Public transport should drive our future

It seems the idea of public transport, the way Australians want it, has been lost. But for environmental and social reasons we should be investing in public transport infrastructure, because it is obvious our romance with the internal combustion engine is unsustainable.

Is using fossil fuel still too cheap? I believe it is however politically unacceptable it may be to say so. One cogent reason for promoting public transport is to reduce pollution. Australia has the highest greenhouse gas emissions per capita in the world, and the third highest per capita emissions resulting from transport. A major way to achieve a reduction in greenhouse gases should be by educating the populace to conserve energy.

No amount of alternative energy will fill the void if we believe it will totally replace fossil fuels. The idea of renewable energy in private vehicles, if it occurs, presents its own problems. Dr Fisher, Professor of Environmental Science at Monash University, has said, "If we intend to use renewables to power the extraction of hydrogen from water to drive future fuel cell powered cars, the implications for atmospheric disturbance are truly catastrophic". Sir Isaac Newton’s law will be proved right once again. "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

Another hypothetical question: Should we use agricultural land to harvest ethanol, so that one person in a machine roughly ten times their own weight can ferry themselves around for whatever fickle purpose? This fosters the notion that we will be able to continue along in the same old blasé manner with no thought given to energy conservation. We have been methodically conditioned not to use our legs. We become peeved if there is nowhere to park and we are forced to walk short distances. Children are driven to school. The end product is a reclusive, obese society tied to computers and cars.

The Warren Centre at Sydney University reports that 40 per cent of urban residents are below the physical activity levels recommended for good health. In its Sustainable Transport study it also supports public transport, and the concept of a very fast train. One encouraging trend emerged: The study showed people are willing to change their travel habits.

Fiscal parsimony contributes to future prosperity only when the savings are directed to productive investment, such as public transport. How can politicians maintain their fetish with bottom lines and being debt free when massive expenditure is going to be needed to resurrect essential infrastructure, for example the 19th century Menangle Bridge (a major rail link between Melbourne and Sydney) and the Casino railway line in northern NSW. We are on the cusp of an infrastructure disaster, with thousands more trucks plying roads that cannot cope with the load. Who will pay to repair those roads damaged by the trucks? Yes, you the local ratepayer or tenant. This is social theft, when just ten trains daily between Sydney and Melbourne could eliminate all articulated trucks.

In August, 2001 then NSW State Treasurer Michael Egan said the sale of NSW’s Freight Corp would assist funding a $6 billion rail upgrade. Where has the money gone? In the event, the government received only $365 million after transaction costs and the retiring of $245 million of debt had been taken into account.

We have been conditioned to believe the “car is king” and rail travel is only for the poor and desperate. But single commuter cars are socially isolating, highly inefficient and polluting - just think of Sydney. New land releases without public transport create major social problems. So does inadequate service in established areas.

A further major contributor to climate change is the aviation industry. Five million people fly around the globe each day. Within Australia some of that number could be substantially reduced by inter-city very fast trains.

Rail is still the most efficient and safe method of moving people. But how far are we now from Keynesianism, which advocated national investment to improve services for all Australians? I live in regional Goulburn and I detest coming to Sydney by car, but the trains are slow, often dirty, dilapidated and unreliable. I have sympathy for both the staff members - who have been subjected to a tedious campaign of demoralisation - as well as the ever suffering public.

As design failures in cities continue, so does smog density. Exhaust emissions cause respiratory problems. Unleaded fuel is full of carcinogens including benzene. It is an outright lie to suggest that more new roads are necessary for economic growth and job creation.

Who are the people using these encroaching strips of concrete? It is the wealthy, and those who have been displaced to exist in dormitory-like enclaves with no services or civic facilities. In the process prime farming land is often destroyed for which developers and the stamp duty office are highly grateful. The people left living adjacent to the traffic, and the stacks built to ensure that everyone in the inner-city gets their fair share of pollutants, are usually the urban poor, living in a degraded environment with poor public transport.

