Carbon tax a spur for urban renewal

The intra city rail transport systems in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne have suffered several decades of neglect but what is needed now is to revitalize their local rail systems so that they meet the travel demands of their residents but in such a way as it facilitates connection with the inter city services. Major emerging cities like the Gold Coast and Canberra suffer from a lack of a good rail transport spine to connect with the inter-city rail system as it is refurbished and developed.

The strategy should be to:

1. Develop the rail network spines of the Gold coast and Canberra so that they each provide connection for the development of a fast train system connecting the eastern seaboard cities. These developments could be undertaken quickly.
2. Begin the development of the fast train system between Brisbane-Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne realigning the track and improving gradients where necessary but on the understanding that this is a preliminary stage to developing a high speed rail passenger service to connect the centres of the major cities and regional centres on the eastern seaboard.
3. Develop the rail freight system between the three major east coast ports to improve the efficiency of industry and of trade.

The improvements cannot come overnight but a sensible national development plan could achieve much of what is needed over a five year period.

The Carbon tax initiative is important in helping us reshape fundamental aspects of the nation’s economy.

Infrastructure Australia has been charged with the responsibility of reshaping the nation’s infrastructure but has not demonstrated that it understands what that might mean and has produced little to justify the trust placed in it.

The new opportunities opened up by the government’s carbon tax initiative gives Infrastructure Australia the responsibility to show, on the ground, how the larger diagram and aspiration for the nation embodied in the Prime Minister’s statement on the restructuring of our economy can be/must be pursued in both water services and transport.

We do not want to undergo all the pain and travail the carbon tax entails without some tangible evidence that it is all worthwhile.