the Chinese appetite for hocum medicines.

Because there probably is the odd percentage in there for other causes for everything AND because I never claimed 100%. That was your specious exaggeration.

The same specious exaggeration that the desirable objective of less cars and less consumption of fossil fuels equals 100% removal of cars.

Putting aside the issues of who claimed 100% of what, I think anyone would have to admit that almost three quarters of anything is more ‘than the odd percentage’.

In any case, I agree that Canberra’s over reliance on private cars for commuters is a less than optimal transport solution.

I like trains, I like trams, I even quite like busses as mass transit solutions. I think even high pressure tube systems should have some serious scientific investigation into their viability – although probably not by the ACT government. (I’m not so sure about the massive chair lift system, I can’t see how it would work)

However, I don’t like THIS tram. I don’t like the cost, I don’t like the lack of outcomes it will provide, I don’t like the way it is being introduced.

As I said in some other thread, I would like to know what the transport implications would be if we (i.e. Canberra) took the $120M earmarked in the tram business case for road upgrades and used it to improve the existing mass transit systems in Canberra.

Evilomlap said :

The segue from Canberra’s light rail project to global conflict over oil is one of the most tenuous and most amusing I think I’ve ever witnessed on these forums. Viva la revolucion.

It’s a cunning diversion from the Melbourne tram strike….

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

Excuse my pedantic accuracy, but I have always been afflicted with an ability to read, do maths, do research combined with a natural curiosity and interest in a wide range of subjects, and to know what to do with all of them.

So, please tell us how cars have caused wars.

I forgot of course the protracted and really nasty conflicts in the Sudan and the Congo which have not stopped either.

The French and Italian invasions of North Africa.

I’m sure that there are even more that I don’t know about or were part of other actions.

Can you let us know exactly your education? We seem to be having to fill in a lot of the gaps yours left.

Re my education, I went to school.

The evidence indicates otherwise.

I take back the Italians, I checked and oil was discovered after Italian North Africa got its independence.

Besides the problem of the Pied Noir, the discovery of oil in Algeria in 1956 was one of the reasons France did not want to let go, like a monkey with its hand on the banana.

Both examples were after thoughts anyway.

rubaiyat said :

Dreadnaught1905 said :

Evilomlap said :

The segue from Canberra’s light rail project to global conflict over oil is one of the most tenuous and most amusing I think I’ve ever witnessed on these forums. Viva la revolucion.

Indeed. I have to say though, that even if 100% of the reasons for every single one the conflicts mentioned is oil, then that still isn’t directly attributable to cars.

According to OPEC’s world oil outlook 2012, Only 57% percent of Oil used globally is used for transportation. Of that, aviation accounts for 6%, 2% from Rail and Domestic Waterways and 4% is Marine Bunkerage. (Those percentages are of the whole, not of the transportation sector) So only 45% can be attributable to ‘cars’.

Except, that’s not just cars… It’s “Road Transportation”. The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Model 2013 indicates that, globally, 40% of oil usage for Road Transportation is attributable to Commercial Goods Vehicles.

That only leaves 27% percent of global oil usage for Passenger Light Duty Vehicles (i.e. Private cars, taxis, limousines etc).

It’s a long bow to draw to suggest that 100% of the listed conflicts are caused by ‘cars’.

And not 100% of the violence, corruption and refugees from South and Central America is caused by the Drug Wars and America’s appetite for recreational chemical amusement.

And not 100% of the slaughter of rhinos, elephants, sun bears, sharks, and many other species is caused by the Chinese appetite for hocum medicines.

Because there probably is the odd percentage in there for other causes for everything AND because I never claimed 100%. That was your specious exaggeration.

The same specious exaggeration that the desirable objective of less cars and less consumption of fossil fuels equals 100% removal of cars.

Next thing you will be advocating we leave our homes and find caves to live in.
The grass is always Greener somewhere else.

Dreadnaught1905 said :

Evilomlap said :

The segue from Canberra’s light rail project to global conflict over oil is one of the most tenuous and most amusing I think I’ve ever witnessed on these forums. Viva la revolucion.

Indeed. I have to say though, that even if 100% of the reasons for every single one the conflicts mentioned is oil, then that still isn’t directly attributable to cars.

According to OPEC’s world oil outlook 2012, Only 57% percent of Oil used globally is used for transportation. Of that, aviation accounts for 6%, 2% from Rail and Domestic Waterways and 4% is Marine Bunkerage. (Those percentages are of the whole, not of the transportation sector) So only 45% can be attributable to ‘cars’.

Except, that’s not just cars… It’s “Road Transportation”. The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Model 2013 indicates that, globally, 40% of oil usage for Road Transportation is attributable to Commercial Goods Vehicles.

That only leaves 27% percent of global oil usage for Passenger Light Duty Vehicles (i.e. Private cars, taxis, limousines etc).

It’s a long bow to draw to suggest that 100% of the listed conflicts are caused by ‘cars’.

And not 100% of the violence, corruption and refugees from South and Central America is caused by the Drug Wars and America’s appetite for recreational chemical amusement.

And not 100% of the slaughter of rhinos, elephants, sun bears, sharks, and many other species is caused by the Chinese appetite for hocum medicines.

Because there probably is the odd percentage in there for other causes for everything AND because I never claimed 100%. That was your specious exaggeration.

The same specious exaggeration that the desirable objective of less cars and less consumption of fossil fuels equals 100% removal of cars.

Evilomlap said :

The segue from Canberra’s light rail project to global conflict over oil is one of the most tenuous and most amusing I think I’ve ever witnessed on these forums. Viva la revolucion.

Indeed. I have to say though, that even if 100% of the reasons for every single one the conflicts mentioned is oil, then that still isn’t directly attributable to cars.

According to OPEC’s world oil outlook 2012, Only 57% percent of Oil used globally is used for transportation. Of that, aviation accounts for 6%, 2% from Rail and Domestic Waterways and 4% is Marine Bunkerage. (Those percentages are of the whole, not of the transportation sector) So only 45% can be attributable to ‘cars’.

Except, that’s not just cars… It’s “Road Transportation”. The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Model 2013 indicates that, globally, 40% of oil usage for Road Transportation is attributable to Commercial Goods Vehicles.

That only leaves 27% percent of global oil usage for Passenger Light Duty Vehicles (i.e. Private cars, taxis, limousines etc).

It’s a long bow to draw to suggest that 100% of the listed conflicts are caused by ‘cars’.

Mysteryman said :

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

Excuse my pedantic accuracy, but I have always been afflicted with an ability to read, do maths, do research combined with a natural curiosity and interest in a wide range of subjects, and to know what to do with all of them.

So, please tell us how cars have caused wars.

The addiction of the USA, and Australia as its ally, to oil has been nothing but a cause of conflict around the world.

Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies, Germany invaded the Caucasus and tried to invade Egypt to get oil.

Russia invaded Iran and the Trans-Caucasus to get oil.

Britain drove Turkey out of the Middle East, invaded both Iraq and Iran to control the oil and the USA toppled the democratically elected government of Iran to keep its control on the oil there. The whole escalation of arms and convoluted politics of the Middle East revolves around getting at oil or maintaining a grip on oil.

Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and we drove him out over oil.

Nigeria had a civil war over Biafra because of oil.

Angola had a civil war supported by multiple opposing powers and has grabbed neighboring country’s territory over its oil.

Israel grabbed the Sinai to get oil.

ISIS has conquered the oil fields in Iraq and Syria and is using the income from those to support its further territorial and military gains.

China is aggressively grabbing and building islands in the South China Sea to secure potential undersea oil.

There’d be plenty more than just those but that’s just off the top of my head.

Do I need to go into all the recent history?

You don’t seem to understand what the word “cause” means. Oil was not the cause in the majority of the cases you listed. It was used as an excuse, or as a tool, during existing conflicts.

What existing conflicts? In most cases it was THE grab for resources.

…another off the top of my head.

Both Britain and Japan invaded Burma over oil.

The segue from Canberra’s light rail project to global conflict over oil is one of the most tenuous and most amusing I think I’ve ever witnessed on these forums. Viva la revolucion.

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

Excuse my pedantic accuracy, but I have always been afflicted with an ability to read, do maths, do research combined with a natural curiosity and interest in a wide range of subjects, and to know what to do with all of them.

So, please tell us how cars have caused wars.

The addiction of the USA, and Australia as its ally, to oil has been nothing but a cause of conflict around the world.

Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies, Germany invaded the Caucasus and tried to invade Egypt to get oil.

Russia invaded Iran and the Trans-Caucasus to get oil.

Britain drove Turkey out of the Middle East, invaded both Iraq and Iran to control the oil and the USA toppled the democratically elected government of Iran to keep its control on the oil there. The whole escalation of arms and convoluted politics of the Middle East revolves around getting at oil or maintaining a grip on oil.

Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and we drove him out over oil.

Nigeria had a civil war over Biafra because of oil.

Angola had a civil war supported by multiple opposing powers and has grabbed neighboring country’s territory over its oil.

Israel grabbed the Sinai to get oil.

ISIS has conquered the oil fields in Iraq and Syria and is using the income from those to support its further territorial and military gains.

China is aggressively grabbing and building islands in the South China Sea to secure potential undersea oil.

There’d be plenty more than just those but that’s just off the top of my head.

Do I need to go into all the recent history?

You don’t seem to understand what the word “cause” means. Oil was not the cause in the majority of the cases you listed. It was used as an excuse, or as a tool, during existing conflicts.

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

Excuse my pedantic accuracy, but I have always been afflicted with an ability to read, do maths, do research combined with a natural curiosity and interest in a wide range of subjects, and to know what to do with all of them.

So, please tell us how cars have caused wars.

The addiction of the USA, and Australia as its ally, to oil has been nothing but a cause of conflict around the world.

Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies, Germany invaded the Caucasus and tried to invade Egypt to get oil.

