8 September 2011

Public transport to address cost of living pressures?

| johnboy
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Following on from Zed’s cost of living spray this morning the Greens’ Amanda Bresnan is asking what he plans to do about transport costs:

“Today Mr Seselja pointed to ABS statistics showing the high costs to Canberrans of fuel and transport,” said Greens Transport spokesperson, Amanda Bresnan MLA.

“This is absolutely true, and it is a real problem. But Mr Seselja and the Government both ignore the real meaning of these statistics and are not pushing for investments that can save Canberrans on transport costs.

“The statistics show that current policies are locking Canberrans into car ownership and car usage because of poor transport planning and a lack of alternative options. This is very expensive and will only become expensive.

“The approximate average time that a resident of Canberra has to work in order to pay for their cars is 550 hours a year, or 1 and ½ hours every day of the year.

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Aeek said :

FACT: Pedestrians pay no specific taxes for the infrastructure that allows them to commute all over Canberra.

FACT:
1) Access to a footpath in the ACT is a right, not a privellige.
2) There is a legal difference between a footpath and a public roadway, as above.
3) The government cant control your access to a footpath. They cant stop you from commuting on the footpath for not paying due fees, but they can stop you from commuting on the highway for not paying them.

Postalgeek said :

Ok, before we start, please read the definition below. Then review what you’ve written and provide something that isn’t, you know, the vibe of the thing.

fact |fakt|
noun

%u2022a thing that is indisputably the case.
%u2022 (usu. facts) a piece of information used as evidence or as part of a report or news article.
%u2022 chiefly (Law) the truth about events as opposed to interpretation.

So, for example, say you were to raise the issue of Ambulance Levies. You would go to the ACT Revenue Office site and read the following:
The Ambulance Levy is payable each month by private health insurance companies to offset the cost of providing ambulance services in the Territory. The levy is calculated on the number and type of private heath insurance contributions.
and then you might cite your source – http://www.revenue.act.gov.au/other_levies_and_taxes/ambulance_levy
And it would be reasonable for you to claim it was a FACT.

Something like:

Cyclists pay no specific taxes for the infrastructure that allows them to commute all over Canberra (if they are fit enough and have time to spare). Not even the ambulance levy added to registration fees that all ACT motorists pay. Yet they appear to be users of ambulances more than motorists do.

is not a FACT.

It is unsupported and you could’ve sourced it from anywhere, such as your arse. Saying something ‘appears’ to be the case does not make it a fact. Give me some evidence and then you’ll be cooking.

For another example, had you looked up Consolidated Revenue Fund, you would understand that all monies paid to government go to, well, a consolidated revenue fund. The money you pay for registration does not go to roads. It goes to the CRF. It may then be used for health, or a public servant’s remuneration package. Or it might be spent on roads. Likewise, the ample land tax I pay may end up being used to fix a pothole (generally not created by cyclists).

I know it’s frustrating, but if you go off and do some research and cite some evidence you might actually sound informed.

You have pointed out an error about “Ambulance Levy” that I made. I apologise – I got confused with terminology that the ACT RTA uses namely Road Rescue Fee $16.00 (silly me, I assumed this would mean an ambulance) and Road Safety Contribution $2.00.
You will find this billing information on a motor vehicle registration certificate. It doesn’t apply to pushbikes so my claim that cyclists contribute nothing still stands.
I don’t think special levies go into consolidated revenue but I am sure you or someone else will argue this one with me.
I am rivetted to my seat in anticipation of being de-rided (pun intentded) again.

dungfungus said :

postalgeek wrote “Of course, if you can bring evidence (you know, a FACT) to the discussion that cyclists outstrip motorists as a drain on ‘the resources of the ACT’, I think we could have a very exciting exchange of valid and sensible points”
FACT: Cyclists pay no specific taxes for the infrastructure that allows them to commute all over Canberra (if they are fit enough and have time to spare). Not even the ambulance levy added to registration fees that all ACT motorists pay. Yet they appear to be users of ambulances more than motorists do.
The amount of ACT resources spent on pandering to the vocal, morally vain cyclists tearing around Canberra in their lycra pixie suits is totally unreasonable. Apart from the small personal proportion from their rates, the cyclists contribute nothing to the establishment of the “world class” facilities they use.

Over to you postalgeek.

Epic failure to understand how tax works.

