Roads blocked by car haters, MELBOURNE is being choked by something worse than traffi

[omn1potent]

Roads blocked by car haters
Article from: Andrew Bolt

April 04, 2008 12:00am

MELBOURNE is being choked by something worse than traffic. Try stupidity - an unthinking gut-hatred of cars.

We see that stupidity in full shame in this fierce opposition to Sir Rod Eddington's main proposal this week to ease the city's growing gridlock.

And guess the usual suspects.

Hint: which kind of back-to-the-caves fools were also against the dredging of the bay's shipping channels, new dams for the dusty city and new coal supplies for our biggest power plant?

Which so loves the idea of our state going to a new Dark Age that they even campaigned for just that with Saturday's Earth Hour?

The biggest of the 20 ideas Rod Eddington put in his report for the Brumby Government was an 18km tunnel from the end of the Eastern Freeway, at Clifton Hill, to the western suburbs and the Western Ring Road.

Yes, it will cost as much as $9 billion, but no rational person could deny that this - or at least something like another bridge over the Maribyrnong River - is so critical that work on it should have started yesterday.

After all, the only real mass-traffic route at the moment from the city to the western suburbs and on to Geelong is over the West Gate Bridge, which gives us two big problems.

First, the bridge is already so clogged that peak-hour traffic usually slows to a crawl, with cars and trucks backed up for kilometres. The average peak-hour speed over it has halved in the past decade to just 40km/h.

And peak hour isn't the only time of trouble now.

I drove to the airport from the eastern suburbs at 3pm on a Friday last month, and the West Gate congestion was already so bad that the traffic was down to walking pace all the way up the Monash Freeway to Toorak Rd.

I hadn't seen a snarl like that even when I lived in Bangkok.

This will only get worse, of course.

Eddington says the West Gate Bridge now carries 165,000 vehicles a day, and will have 235,000 by 2031 - which is about when any solution will finally be finished, given how green groups and red tape delay any project needed to keep Melbourne humming.

The other problem with the bridge is how vulnerable the city is with just this one main route direct to Altona, Geelong and beyond.

We saw that only two days ago when the bridge was closed to trucks, caravans and motorbikes for fear gale-force winds would blow them over or across.

Whole streets of the city were turned into car parks by trucks forced to wait, or line up for arthritic rat-runs through inner-western suburbs.

Sorry to go on so long about a problem most of you understand only too well - and which will no doubt have many wondering why it's taken the Government so long to start work on a solution that won't be finished until these problems turn into crises.

But I want you to understand just how crazy are the objections to Eddington's proposal, and how they could be made only by people with a religious mania or a contempt for the freedoms of fellow citizens.

Here's a sample.

From Environment Victoria: "A new freeway would add millions of tonnes of greenhouse pollution every year for decades to come and would not be contemplated by any government seriously committed to tackling climate change."

From Age reporter Royce Millar: "Given the dire environmental situation we now find ourselves in, such a plan, surely, should be about slashing greenhouse emissions and dependence on cars."

From Melbourne Transport Forum: "This doesn't seem to tackle the greenhouse challenge we face."

From Melbourne University's Professor Bill Russell: "As the greenhouse clock ticks, do we really want to commit another $10 billion to this illusion?"

From Greens MP Greg Barber: "Climate change would mean a tunnel now would be the road builders' last stand . . . (This would) soak up billions of dollars that could be used more efficiently moving people around by fast public transport."

But, for me, the stupidity is illustrated best by the editor of Australia's green Bible, Andrew Jaspan, who in his editorial in The Age said yes to more bikes and buses, but refused to endorse the tunnel.

"The question must be asked: does this plan make it easier for cars, thus generating more emissions, or is it about getting cars off the roads?"

How fiendishly clever of Jaspan.

The contribution of Melbourne's traffic to global warming, even if you believe the wildest claims, is close to zero, but Jaspan believes useless gestures are so important in this holy cause that our cars must be culled.

(Never mind - and he won't mention - that global warming actually paused in 1998, and many scientists wonder if we really are heating the world to hell.)

And now you know Jaspan's devilish plan - to make our streets so choked that you'll be forced to leave your car and take a train, bike or hike instead.