Russia invaded Iran and the Trans-Caucasus to get oil.

Britain drove Turkey out of the Middle East, invaded both Iraq and Iran to control the oil and the USA toppled the democratically elected government of Iran to keep its control on the oil there. The whole escalation of arms and convoluted politics of the Middle East revolves around getting at oil or maintaining a grip on oil.

Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and we drove him out over oil.

Nigeria had a civil war over Biafra because of oil.

Angola had a civil war supported by multiple opposing powers and has grabbed neighboring country’s territory over its oil.

Israel grabbed the Sinai to get oil.

ISIS has conquered the oil fields in Iraq and Syria and is using the income from those to support its further territorial and military gains.

China is aggressively grabbing and building islands in the South China Sea to secure potential undersea oil.

There’d be plenty more than just those but that’s just off the top of my head.

Do I need to go into all the recent history?

If you look at a map of the territories ISIS have taken it very closely follows the oil fields and pipelines. I was in Jordan in May and the locals there said the issue with ISIS is its bad for tourism, but that don’t think ISIS would invade Jordan. They have no oil. Many many people said this. Whether its completely true, I’m not sure, but oil and gas are definitely involved in very many wars and conflicts.

Sudan and South Sudan was/is all about gaining power, by controlling the oil fields. The border was drawn up to split the oil fields between the 2 countries. Sure there was a difference of ethnic groups involved, but oil seems to always be part of the conflict.

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

Excuse my pedantic accuracy, but I have always been afflicted with an ability to read, do maths, do research combined with a natural curiosity and interest in a wide range of subjects, and to know what to do with all of them.

So, please tell us how cars have caused wars.

I forgot of course the protracted and really nasty conflicts in the Sudan and the Congo which have not stopped either.

The French and Italian invasions of North Africa.

I’m sure that there are even more that I don’t know about or were part of other actions.

Can you let us know exactly your education? We seem to be having to fill in a lot of the gaps yours left.

“The French and Italian invasions of North Africa.”
Oh, I am starting to get it now.
What you are trying to say is the French and Italians invaded driving their Peugeots, Renaults and Citroens and the Italians drove in their Fiats ans Alfa Roeos.
Fair enough. Your knowledge and interpretation of modern history is amazing.
Re my education, I went to school.

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

Excuse my pedantic accuracy, but I have always been afflicted with an ability to read, do maths, do research combined with a natural curiosity and interest in a wide range of subjects, and to know what to do with all of them.

So, please tell us how cars have caused wars.

I forgot of course the protracted and really nasty conflicts in the Sudan and the Congo which have not stopped either.

The French and Italian invasions of North Africa.

I’m sure that there are even more that I don’t know about or were part of other actions.

Can you let us know exactly your education? We seem to be having to fill in a lot of the gaps yours left.

rubaiyat said :

gooterz said :

rubaiyat said :

The only thing more expensive than driving is taking a Taxi or Limo.

Except if you actually value your time as a commuter.

Say it takes me 1.5 hours to get to work on public transport. I live in Tuggeranong and that’s the way it works at the moment. 15 minutes by car.

A single ticket price is $4.80. However given that action buses cost about 90% of what they make the cost is really more like $20 a trip.

A stretched ford costs about $1100 for 5 hours and seats 8 people. Assuming that the 15 minute trip takes 30 minutes instead. That’s 80 trips in the whole time. Works out about $13 per person.
However it also includes Champagne, Beer & Water.

On top of that its an hour quicker. So the real cost of the bus trip is $20 plus the hourly wage. Lets assume a meek salary of $20 an hour. So the bus costs $40 and the limo $13.

Take the Dulwich Hill LR in Sydney during the commute hours and you will see many of the commuters working on their laptops.

Do that in your car. It is practically impossible to do that on a bus as I’ve tried it on the Northern Beaches run which is over one hour of wasted time. I’ve also tried it in Canberra on the bone shaking and noisy rides here.

Yes, if you value your time you won’t be wasting it in traffic.

Ignoring that the Light Rail is not for Tuggeranong and the wildly exaggerated 15 minutes drive from home to City in traffic plus parking, Google claims 22 mins without traffic and has always been well out in my experience, it has the bus ride taking the 315 and 65 with 12 min walk at 49 mins total.

If you are driving from Fadden to Canberra City a distance of approx 20kms depending on what route you are taking. At the ATO allowance for all up costs for a medium size car of 70¢/km per leg plus parking $14.90 is $28.90 per day, $144.50 per week.

The MyWay card is $4.60 per trip, capped at $8.80 per day which is why you can not be charged the multiple fares that was previously claimed. There is no charge after 40 trips in a month so everything after is free. A further 5% discount applies if you top up your card online so cost per day is $8.36. So weekly cost is $41.80 plus the bonus of FREE travel the rest of the time.

So the car is 3.5 times the cost, for half the time saved, with no work done en route.

As you point out your time is valuable, so that car trip actually costs you even more. You got nothing done except some road rage. Also you make the typical mistake of not counting the cost of the road, infrastructure (lighting and traffic lights alone are a huge cost), maintenance, policing and resultant deaths, serious injuries and poor health. The infrastructure requires other infrastructure, traffic controls, substationes etc. They are not free and are all an effective huge Government subsidy to cars.

As is the huge amount of land occupied or alienated by roads and freeways. Light Rail uses the space of two traffic lanes, less than 5m for its right of way and does not alienate it. You can freely cross that space as the LR only passes every 10 minutes or so.

A 4 lane freeway with side emergency lane, which does not move anywhere the same number of commuters, occupies over 100m and totally cuts off everything else. It also affects everything within a huge area to each side with its pollution and noise. Adelaide Avenue can be heard all day and all night for hundreds of metres both sides. In open country freeways are death alley for the wildlife and the unfortunate users who succumb to their own or someone else’s inevitable mistakes.

This is all due to Canberra’s bad current planning that assumes you will use a car. The aim of the changes is to get more people both out of cars and closer into Canberra where using clean pleasant public transport will save them both time and money for a much better urban lifestyle.

The changes are not for everyone and will not “Take my car from my cold dead hand”, but will begin to change the way people both live and commute whilst cleaning up our polluting lifestyle. It will reinforce the trend to a Canberra with a heart that actually is interesting and vital. Suburbia will still exist and you will be able to escape it to somewhere more interesting.

My Way trips only cost me $2-something. I’m an adult, with no concession.

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

Excuse my pedantic accuracy, but I have always been afflicted with an ability to read, do maths, do research combined with a natural curiosity and interest in a wide range of subjects, and to know what to do with all of them.

So, please tell us how cars have caused wars.

The addiction of the USA, and Australia as its ally, to oil has been nothing but a cause of conflict around the world.

Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies, Germany invaded the Caucasus and tried to invade Egypt to get oil.

Russia invaded Iran and the Trans-Caucasus to get oil.

Britain drove Turkey out of the Middle East, invaded both Iraq and Iran to control the oil and the USA toppled the democratically elected government of Iran to keep its control on the oil there. The whole escalation of arms and convoluted politics of the Middle East revolves around getting at oil or maintaining a grip on oil.

Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and we drove him out over oil.

Nigeria had a civil war over Biafra because of oil.

Angola had a civil war supported by multiple opposing powers and has grabbed neighboring country’s territory over its oil.

Israel grabbed the Sinai to get oil.

ISIS has conquered the oil fields in Iraq and Syria and is using the income from those to support its further territorial and military gains.

China is aggressively grabbing and building islands in the South China Sea to secure potential undersea oil.

There’d be plenty more than just those but that’s just off the top of my head.

Do I need to go into all the recent history?

Sorry, just one last note.

The ACTION far is CAPPED. You never pay more than $114 per month. $57 for a concession holder.

If you drive further or more often your costs just escalate proportionately, $578 per month minimum for the calculated Fadden, $780 for someone in Banks.

rubaiyat said :

Excuse my pedantic accuracy, but I have always been afflicted with an ability to read, do maths, do research combined with a natural curiosity and interest in a wide range of subjects, and to know what to do with all of them.

So, please tell us how cars have caused wars.

Excuse my pedantic accuracy, but I have always been afflicted with an ability to read, do maths, do research combined with a natural curiosity and interest in a wide range of subjects, and to know what to do with all of them.

Sorry I made a mistake in calculating the Fadden fares. That was CASH fare.

The Weekday single trip (with free 90 minute transfer) on the MyWay card is actually $2.91 minus discount is $2.85.

So a total of $5.70 per day, $28.50 per week. Everything else, including the odd commute day or two a month: Free.

Driving is over 5 times more expensive plus all the wasted time, plus the inevitable fines and parking infringements.

If you are retired or on a pension it is over 10 times more expensive.

Further there is Concession car cost.

The time you waste in chauffeuring your children to and from school or driving out of hours or if you are on a pension or retired, are all the same high cost to yourself in money, health and the environment.

Public Transport is a service along with hospitals, police stations, libraries, swimming pools, sports fields etc and is no more a burden on the taxpayer, than are roads and all their unwanted consequences.

gooterz said :

rubaiyat said :

The only thing more expensive than driving is taking a Taxi or Limo.

Except if you actually value your time as a commuter.

Say it takes me 1.5 hours to get to work on public transport. I live in Tuggeranong and that’s the way it works at the moment. 15 minutes by car.

A single ticket price is $4.80. However given that action buses cost about 90% of what they make the cost is really more like $20 a trip.

A stretched ford costs about $1100 for 5 hours and seats 8 people. Assuming that the 15 minute trip takes 30 minutes instead. That’s 80 trips in the whole time. Works out about $13 per person.
However it also includes Champagne, Beer & Water.

On top of that its an hour quicker. So the real cost of the bus trip is $20 plus the hourly wage. Lets assume a meek salary of $20 an hour. So the bus costs $40 and the limo $13.

Take the Dulwich Hill LR in Sydney during the commute hours and you will see many of the commuters working on their laptops.

