18 Nov 2012: SEQ: Road Revolution highlights failure ...

[ozbob]

Media release 18 November 2012

SEQ: Road Revolution highlights failure with State and Local Transport Planning

RAIL Back On Track (http://backontrack.org) a web based community support group for rail and public transport and an advocate for public transport passengers says South East Queensland's (SEQ) 'Road Revolution' highlights failure with State and Local Planning Laws and failure with transport planning generally.

Robert Dow, Spokesman for RAIL Back On Track said:

"All the pontificating over better traffic projections, lower bidding costs and minimising over-bidding will not change the underlying reality that building more road capacity only encourages the existing population to drive more."

"The American economist Anthony Downs put forward this hypothesis more than four decades ago.  He called this idea the 'fundamental law of highway congestion'."

"Two Canadian economists, Gilles Duranton and Matthew Turner (1), recently empirically analysed the relationship between road building and traffic volumes and came to a very sobering conclusion 'A one percent increase in roads leads to a one percent increase in traffic within less than ten years. In other words, if you double the road infrastructure, car traffic also doubles very quickly'."

"It is important to note that the economists made sure that their results were not driven by regional economic activity, population growth or other socio-economic factors."

"Duranton and Turner also addressed the question of 'What exactly causes the additional traffic?' and noted 'the most important factor is that people change their driving behaviour'. A better road network induces people to drive more. That areas with better roads attract new residents turns out to be less important."

"Given the SEQ Regional Plan (2), SEQ Transport Plan (3) and BCC City Plan Strategy (4) all seek to 'reduce car usage' the construction of the toll roads was in direct contradiction of these plans as will be any future toll roads".

"The funding failures of the tunnels and toll roads pales into insignificance when compared to their actual construction delivering the exact opposite outcome than those stated by both Brisbane City Council and the State Government."

References:

1. The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US Cities - http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.6.2616

2. SEQ Regional Plan – Page 11 - http://www.dsdip.qld.gov.au/resources/plan/seq/regional-plan-2009/seq-regional-plan-2009.pdf

3. Connecting SEQ 2031- Page 7 - http://www.connectingseq.qld.gov.au/

4. BCC City Plan 2000 – Chapter 2, Page 11 - http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/bccwr/lib181/chapter2.pdf

Contact:

Robert Dow
Administration
admin@backontrack.org
RAIL Back On Track http://backontrack.org

[ozbob]

Discussion roads --> http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=4767.msg112795#msg112795

[ozbob]

Media release 18 November 2012 re-released 19 February 2013

SEQ: Road Revolution highlights failure with State and Local Transport Planning

RAIL Back On Track (http://backontrack.org) a web based community support group for rail and public transport and an advocate for public transport passengers says South East Queensland's (SEQ) 'Road Revolution' highlights failure with State and Local Planning Laws and failure with transport planning generally.

Robert Dow, Spokesman for RAIL Back On Track said:

"All the pontificating over better traffic projections, lower bidding costs and minimising over-bidding will not change the underlying reality that building more road capacity only encourages the existing population to drive more."

"The American economist Anthony Downs put forward this hypothesis more than four decades ago.  He called this idea the 'fundamental law of highway congestion'."

"Two Canadian economists, Gilles Duranton and Matthew Turner (1), recently empirically analysed the relationship between road building and traffic volumes and came to a very sobering conclusion 'A one percent increase in roads leads to a one percent increase in traffic within less than ten years. In other words, if you double the road infrastructure, car traffic also doubles very quickly'."

"It is important to note that the economists made sure that their results were not driven by regional economic activity, population growth or other socio-economic factors."

"Duranton and Turner also addressed the question of 'What exactly causes the additional traffic?' and noted 'the most important factor is that people change their driving behaviour'. A better road network induces people to drive more. That areas with better roads attract new residents turns out to be less important."

"Given the SEQ Regional Plan (2), SEQ Transport Plan (3) and BCC City Plan Strategy (4) all seek to 'reduce car usage' the construction of the toll roads was in direct contradiction of these plans as will be any future toll roads".

"The funding failures of the tunnels and toll roads pales into insignificance when compared to their actual construction delivering the exact opposite outcome than those stated by both Brisbane City Council and the State Government."

References:

1. The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US Cities - http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.6.2616

2. SEQ Regional Plan – Page 11 - http://www.dsdip.qld.gov.au/resources/plan/seq/regional-plan-2009/seq-regional-plan-2009.pdf

3. Connecting SEQ 2031- Page 7 - http://www.connectingseq.qld.gov.au/

4. BCC City Plan 2000 – Chapter 2, Page 11 - http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/bccwr/lib181/chapter2.pdf

Contact:

Robert Dow
Administration
admin@backontrack.org
RAIL Back On Track http://backontrack.org