If a new freeway just makes it "easier for cars", it must be stopped. Drivers must be made to suffer until they can take it no more.

But why does Jaspan stop at blocking new freeways that make driving "easier"?

Shouldn't he also demand we close the ones we already have to make driving even harder? How else can we meet his target of slashing emissions by 60 per cent?

The Age could even set an example by demanding we close Tullamarine Freeway, by which its printing presses stand.

That would remove at least one road that's made it sadly "easier for cars" - and Age delivery trucks - and would help stop the spread of global warming panic, too.

It's a win-win.

But global warming is in fact just the latest excuse for resisting freeways.

There is something about the car - this symbol of Big Oil, Big Business and capitalism's freedoms - that enrages people of certain Noble Savage, finger-wagging mindset.

The same sort of people, that is, who now follow the global warming faith.

How often we've already heard these same arguments that the cars of the masses should be resisted, not catered for, and that building freeways only encourages the polluting riff-raff?

That mantra is what persuaded the Cain Labor government to build the Monash Freeway with stop lights and restrict it to just two lanes from Toorak, so drivers would be discouraged from actually using it.

It didn't work, of course.

The traffic built up so badly that the Kennett government and Transurban had to spend a fortune taking out the lights, widening the road and building new bridges that would have been far cheaper if built at the start.

Poor Eddington knew he'd face this same anti-car extremism, this time under the banner of global warming, and did his small best to head it off.

So his plan chats brightly about bikes and buses, offering millions in giveaways and, worse, makes the extravagant promise of $8 billion rail tunnel from Footscray to Caulfield.

That hardly strikes me as a natural transport corridor of such mega-dollar priority, and I suspect it's simply offered to our public-transport fundamentalists as a deal - their train tunnel in exchange for one for the cars.

But a concession only encourages them, Rod. They'll pocket their tunnel, and deny us ours.

These people don't just want more trains. They actually want fewer cars.

But, of course, cars give us what public transport never can.

They give us the freedom to live far from our factories and offices, far from a train-line, far from hugger-mugger apartments and inner-city concrete boxes, far from strict timetables, far from sardine tins of trains, and far from the soundtrack of some strap-hanger's earphone doof-doof.

They let us choose a new job miles from any station, or bring with us big packages, or go home at night not worrying about the time or the company in the seats opposite.

Simply, they help make us free.

Trains will never give all this, which is why most people don't use them and will stick to their cars, thanks, and rely on scientists to just figure out less gassy fuels, as Eddington suggests.

So a word of advice to the Jaspans of this world. Other people's dreams are boring to hear, and infinitely worse to have to live.

You don't like cars?

Then give up your company-supplied own, but let other people have an easier road home.

Someone's waiting for them at the other end of the tunnel, and who are you to tell them they must wait?

Join Andrew on blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt

[RG]

Some very very good points there. Damn tree huggers.

[|||]

ugh andrew bolt.

[scoupedy]

Melbourne has some of the crappiest roads for the population, why in gods name do they insist on putting built in bottle necks (ring road is great example) and highways that go no where (that can flow like the NE end of ring road)
road/city planners (two word oxymoron)should be shot

[Boosh Brus]

Originally Posted by |||

ugh andrew bolt.

ditto

[J_Tank]

nice rant.. he should try the F3 outta Sydney one friday afternoon, or the M2. hahaha, 40km per hr would be great!

[russellw]

While we are at it let's add the not-really-a-ring-at-all-Ring-Road that was the previous generation of great white hope for the Mexican citizenry.

Or the so-many-millions-over-budget ticketing system designed to make the (poor) public transport system slightly more user friendly than it is now - presently expected to cost over a billion dollars extra by the time the next 2 years is over and it works - maybe.

Or the fact that all but one of our inward bound freeways all end with an express ticket to nowheresville - the exception being the Westgate and that farce is already well documented.

Or the complete inability to travel from East to West without either jumping on the aforementioned horseshoe shaped ring road or being welcomed to the Princes St / Cemetery Road crawl.

Or the fact that the bulk of what public transport there is doesn't actually go where people live anymore - assuming it ever did that is. My own theory is that it was merely routed to go wherever the most greenies lived as a sop to them.

