Millions of Australians face the daily frustration of delayed commutes, particularly on busy motorways. But as governments spend billions continually upgrading roads, experts say that might not be the best solution.
You can’t toll everything. You need to address the root cause, push for working from home and make public transport accessible and cheap. Otherwise you have a bunch of people driving through local south Brisbane thoroughfares because there’s no tolls, causing massive congestion.
I’m definitely not against adding more public transport or pushing working from home but that’s not really going to help with traffic unless you also control population growth because you’ll just have more demand. Look around at other cities the only ones that don’t have large amounts of peak hour congestion have tolling arrangements or some sort of car usage restriction.
Could you provide some examples? Demand is demand to get to a destination. If public transport is effectively run and managed, it may be the better option for a lot of people. You are right though, but to ask another question, would you support making those roads smaller with toll monies? I could imagine this ending up with roads only being used by the rich type thing.
Demand is demand to get to a destination. If public transport is effectively run and managed, it may be the better option for a lot of people.
Over a short timeframe yes demand is demand and it’s not going to change much but people also move to different areas and a big consideration would be the difficulty and time of the commute. What that ends up meaning is any reducing in demand on an individual road will likely just mean people moving to take advantage of that.
You are right though, but to ask another question, would you support making those roads smaller with toll monies? I could imagine this ending up with roads only being used by the rich type thing.
What’s the appeal in making it smaller? I could understand that in the concept of maybe converting some into rail or other public transit infrastructure. Generally I think commuting to work in large CBD by car already has become a “rich type” thing with the cost of parking I think focus should just be more on having good alternatives.
Tolls just shift the car population from one road to another. It doesn’t keep the car off the road in the first place.
That’s true but more an argument why we need more consistent tolling not to mention more congestion pricing.
You can’t toll everything. You need to address the root cause, push for working from home and make public transport accessible and cheap. Otherwise you have a bunch of people driving through local south Brisbane thoroughfares because there’s no tolls, causing massive congestion.
I’m definitely not against adding more public transport or pushing working from home but that’s not really going to help with traffic unless you also control population growth because you’ll just have more demand. Look around at other cities the only ones that don’t have large amounts of peak hour congestion have tolling arrangements or some sort of car usage restriction.
Could you provide some examples? Demand is demand to get to a destination. If public transport is effectively run and managed, it may be the better option for a lot of people. You are right though, but to ask another question, would you support making those roads smaller with toll monies? I could imagine this ending up with roads only being used by the rich type thing.
There’s plenty examples on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing
Over a short timeframe yes demand is demand and it’s not going to change much but people also move to different areas and a big consideration would be the difficulty and time of the commute. What that ends up meaning is any reducing in demand on an individual road will likely just mean people moving to take advantage of that.
What’s the appeal in making it smaller? I could understand that in the concept of maybe converting some into rail or other public transit infrastructure. Generally I think commuting to work in large CBD by car already has become a “rich type” thing with the cost of parking I think focus should just be more on having good alternatives.