FACT: Pedestrians pay no specific taxes for the infrastructure that allows them to commute all over Canberra.

And don’t get me started on free-loading Passengers.

breda said :

Jethro, the difference is that The Netherlands is as flat as a pancake. And it is a big difference for cyclists who are not young or uber fit.

Good swathes of Canberra are too.

And not all of the Netherlands is flat. The south-east is quite hilly and cycling is still a way of life for the good people of Limburg.

Ok, before we start, please read the definition below. Then review what you’ve written and provide something that isn’t, you know, the vibe of the thing.

fact |fakt|
noun

%u2022a thing that is indisputably the case.
%u2022 (usu. facts) a piece of information used as evidence or as part of a report or news article.
%u2022 chiefly (Law) the truth about events as opposed to interpretation.

So, for example, say you were to raise the issue of Ambulance Levies. You would go to the ACT Revenue Office site and read the following:
The Ambulance Levy is payable each month by private health insurance companies to offset the cost of providing ambulance services in the Territory. The levy is calculated on the number and type of private heath insurance contributions.
and then you might cite your source – http://www.revenue.act.gov.au/other_levies_and_taxes/ambulance_levy
And it would be reasonable for you to claim it was a FACT.

Something like:

Cyclists pay no specific taxes for the infrastructure that allows them to commute all over Canberra (if they are fit enough and have time to spare). Not even the ambulance levy added to registration fees that all ACT motorists pay. Yet they appear to be users of ambulances more than motorists do.

is not a FACT. It is unsupported and you could’ve sourced it from anywhere, such as your arse. Saying something ‘appears’ to be the case does not make it a fact. Give me some evidence and then you’ll be cooking.

For another example, had you looked up Consolidated Revenue Fund, you would understand that all monies paid to government go to, well, a consolidated revenue fund. The money you pay for registration does not go to roads. It goes to the CRF. It may then be used for health, or a public servant’s remuneration package. Or it might be spent on roads. Likewise, the ample land tax I pay may end up being used to fix a pothole (generally not created by cyclists).

I know it’s frustrating, but if you go off and do some research and cite some evidence you might actually sound informed.

dungfungus said :

FACT: Cyclists pay no specific taxes for the infrastructure that allows them to commute all over Canberra (if they are fit enough and have time to spare). Not even the ambulance levy added to registration fees that all ACT motorists pay. Yet they appear to be users of ambulances more than motorists do.
The amount of ACT resources spent on pandering to the vocal, morally vain cyclists tearing around Canberra in their lycra pixie suits is totally unreasonable. Apart from the small personal proportion from their rates, the cyclists contribute nothing to the establishment of the “world class” facilities they use.

Over to you postalgeek.

*sigh*

00davist said :

I’m sorry mate, but for those of us who commute, costs are already high enough

Utter bollocks and statistically disproven very recently – it’s been all over the news. What is it that you fail to understand?

postalgeek wrote “Of course, if you can bring evidence (you know, a FACT) to the discussion that cyclists outstrip motorists as a drain on ‘the resources of the ACT’, I think we could have a very exciting exchange of valid and sensible points”
FACT: Cyclists pay no specific taxes for the infrastructure that allows them to commute all over Canberra (if they are fit enough and have time to spare). Not even the ambulance levy added to registration fees that all ACT motorists pay. Yet they appear to be users of ambulances more than motorists do.
The amount of ACT resources spent on pandering to the vocal, morally vain cyclists tearing around Canberra in their lycra pixie suits is totally unreasonable. Apart from the small personal proportion from their rates, the cyclists contribute nothing to the establishment of the “world class” facilities they use.

Over to you postalgeek.

Jethro, the difference is that The Netherlands is as flat as a pancake. And it is a big difference for cyclists who are not young or uber fit.

dungfungus said :

thrill-seeking eco-nuts who are a danger to themselves and a cost to the resources of the ACT that have to pick up the pieces for them.

That’s like lumping hormone fuelled youth together with blind old bats.
I could be a thrill seeker.
If so, isn’t it better for everyone that I mostly ride my bicycle rather than drive my car?

The riding are offset by offset by the exercise benefits, so 😛

Jim Jones said :

What cost of living pressures? The ABS stats show that we’re better off than we’ve ever been, that petrol eats up less of the family budget than it did 6 years ago, etc.