Or the simple fact (if we want to actually assume there is some credence to the greenhouse emissions issue) that the half million cars caught in Melbourne traffic snarls each day would consume a combined half a million litres LESS per day if they were maintaining a steady 60 km/h traffic flow rather than crawling at an average 5.6 km/h during peak times which in turn would actually reduce greenhouse emissions by 1.3 million kg per day (based on 2.6 kg / litre) or about 338,000 tonnes annually.

Bah - I'm too old for this stuff.

[Ghiadude]

some of these points are far too sensible to take seriously.

You guys do realise its all a ploy to make us use more petrol in peak hour so that the petrol companies can make more money. Then we find another way home and through sheer frustration we speed ... only to get snapped by a speed camera - then well all complain and they'll increase our taxes so that private companies can build tollways to ease the congestion while all the pollies get fat on huge kickbacks while playing golf instead of representing us in parliament??? Well thats how it works in Sydney anyway

[Nostalgia]

Originally Posted by omn1potent

Roads blocked by car haters
Article from: Andrew Bolt

April 04, 2008 12:00am

MELBOURNE is being choked by something worse than traffic. Try stupidity - an unthinking gut-hatred of cars.

We see that stupidity in full shame in this fierce opposition to Sir Rod Eddington's main proposal this week to ease the city's growing gridlock.

And guess the usual suspects.

Hint: which kind of back-to-the-caves fools were also against the dredging of the bay's shipping channels, new dams for the dusty city and new coal supplies for our biggest power plant?

Which so loves the idea of our state going to a new Dark Age that they even campaigned for just that with Saturday's Earth Hour?

The biggest of the 20 ideas Rod Eddington put in his report for the Brumby Government was an 18km tunnel from the end of the Eastern Freeway, at Clifton Hill, to the western suburbs and the Western Ring Road.

Yes, it will cost as much as $9 billion, but no rational person could deny that this - or at least something like another bridge over the Maribyrnong River - is so critical that work on it should have started yesterday.

After all, the only real mass-traffic route at the moment from the city to the western suburbs and on to Geelong is over the West Gate Bridge, which gives us two big problems.

First, the bridge is already so clogged that peak-hour traffic usually slows to a crawl, with cars and trucks backed up for kilometres. The average peak-hour speed over it has halved in the past decade to just 40km/h.

And peak hour isn't the only time of trouble now.

I drove to the airport from the eastern suburbs at 3pm on a Friday last month, and the West Gate congestion was already so bad that the traffic was down to walking pace all the way up the Monash Freeway to Toorak Rd.

I hadn't seen a snarl like that even when I lived in Bangkok.

This will only get worse, of course.

Eddington says the West Gate Bridge now carries 165,000 vehicles a day, and will have 235,000 by 2031 - which is about when any solution will finally be finished, given how green groups and red tape delay any project needed to keep Melbourne humming.

The other problem with the bridge is how vulnerable the city is with just this one main route direct to Altona, Geelong and beyond.

We saw that only two days ago when the bridge was closed to trucks, caravans and motorbikes for fear gale-force winds would blow them over or across.

Whole streets of the city were turned into car parks by trucks forced to wait, or line up for arthritic rat-runs through inner-western suburbs.

Sorry to go on so long about a problem most of you understand only too well - and which will no doubt have many wondering why it's taken the Government so long to start work on a solution that won't be finished until these problems turn into crises.

But I want you to understand just how crazy are the objections to Eddington's proposal, and how they could be made only by people with a religious mania or a contempt for the freedoms of fellow citizens.

Here's a sample.

From Environment Victoria: "A new freeway would add millions of tonnes of greenhouse pollution every year for decades to come and would not be contemplated by any government seriously committed to tackling climate change."

From Age reporter Royce Millar: "Given the dire environmental situation we now find ourselves in, such a plan, surely, should be about slashing greenhouse emissions and dependence on cars."

From Melbourne Transport Forum: "This doesn't seem to tackle the greenhouse challenge we face."

From Melbourne University's Professor Bill Russell: "As the greenhouse clock ticks, do we really want to commit another $10 billion to this illusion?"

