Falling car use is one of the most important trends in infrastructure and it should be discussed more than it is by decision makers, an infrastructure summit has been told. Craig Abraham

AFR: ‘Peak car’ makes building freeways risky by Geoff Winestock (11 June 2015)

A worldwide trend away from driving cars should make investors and governments more cautious about building big new motorways, says John Daley, chief executive of the Grattan Institute.

Mr Daley told The Australian Financial Review Infrastructure Summit that falling car use was one of the most important trends in infrastructure and it should be discussed more than it was by decision makers.

“We should be very careful about the assumption that road usage is going to keep rising in the future at the same rate as it has in the past,” Mr Daley said.

The most recent Bureau of Transport Infrastructure and Regional Economics data suggested passenger kilometres travelled was falling or stable, he said. This was in line with global trends, which suggested a significant change was happening in all developed countries. It was confirmed by other measures, such as falling car ownership, people obtaining drivers licenses later and fewer people having drivers licences. Continue Reading…