Do that in your car. It is practically impossible to do that on a bus as I’ve tried it on the Northern Beaches run which is over one hour of wasted time. I’ve also tried it in Canberra on the bone shaking and noisy rides here.

Yes, if you value your time you won’t be wasting it in traffic.

Ignoring that the Light Rail is not for Tuggeranong and the wildly exaggerated 15 minutes drive from home to City in traffic plus parking, Google claims 22 mins without traffic and has always been well out in my experience, it has the bus ride taking the 315 and 65 with 12 min walk at 49 mins total.

If you are driving from Fadden to Canberra City a distance of approx 20kms depending on what route you are taking. At the ATO allowance for all up costs for a medium size car of 70¢/km per leg plus parking $14.90 is $28.90 per day, $144.50 per week.

The MyWay card is $4.60 per trip, capped at $8.80 per day which is why you can not be charged the multiple fares that was previously claimed. There is no charge after 40 trips in a month so everything after is free. A further 5% discount applies if you top up your card online so cost per day is $8.36. So weekly cost is $41.80 plus the bonus of FREE travel the rest of the time.

So the car is 3.5 times the cost, for half the time saved, with no work done en route.

As you point out your time is valuable, so that car trip actually costs you even more. You got nothing done except some road rage. Also you make the typical mistake of not counting the cost of the road, infrastructure (lighting and traffic lights alone are a huge cost), maintenance, policing and resultant deaths, serious injuries and poor health. The infrastructure requires other infrastructure, traffic controls, substationes etc. They are not free and are all an effective huge Government subsidy to cars.

As is the huge amount of land occupied or alienated by roads and freeways. Light Rail uses the space of two traffic lanes, less than 5m for its right of way and does not alienate it. You can freely cross that space as the LR only passes every 10 minutes or so.

A 4 lane freeway with side emergency lane, which does not move anywhere the same number of commuters, occupies over 100m and totally cuts off everything else. It also affects everything within a huge area to each side with its pollution and noise. Adelaide Avenue can be heard all day and all night for hundreds of metres both sides. In open country freeways are death alley for the wildlife and the unfortunate users who succumb to their own or someone else’s inevitable mistakes.

This is all due to Canberra’s bad current planning that assumes you will use a car. The aim of the changes is to get more people both out of cars and closer into Canberra where using clean pleasant public transport will save them both time and money for a much better urban lifestyle.

The changes are not for everyone and will not “Take my car from my cold dead hand”, but will begin to change the way people both live and commute whilst cleaning up our polluting lifestyle. It will reinforce the trend to a Canberra with a heart that actually is interesting and vital. Suburbia will still exist and you will be able to escape it to somewhere more interesting.

rubaiyat said :

The only thing more expensive than driving is taking a Taxi or Limo.

Except if you actually value your time as a commuter.

Say it takes me 1.5 hours to get to work on public transport. I live in Tuggeranong and that’s the way it works at the moment. 15 minutes by car.

A single ticket price is $4.80. However given that action buses cost about 90% of what they make the cost is really more like $20 a trip.

A stretched ford costs about $1100 for 5 hours and seats 8 people. Assuming that the 15 minute trip takes 30 minutes instead. That’s 80 trips in the whole time. Works out about $13 per person.
However it also includes Champagne, Beer & Water.

On top of that its an hour quicker. So the real cost of the bus trip is $20 plus the hourly wage. Lets assume a meek salary of $20 an hour. So the bus costs $40 and the limo $13.

rubaiyat said :

CLooey said :

I’m very disturbed by how this is being rushed through. It’s ridiculously costly, so TAXES will GO UP. It’s going to cause massive traffic congestion in the north; there’s nothing to show it will actually help the environment or be even be used by commuters; and so on. I’m really questioning the Government’s motive behind this.

The Light Rail was proposed along with the plans for Gungahlin and has been on the books for well over 25 years.

Just how much notice do you need? 3 generations?

Rail to join the ACT to NSW is written into the seat of power. Doesn’t mean its going to happen tomorrow!

rubaiyat said :

The Light Rail is comprehensively priced. It is everything: land, construction, tracks, vehicles, interest, insurance, running costs, wages and fuel.

Sorry to tell u this and shatter your “cars are the root of all evil” fantasyland, but there is no way that the Tram consortia will be buying the land. Plus the ACT Gov’t is meeting the cost of associated roadworks, power substations and other infrastructure costs too (which is what usually happens under a Public Private Partnership) – at a cost of m$100’s .

If the Tram consortia were to pay for everything (including the land), the cost of travelling on the tram would be so high that it would probably have little patronage – except for your goodself, a few others on here + ACT Labor/Greens MLAs. Oh – and of course members of the ACT Light Rail self appointed “peak” lobby group for ACT public transport.

Scotland is an interesting example.

Currently 35% of its energy is from renewables, heading to 100% by 2020.

The Scottish Parliament is aiming at decarbonisation of transport by 2040, 2050 at the latest, but they are ahead of target. The aim is to have Scotland exporting massive amounts of sustainable energy. The “Arabia of the North”.

But then they have a resource that we seem to lack: intelligence, common sense and a population that doesn’t put all its energy into opposing clean solutions.

Even those countries that have the most invested in the carbon economy, can see the inevitable coming and are wisely using the time they have to choosing a future that has a future:

http://www.masdar.ae/en/city/detail/the-future-build

What are we doing? Squabbling over the bleedin’ obvious and wasting a lot of time and money in trying build a future that the Fonz would have thought was in the past.

rubaiyat said :

I really need to repeat this.

The Light Rail is comprehensively priced. It is everything: land, construction, tracks, vehicles, interest, insurance, running costs, wages and fuel.

The only thing more expensive than driving is taking a Taxi or Limo.

Cars are not comprehensively priced for: land, construction, roads, vehicles, garaging, parking spaces, interest, insurance, running costs, accidents, repairs, wages, fuel and pollution.

Cars consume far more land, lives, health, hospital space, policing, court time, prisons and the environment. They are a major cause of wars, refugees, and international crises. They divide our cities, congest our roads, surround us with non stop noise and pollution, and kill our children.

Cars consume 54% of our urban land, directly take up 18% of hospital beds, substantially more if you count the health effects of using them, it is the leading cause of death of children, it is the cause of 31% of CO2 emissions, almost a fifth of family income is spent on cars and after housing it is the largest contributor to our private debt.

We need less of the unhealthy choice and more of the healthy choice, but as with advice on cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, diet, exercise and gambling, most people put their fingers in their ears and turn to advice they’d rather hear.

It also makes enemies of the powerful vested interests who make a lot of money out of harming people and the environment.

“Cars are major causes of wars…..?”
I think you have some explaining to do, rub.

watto23 said :

gooterz said :

Either way.. for everyone south of the lake, you’ll be paying higher rates, have less parking, less busses, and have about 500 million less government funds to play with. You could choose to work from home but you’ll have slower less reliable NBN too.

Tram networks always have and always will be a solution where you just can’t fit anymore buses on the road. Instead in the ACT we’re trying to force a culture shift on a town that already relies heavily on cars. In reality they’re better off just paying more people to use the bus. Instead they just keep raising the cost.

A few things about your assumptions.
Rates will increase regardless. If Liberals run the place or Labor, rates will increase because of inflation and costs increasing. For things to go down in price we need a recession, but people lose jobs in Recessions!
Now a big project like this probably will increase rates, but it may not be that much because the rates of those on the route will go up far more than those in Tuggeranong. I know my rates in Tuggeranong have generally gone up far far less than suburbs north of here. But those in Tuggeranong will still whinge, when we have it good regarding rates (Find me a bookie that would accept a bet that Liberals will never put up rates!).

Car parking will also go up. However light rail reducing demand on the city car parks will benefit people in Tuggeranong. Car parking of course will go up. I would say its far more likely to increase much more quickly without better public transport. Car parking will also become scarce if we don’t provide better public transport. Its supply and demand, if car parking demand continues to increase, so will costs. The less the demand the less the fees can go up. So while Tuggeranong is missing out for now, there is a benefit to us.

Well I’m a fan of the NBN. It would have been by far the best project built in Australias history, but instead of working together, the coalition first tried to win an election by not supporting it and then won an election by neutralising the topic from being a political winner for Labor with a three word slogan and half arsed NBN plan. They couldn’t see past their ideological ideals that the government can’t build infrastructure, internet is only used for porn and movies and the whole user pay argument (which the NBN was doing through monthly usage fees), but the Coalition convinced people they should have to pay several grand up front for fibre. They neglected the benefits of having a more decentralised workforce, taking strain off housing markets and public transport infrastructure, allowing more mothers to work from home (no current internet does not provide this. It takes me 30 minutes to upload files to work from Home assuming I’m doing nothing else!), more people able to start small business and decentralised businesses utilising global resources (ie rather than losing all the intelligent people to overseas, they can work in Australia, pay taxes here and generally help the country). There are just so many benefits to the NBN as a project and yet those against it resort to infantile and uninformed arguments, purely because they don’t believe it is needed and found whatever they could to confirm their belief rather than look at facts and reach an actual fact based policy.

Back to the light rail. We probably can live without it for now and its expensive. It will only get more expensive the longer we wait. Buses aren’t working, what other proposals do people have. Instead of being negative and making flippant comments about catching a bus from Giralang to Civic via Dickson (which is ridiculous scare mongering), or i’m not catching a bus from Forde to Gungahlin to catch the light rail (valid, but a park and ride station is part of the plan). By all means I’m happy for people to oppose projects and infrastructure. I just wish they’d use actual facts backed by evidence, instead of repeating things they’d heard elsewhere or scaremongering thought bubbles that confirm their view. People need to be more critical of their politicians and their policies, instead of following the same party blindly, question the policies and the benefits!