From Greens MP Greg Barber: "Climate change would mean a tunnel now would be the road builders' last stand . . . (This would) soak up billions of dollars that could be used more efficiently moving people around by fast public transport."

But, for me, the stupidity is illustrated best by the editor of Australia's green Bible, Andrew Jaspan, who in his editorial in The Age said yes to more bikes and buses, but refused to endorse the tunnel.

"The question must be asked: does this plan make it easier for cars, thus generating more emissions, or is it about getting cars off the roads?"

How fiendishly clever of Jaspan.

The contribution of Melbourne's traffic to global warming, even if you believe the wildest claims, is close to zero, but Jaspan believes useless gestures are so important in this holy cause that our cars must be culled.

(Never mind - and he won't mention - that global warming actually paused in 1998, and many scientists wonder if we really are heating the world to hell.)

And now you know Jaspan's devilish plan - to make our streets so choked that you'll be forced to leave your car and take a train, bike or hike instead.

If a new freeway just makes it "easier for cars", it must be stopped. Drivers must be made to suffer until they can take it no more.

But why does Jaspan stop at blocking new freeways that make driving "easier"?

Shouldn't he also demand we close the ones we already have to make driving even harder? How else can we meet his target of slashing emissions by 60 per cent?

The Age could even set an example by demanding we close Tullamarine Freeway, by which its printing presses stand.

That would remove at least one road that's made it sadly "easier for cars" - and Age delivery trucks - and would help stop the spread of global warming panic, too.

It's a win-win.

But global warming is in fact just the latest excuse for resisting freeways.

There is something about the car - this symbol of Big Oil, Big Business and capitalism's freedoms - that enrages people of certain Noble Savage, finger-wagging mindset.

The same sort of people, that is, who now follow the global warming faith.

How often we've already heard these same arguments that the cars of the masses should be resisted, not catered for, and that building freeways only encourages the polluting riff-raff?

That mantra is what persuaded the Cain Labor government to build the Monash Freeway with stop lights and restrict it to just two lanes from Toorak, so drivers would be discouraged from actually using it.

It didn't work, of course.

The traffic built up so badly that the Kennett government and Transurban had to spend a fortune taking out the lights, widening the road and building new bridges that would have been far cheaper if built at the start.

Poor Eddington knew he'd face this same anti-car extremism, this time under the banner of global warming, and did his small best to head it off.

So his plan chats brightly about bikes and buses, offering millions in giveaways and, worse, makes the extravagant promise of $8 billion rail tunnel from Footscray to Caulfield.

That hardly strikes me as a natural transport corridor of such mega-dollar priority, and I suspect it's simply offered to our public-transport fundamentalists as a deal - their train tunnel in exchange for one for the cars.

But a concession only encourages them, Rod. They'll pocket their tunnel, and deny us ours.

These people don't just want more trains. They actually want fewer cars.

But, of course, cars give us what public transport never can.

They give us the freedom to live far from our factories and offices, far from a train-line, far from hugger-mugger apartments and inner-city concrete boxes, far from strict timetables, far from sardine tins of trains, and far from the soundtrack of some strap-hanger's earphone doof-doof.

They let us choose a new job miles from any station, or bring with us big packages, or go home at night not worrying about the time or the company in the seats opposite.

Simply, they help make us free.

Trains will never give all this, which is why most people don't use them and will stick to their cars, thanks, and rely on scientists to just figure out less gassy fuels, as Eddington suggests.

So a word of advice to the Jaspans of this world. Other people's dreams are boring to hear, and infinitely worse to have to live.

You don't like cars?

Then give up your company-supplied own, but let other people have an easier road home.

Someone's waiting for them at the other end of the tunnel, and who are you to tell them they must wait?

Join Andrew on blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt

Well said mate and i totally agree with you.

[Geez Louise]

Coming from Perth, I had never known what everyone was going on about "Peak hour" traffic, but my first day at work near the city...boy I understood Melbournians frustrations. The roads in Melbourne, whilst designed to cope well are no where near the roads in Perth.

