Public and active transport are wonderful things when done right.  They make fast, efficient transport available to everyone, they keep our streets and suburbs free from congestion, they insulate us from the steadily and inevitably rising price of fuel, they help protect our climate by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, they save us the aggravation of sitting in grid-locked traffic, and they keep us healthy when we travel about under our own steam.

Despite these benefits, in Queensland we persist with throwing money at expensive and ineffectual road projects while neglecting the sustained investment in public and active transport that is required if we expect people to choose these options over their cars.  In the past ten years, Queensland has spent more than twice as much on roads as we have on railways, harbours and bridges combined[1].  And some of this expenditure has been counter-productive – the Go Between Bridge, for example, has increased some motorists' travel time by six minutes at a cost of $338 mil[2].  Clem 7 has gone broke.  Any benefits from the various other tunnels under construction remain to be seen.

At the same time, we encourage urban sprawl, creating new urban areas that are far from services, expensive to service adequately with new public transport links, and where residents have no option but to drive.

So it is small wonder that many of us find ourselves living in areas where public transport services are too infrequent, or too slow and indirect, or full during peak times, or there is no adequate cycling infrastructure that permits us to cycle safely out of traffic.

The Greens would turn all of this around.  We take a long-term view of transport solutions and would rebalance public expenditure on transport in favour of public and active transport.  We would introduce more transport links that move around the city, rather than always requiring passengers to travel into the city and then back out.  Our urban development policies would contain urban sprawl and ensure development occurs along transport corridors.  If road charges are necessary, we would apply them to the roads that are congested rather than the roads that are supposed to ease congestion as occurs presently.

Of course, existing roads need to be maintained and some rural and regional areas can not sensibly be serviced by public transport.  But let's not continue making cars the focus of our transport expenditure in our urban areas where we can do so much better.


[1]Australia's public transport: investment for a clean transport future, Australian Conservation Foundation, April 2011.

[2]'Go Between Bridge junction creates traffic bottlenecks on busy roads', Courier Mail, 29 September 2010.

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