Henny penny bullsh1t as per usual from politicians of all stripes.

I saw an article earlier this week showing how the average family now spends more on entertainment than they did previously. Clearly there is room to move for many people.

Also, the best way to reduce the real cost of owning a car is to keep the same vehicle for longer.

The Antichrist said :

If pushbikes were actually a valid alternative mode of transport for all, we would see Mum doing the weekly shopping on her treadlie.

I would suggest that they are a valid alternative in some circumstances, but that our culture doesn’t make room for them. eg. most suburbs in Canberra have local shops that service the suburb. Similarly, our suburbs are criss-crossed by a network of bike paths.

Yet most of us will jump in the car and drive to the corner store for a bottle of milk or loaf of bread – the thought of jumping on our pushy just wouldn’t cross our minds.

Yet in the Netherlands, it is part of their culture to ride for close local trips. There is no real difference between a 50 year old Dutch woman cycling 2km to get a loaf of bread and a 50 year old Aussie woman doing the same, other than we just don’t do it.

The Antichrist said :

Postalgeek said :

dungfungus said :

In case someone says I have forgotten to mention bikes, well I haven’t but in reality, the only people who seriously consider bikes as an alternative to cars are a small group of thrill-seeking eco-nuts who are a danger to themselves and a cost to the resources of the ACT that have to pick up the pieces for them.

you forget to mention that you have no idea what you’re talking about. That’s what’s missing!

No – no its not missing at all. He makes a totally valid and sensible point, that only thrill-seeeking eco-nuts would fail to agree with.

If pushbikes were actually a valid alternative mode of transport for all, we would see Mum doing the weekly shopping on her treadlie.

Well, for a start, the ‘for all’ is your addition to the discussion. You can go off and have that little straw man argument all by yourself.

As for the blanket statement “the only people who seriously consider bikes as an alternative to cars are a small group of thrill-seeking eco-nuts”, well, I’m keen to step back and let you extrapolate on that theory. We’ll leave places like Asia out of it to keep things simple.

Of course, if you can bring evidence (you know, a FACT) to the discussion that cyclists outstrip motorists as a drain on ‘the resources of the ACT’, I think we could have a very exciting exchange of valid and sensible points.

The Antichrist7:27 pm 09 Sep 11

Postalgeek said :

dungfungus said :

In case someone says I have forgotten to mention bikes, well I haven’t but in reality, the only people who seriously consider bikes as an alternative to cars are a small group of thrill-seeking eco-nuts who are a danger to themselves and a cost to the resources of the ACT that have to pick up the pieces for them.

you forget to mention that you have no idea what you’re talking about. That’s what’s missing!

No – no its not missing at all. He makes a totally valid and sensible point, that only thrill-seeeking eco-nuts would fail to agree with.

If pushbikes were actually a valid alternative mode of transport for all, we would see Mum doing the weekly shopping on her treadlie.

Jim Jones said :

00davist said :

Jim Jones said :

“Things are so tight that I can barely manage to pay to drive my massive f%^ck-off 4WD drive to and from my high-paying job in the public service and my McMansion and still be able to afford a giant Plasma television and eat takeaway every second night.”

WOW, Somone more out of touch than the current Govt!!!

WOW. Someone who actually believes the bullsh1t “we’re all doing it so tough” rhetoric that’s been fed to them.

Your really not getting any of my point are you, Well fine, you dont get it, gret, but lets move on from your trolling, from here on in, dont bother addressing me, unless you actually have a clue what I’m getting at!

00davist said :

Rawhide Kid Part3 said :

Why cant we use a system like user pays. That is only pay the amount of rego and insurance for the kilometers you have driven. Not what you might drive on a yearly basis. You could be billed on a three or six monthly basis after use. A bit like how you pay your energy bills . You don’t pay say $400 for electricity before you use it do you? The argument that every one has to pay x amount of dollars for using our roads whether they drive 40.000km or 100km per year is a crock. Just like the buses, the more you use them the more you pay as with the longer the distance on buses (even Trains) you travel the more you pay. Doesn’t that make sense than the rego system we have now?

And yes i know there would be a problem with insurance with this idea. But there are always ways around that.

I’m sorry mate, but for those of us who commute, costs are already high enough, and while you might be speaking more of deductions for those who drive less, your idea, once in the hands of a govt. would simply see costs going up for those who rely more heavily on there cars, and have less access to public transport.