I don’t agree that the Gungahlin – City light rail will increase the availability of parking in the city.
In fact, before it is even built one of the car parks on the corner of London Circuit and Commonwealth Avenue will be ceded to Capital Metro for a works depot and I doubt if it will ever become a car park again.
Also, there is this unfounded assumption that everybody in Gungahlin works in the city.Those who currently do work in the city and don’t drive use the buses and as the trams will be poaching all their commuters from the buses the parking situation should remain static.
If there is any change it will be in the shape of bus commuters put out by being forced to abandon the buses so they will start to drive and there will be more demand for parking.
Let’s get something clear here, and that is if people have the choice in driving their own cars or tramming, they will always choose the former.

I really need to repeat this.

The Light Rail is comprehensively priced. It is everything: land, construction, tracks, vehicles, interest, insurance, running costs, wages and fuel.

The only thing more expensive than driving is taking a Taxi or Limo.

Cars are not comprehensively priced for: land, construction, roads, vehicles, garaging, parking spaces, interest, insurance, running costs, accidents, repairs, wages, fuel and pollution.

Cars consume far more land, lives, health, hospital space, policing, court time, prisons and the environment. They are a major cause of wars, refugees, and international crises. They divide our cities, congest our roads, surround us with non stop noise and pollution, and kill our children.

Cars consume 54% of our urban land, directly take up 18% of hospital beds, substantially more if you count the health effects of using them, it is the leading cause of death of children, it is the cause of 31% of CO2 emissions, almost a fifth of family income is spent on cars and after housing it is the largest contributor to our private debt.

We need less of the unhealthy choice and more of the healthy choice, but as with advice on cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, diet, exercise and gambling, most people put their fingers in their ears and turn to advice they’d rather hear.

It also makes enemies of the powerful vested interests who make a lot of money out of harming people and the environment.

gooterz said :

Either way.. for everyone south of the lake, you’ll be paying higher rates, have less parking, less busses, and have about 500 million less government funds to play with. You could choose to work from home but you’ll have slower less reliable NBN too.

Tram networks always have and always will be a solution where you just can’t fit anymore buses on the road. Instead in the ACT we’re trying to force a culture shift on a town that already relies heavily on cars. In reality they’re better off just paying more people to use the bus. Instead they just keep raising the cost.

A few things about your assumptions.
Rates will increase regardless. If Liberals run the place or Labor, rates will increase because of inflation and costs increasing. For things to go down in price we need a recession, but people lose jobs in Recessions!
Now a big project like this probably will increase rates, but it may not be that much because the rates of those on the route will go up far more than those in Tuggeranong. I know my rates in Tuggeranong have generally gone up far far less than suburbs north of here. But those in Tuggeranong will still whinge, when we have it good regarding rates (Find me a bookie that would accept a bet that Liberals will never put up rates!).

Car parking will also go up. However light rail reducing demand on the city car parks will benefit people in Tuggeranong. Car parking of course will go up. I would say its far more likely to increase much more quickly without better public transport. Car parking will also become scarce if we don’t provide better public transport. Its supply and demand, if car parking demand continues to increase, so will costs. The less the demand the less the fees can go up. So while Tuggeranong is missing out for now, there is a benefit to us.

Well I’m a fan of the NBN. It would have been by far the best project built in Australias history, but instead of working together, the coalition first tried to win an election by not supporting it and then won an election by neutralising the topic from being a political winner for Labor with a three word slogan and half arsed NBN plan. They couldn’t see past their ideological ideals that the government can’t build infrastructure, internet is only used for porn and movies and the whole user pay argument (which the NBN was doing through monthly usage fees), but the Coalition convinced people they should have to pay several grand up front for fibre. They neglected the benefits of having a more decentralised workforce, taking strain off housing markets and public transport infrastructure, allowing more mothers to work from home (no current internet does not provide this. It takes me 30 minutes to upload files to work from Home assuming I’m doing nothing else!), more people able to start small business and decentralised businesses utilising global resources (ie rather than losing all the intelligent people to overseas, they can work in Australia, pay taxes here and generally help the country). There are just so many benefits to the NBN as a project and yet those against it resort to infantile and uninformed arguments, purely because they don’t believe it is needed and found whatever they could to confirm their belief rather than look at facts and reach an actual fact based policy.

Back to the light rail. We probably can live without it for now and its expensive. It will only get more expensive the longer we wait. Buses aren’t working, what other proposals do people have. Instead of being negative and making flippant comments about catching a bus from Giralang to Civic via Dickson (which is ridiculous scare mongering), or i’m not catching a bus from Forde to Gungahlin to catch the light rail (valid, but a park and ride station is part of the plan). By all means I’m happy for people to oppose projects and infrastructure. I just wish they’d use actual facts backed by evidence, instead of repeating things they’d heard elsewhere or scaremongering thought bubbles that confirm their view. People need to be more critical of their politicians and their policies, instead of following the same party blindly, question the policies and the benefits!

Matt Watts said :

Most people forget that the Canberra Liberals took a fully funded engineering study of potential light rail routes to the 2008 election. They hadn’t committed to it; they were willing to explore it, because for all the bluster about benefits, nobody knew what the potential costs would be. At the time, regular poster John Hargreaves and his ALP were dead against it!

The point is, nobody is claiming that the Canberra Liberals would have had a mandate to implement a rolled gold light rail network should they have won the 2008 election. The claim that the Labor/Green coalition have a mandate this term to implement their current proposal is nearly just as false.

Just because one questions this specific proposal, doesn’t make one anti-public transport. Just ask Hargreaves!

There were hybrid light rail proposals that Corbell ignored having already being seduced by the Euro-Tram lobby before the election.
At half the cost they would have been the perfect fit – even the Liberals would have approved of them.

Nilrem said :

rubaiyat said :

aussie2 said :

Our secondary aim is to improve patronage. Canberrans are over public transport! After 27 years of lack of government passion, we continue to subsidise ACTION. In fact, the subsidies over the years would have paid for Stage 1. We want to bring the other 97% non ACTION users and the transport planners together-give them what they want.
Russ Morison
Founder/President, Canberra Public Transport Alliance

You are really confusing. Are you totally against Public Transport?

An odd position for the “Canberra Public Transport Alliance” or is it aka the Final Solution for Public Transport?

Let me guess, the handful (assuming you are plural) that are members are all male, over 65, believe scientists are all smart arses on the take, and shout at Tony Jones on Q&A?

The reality after 27 years is that we continue to not just subsidise freeways, but give them away for free, despite that they matters worse not better.

They are not tollways, at least Public Transport users pay to ride, and Public Transport is not filling our hospitals with dead, severely injured, cardiac and diabetic citizens.

Hang in there dude, you’re doing a sterling job in the face of much craziness.

Last time I had to get hospital in a hurry it was in a thing called an ambulance which uses roads.
It’s public transport for some people and perhaps if we took them off the roads it would take some pressure of the hospitals and increse business for the undertakers. That’s a win-win!
I think “The Rub” is onto something here.

Most people forget that the Canberra Liberals took a fully funded engineering study of potential light rail routes to the 2008 election. They hadn’t committed to it; they were willing to explore it, because for all the bluster about benefits, nobody knew what the potential costs would be. At the time, regular poster John Hargreaves and his ALP were dead against it!

The point is, nobody is claiming that the Canberra Liberals would have had a mandate to implement a rolled gold light rail network should they have won the 2008 election. The claim that the Labor/Green coalition have a mandate this term to implement their current proposal is nearly just as false.

Just because one questions this specific proposal, doesn’t make one anti-public transport. Just ask Hargreaves!

rubaiyat said :

aussie2 said :

Our secondary aim is to improve patronage. Canberrans are over public transport! After 27 years of lack of government passion, we continue to subsidise ACTION. In fact, the subsidies over the years would have paid for Stage 1. We want to bring the other 97% non ACTION users and the transport planners together-give them what they want.
Russ Morison
Founder/President, Canberra Public Transport Alliance

You are really confusing. Are you totally against Public Transport?

An odd position for the “Canberra Public Transport Alliance” or is it aka the Final Solution for Public Transport?

Let me guess, the handful (assuming you are plural) that are members are all male, over 65, believe scientists are all smart arses on the take, and shout at Tony Jones on Q&A?

The reality after 27 years is that we continue to not just subsidise freeways, but give them away for free, despite that they matters worse not better.

They are not tollways, at least Public Transport users pay to ride, and Public Transport is not filling our hospitals with dead, severely injured, cardiac and diabetic citizens.

Hang in there dude, you’re doing a sterling job in the face of much craziness.

aussie2 said :

Our secondary aim is to improve patronage. Canberrans are over public transport! After 27 years of lack of government passion, we continue to subsidise ACTION. In fact, the subsidies over the years would have paid for Stage 1. We want to bring the other 97% non ACTION users and the transport planners together-give them what they want.
Russ Morison
Founder/President, Canberra Public Transport Alliance

You are really confusing. Are you totally against Public Transport?

An odd position for the “Canberra Public Transport Alliance” or is it aka the Final Solution for Public Transport?

Let me guess, the handful (assuming you are plural) that are members are all male, over 65, believe scientists are all smart arses on the take, and shout at Tony Jones on Q&A?

The reality after 27 years is that we continue to not just subsidise freeways, but give them away for free, despite that they matters worse not better.

They are not tollways, at least Public Transport users pay to ride, and Public Transport is not filling our hospitals with dead, severely injured, cardiac and diabetic citizens.

