14 July 2008

Last chance for public comment on Eddington ..

Tuesday 15 July is the deadline for the public to comment on the recommendations of Sir Rod Eddington’s East West transport study.
We’ve made it easy to have your say by email – simply click here and you’ll be taken our website where you can send an email to Sir Rod and all the relevant MPs simultaneously.
Your say could make a big difference because the government has started preparing a new transport plan for Melbourne for release later this year – the plan that it will take to the next state election!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

The population of Melbourne is growing and the people need transport. This growth is not sustainable if more effective forms of public transport are not made available.Radical improvements are needed to enable people and freight to be moved efficiently.Creating more roads tends to increase traffic. Graphic evidence of this is noted this week with the free use of East Link resulting in a 5% traffic increase at the end of the Eastern Freeway. (The Age, 12/7/08) Surely this is not a desirable outcome!
People will use public transport if it is provided and as petrol becomes more expensive.
This is a justice issue. Some of the poorest parts of outer Melbourne are the least well-served for public transport.
Yours sincerely
Miriam Pope

Anonymous said...

As a public health physician I support getting people out of cars (where they are sedentary) and onto public transport (where there is usually a walk at each end).

As a member of "Doctors for the Environment" I support better public transport as a way of minimizing greenhouse gases.

We do not need more freeways or tunnels; we need better public transport options.

Please make sensible decisions for the sake of future generations.

Anonymous said...

Melbourne is growing and more people need transport. With concern about climate change and rising petrol prices, Melbourne's growth is not sustainable without more and better public transport.Victorians want more people catching public transport, cycling and walking; fewer trucks on our roads, more freight on rail; and fewer kilometres travelled by car and truck.Public transport should: be fast, frequent, reliable, affordable and safe; grow as Melbourne grows; be available to all Melbournians; and be managed as an integrated, co-ordinated network.This means bringing forward existing public transport projects, committing to new projects and accelerating programs to move freight off our roads and onto rail.It also means looking very closely at the impact on greenhouse gas emissions of any new transport projects like tunnels and freeways.If public transport and facilities walking and cycling are dramatically improved, and there are powerful incentives to reduce car and truck trips, it is likely that traffic volumes will decrease over the next 30 years despite population growth.

Anonymous said...

I wish to register my opposition to the proposed road and rail tunnels mooted in the Eddington Report. These projects would be massively resource-intensive, yet miss the mark in the effort to reduce traffic congestion, improve public transport quality, frequence and range, and encourage the use of non-carbon-emitting transport options.
Spend the money instead on improving and extending public transport, including providing quality, safe and fast train services to the outer suburbs, addressing the peak hour (in)capacity problems currently besetting the system, improving the interface between cycling and public transport (better secure bike parking facilities at stations and tram hub points; marked train carriages where bikes can be carried; expanded bike path and bike lane networks linking to public transport), and reintroducing conductors.
"Solutions" which focus on encouraging the expanded use of private vehicles are designed to fail. They will encourage further traffic congestion, and will exacerbate the problem of global warming.
In addition, the proposed road tunnel would:
* merely relocate traffic congestion, without reducing it;
* cause huge environmental damage to important parkland areas;
* reduce social amenity for those who use the parkland areas;
* be insanely expensive.
Melbourne's growth is not sustainable without more and better public transport. Government policy and strategy should aim for more people catching public transport, cycling and walking; fewer trucks on our roads, more freight on rail; and fewer kilometres travelled by car and truck.
Public transport should: be fast, frequent, reliable, affordable and safe; grow as Melbourne grows; be available to all Melbournians; and be managed as an integrated, co-ordinated network.
This means bringing forward existing public transport projects, committing to new projects and accelerating programs to move freight off our roads and onto rail.
It also means looking very closely at the impact on greenhouse gas emissions of any new transport projects like tunnels and freeways.
If public transport and facilities for walking and cycling are dramatically improved, and there are powerful incentives to reduce car and truck trips, it is likely that traffic volumes will decrease over the next 30 years despite population growth.

Anonymous said...

Melbourne does not need another road tunnel or another toll way half as much as it needs a greater and immediate investment in public transport infrastructure and personnel. It needs MORE buses, newer buses, MORE trams, MORE trains and MORE railway lines.

The existing buses, many of them over 30 years old, are rapidly becoming unsafe. I have in the last year traveled on one on which the brakes failed, causing a crash in Johnston Street, Collingwood, which was fortunate not to have caused a fatality.

The trams (appallingly engineered and unsafe because there is nothing for people to hold onto as they jar to a stop) are overcrowded and need to be supplemented with trams which:
a) do not require passengers to balance without having something to steady themselves with like the appalling French version on the Box Hill line b)have a greater number of seats than the dreadful German model

Trains need to be more frequent and better maintained, not less comfortable. Ms Kosky in particular should note that train carriages without seats are generally referred to as cattle trucks and there are nasty historical associations implicit in the suggestion that humans should be transported in such a way to work.

In order to encourage public transport use and discourage car use train stations need to be staffed, and tickets need to be easily purchased either at tram, train and bus stops or on the buses, trains and trams.

In an era of petrol shortage and global warming, it is economically and environmentally stupid to persist in making car travel more attractive than public transport.

Politicians will NEVER have a better time than now to take the public with them in investing in PUBLIC TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE AND PERSONNEL, so for goodness sake, ditch the tunnels and toll ways and Get On With It.

Anonymous said...