To everyone else, here is where I was up to before the trolls set in!

Takes me 25-30 to get to Woden by car from Belconnen

Takes me 15-20 on Motorbike as parking is easier at my place of employment – WAY easier.

Would take me the best part of 2-3 hours if i did it by bus. Simply not an option.
And yes i did look into it in depth. Including just getting to city terminals and walking to work from there. it is the lack of syncronisation between satelite suburbs and the intercity so called xpress busses.

An additive is that the nature of my work does not allow me to leave like other public servants to accomodate the busses schedule. Public transport is just not an option for me at all.
and that is a hugh shame and down point to living here in Canberra.

00davist said :

Jim Jones said :

“Things are so tight that I can barely manage to pay to drive my massive f%^ck-off 4WD drive to and from my high-paying job in the public service and my McMansion and still be able to afford a giant Plasma television and eat takeaway every second night.”

WOW, Somone more out of touch than the current Govt!!!

WOW. Someone who actually believes the bullsh1t “we’re all doing it so tough” rhetoric that’s been fed to them.

Jim Jones said :

“Things are so tight that I can barely manage to pay to drive my massive f%^ck-off 4WD drive to and from my high-paying job in the public service and my McMansion and still be able to afford a giant Plasma television and eat takeaway every second night.”

WOW, Somone more out of touch than the current Govt!!!

Jim Jones said :

00davist said :

I’m sorry mate, but for those of us who commute, costs are already high enough, and while you might be speaking more of deductions for those who drive less, your idea, once in the hands of a govt. would simply see costs going up for those who rely more heavily on there cars, and have less access to public transport.

Utter bollocks. Have a look at the ABS stats on cost of living – we’re not doing it tough at all. Australia has become a nation of self-obsessed over-consuming whingers with a sense of entitlement: ‘poor-me-I’m-doing-it-so-tough’ .

Well, You missed the point of that!

I’m 9 months in Canberra, and own a car, and largely (not completely) agree with the entirety of this post:

nice_enough said :

Everything in Canberra is designed to be a car trip away and the public transport system is useless. I couldn’t even use the crutches to get to the shops because there were no foot paths on many of the streets on the route. I feel sorry for anyone that lives in Canberra with a condition (such as epilepsy) that bars them from driving.

The Liberals here seem to complain that the road and parking infrastructure in not good enough, but it seems that no matter what we do re: roads and car parking it’s never enough, its a self perpetuating problem. Make it easier to drive and remove all other options and more people will drive and the traffic and parking gets worse.

Rawhide Kid Part3 said :

Why cant we use a system like user pays. That is only pay the amount of rego and insurance for the kilometers you have driven. Not what you might drive on a yearly basis. You could be billed on a three or six monthly basis after use.

I think you just described taxis. Or car rental. Or car sharing schemes that large cities have.

I think if a city is built around cars, then all the benefits of car travel come with the drawbacks. i.e. traffic jams will get worse, car parks will take up more space, and still be pricey and insufficient, and rego will get more expensive. Sure there is waste in the GDE to decry, but at the best of times, the situation will get only worse. If I get away from the idea that rego pays for roads, and realise that roads, road maintenance and land space for car parking (even paid) is taxpayer-subsidised, then I think continually adding cars is not going to be sustainable. Car use just doesn’t scale. Secondly, price of petrol is only going to rise, out of the government’s control. It only makes sense to build transport alternatives *before* petrol costs $3–4/L.

Not saying that Melbourne has not become a car-dependent city as well. Used to be that Melbourne would appear in textbooks about being a well designed city with public transport (trains). But that’s the CBD and along train lines. Living out in the suburbs (e.g. Point Cook, Rowville, Dandenong etc) there aren’t good ways to get around, and there isn’t a good way to get into a CBD without a car. In fact, most of Australian cities are like that. But consider that Canberra only contains 350,000 people now, and in my opinion, Hindmarsh Drive (the Woden part) looks like it’s already reached it’s limits at evening peak.

FWIW, I drive to work and back along that stretch once a week. Bus twice a week, and bike twice a week. Car trip is further since I have to drive to 2 locations, but if I took it daily a one way trip would take 20 minutes. Bus takes 21–37 minutes if planned, but would take 40 min–1.5 hour if unplanned (i.e. if I take a random bus I have to wait for a long changeover at interchange). Bicycle takes 40 minutes completely off road except at intersections. When I bus one way, sometimes I usually get to carpool back.