Richard-you need to know that ACT Treasury costings for ACT Labor ONLY included a $30million dollar figure to establish a project office-Capital Metro! Tasol. ACT Labor•said:”They will begin an examination of constructing a light rail line with public private partnership options(and we assume funding models),
• If elected again in 2016, would actually begin construction of the Gungahlin to Civic light rail link with an aim for completion by 2018.
• They will commit 30 million dollars over the next two years for further work on these proposals.
• The name of the proposed light rail is Capital Metro.
• Initial link will run from Gungahlin to Civic along Northbourne Avenue” (with thanks to ACT Light Rail). So, no mandate except to establish a project office and bring a fully costed package to the electorate in 2016. Got it so far! Good. The govt have told us now they will sign contracts before Christmas or so, and DEFINITELY before 2016 Election. AUTOCRATIC govt and a betrayal of voters. Next point-wherever I go people only talk about a 12km track, not a 120 km network. Did you sign up to Labor for no less than $12Billion-24Billion-I don’t think so. Want more info-try these links. We, the Alliance, is politically agnostic-we actually want the government to defer the project and signing of contracts until 2016 Election at the earliest.

http://www.canthetram.org/
http://www.actlightrail.info/
capitalmetro.act.gov.au/

Our secondary aim is to improve patronage. Canberrans are over public transport! After 27 years of lack of government passion, we continue to subsidise ACTION. In fact, the subsidies over the years would have paid for Stage 1. We want to bring the other 97% non ACTION users and the transport planners together-give them what they want.
Better still Richard-how about joining me tomorrow night at 7pm at Calwell. Look forward to meeting you.
Russ Morison
Founder/President, Canberra Public Transport Alliance

rommeldog56 said :

rubaiyat said :

The Light Rail was proposed along with the plans for Gungahlin and has been on the books for well over 25 years.

Just how much notice do you need? 3 generations?

Its not about the “notice”. It’s about the detail that has now known and the costs that will be known after tender evaluation (including that m$380 from the sale of public assets that the ACT Gov’t is tipping in so as to artificially reduce the nett cash cost to ACT Ratepayers). That cost will be at least m$780 + interest, + profit margin, + risk, etc.

b$1 will probably be an underestimate.

What proof do you have of that? Or are doing the usual strawman exaggeration? The contract is the contract. After the private investor signs off on the project that is their budget.

And surprise surprise, detail comes after initial proposal.

Add up what it actually costs to run freeways as a transport system, and no its not just the roads.

rubaiyat said :

….. to the heart of Dickson and covers all the restaurants, schools, sports, offices, tourist attractions and higher density residential. In other words reinforcing the current local trend to higher density and a lively urban scene.

That seems to me better urban planning than running it up the convenient verge in Northbourne Ave, which is remote from most attractions and needs commuters cross multiple lanes of busy traffic and also bumps off the avenue of trees.

Ummmmm…..I can not believe I’m going to say this – but I actually agree with you on that.

rubaiyat said :

The Light Rail was proposed along with the plans for Gungahlin and has been on the books for well over 25 years.

Just how much notice do you need? 3 generations?

Its not about the “notice”. It’s about the detail that has now known and the costs that will be known after tender evaluation (including that m$380 from the sale of public assets that the ACT Gov’t is tipping in so as to artificially reduce the nett cash cost to ACT Ratepayers). That cost will be at least m$780 + interest, + profit margin, + risk, etc. b$1 will probably be an underestimate.

What exactly is there a mandate for?

The timing of the whole project is done so the voters miss out on the chance to vote after the tenders have been reviewed. This could easily have been adjusted so that the yes no could also be part of the 2016 election. The 10 months between is nothing. Less than a year is neither here nor there. However the current government know they risk not making it into the next innings.

Katy Gallagher made it official that there was an upper limit on the amount the ACT was willing to pay before going to the election. The figure was $614 million. This was 1 month from the election. So it was a mandate that this was the upper limit. Not a mandate for a gold plated pyramid.

^I’ve posted the above link several times however it always gets ignored by the pro (increase rates) light railers.

If anyone hasn’t noticed the government intends to demolish several carparks. The fact that they’re using the main openspace carparks in civic isn’t a temporary thing. Sure it wont always be a construction site but you surely don’t think you’ll get them back as carparks.
If you go with the notion of some glorious multistorey car park in civic is also just as much a pipe dream. Car parks are going in Woden (I think is losing about 9 of them) Civic and Belconnen. Developers are taking all day carparks and putting in visitor 2 hour carparks in their place.

This means that if you miss out on getting an all day carpark you end up having to move your car several times per day to avoid fines. (Unless you work in a government agency that keeps a lookout).
However the government is then upset that everyone is now starting to park in the malls and private carparks its now missing out on its revenue. Instead they’re trying to force the private carpark operators to use ACT inspectors to issue ACT fines.
This means that car park operators are then missing out on revenue which they’ll have to increase prices to recover.

The Majura parkway is almost finished, as such those living up north will have the option to drive directly to their workplace at Russell or the airport or have a trip on light rail that takes an extra 25 minutes. Even if Majura was a toll way I’m sure it’d get more satisfaction than the tram.

Either way.. for everyone south of the lake, you’ll be paying higher rates, have less parking, less busses, and have about 500 million less government funds to play with. You could choose to work from home but you’ll have slower less reliable NBN too.

Tram networks always have and always will be a solution where you just can’t fit anymore buses on the road. Instead in the ACT we’re trying to force a culture shift on a town that already relies heavily on cars. In reality they’re better off just paying more people to use the bus. Instead they just keep raising the cost.

rubaiyat said :

HiddenDragon said :

dungfungus said :

rommeldog56 said :

Richard Fox said :

Agreed, no harm in having a discussion at all. Let’s just cut out the hyperbole and present the facts.

+ 1.

From my perspective, the hyperbole and seeking “approval in principle” from ACT voters/ratepayers was given at the last ACT LA election in 2012, even though ACT Labor did not get given a mandate in their own right.

Now, the facts are known in that terrible business case with a BCR of 1:1.2, the draft environmental impact statement + as more detail becomes known – included in the tenedes responses.

This is such a significant financial commitment for such a small revenue raising base as exists in the ACT, that the ACT Labour/Greens Gov’t must go back to the people with ALL the “facts” – not just the concept (as was the case in 2012) – for endorsement or rejection.

Waiting for the next election in late 2016 for voters/ratepayers to pass judgement on the detail/facts as now known is not good enough as contracts will have been signed & work commenced by then ie it will be too late (despite what the Lib’s say).

It will be abandoned before the election.
Why do you think Corbell is packing his bags?

There’s an awful lot of hubris and righteous zeal wrapped up in the trams vision, so it would be a very, very big call to scrap it – but the slight slow down on the rates gouge suggests that the unshakeable confidence might not be quite as unshakeable as it once was.

Hear hear.

Out with the hubris and righteous zeal, and in with self centred greed and ignorance.

Yea verily, the tram plan is the very embodiment of selflessness and enlightenment.

Suggest everybody take a deep breath and have a look at comparable examples of Light Rail, both in Australia and abroad:

http://www.curf.com.au/storage/CURF%20Working%20Paper%205_Light%20rail%20transit%20&%20residential%20density_FINAL_150615.pdf

Almost without exception they have been successful and a huge asset to the cities that have risen to the challenge. The knee jerk reactions and portents of Simpsonian Monorail holocausts have never been justified by the reality once the systems are in place.

So all you have to fear is the fear itself. The menacing shadows are just that, played on by the usual shadow puppet masters and generally old farts with other agendas, equally as reasoned and researched.

But even they can be won around by the final result. Even the Gold Coast’s most vocal critic has been won around now that it is up and running for over a year.

It is much like when I did architecture, there are always the people with no imagination, who no matter how many ways you try to bridge the gap in their comprehension, nothing works. Until it is built.

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

In Canberra, this is only the one choice and it isn’t News Limited, unfortunately.

So you never go out to even your local newsagent?

All the papers are available.

I’ve heard the cool kids taking about something they call The Interweb where you can get pictures of newspapers in your own home. Even newspapers from strange foreign locations I’ve never heard of like ‘Melbun’ and ‘Newzee Land’.

Sounds like magic to me and I don’t want to mess with that.

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

Light Rail is totally unnecessary, we already have the technology to fix all of Canberra’s transport problems:

“First Flying Cars Are Set To Go On Sale As Early 2015!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuXbM0kaD7k

The ACT Government should stop the Majura Parkway immediately, and start demolishing the rest of the 3000 year old technology roads in Canberra NOW!

Go to:

http://www.aeroporcine.com.au

and sign up for the new party that will demand a referendum on scrapping of all wheeled vehicles in the A.C.T.

Some of your suggestions are as crazy as David Pope’s cartoons in Fairfax Media.

Good to see you read something else than Rupert Says.

In Canberra, this is only the one choice and it isn’t News Limited, unfortunately.

So you never go out to even your local newsagent?

All the papers are available. The Australian used to in fact be a Canberra based paper till the Rupe moved it to Sydney and turned it into the same hate mail to the world that he turned everything else into.

Sadly the Fairfax Press has found it necessary to respond, after almost becoming lunch to She Who Must Be Obeyed, using the small change from what She Who Must Be Obeyed worked so hard to inherit.

No, I rarely go to a newsagent these days. One can get the Canberra Times does home delivered (by evil car), you know. They still can’t wrap it without creasing it though.
I haven’t got a clue what you are raving about in your last paragraph – who is “she who must be obeyed” (apart from Rumpole’s fictional wife)?

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

Some of your suggestions are as crazy as David Pope’s cartoons in Fairfax Media.

We are indeed blessed with a richness of political cartoonists in this country, and they have a knack for hitting the nail on the head.

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt206/tipsntricks/David%20Pope%20-%20Australian%20Coat%20of%20Arms.png

I didn’t say Pope was in the class you have nominated him in. More in the crassness class.
There are few people I know that still get the Canberra Times and they, like me, don’t really understand what he is on about most of the time (like you).
And “hitting the nail on the head” is old technology – everyone uses power brads these days.

dungfungus said :

Some of your suggestions are as crazy as David Pope’s cartoons in Fairfax Media.

We are indeed blessed with a richness of political cartoonists in this country, and they have a knack for hitting the nail on the head.

