The east-west smog factory should never be built
Why does the RACV support this folly?
From Brendan Gleeson, professor of urban policy studies and director of the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute at Melbourne University.
The east-west road link, if built, will be a planning disaster for Melbourne. It fails most major planning tests and flies in the face of overwhelming urban science that shows we can never build our way out of congestion.<
An international urban consensus now regards massive road building as massive folly: not on moral grounds, but because it simply doesn’t work.
And the east-west link scorns the urgent need to decarbonise our cities in the face of a species emergency, global warming. Other cities and nations will judge us severely for building this smog factory in a time of planetary crisis.
The link’s damage will extend far beyond Melbourne. It will harm the entire state by reducing resources for public investment for many years. The first stage will cost at least $6 billion. The full project cost will be much more. Continue Reading…