We could design areas for living that would allow us to do all the things we want to do over shorter distances. We could nurture local activities. Less space for traffic equates to more space for people. Look at pedestrian malls … obviously people enjoy them.

The European Union has capitulated to public pressure and initiated car free zones. More public transport, walkways and bicycle ways mean more high quality living areas close to where people want to live, less time spent in cars and more time for use of local facilities, which also means more local jobs. We need to redesign our environment from one that has brought mobility, status and the isolation of individuals, back to one of cohesion and unity. Never mind loving your neighbour. Just knowing who they are would be a good start.

Consecutive governments in this country have refused to acknowledge that climate change is occurring helped along by CO2 emissions exacerbated by poor public transport. Once again, it is the poor both here and internationally who will pay the price. More and more extreme weather events send our insurance premiums skyrocketing. Yet there is still no recognition of the reason why. (Maybe when Florida is ripped off the map the US will instruct Howard to sign the Kyoto Protocol.)

It is possible to have a strong economy with less reliability on oil, but corrupt politics will have to be dealt with first, and by people like us. The move away from fossil fuel dependency must be led by public utilities. The debacle of privatising them has been well documented - examples such as Enron, British Rail and more show they simply do not work. But they are good for shareholders, particularly when the taxpayer continues to subsidise them, as has happened with British Rail, which now receives more of the taxpayers’ money than it did before it was privatised.

Better systems do exist. My own experience on German rail was of trains that run regularly to almost everywhere. They are comfortable, always on time and are well patronised. The Germans take pride in their railways. Here, we are subtly discouraged from using them. The Germans have other public transport solutions, too. Small German villages are able to acquire a mini-bus to run as a community as a form of public transport, integrating into bigger feeder services, thereby solving the dilemma of rural transport.

Could Australia emulate them, with a socially inclusive, community-driven transport plan?

Our governments have perpetuated the problem of private transport and our dependence on it by subsidising roads and the tunnels that are so much in vogue. I see on TV each night views of Sydney traffic from a helicopter, graphically demonstrating the waste of it all. The selfishness of individuals all trying to go somewhere in their little tin boxes … no wonder road rage happens. An alternative practiced in Germany is the pooling of car ownership. It reduces the desire to own a car and alleviates the problem of vehicles standing idle for long periods.

Would Henry Ford have envisaged the resulting catastrophe of his mass production genius or Ben Chifley at the Holden launch here in 1948, where he expressed his desire ”I hope every Australian family will be able to own a motor car”. We have exceeded their wildest dreams. Our society revolves around the car and every year we pay more out of our household budget to sustain the habit. General Motors is spending $3 billion, gearing up to provide the Chinese with cars. Yet we are told that the world’s oil supply is finite.

Nonsensically, the price of new cars in Australia has come down, while the GST has increased public transport fares. Most European nations now recognise the benefits of public transport and attempt to keep taxes to a minimum. Tax incentives such as re-modelling the fringe benefit tax on company cars for using public transport should be initiated. Parking expenses could be exchanged for public transport vouchers. Car pooling expenses could be reimbursed. This has happened successfully in the US and Canada.

According to Newspoll 80 per cent of the public support improvement to public transport, yet the overwhelming majority of funds go to roads. We should forgo tax cuts for better public transport infrastructure. A transparent government would place these monies into a specific purpose fund.

In the 1970s political courage was exhibited with the farsighted purchase of the swing wing F111 aircraft for the RAAF, which is still in service. That foresight is again required for our transport system. We are told we can’t afford it. Really? We can afford war and $6 billion of new warships and I imagine we will find the money to participate in the US Starwars project.

The more energy we produce, the more we will use. Education to conserve is paramount. Would the reason for perpetuating unsustainable oil driven transport be to make some very rich people, very much richer?

Every dollar spent on our current primitive and third class rail systems is a dollar denied to a modern viable system that is competitive compared with air transport and that people will want to use. If the people lead, the leaders will follow. Public pressure is needed so that the most suitable options are selected in all public transport.

The question is: Can we afford not to have public transport?