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt206/tipsntricks/David%20Pope%20-%20Australian%20Coat%20of%20Arms.png

I don’t know if you would call it a “network” but… whatever.

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

Light Rail is totally unnecessary, we already have the technology to fix all of Canberra’s transport problems:

“First Flying Cars Are Set To Go On Sale As Early 2015!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuXbM0kaD7k

The ACT Government should stop the Majura Parkway immediately, and start demolishing the rest of the 3000 year old technology roads in Canberra NOW!

Go to:

http://www.aeroporcine.com.au

and sign up for the new party that will demand a referendum on scrapping of all wheeled vehicles in the A.C.T.

Some of your suggestions are as crazy as David Pope’s cartoons in Fairfax Media.

Good to see you read something else than Rupert Says.

In Canberra, this is only the one choice and it isn’t News Limited, unfortunately.

So you never go out to even your local newsagent?

All the papers are available. The Australian used to in fact be a Canberra based paper till the Rupe moved it to Sydney and turned it into the same hate mail to the world that he turned everything else into.

Sadly the Fairfax Press has found it necessary to respond, after almost becoming lunch to She Who Must Be Obeyed, using the small change from what She Who Must Be Obeyed worked so hard to inherit.

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

Light Rail is totally unnecessary, we already have the technology to fix all of Canberra’s transport problems:

“First Flying Cars Are Set To Go On Sale As Early 2015!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuXbM0kaD7k

The ACT Government should stop the Majura Parkway immediately, and start demolishing the rest of the 3000 year old technology roads in Canberra NOW!

Go to:

http://www.aeroporcine.com.au

and sign up for the new party that will demand a referendum on scrapping of all wheeled vehicles in the A.C.T.

Some of your suggestions are as crazy as David Pope’s cartoons in Fairfax Media.

Good to see you read something else than Rupert Says.

In Canberra, this is only the one choice and it isn’t News Limited, unfortunately.

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

Light Rail is totally unnecessary, we already have the technology to fix all of Canberra’s transport problems:

“First Flying Cars Are Set To Go On Sale As Early 2015!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuXbM0kaD7k

The ACT Government should stop the Majura Parkway immediately, and start demolishing the rest of the 3000 year old technology roads in Canberra NOW!

Go to:

http://www.aeroporcine.com.au

and sign up for the new party that will demand a referendum on scrapping of all wheeled vehicles in the A.C.T.

Some of your suggestions are as crazy as David Pope’s cartoons in Fairfax Media.

Good to see you read something else than Rupert Says.

Rollersk8r said :

watto23 said :

Richard Fox said :

“I do not believe ACT voters have been given any opportunity to collectively vote on whether they want a light rail network or not.”

I do believe it was a major policy of the ACT Labor Party in 2012 and, as such, ACT voters have already voted on it. Here’s then Chief Minister Katy Gallagher’s media release on it http://web.archive.org/web/20141101011336/http://www.katygallagher.net/?p=2285

+1 it was announced well and truly before the previous election. So while the public were effectively divided 8-8-1 (Lab-Lib-Grn), Labor were federally on the nose as well, there was the triple your rates slogan (While Joe Hockey has commended the ACT government on the tax reform, this will be interesting to see how Jeremy Hanson plays it) and the libs still didn’t get enough to form government. If they put up some visions, plans etc, then we could assess what they want to do.

A solution is needed to transport. I fear the libs solution is to just let things stay as they are, or increase parking costs to encourage bus use. Parking is getting scarce in the city, its not going to improve in either costs or number of car parks. For all the Tuggeranongites out there (myself included), the benefit we get from light rail is parking will be cheaper and more available. Without it parking will get scarcer and more expensive.

I’m willing to bet the cost of parking in Civic rises each and every year, regardless of how effective light rail is – and regardless of demand too. Increases to parking, fines, rego etc, is like clockwork.

Anyway – on the general topic – part of the light rail plan is to dump bus commuters at light rail depots. So my current 10km bus trip from Giralang to Civic becomes 6km to Dickson, then 4km by rail to Civic. Looks like I’ll be driving more often, especially with less buses on Northbourne!

Now that is a valid complaint!

Voters need to differentiate between the need for sustainable clean transport and exactly how it is implemented. Objections to the organisation/route should be directed at that and not the transport itself.

In the case of the proposed Dickson Interchange it is going to either be inconvenient to Dickson or the proposed Light Rail, they are not exactly next to each other thanks to Canberra’s lack of planning forsight. Which is why I would prefer a Tram that wends it way through the city as in the Burke Street Mall Melbourne, up Lonsdale Street to the heart of Dickson and covers all the restaurants, schools, sports, offices, tourist attractions and higher density residential. In other words reinforcing the current local trend to higher density and a lively urban scene.

That seems to me better urban planning than running it up the convenient verge in Northbourne Ave, which is remote from most attractions and needs commuters cross multiple lanes of busy traffic and also bumps off the avenue of trees.

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

HiddenDragon said :

dungfungus said :

rommeldog56 said :

Richard Fox said :

Agreed, no harm in having a discussion at all. Let’s just cut out the hyperbole and present the facts.

+ 1.

From my perspective, the hyperbole and seeking “approval in principle” from ACT voters/ratepayers was given at the last ACT LA election in 2012, even though ACT Labor did not get given a mandate in their own right.

Now, the facts are known in that terrible business case with a BCR of 1:1.2, the draft environmental impact statement + as more detail becomes known – included in the tenedes responses.

This is such a significant financial commitment for such a small revenue raising base as exists in the ACT, that the ACT Labour/Greens Gov’t must go back to the people with ALL the “facts” – not just the concept (as was the case in 2012) – for endorsement or rejection.

Waiting for the next election in late 2016 for voters/ratepayers to pass judgement on the detail/facts as now known is not good enough as contracts will have been signed & work commenced by then ie it will be too late (despite what the Lib’s say).

It will be abandoned before the election.
Why do you think Corbell is packing his bags?

There’s an awful lot of hubris and righteous zeal wrapped up in the trams vision, so it would be a very, very big call to scrap it – but the slight slow down on the rates gouge suggests that the unshakeable confidence might not be quite as unshakeable as it once was.

Hear hear.

Out with the hubris and righteous zeal, and in with self centred greed and ignorance.

Stop the cars!

There! We have it!

CLooey said :

I’m very disturbed by how this is being rushed through. It’s ridiculously costly, so TAXES will GO UP. It’s going to cause massive traffic congestion in the north; there’s nothing to show it will actually help the environment or be even be used by commuters; and so on. I’m really questioning the Government’s motive behind this.

The Light Rail was proposed along with the plans for Gungahlin and has been on the books for well over 25 years.

Just how much notice do you need? 3 generations?

I’m very disturbed by how this is being rushed through. It’s ridiculously costly, so TAXES will GO UP. It’s going to cause massive traffic congestion in the north; there’s nothing to show it will actually help the environment or be even be used by commuters; and so on. I’m really questioning the Government’s motive behind this.

rubaiyat said :

HiddenDragon said :

dungfungus said :

rommeldog56 said :

Richard Fox said :

Agreed, no harm in having a discussion at all. Let’s just cut out the hyperbole and present the facts.

+ 1.

From my perspective, the hyperbole and seeking “approval in principle” from ACT voters/ratepayers was given at the last ACT LA election in 2012, even though ACT Labor did not get given a mandate in their own right.

Now, the facts are known in that terrible business case with a BCR of 1:1.2, the draft environmental impact statement + as more detail becomes known – included in the tenedes responses.

This is such a significant financial commitment for such a small revenue raising base as exists in the ACT, that the ACT Labour/Greens Gov’t must go back to the people with ALL the “facts” – not just the concept (as was the case in 2012) – for endorsement or rejection.

Waiting for the next election in late 2016 for voters/ratepayers to pass judgement on the detail/facts as now known is not good enough as contracts will have been signed & work commenced by then ie it will be too late (despite what the Lib’s say).

It will be abandoned before the election.
Why do you think Corbell is packing his bags?

There’s an awful lot of hubris and righteous zeal wrapped up in the trams vision, so it would be a very, very big call to scrap it – but the slight slow down on the rates gouge suggests that the unshakeable confidence might not be quite as unshakeable as it once was.

Hear hear.

Out with the hubris and righteous zeal, and in with self centred greed and ignorance.

Stop the cars!

rommeldog56 said :

Dear OP,

Can you, or someone please explain something :

Damian Haas (sometimes poster here) is Chair, ACT Light Rail. That organisation claims to be “Canberra’s Peak Public Transport Lobby Group”.

Is that title self appointed ?

Regardless, what is the relationship, if any, of that lobby group to the Canberra Public Transport Alliance, and to the Combined Community Councils Transport Working Group mentioned in your OP ?

Thanks.

While the experts are musing over this, could someone advise what makes up “public transport” in Canberra?
We have ACTION of course but what else is there?
We can’t include any rail services because they are interstate only.

rommeldog56 said :

Dear OP,

Can you, or someone please explain something :

Damian Haas (sometimes poster here) is Chair, ACT Light Rail. That organisation claims to be “Canberra’s Peak Public Transport Lobby Group”.

Is that title self appointed ?

Regardless, what is the relationship, if any, of that lobby group to the Canberra Public Transport Alliance, and to the Combined Community Councils Transport Working Group mentioned in your OP ?

Thanks.

The Canberra Public Transport Alliance (a whole 4 likes on Facebook!) seems to be oddly anti Public Transport from its online statements.

How many members does it actually have besides Russ Morison and does it have a broader perspective than just Tuggeranong, Canberra’s Deep South.

I did advertisements for the Australian Telecommunications Interest Group back in the 90’s when Telstra was up for privitisation. I don’t know if it ever had more than the one member, the Telstra Business Manager for the ACT, who paid the bills with bank cheques.

So much has already been invested in this project I think it is too late to be arguing on whether or not to proceed any more.

