Article: Petrol tax rise urged to tackle traffic jams

[ozbob]

From the Brisbanetimes click here!

Petrol tax rise urged to tackle traffic jams

Petrol tax rise urged to tackle traffic jams
Andrew West
July 31, 2009

DELEGATES at the national Labor conference will hear a radical proposal today to ease congestion in Australia?s cities by imposing an extra 15.5 per cent tax on petrol ? with the proceeds spent directly on public transport.

Graham Currie, who holds Australia?s only academic chair in public transport, at Monash University in Melbourne, will tell delegates that Australia has passed a tipping point, with urban congestion soaking up 2.6 per cent of national gross domestic product.

??Congestion is now a major constraint on the economy and it is only getting worse,?? Professor Currie said.

??Our congestion is now the worst in the developed world and decades of federal government policy on transport has only increased the crisis. We have tried to build our way out of the problem, by constructing more and more freeways, and it is just not working.??

Professor Currie, who has been advising the Federal Government on mass transit, will also recommend a moratorium on federal funding of urban road projects in favour of investment in trains and outer suburban buses. He said that in Melbourne a planned rail tunnel would carry as many passengers as 24 new freeway lanes.

At 2.6 per cent of GDP, congestion costs are higher than the OECD average (2 per cent), and much higher than in the United States (1.5 per cent).

The raw statistics that Professor Currie will present are even more sobering, with congestion costing Australia $12.8 billion a year, projected to rise to $30 billion a year by 2015 without urgent action.

He said the Rudd Government?s initial investment in urban transport would be unsustainable without a dedicated source of funds such as a petrol levy or congestion tax.

??Any taxes we raise should go not into general revenue but specifically on public transport to meet the growing demand,?? he said. ??We have to have a new approach that is revolutionary.??

Professor Currie acknowledged that any new levy on petrol was politically sensitive at a time of growing unemployment, especially if it applied universally to motorists, including those in regional areas who did not contribute to urban congestion.

As an alternative, he suggested congestion taxes on major roads in built-up areas.

But the Australian representative of the International Association of Public Transport, Peter Moore, said it was possible to impose a levy on petrol without hurting rural motorists. He said the government could offer exemptions in the same way that it provided fuel excise relief to drivers in the bush.

Mr Moore will also draw on the example of the US President, Barack Obama, who has a plan to rebuild America?s interstate passenger rail services, and renew the call for a fast train between Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne.

He said that with nations trying to wean themselves off diminishing supplies of oil, the Rudd Government should commit itself to a high-speed rail corridor.

??A high-speed train would make it viable for people to commute to Sydney each day from Goulburn or even Canberra in 45 to 60 minutes, in the same way that Europeans commute to work in Brussels from Paris in 45 minutes,?? he said.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

[ButFli]

Yes this is definately something I would support.

Although for the system to be fair, the public transport needs to be funded in the same area the petrol was bought in. It would a bit rough to tax motorists in Emerald and only fund PT in SEQ. If there are no plans to fund PT in an area the servos there should not be taxed.

[Derwan]

An additional tax on petrol would be extremely unfair to people living outside the cities.  Why should they have to pay even MORE for the cities' public transport networks?

I much prefer the alternative option of a congestion tax.  This directly addresses the issue of congestion - charging only those who cause the congestion which in turn should reduce it - and providing funding for alternative transport options.

[#Metro]

My opinions are closer to that of Dewan. Toll people on when there is high congestion on those specific routes. There is GoVia and toll tags now so rolling it out would be feasible.

Taxing petrol would be easy to do technically, but almost politically impossible. The main point of controversy would be that these are public assets owned by the government, who is now charging a fee when previously they were free, without any extra service. There are potential equity issues too- what to do if you are impoverished and just happen to need your car to go into the CBD?

[Jon Bryant]

The solution is even easier than taxes on petrol or congestion. 

Assuming I am not talking about light commerical or trade trips, there are 2 key drivers to why people drive.  These are the availablity of both car parking spaces at their destination and the road capacity in between.  Restricting car parking availability/ncreasing cost can have one of the most significant impacts on motor vehicle travel (i.e. if people can not park at their destination they will look for alternatives...happily) See http://www.vtpi.org/park_man.pdf for reseach into car parking' role in traffic management.  Restricting the available road space whilst ramping up public and active transport options encourages people to take public transport, walk, ride, etc. first and people start to make sustainable transport decisions rather than the current priority given to those travelling the longest distance.  See also http://www.vtpi.org/documents/innovative.php for further information.

We urgently need to redirect road, tunnel and road-bridge spending towards public and active transport, reduce car parking availablity across the City (not just the CBD) and restrict the amount of road space for motor vehicle especially passenger cars.  These three aspects need to be managed well to to make sure as the capacity is reduce on the roads that the public/active transport can handle the volume increase/demand.

[#Metro]

I don't know if anyone has actually done a comparative study for Brisbane outlining and comparing the costs of road/rail/bus/ferry together.

We know how much trams will cost vs buses, but don't know how much buses + busways vs cars cost.