Yarra Campaign for Action on Transport

With the rail system in crisis (again), now is the time to remind the government that they must be accountable.

Despite polls showing people would prefer more money be spent on public transport than roads, the government is planning massive expansion of the motorway system under the most recent transport plan. Meanwhile our rail system is falling apart, and most of Melbourne has no usable public transport. The government is clearly not listening.

Tuesday 3rd February is the first sitting day of parliament for the year. A coalition of community groups, led by the Victorian Water Forum, is holding a rally to call on the Brumby government to listen to the people and provide real solutions on water, climate change and public transport. PTUA is supporting this call, and will be attending.

WHAT: Stop the Brumby Government riding roughshod over our rights.
WHEN: Tuesday 3rd February Arriving at 11.30 am. Speakers begin at Midday.
WHERE: Parliament House, Bourke + Spring Sts, Melbourne.
WHY: Bring back democracy.

Come along to the front steps of Parliament in your lunch hour and stand up for better public transport and real action on climate change.

• Info on web via PTUA
• Facebook members: Show your attendance on Facebook

Thanks,
Daniel Bowen
Public Transport Users Association

City of Yarra - Media Release: Yarra rejects Hoddle Street overpass proposal (10 December 2008)*

Proposed multiple overpasses on Hoddle Street would only worsen gridlock on the arterial and create local eyesores, the City of Yarra said today. City of Yarra Mayor Cr Amanda Stone said the local community would be horrified with the Government’s proposed “spaghetti” solution to fixing congestion along Hoddle Street.

“I would anticipate that we are going to work hard as a community in the next 12 months to make sure that the overpass plan meets the same fate as the now-dumped East-West road tunnel proposal,” Cr Stone said.

“The City of Yarra is working to develop Hoddle Street into a boulevard and then the government comes out with a proposal that would only make it even more of a traffic sewer,” she said.

“We don’t want concrete eyesores plonked along one of our main arterials, with no consideration for how they impact on our residents’ visual amenity or how they create physical divisions between our communities.

“Melbourne cannot build its way out of congestion through creating new roads.

“Research as well as real life has shown us again and again that new road projects might work for a while, but in the long term, you end up with roads just as congested as what you started with.

“The only lasting solution to traffic congestion comes when you create real public transport alternatives.” [Read more →]

The Age: Can Spring Street deliver on transport plan? (December 29, 2008)

In the first 24 hours after its release, the Victorian Transport Plan received generally positive coverage. However, the combination of a bad week on Melbourne’s road and rail networks plus a closer examination of the detail of the plan has led to significant criticism.

Some of that criticism has come from the usual suspects in the public transport lobby who would have condemned the plan if it contained a cent of road funding. In fact, the funding balance between road and rail is not the problem.

Its credibility suffers from three factors: the muddled way it was developed; its reliance on uncommitted federal funding; and the fact that after nine years in office this Government is running out of trust.

The plan’s development began when the Government’s 2006 transport plan, Meeting our Transport Challenges, needed a mechanism to keep the possibility of an east-west road tunnel off the agenda until Labor had held off the Greens’ challenge to its inner-urban seats at the 2006 state and 2007 federal elections. [Read more →]

Leader Newspapers: State Government’s $38b transport plan - what it means for your area (December 10, 2008)

Premier John Brumby unveiled his government’s strategy to ease the squeeze on Melbourne’s roads and public transport system - a $38 billion blueprint over the next 12 years. The long-term plan is aimed at alleviating Melbourne’s crowded public transport infrastructure and upgrading road and rail services in Melbourne’s outer suburbs. Projects are due to be completed by 2021.

Leader revealed the Epping train line would finally be extended to South Morang by 2013. Since then we have covered elements of the announcement at a local level across the city. And there has been plenty of reaction.

See how communities have responded and what’s planned for your area. [Read more →]

The Age: Tunnel mooted to fix Hoddle traffic (22 December, 2008)

A four-kilometre road tunnel from the MCG to the Eastern Freeway is among key recommendations in a report into fixing traffic jams on Hoddle Street, commissioned by the Brumby Government.

The $1.5 billion tunnel concept is in a report by engineers GHD, which was commissioned by the Department of Premier and Cabinet as it developed its recent transport statement. The report will feed into a $5 million study to be completed by VicRoads next year into how to improve traffic conditions on Hoddle Street.

The proposed road tunnel would start at the Punt Road Oval in Richmond and end at the entrance to the Eastern Freeway in Collingwood, running 18 metres beneath Hoddle Street. It would remove 17 sets of traffic lights, and cut the average journey on Hoddle Street by 12 per cent, the report says.

The project would shut part of the MCG’s car park for at least two years, for use as a construction site. The Government, in its transport plan, said it would investigate “the feasibility of grade separating key junctions on Hoddle Street”. [Read more →]

GAMUT has published short talks given at a forum responding to the Victorian Transport Plan.

You can listen to short podcasts from these speakers:

• Tony Morton (Public Transport Users Association)
• Jo Connellan (Metropolitan Transport Forum)
• Mark Wakeham Environment Victoria
• Cath Smith (Victorian Council of Social Service)
• Natalie Zirngast Coalition of Transport Action Groups
• Jason Black Planning Institute of Australia
• Alex Makin Eastern Transport Coalition
• Liz Boulton Logistick Pty Ltd
• Janet Rice Prominent Resident
• Brian Walters SC Protectors of Public Lands

GAMUT is a collaborative research centre dedicated to sustainable urban transport.