While I appreciate the sentiment of increasing usage to compensate for a higher fixed cost, I don’t agree that “the more I drive, the cheaper it gets”. Cheaper per fixed cost but the more I drive, the less money I have in my pocket. It’s like if I buy a big TV, I have to watch it more to make it worthwhile—mm OK.

Jim Jones said :

Utter bollocks. Have a look at the ABS stats on cost of living – we’re not doing it tough at all. Australia has become a nation of self-obsessed over-consuming whingers with a sense of entitlement: ‘poor-me-I’m-doing-it-so-tough’ .

Bah, this is ridiculous. Us battlers are doing it real hard.

I can barely afford to go to the coast every second weekend and I had to break it to the missus yesterday that we’d have to cut back the overseas holiday. She was in tears that we couldn’t stretch it to Italy.
And that’s not even mentioning the cost of running me XR6 Falcon and the boat.

light rail

“Things are so tight that I can barely manage to pay to drive my massive f%^ck-off 4WD drive to and from my high-paying job in the public service and my McMansion and still be able to afford a giant Plasma television and eat takeaway every second night.”

00davist said :

I’m sorry mate, but for those of us who commute, costs are already high enough, and while you might be speaking more of deductions for those who drive less, your idea, once in the hands of a govt. would simply see costs going up for those who rely more heavily on there cars, and have less access to public transport.

Utter bollocks. Have a look at the ABS stats on cost of living – we’re not doing it tough at all. Australia has become a nation of self-obsessed over-consuming whingers with a sense of entitlement: ‘poor-me-I’m-doing-it-so-tough’ .

dungfungus said :

In case someone says I have forgotten to mention bikes, well I haven’t but in reality, the only people who seriously consider bikes as an alternative to cars are a small group of thrill-seeking eco-nuts who are a danger to themselves and a cost to the resources of the ACT that have to pick up the pieces for them.

You forgot to mention eco-nuts..uh, no there it is. But you did forget to mention bikes..wait…there it is.
Aha you did forget to mention that you have no idea what you’re talking about. That’s what’s missing!

Just as most state and territory governments have become addicted to the revenue from gaming and and alcohol, the ACT Government has become over-reliant on the taxing the car owners in the Territory. Just look at how much motor vehicle registration, stamp duty etc. contribute to the coffers and then add in the revenue from traffic and parking fines etc. The Government even encourages repeat offenders by letting them off through the courts so they can be caught and fined again. If they were serious about road safety, the Government would gaol drink drivers first offence but that would be taking their best fine payers out of the market.
The only alternative to not using a car in the ACT is our underperforming and over-unionised ACTION bus “service” which serves the Government well in forcing us to continue to use our cars.
In case someone says I have forgotten to mention bikes, well I haven’t but in reality, the only people who seriously consider bikes as an alternative to cars are a small group of thrill-seeking eco-nuts who are a danger to themselves and a cost to the resources of the ACT that have to pick up the pieces for them.

Rawhide Kid Part3 said :

Why cant we use a system like user pays. That is only pay the amount of rego and insurance for the kilometers you have driven. Not what you might drive on a yearly basis. You could be billed on a three or six monthly basis after use. A bit like how you pay your energy bills . You don’t pay say $400 for electricity before you use it do you? The argument that every one has to pay x amount of dollars for using our roads whether they drive 40.000km or 100km per year is a crock. Just like the buses, the more you use them the more you pay as with the longer the distance on buses (even Trains) you travel the more you pay. Doesn’t that make sense than the rego system we have now?

And yes i know there would be a problem with insurance with this idea. But there are always ways around that.

I’m sorry mate, but for those of us who commute, costs are already high enough, and while you might be speaking more of deductions for those who drive less, your idea, once in the hands of a govt. would simply see costs going up for those who rely more heavily on there cars, and have less access to public transport.

A few years ago I was living in Melbourne and I had my leg in a cast for about 4 months and couldn’t drive, but life went on pretty normally while I was there. I came up to Canberra for three weeks while in the leg cast and found that I was basically trapped in my home which was the same distance (about 3-4km) to the CBD, as was my home in Melbourne. Everything in Canberra is designed to be a car trip away and the public transport system is useless. I couldn’t even use the crutches to get to the shops because there were no foot paths on many of the streets on the route. I feel sorry for anyone that lives in Canberra with a condition (such as epilepsy) that bars them from driving.