Incorrect, Russ – I remember giving it a tick when I voted in 2012!!!!

Dear OP,

Can you, or someone please explain something :

Damian Haas (sometimes poster here) is Chair, ACT Light Rail. That organisation claims to be “Canberra’s Peak Public Transport Lobby Group”. Is that title self appointed ?

Regardless, what is the relationship, if any, of that lobby group to the Canberra Public Transport Alliance, and to the Combined Community Councils Transport Working Group mentioned in your OP ?

Thanks.

HiddenDragon said :

dungfungus said :

rommeldog56 said :

Richard Fox said :

Agreed, no harm in having a discussion at all. Let’s just cut out the hyperbole and present the facts.

+ 1.

From my perspective, the hyperbole and seeking “approval in principle” from ACT voters/ratepayers was given at the last ACT LA election in 2012, even though ACT Labor did not get given a mandate in their own right.

Now, the facts are known in that terrible business case with a BCR of 1:1.2, the draft environmental impact statement + as more detail becomes known – included in the tenedes responses.

This is such a significant financial commitment for such a small revenue raising base as exists in the ACT, that the ACT Labour/Greens Gov’t must go back to the people with ALL the “facts” – not just the concept (as was the case in 2012) – for endorsement or rejection.

Waiting for the next election in late 2016 for voters/ratepayers to pass judgement on the detail/facts as now known is not good enough as contracts will have been signed & work commenced by then ie it will be too late (despite what the Lib’s say).

It will be abandoned before the election.
Why do you think Corbell is packing his bags?

There’s an awful lot of hubris and righteous zeal wrapped up in the trams vision, so it would be a very, very big call to scrap it – but the slight slow down on the rates gouge suggests that the unshakeable confidence might not be quite as unshakeable as it once was.

Hear hear.

Out with the hubris and righteous zeal, and in with self centred greed and ignorance.

HiddenDragon said :

dungfungus said :

rommeldog56 said :

Richard Fox said :

Agreed, no harm in having a discussion at all. Let’s just cut out the hyperbole and present the facts.

+ 1.

From my perspective, the hyperbole and seeking “approval in principle” from ACT voters/ratepayers was given at the last ACT LA election in 2012, even though ACT Labor did not get given a mandate in their own right.

Now, the facts are known in that terrible business case with a BCR of 1:1.2, the draft environmental impact statement + as more detail becomes known – included in the tenedes responses.

This is such a significant financial commitment for such a small revenue raising base as exists in the ACT, that the ACT Labour/Greens Gov’t must go back to the people with ALL the “facts” – not just the concept (as was the case in 2012) – for endorsement or rejection.

Waiting for the next election in late 2016 for voters/ratepayers to pass judgement on the detail/facts as now known is not good enough as contracts will have been signed & work commenced by then ie it will be too late (despite what the Lib’s say).

It will be abandoned before the election.
Why do you think Corbell is packing his bags?

There’s an awful lot of hubris and righteous zeal wrapped up in the trams vision, so it would be a very, very big call to scrap it – but the slight slow down on the rates gouge suggests that the unshakeable confidence might not be quite as unshakeable as it once was.

The exact wording in the “heads of agreement” type submission the government made was that the project could be abandoned if the cost was going to be excessive.
There is a lot of information about the costs of relocating underground services being supressed so expect an announcement in December (just before Canberra closes down for two months) with a lot of spin.

rubaiyat said :

Light Rail is totally unnecessary, we already have the technology to fix all of Canberra’s transport problems:

“First Flying Cars Are Set To Go On Sale As Early 2015!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuXbM0kaD7k

The ACT Government should stop the Majura Parkway immediately, and start demolishing the rest of the 3000 year old technology roads in Canberra NOW!

Go to:

http://www.aeroporcine.com.au

and sign up for the new party that will demand a referendum on scrapping of all wheeled vehicles in the A.C.T.

Some of your suggestions are as crazy as David Pope’s cartoons in Fairfax Media.

dungfungus said :

It will be abandoned before the election.
Why do you think Corbell is packing his bags?

To spend more time with his family?

dungfungus said :

rommeldog56 said :

Richard Fox said :

Agreed, no harm in having a discussion at all. Let’s just cut out the hyperbole and present the facts.

+ 1.

From my perspective, the hyperbole and seeking “approval in principle” from ACT voters/ratepayers was given at the last ACT LA election in 2012, even though ACT Labor did not get given a mandate in their own right.

Now, the facts are known in that terrible business case with a BCR of 1:1.2, the draft environmental impact statement + as more detail becomes known – included in the tenedes responses.

This is such a significant financial commitment for such a small revenue raising base as exists in the ACT, that the ACT Labour/Greens Gov’t must go back to the people with ALL the “facts” – not just the concept (as was the case in 2012) – for endorsement or rejection.

Waiting for the next election in late 2016 for voters/ratepayers to pass judgement on the detail/facts as now known is not good enough as contracts will have been signed & work commenced by then ie it will be too late (despite what the Lib’s say).

It will be abandoned before the election.
Why do you think Corbell is packing his bags?

There’s an awful lot of hubris and righteous zeal wrapped up in the trams vision, so it would be a very, very big call to scrap it – but the slight slow down on the rates gouge suggests that the unshakeable confidence might not be quite as unshakeable as it once was.

Light Rail is totally unnecessary, we already have the technology to fix all of Canberra’s transport problems:

“First Flying Cars Are Set To Go On Sale As Early 2015!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuXbM0kaD7k

The ACT Government should stop the Majura Parkway immediately, and start demolishing the rest of the 3000 year old technology roads in Canberra NOW!

Go to:

http://www.aeroporcine.com.au

and sign up for the new party that will demand a referendum on scrapping of all wheeled vehicles in the A.C.T.

Richard Fox said :

“I do not believe ACT voters have been given any opportunity to collectively vote on whether they want a light rail network or not.”

I do believe it was a major policy of the ACT Labor Party in 2012 and, as such, ACT voters have already voted on it. Here’s then Chief Minister Katy Gallagher’s media release on it http://web.archive.org/web/20141101011336/http://www.katygallagher.net/?p=2285

This is where I disagree with you – and we see exactly the same example at the federal level with the Abbott government. While ACT Labor may indeed have announced it as a policy (having lifted it from a minor party to put them in the position of being able to form a minority government?), this is not one of the policies I voted for, despite voting for Labor. Living in Tuggeranong, the light rail is a total waste of time and money from where I sit. Another example of Uncle Tony declaring his win at the federal election as a ‘mandate’ to attack the renewable energy sector … or to hold marriage equality back for another decade. An election win does not necessarily give a government the ‘mandate’ they claim to have.

dungfungus said :

rommeldog56 said :

Richard Fox said :

Agreed, no harm in having a discussion at all. Let’s just cut out the hyperbole and present the facts.

+ 1.

From my perspective, the hyperbole and seeking “approval in principle” from ACT voters/ratepayers was given at the last ACT LA election in 2012, even though ACT Labor did not get given a mandate in their own right.

Now, the facts are known in that terrible business case with a BCR of 1:1.2, the draft environmental impact statement + as more detail becomes known – included in the tenedes responses.

This is such a significant financial commitment for such a small revenue raising base as exists in the ACT, that the ACT Labour/Greens Gov’t must go back to the people with ALL the “facts” – not just the concept (as was the case in 2012) – for endorsement or rejection.

Waiting for the next election in late 2016 for voters/ratepayers to pass judgement on the detail/facts as now known is not good enough as contracts will have been signed & work commenced by then ie it will be too late (despite what the Lib’s say).

It will be abandoned before the election.
Why do you think Corbell is packing his bags?

I do wonder if Dungers might not be onto something about the abandonment thing.
Mr Barr would know the controversy its causing, and would he like to go down in history in this labour town as being the one who loses an election.
He’s only head honcho because of the green mayor. Don’t forget the Labour people down in Tassy gave their green partners the flick before their election. Alas for them a little late.

rommeldog56 said :

Richard Fox said :

Agreed, no harm in having a discussion at all. Let’s just cut out the hyperbole and present the facts.

+ 1.

From my perspective, the hyperbole and seeking “approval in principle” from ACT voters/ratepayers was given at the last ACT LA election in 2012, even though ACT Labor did not get given a mandate in their own right.

Now, the facts are known in that terrible business case with a BCR of 1:1.2, the draft environmental impact statement + as more detail becomes known – included in the tenedes responses.

This is such a significant financial commitment for such a small revenue raising base as exists in the ACT, that the ACT Labour/Greens Gov’t must go back to the people with ALL the “facts” – not just the concept (as was the case in 2012) – for endorsement or rejection.

Waiting for the next election in late 2016 for voters/ratepayers to pass judgement on the detail/facts as now known is not good enough as contracts will have been signed & work commenced by then ie it will be too late (despite what the Lib’s say).

It will be abandoned before the election.
Why do you think Corbell is packing his bags?

Richard Fox said :

Agreed, no harm in having a discussion at all. Let’s just cut out the hyperbole and present the facts.

+ 1.

From my perspective, the hyperbole and seeking “approval in principle” from ACT voters/ratepayers was given at the last ACT LA election in 2012, even though ACT Labor did not get given a mandate in their own right.

Now, the facts are known in that terrible business case with a BCR of 1:1.2, the draft environmental impact statement + as more detail becomes known – included in the tenedes responses.

This is such a significant financial commitment for such a small revenue raising base as exists in the ACT, that the ACT Labour/Greens Gov’t must go back to the people with ALL the “facts” – not just the concept (as was the case in 2012) – for endorsement or rejection.

Waiting for the next election in late 2016 for voters/ratepayers to pass judgement on the detail/facts as now known is not good enough as contracts will have been signed & work commenced by then ie it will be too late (despite what the Lib’s say).

watto23 said :

Richard Fox said :

“I do not believe ACT voters have been given any opportunity to collectively vote on whether they want a light rail network or not.”

