Let’s do public transport properly

Waiting for a better public transport system - PTUA photograph

The seat of Melbourne is home to some of Victoria’s most critical – and iconic – public transport lines and hubs including Flinders Street Station, Southern Cross Station, the City Loop and Melbourne’s famous tram network.

But even within the Melbourne electorate, the public transport system is running down. At Newmarket station in peak period there were 18 trains to the city in 1929, and today there are 12. At South Kensington there were 16, but today there are 10. That pattern of rundown and neglect is true across the network.

The woeful state of the current system is unacceptable and immediate action is required. We need a public transport system that can respond to a growing population and offer a real alternative to car use.

The Greens have a six point plan to fix public transport:

1. End the failed privatisation experiment

Under privatisation, costs have dramatically increased, performance is appalling and planning is chaotic. No one is accountable for the system as a whole.

2. Establish a powerful, accountable Public Transport Authority (PTA)

The Greens will create a publicly accountable PTA modeled on successful agencies like Translink in Vancouver, ZVV in Zurich and Australia’s own Transperth.

3. Fix urgent problems

Expert task forces will act now to increase capacity, review ticketing, plan for expansion and establish the PTA.

4. Make public transport safe

Staff all train stations from first train to last, bring back tram conductors, fence rail lines and fix level crossings.

5. Extend rail and tram systems

Urgently extend the rail line from South Morang to Mernda, and tram routes to East Malvern Station, Doncaster Shoppingtown and Knox City. Double-track key lines, order more trains and make better use of the existing tram fleet.

6. Introduce ‘Swiss-style’ public transport for regional Victoria

Reform V/Line, order more high-speed trains, devise an integrated rail-bus network connecting regional Victorians to local, inter-regional and metropolitan destinations.

Public transport should be in public hands for the public good. The new Public Transport Authority will have the skills and experience needed to build great public transport. With a new agency, we can cut through the byzantine bureaucratic mess public transport users currently deal with, abolishing:

• Director of Public Transport and the Public Transport Division of the Department of Transport
• Transport Ticketing Authority
• VicTrack
• Metlink
• Public Transport Ombudsman
• Public Transport Customers Charter Consultative Committee

The new PTA aims to be small, smart and transparent. Public transport experts will be recruited from the best-performing agencies around the world, instead of re-assigning staff from the existing, failed bureaucracies. Based on the experience of Perth, Vancouver and Zurich, around 60 staff are required, including a dozen public transport experts. The PTA will hold public board meetings and seek community input into its plans. Public accountability is key.

Victoria has the potential for a world-class public transport system. It’s time to get started.

External Links:

• Six point plan to fix public transport
• Public transport a hot issue in Melbourne and Richmond
• Opposition pledges Doncaster rail line study

Hoddle Highway?

Hoddle Street beside Collingwood Town Hall

- just the other side of the Town Hall runs the Hurstbridge/Epping rail line

Each morning Hoddle Street is choked with traffic. The government has committed to a $5 million study “to investigate ways to improve the efficiency and reliability of all modes of transport along and across Hoddle Street from Eastern Freeway to just north of the M1 Freeway”.

Although the proposal is to improve "all modes of transport" the study is being conducted by VicRoads. The focus on Hoddle Street, separate from the other major transport routes with which it interrelates, suggests there will be a focus on cars and roads, rather than, for example, trains.

Close examination of the Project Description, which forms part of the Hoddle Street Study Scope document (downloadable from the home page of the Study) shows that the real purpose of this study is nothing other than roadworks. It is an engineering study to best carry out "grade separation" (ie flyovers and tunnels) along Hoddle Street:

Grade separating some of these junctions has the potential to improve the operation of Melbourne's central road system for cars, trams, buses and commercial vehicles.

The Government will allocate $5 million to commence engineering investigations to determine the feasibility of grade separating key junctions on Hoddle Street. A key element in these investigations will be to assess how disruption to traffic could best bee minimised during any construction works.

Rail will not be considered. Nor any other more imaginative options. It's just lots of road building. Disruption "to traffic" will be considered, but not to residents or parklands.

Each morning at peak hour Hoddle Street carries in total some 8000 vehicles. There is an average of 1.1 people per vehicle. Most of the traffic is heading into the city.

The best capacity roads can achieve is about 700 cars per hour per lane. Hoddle Street is already very close to that level of use, so the benefit from expensive grade separation is necessarily minimal.

Let's take a look at how people move in the area during the mornings at present:

People movement in Hoddle Street area

In addition to the 8000 cars along Hoddle Street, there are about 12,000 cars going along the cross streets. Along the cross streets, buses move about 4500 people at present. Trams move about 4200 people.

But the big people mover is rail. Trains in the vicinity of Hoddle Street move 80,000 people each morning. Whilst the cars sit in their traffic jams, fully loaded trains whisk by.

The train system has a lot of room for more efficiency - more frequent trains would get many more people into the city in less time. Those who have to travel by car would do so more easily.

Hoddle Street is crowded because cars are such an inefficient way to move people in numbers. The billions of dollars in upgrading Hoddle Street would be better spent upgrading the rail system.

And that's even before we've talked about peak oil or carbon emissions - or bicycles.

Residents certainly don't want this Hoddle Highway white elephant. It will mean using Yarra Park as a construction site for years, and major disruption to the local area. The Greens held a public meeting in the East Melbourne Library last week, with numbers overflowing the venue. The opposition was unanimous, well-informed and passionate.

We want imaginative solutions that deal with the real transport needs of Melbourne. The Greens' People Plan is a great start.

External Links

The People Plan

Kathleen Maltzahn's account of the Greens' East Melbourne public meeting

Hoddle Street Study