The Liberals here seem to complain that the road and parking infrastructure in not good enough, but it seems that no matter what we do re: roads and car parking it’s never enough, its a self perpetuating problem. Make it easier to drive and remove all other options and more people will drive and the traffic and parking gets worse.

fuel excise?

Rawhide Kid Part39:24 am 09 Sep 11

Why cant we use a system like user pays. That is only pay the amount of rego and insurance for the kilometers you have driven. Not what you might drive on a yearly basis. You could be billed on a three or six monthly basis after use. A bit like how you pay your energy bills . You don’t pay say $400 for electricity before you use it do you? The argument that every one has to pay x amount of dollars for using our roads whether they drive 40.000km or 100km per year is a crock. Just like the buses, the more you use them the more you pay as with the longer the distance on buses (even Trains) you travel the more you pay. Doesn’t that make sense than the rego system we have now? And yes i know there would be a problem with insurance with this idea. But there are always ways around that.

I understand the theories that, once people own a car they tend to drive everywhere and, once people have started travelling in their car they tend to travel the whole distance by car. I don’t see how this behaviour is going to radically change until there are more incentives.

For example, until bus travel is cheaper than the direct car cost for travelling the same distance (ie fuel, more regular maintenance, any depreciation based on km’s travelled and possibly insurance (if the premium is based on km’s travelled) there isn’t going to be much change in behaviour. To encourage this, public transport corridors should be more heavily utilised by offerring free parking at major intersections (not town centres that take time to drive in and out of), regular buses along transport corridors and gold coin (eg $1) bus travel along those corridors only.

Also, there should be more incentives for shared car ownership so people don’t feel so obliged to use their cars because of the fixed costs. I know some people LOVE their cars but many of us just consider them a means to get from A to B and only need them occasionally. Hire cars get pretty expensive especially if used as much as weekly. For example, there is pressure for the number of car parks per unit in apartments along major corridors be reduced. This might actually be effective if the body corporates for those apartments were required to provide a certain number of communal cars for the complex.

When I lived in Melbourne, I used public transport or walked everywhere. I owned a very nice small car, but it was just easier and cheaper to use trains and trams. So I sold my car.

Now, I drive most of the time. I don’t want to. I just can’t get where I need to go, at the times of day I travel, with public transport.

I get that bigger cities have a concentration of population that makes public transport more affordable. The difficulty is that Canberra would be a lot more liveable with a better public transport system. To sit back and say “oh it’s the fault of people for not living in higher density housing” ignores the fact that some people have no choice but to use their car until there is an alternative on offer.

Pretty much everyone needs transport!

Some pay for it thought rego, some pay for it though bus fares.

What if we had a tax of ~$400 a year for everyone! So this money went towards paying for buses and reducing rego.

This way people who catch a bus half the time and drive the other half of the time pay once for transport, not twice. Currently if you own a car and catch a bus your paying for wear and tear on a road your car isnt driving on, in addition to a ticket you have to pay for.

The great outcome of this is then no tickets so people are more likely to catch buses, because they’ve already paid for them. Also the goverment saves by not having to produce a ticket system the only loss is the tourist traffic which you would think would be much smaller than what tickets would cost. Plus you’d get increased tourism. Faster buses because just fill up and move on without worrying about tickets.

Plus it means that those who choose to cycle on the roads get to pay for their bike lanes!
Also it would cost virtually nothing.

As someone who just rejoined the ranks of the car owners and has no local transport need for one:

1) Shopping at Aldi.
2) Trips to the coast.
3) Rainy days

And as noted once you have a car the cost per km goes down as you drive it more.

RedDogInCan said :

zippyzippy said :

Well, she’s right. Cars are damn expensive, and if the Government doesn’t provide other alternatives to car travel then it hurts people.

Ironically, making cars cheaper might actually reduce their use because it is the high fixed costs (depreciation, rego, insurance) that act as an incentive to drive more. Let me provide an example from my own car over the past 12 months:

$3227 Depreciation
$589 Insurance
$725 Registration

So that is $4541 per year before it even leaves the garage. The only way to get any value for that money is to drive it as much as possible. In the last 12 months I have travelled 17,800km, so my fixed costs work out at 26 cents per kilometre.

