June | 2013 | Yarra Campaign for Action on Transport

Home
/
Archive for: June, 2013

The Fake Consultation Begins

Standard - by chrisg - June 23, 2013 - No Comments

The Linking Melbourne Authority has begun its fake consultation.

As we were warned at the meeting, the project proponent has opened a forum where the “conversations” are all about aspects of the decision to build a road tunnel, but not the decision itself.

At the trains not toll roads launch, Dr Sophie Starup, who’s studies transport mega-projects warned that:

To question a sovereign decision is to question the right of the sovereign to make the decision.
Sovereign Decisions once take are not subject to question – especially not by rational debate
The sovereign will only chnage a decision if the right to do so is established by a higher power – you the voters.

The “Conversations” are controlled by the Authority. You can’t add your own conversation – like questioning whether the road should be built instead of a train line. Continue Reading…

Vale Paul Mees

Standard - by chrisg - June 21, 2013 - No Comments

Vale Paul Mees, a courageous champion of the truth who dared to challenge the ‘liars and cheats who should be in jail’, as he famously described the incompetent and dishonest cabal who have ruined our transport system. Paul was a visionary who believed in reason and made iron-tight cases that, in an age of spin, his opponents could only ignore.

That they have done so has made Melbourne a far worse city. If Paul’s arguments had been followed, the billions that we have wasted on privatisation and grandiose road projects would have been invested to the city’s long term benefit. At least three new major rail lines would be up and running; all with buses connecting to the train services. These same principles guide transport planning in cities with successful transit systems, hence Paul’s expertise was highly valued outside of Melbourne.

Melbourne is poorly placed to meet the challenges of peak oil and climate change and continues to place its faith in self-defeating mega-road projects. At a time when our political and business leaders still do not see the urgency of change, this city cannot afford to lose its greatest advocate for practical and economic approaches to transport.

John Cox, Yangon, Myanmar

Vale Dr Paul Andrew Mees (1961-2013)

Standard - by admin - June 20, 2013 - 1 Comment

Dr Paul Mees has passed away after a 15 month battle with cancer. Here is his pre-recorded message to last weeks Trains Not Toll Roads Campaign Launch at Fitzroy Town Hall.

Paul was a fearless public transport advocate & a Melbourne legend. Public Transport Users Association Secretary 1987-91 and President 1993-2001.

The Age: Mees dies following battle with cancer (20 June 2013)

Melbourne transport and planning expert Paul Mees has died following a 15-month battle with cancer. Professor Mees, who taught at RMIT, was aged 52 and died on Wednesday in a Melbourne hospital.

An international authority in his field, Professor Mees for more than two decades repeatedly embarrassed Victorian transport operators and authorities with his research and commentary on the state’s road, rail and urban planning systems. Most recently, he had questioned the Napthine government’s proposed east-west tunnel, arguing there was little substantial research behind the $6-8 billion project.

A former industrial lawyer, Professor Mees was the president of the Public Transport Users Association from 1992 to 2001. In 1998, he began teaching urban planning at Melbourne University – only to fall out with the university a decade later after it demoted him following a complaint against him by the state government. The PTUA’s president Tony Morton said on Wednesday night that Professor Mees had for many years “personified the transport debate in Victoria, and called successive governments to account for their neglect of public transport”.