Some suggestions:
• Provide real time "next service" information at every bus, tram and train stop. Either by electronic display or an interim solution similar to tramtracker. Not knowing when the next service is due discourages public transport use - the fear of the unknown.
• Concentrate on improving existing services first before any big bang infrastructure outlays.
• Any privatisation of a new "public transport" railway shouldn't be used as an excuse to increase public transport fares.
• Abolish ticket sales on buses. Slow passengers, especially elderly, delay buses as they fumble for change. Allow free bus travel at non peak times for seniors. Mandate the pre-purchasing of fares at peak times mandatory. I've witnessed numerous bus drivers allow passengers on for free to "speed up boarding" during busy peak times anyway.
• When new trams and trains are purchased some real thinking regarding their ergonomics. Some of today's modern trams are seriously flawed in their design.
• Don't waste time fumbling on some ticketing solution. Reconsider the re-introduction of tram conductors.
• Prioritise bus and tram traffic flow by manipulation of traffic control signals.
• Lastly and most obviously: more services, especially servicing the outer suburbs during non peak times

Anonymous said...

I am writing to express my opposition to the Eddington Study's recommendations regarding the need for more road- building projects in Melbourne, particularly the $10 billion road tunnel proposed for Alexandra Pde. This tunnel is a preposterous waste of public money which will worsen congestion and create more pollution, including greenhouse emissions. It is well known that more roads only generate more traffic and that the only proven way to relieve congestion is to provide safe, efficient and frequent public transport. This should be the government's priority, not building more roads.

Unfortunately Melbourne is lagging behind on public transport, despite the fact that substantial improvements are so urgently needed. Instead we have incompetent private operators pulling in huge profits for running second rate services while the government looks the other way. This is nowhere near good enough and the tokenistic nods to public transport in the Eddington report seem to come from the same mentality.

Clearly people living in Melbourne's outer suburbs are crying out for better services. It is grossly unfair that public funds should be invested in roads while most people in this city do not have the choice of using public transport. With the cost of petrol rising, it is unjustifiable to commit billions of dollars to road projects which will trap some of Melbourne's poorest people into car dependency and social isolation.

As a health professional, I am very much aware of how car dependency contributes to obesity, trauma and respiratory disease. Given our medical knowledge of the detrimental effects of car based transport, it is irresponsible to invest in road projects which will worsen these effects and do severe damage to the health of communities across Melbourne.

I am deeply concerned about congestion, social equity and health but above and beyond all of these is the threat of climate change. I cannot understand how such a serious challenge can be treated so dismissively by the Eddington Report. We need governments to invest in infrastructure which will facilitate the move to a zero-carbon society, not continuous reruns of 1960s LA car culture.

The road tunnel will directly lead to a disastrous increase in emissions and must be rejected. There can be no justification for spending $10 billion, unless it is on new rail services to the outer suburbs. Converting Melbourne back into a city dominated by public transport is the only known way we can reduce our greenhouse emissions to avert runaway climate change. The Eddington Report is fundamentally flawed and must be rejected.

Anonymous said...

I am fervently opposed to and will not support the emphasis on or the intent to construct new freeways as outlined in the Eddington Report, specifically the proposed east-west extensions and tunnel.
This money needs to be spent on developing viable and sustainable public transport and electric rail based freight transport. I do not support the proposed bus transit station/park and ride facility at Victoria Park in its current form – that for buses using fossil fuels. I would support a Bus transit Station for natural gas buses but never park and ride. This is a good concept but Victoria Park is too close to the city. The promised rail link to Doncaster needs to proceed – with park & ride facilities at the end of the line.
I believe roads are a significant climate change issue and been federal Labor promised new leadership but this emphasis on roads is not the leadership I was hoping for.

Anonymous said...

I write to you as a concerned citizen of Victoria living in Box Hill North, as well a a concerned citizen of the world thinking about the impacts of cliimate change.

I invite the state government to consider good transport planning in the form of a proper public transport strategy; not a roads strategy. If the state government emulated models of planning and public transport in cities of similar population or density in Switzerland and Canada it would see that the smart way ahead is coordianted public transport - intermodal and planned to be timely and intersecting.

More roads (and tunnels) simply try to put a band-aid onto a road system already out of control and also fuels the idea that somehow (despite the oil crises) that road transport is preferable and sustainable into the future.

We know this is not the case.

Please revise the plan giving public tranport emphasis - not just lip-service.

Anonymous said...

Parts of J J Holland Park in Kensington and Royal Park in Parkville are not the only community amenities that could be subsumed by road works indicated in Sir Rod Eddington’s East West Link Needs Assessment


Long road ramps to the proposed tunnel in deep excavations in Alexandra Parade and Queens Parade will sever the communities of Collingwood, Clifton Hill and North Fitzroy.

Anonymous said...

I agree with the majority of the previous comments in the following points

1. Melbourne needs to invest more in public transport
2. Melbourne needs more railway lines to outer suburbs with little or no public transport

I also support Recommendation 1 of the Eddington report, the Melbourne Metro rail tunnel that will run between footscray and caulfield. This is because:

1. The tunnel links up to caufield and footscray, meaning it provides an alternate route for trains to travel to the city, which has the potential to increase capacity on several lines including frankston, cranbourne, packenham, as some of these trains can travel through the tunnel to the city instead of the traditional way through to south yarra and then to richmond station. This has a follow on effect of increasing capacity for the sandringham line, as if less lines are using the route from south yarra station to the city then more can from this line. The same goes for the north western suburbs, as services from syndemham could travel through the tunnel, this will reduce congestion along the traditional city loop route (through north melbourne station) for other railway lines.

2. The proposal allows for subways in the Carlton/footscray area, which have none no train stations, this is significant as
(a) This area is a significant education and health hub, with several hospitols and the University of Melbourne
(b) This will reduce pressure on overcrowded trams in the area.

3. The tunnel will service the stkilda rd district (and southbank), which currently, despite its population has no railway acsess.

I believe that at least 50% of any transport funding should go to public transport, especially the tunnel between footscray and caulfield, however I also believe a railway line should be built in the north eastern suburbs, such as the proposed doncaster line.