In addition, I used $1466 in fuel, which works out at just 8 cents per kilometre for fuel, giving a total of 34 cents per kilometre.

As my variable costs per kilometre are less than a third of my fixed costs per kilometre, there is a good incentive to drive more because it reduces the total cost per kilometre. The more I drive, the cheaper it gets. If the fixed costs were lower then it wouldn’t cost so much to leave the car in the garage.

In comparison, I also have a bicycle in the garage that costs around $20 per year in depreciation. I barely use it at all.

What you want is a city that has good enough transport that you can get by with as few cars as possible. Then you save all those costs. The way Canberra’s working at the moment, lots of people have to own two cars so they suffer all those costs you mentioned.

Ben_Dover said :

The statistics show that current policies are locking Canberrans into car ownership and car usage because of poor transport planning and a lack of alternative options.

Utter bullcrap and typical Greeny fantasy speak. People would still choose to use their cars even if the government laid on a public service of the highest luxury, with a guarantee of no sweaty pleb sharing your seat, which ran to the destination of your choice and dropped you at the door, and which departed every five minutes.

Man alive, that would be brilliant. I would never use a car if that was the case. In the very least I bet heaps of families would feel they no longer need to own more than one car. Heaps of savings there. If you had a brilliant PT system, that saved you costs, people would be using it – just as occurs in other places around the world. Canberrans aren’t stupid.

Soooo – she’s suggesting that, along with the costs associated with our cars, we should pay a lot more to provide a better public transport system?

Yeah. That’ll reduce living costs. No problems.

Or is she suggesting that we should build a public transport system that’s so good that we won’t need cars? That sounds like it wouldn’t cost much at all.

The statistics show that current policies are locking Canberrans into car ownership and car usage because of poor transport planning and a lack of alternative options.

Utter bullcrap and typical Greeny fantasy speak. People would still choose to use their cars even if the government laid on a public service of the highest luxury, with a guarantee of no sweaty pleb sharing your seat, which ran to the destination of your choice and dropped you at the door, and which departed every five minutes.

What cost of living pressures? The ABS stats show that we’re better off than we’ve ever been, that petrol eats up less of the family budget than it did 6 years ago, etc.

Henny penny bullsh1t as per usual from politicians of all stripes.

zippyzippy said :

Well, she’s right. Cars are damn expensive, and if the Government doesn’t provide other alternatives to car travel then it hurts people.

Ironically, making cars cheaper might actually reduce their use because it is the high fixed costs (depreciation, rego, insurance) that act as an incentive to drive more. Let me provide an example from my own car over the past 12 months:

$3227 Depreciation
$589 Insurance
$725 Registration

So that is $4541 per year before it even leaves the garage. The only way to get any value for that money is to drive it as much as possible. In the last 12 months I have travelled 17,800km, so my fixed costs work out at 26 cents per kilometre.

In addition, I used $1466 in fuel, which works out at just 8 cents per kilometre for fuel, giving a total of 34 cents per kilometre.

As my variable costs per kilometre are less than a third of my fixed costs per kilometre, there is a good incentive to drive more because it reduces the total cost per kilometre. The more I drive, the cheaper it gets. If the fixed costs were lower then it wouldn’t cost so much to leave the car in the garage.

In comparison, I also have a bicycle in the garage that costs around $20 per year in depreciation. I barely use it at all.

So if ‘transport’ costs don’t include fuel, what are we talking about? Parking, rego, mechanics, insurance?

Does the figure include car repayments, in which case the amount people pay is purely personal choice (One person’s ‘transport’ costs are going to be completely different to another person’s transport costs if one is driving a cheap hatchback and the other is driving a high end European sedan)? And if we’re not, what the heck are people doing to spend on average $275 per week on top of fuel costs?

The term ‘transport cost’ is unclear and generic, and can encompass everything or virtually nothing. Maybe someone can throw some light onto what is involved with ‘transport costs’.

Well, she’s right. Cars are damn expensive, and if the Government doesn’t provide other alternatives to car travel then it hurts people. Also if the city is just based around cars, then what about all those people who can’t drive because they’re elderly or disabled or whatever? No options.

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