I do believe it was a major policy of the ACT Labor Party in 2012 and, as such, ACT voters have already voted on it. Here’s then Chief Minister Katy Gallagher’s media release on it http://web.archive.org/web/20141101011336/http://www.katygallagher.net/?p=2285

+1 it was announced well and truly before the previous election. So while the public were effectively divided 8-8-1 (Lab-Lib-Grn), Labor were federally on the nose as well, there was the triple your rates slogan (While Joe Hockey has commended the ACT government on the tax reform, this will be interesting to see how Jeremy Hanson plays it) and the libs still didn’t get enough to form government. If they put up some visions, plans etc, then we could assess what they want to do.

A solution is needed to transport. I fear the libs solution is to just let things stay as they are, or increase parking costs to encourage bus use. Parking is getting scarce in the city, its not going to improve in either costs or number of car parks. For all the Tuggeranongites out there (myself included), the benefit we get from light rail is parking will be cheaper and more available. Without it parking will get scarcer and more expensive.

I’m willing to bet the cost of parking in Civic rises each and every year, regardless of how effective light rail is – and regardless of demand too. Increases to parking, fines, rego etc, is like clockwork.

Anyway – on the general topic – part of the light rail plan is to dump bus commuters at light rail depots. So my current 10km bus trip from Giralang to Civic becomes 6km to Dickson, then 4km by rail to Civic. Looks like I’ll be driving more often, especially with less buses on Northbourne!

fernandof said :

BTW, on the informed front. Can anyone point me to where I can read on the cost/value analysis comparison done for the light rail?

See link in post 70 in this thread :

http://the-riotact.com/how-government-propaganda-may-kill-light-rail-and-the-rest-of-canberra/152262/comment-page-3#comments

Enjoy…….!

Nilrem said :

fernandof said :

Nilrem said :

Voters cannot get a vote on every issue whenever they feel like it. Every four years they can deliver a verdict on the performance of the Government, at the ballot box. Representative democracy.

Yep. And aussie2 is suggesting to have a public, high profile debate (at least that’s what he’s hoping to), not to enforce the debate outcome on the elected party. Where’s the harm in that?

No harm. Public debate is a good thing and should be encouraged. I get a bit concerned when claims start being made that there is no mandate, and that people haven’t had a say. We have a system for having a say, and for conferring mandates. This system should be informed by an abundance of public debate.

Fair enough.

It’s also worth noting ‘having a mandate’ and ‘people had a say’ isn’t correlated at all. The former is a legal/political item, the later a socially contextualised item. In other words, of course the ACT Labor has a mandate – they’ve been elected, that’s the only mandate they need. Not sure about people having a say though.

Personally, I’d love to see much more debate on this front. Being somewhat engagement and interested in local affairs, I don’t feel there was nearly enough debate for such a huge undertake that will impact our daily life for a fairly long haul.

Agreed, no harm in having a discussion at all. Let’s just cut out the hyperbole and present the facts.

Nilrem said :

fernandof said :

Nilrem said :

Voters cannot get a vote on every issue whenever they feel like it. Every four years they can deliver a verdict on the performance of the Government, at the ballot box. Representative democracy.

Yep. And aussie2 is suggesting to have a public, high profile debate (at least that’s what he’s hoping to), not to enforce the debate outcome on the elected party. Where’s the harm in that?

No harm. Public debate is a good thing and should be encouraged. I get a bit concerned when claims start being made that there is no mandate, and that people haven’t had a say. We have a system for having a say, and for conferring mandates. This system should be informed by an abundance of public debate.

Agree, debate is good, but even then if you don’t like an idea people are very good at coming up with reasons in how the public debate is flawed. That is why I’d like to know what the Liberals policy is. I do vote based on the best policies IMO for Canberra or Australia. My concern is the Libs are happy with status quo and/or buying more buses.

So hopefully we actually do get some intelligent suggestions from the Libs at the next election and not just 3 word slogans. Otherwise hopefully people start voting independents and minor parties in.

fernandof said :

Nilrem said :

Voters cannot get a vote on every issue whenever they feel like it. Every four years they can deliver a verdict on the performance of the Government, at the ballot box. Representative democracy.

Yep. And aussie2 is suggesting to have a public, high profile debate (at least that’s what he’s hoping to), not to enforce the debate outcome on the elected party. Where’s the harm in that?

No harm. Public debate is a good thing and should be encouraged. I get a bit concerned when claims start being made that there is no mandate, and that people haven’t had a say. We have a system for having a say, and for conferring mandates. This system should be informed by an abundance of public debate.

There was no referendum on any of the gold plated freeways.

The gold plated freeways that ACTUALLY have put the ACT in debt, lose money every day and fill our public hospital beds and morgues.

Where is your outrage?

Nilrem said :

Voters cannot get a vote on every issue whenever they feel like it. Every four years they can deliver a verdict on the performance of the Government, at the ballot box. Representative democracy.

Yep. And aussie2 is suggesting to have a public, high profile debate (at least that’s what he’s hoping to), not to enforce the debate outcome on the elected party. Where’s the harm in that?

Richard Fox said :

I do believe it was a major policy of the ACT Labor Party in 2012 and, as such, ACT voters have already voted on it. Here’s then Chief Minister Katy Gallagher’s media release on it http://web.archive.org/web/20141101011336/http://www.katygallagher.net/?p=2285

Love you optimism about voters’ political awareness. I don’t share that world view, my experience tells me typical voters have very little familiarity on the details of their preferred party’s political agenda; voting is mostly done on the ‘spirit of the party’ and other irrational factors, rather than on a methodical comparison of policies. Sure there are exceptions (and this site hosts quite a few of those), but as a generalisation, political awareness is not that common.

So no, having an agenda item, even a major one, in a party agenda should not be considered as an alternative for public debate.

But regardless, why not supporting an open debate? It may have zero impact on our policies (the party is democratically elected, after all, they don’t have to commit to the debate outcomes), but a debate and an open discussion is almost always a good thing. If it has low public engagement, then maybe the public was indeed already aware and have agreed with the plans, or it may suggest the public just doesn’t care. If it has high engagement, then the public was very possibly uninformed and having a debate could create better alignment between the government and the voters. Either way, I fail to see the harm in having yet another debate.

BTW, on the informed front. Can anyone point me to where I can read on the cost/value analysis comparison done for the light rail?
Like watto23, I too understand we need to address changes in traffic needs, but I lack the knowledge to make a decision whether light rail is the best option, or buses or whatever. I’m keen to learn more on this topic, so would like to review the thorough analysis that surely has been done prior to pursing such a huge undertake.

It is too late to act now I’m afraid. The postings already in this thread show why – people actually believe that the ACT Labor/Green’s Gov’t has a mandate to build it.

This is dispite the fact that (i) cost has increased from the m$614 disclosed at or after the 2012 election to m$780+, with most estimates now being b$1+ over the life. (ii) The (acknowledged as badly flawed) Benefits Costs Ratio (the business case) of 1:1.2 being released + the draft environmental impact statement recently (showing the flow on impacts to busses, parking, roads, etc). (iii) That the tram will be only 3 minutes faster than a bus and will actually increase congestion on roads along the route. (iv) a blow out in infrastructure costs to be met by the ACT Gov’t (ie. ratepayers), that there was no viable/methodical assessment of alternatives to a tram, etc, etc.

There is no way this ACt labor/Green’s Gov’t can claim a mandate to go ahead – purely based on information that has subsequently (and understandably) come to light since the 2012 election.

But then again, ACT voters gave them a mandate to go forward and to write what appears to be a “blank cheque” to the public private provider on behalf of all ACT Ratepayers, without knowing the detail. How dumb is that ???

Voters cannot get a vote on every issue whenever they feel like it. Every four years they can deliver a verdict on the performance of the Government, at the ballot box. Representative democracy.

Richard Fox said :

“I do not believe ACT voters have been given any opportunity to collectively vote on whether they want a light rail network or not.”

I do believe it was a major policy of the ACT Labor Party in 2012 and, as such, ACT voters have already voted on it. Here’s then Chief Minister Katy Gallagher’s media release on it http://web.archive.org/web/20141101011336/http://www.katygallagher.net/?p=2285

+1 it was announced well and truly before the previous election. So while the public were effectively divided 8-8-1 (Lab-Lib-Grn), Labor were federally on the nose as well, there was the triple your rates slogan (While Joe Hockey has commended the ACT government on the tax reform, this will be interesting to see how Jeremy Hanson plays it) and the libs still didn’t get enough to form government. If they put up some visions, plans etc, then we could assess what they want to do.

A solution is needed to transport. I fear the libs solution is to just let things stay as they are, or increase parking costs to encourage bus use. Parking is getting scarce in the city, its not going to improve in either costs or number of car parks. For all the Tuggeranongites out there (myself included), the benefit we get from light rail is parking will be cheaper and more available. Without it parking will get scarcer and more expensive.

I’ve said in many posts I’m more in favor of an intercity rapid transport network, whether that be dedicated bus roads or rail of some kind. That may in fact be the solution for Tuggeranong as light rail from Tuggeranong to the city would not be viable (if it takes longer than 30-40 minutes I can’t see it being used, unless forced to by parking costs).

I completely understand why there are concerns with the light rail. What I have a real trouble with in this country is right now the Liberals at local and federal level have absolutely no vision or plans for the country, other than relying on what has worked in the past. Hopefully it will change next year when we are likely to have both elections, we’ll see though.

Don’t expect Richard Fox to attend the meeting.

“I do no believe ACT voters have been given any opportunity to collectively vote on whether they want a light rail network or not.”

I do believe it was a major policy of the ACT Labor Party in 2012 and, as such, ACT voters have already voted on it. Here’s then Chief Minister Katy Gallagher’s media release on it http://web.archive.org/web/20141101011336/http://www.katygallagher.net/?p=2285