Granted Perth has less traffic (it is a vastly growing city though) but the "Peak Hour" is no where near the hazzardous frustration that it is in Melbourne. If you are stuck on the Freeway in Melbourne...well you are stuck! At least in Perth the exits are much closer and hence, the frustration less.

Melbourne needs a complete overhaul of it's road system....by ROAD USERS....why doesn't the government listen to the road users??

[kocho]

Its all about money and quick fixes. Planning for the future isn't on the governments list to do. its all about whats done now. They make the roads 2 lanes because 'that will do' for now. Next week, the road is out of date.

Its a joke.

[ebxr8240]

How did all the roads "in the past" get built with only 6 to 10 million population?
Where is our tax going ? I mean they use private money to build these roads then we have to pay to use them in most cases....

[MRJUCY]

It's slightly amusing coming from Sydney as the traffic & public transport is a dream compared to what we're labored with but saying that unless it keeps progressing it could quickly degenerate as ours has.

I've heard the same argument from hippies here that making roads better encourages more cars and it always astounds me that people listen & bother reporting their sad, mean spirited, delusional thinking as any one with a basic level of intelligence realises that cars sitting around going nowhere in stop start traffic produce far more pollution then ones traveling efficiently.

[ltd]

As a sydney sider I can tell you that Melbourne has better roads and freeways than us, and less tollways. We now have tunnels that cost over $5.00 one way and every major road out of Sydney is a tollway. They're all two lanes maximum too, and in poor condition. The one thing that us Sydney people can still claim to win over Melbourne people is that our state government sucks more than yours does; at least they're looking at building a road, we get a PPP (Public Private Partnership) where politicians are so bereft that they negotiate a private company paying for a road and then having licence to charge a toll for the next 100 years. The problem here is that these aformentioned politicians are usually so stupid that they get absolutely belted in the negotiation and the company usually gets the type of deal that makes them very wealthy. Once the photo opportunities and self flagellation is over, then the RTA (Road Tax Authority - same as Vic Roads) comes along and closes all the remaining roads to channel everyone onto the new toll road. They priced it recently that to travel from the northwest using Sydney roads cost over $19.00 each way in tolls alone. Meanwhile our premier now goes into hiding whenever there is a debacle. They call him the teflon don, as nothing sticks except for the huge kickbacks he gets.
We're even having our number plates changed from NEW SOUTH WALES to NSW - Its Fuct.

[Bossxr8]

Read a small piece a few days ago that says that cars that have to drive at a speed limit of 40 kph are making a lot more pollution than a car that is doing 70 kph, as most cars are more efficient when using a few revs than they are at just above idle speeds. So if traffic actually flowed rather than in gridlock emissions would actually be reduced, something these greenie morons are probably too stoned to realize. And you can't rely on public transport in Vic because its an absolute mess. To catch a train from Geelong to Melbourne you would have to stand the whole way or sit in a aisle as they are so overcrowded, that's if its not also running late or cancelled.

[mik]

with a population of nearly 4 million in Melb getting some cars off the road would be a good thing surely? but not by force but by having a better cheaper alternative, i love my car as much as the next bloke but with 50000 people migrating to Melbourne every year its only going to get worse, there are parts of Melbourne where public transport is catered for very poorly, a bit more imagination to the problem would be nice imo, mag lev monorails can go places where trains cant, what about a a tunnel under the bay to geelong? can it be done i dont know, was it considered ? we heard nothing to say it was.

[Falcon Coupe]

All info here:
http://www.doi.vic.gov.au/Doi/Intern...nDocument#fact

Andrew Bolt is correct, great ideas get shot down by tree huggers, never mind planning for the future. :

[philstoj]

After watching Stateline, they just did a story on this, there are many who oppose this, they do not want the tunnel for cars, at all.

All they want is the money spent on public transport, and to not worry about the conjestion on the roads, and to worry about the enviroment and limit car use...

[dom_105]

Originally Posted by philstoj

After watching Stateline, they just did a story on this, there are many who oppose this, they do not want the tunnel for cars, at all.

All they want is the money spent on public transport, and to not worry about the conjestion on the roads, and to worry about the enviroment and limit car use...

Always going to be the way unfortunately. Hopefully Brumby can make the hard decisions that Bracks never would and get this tunnel built.

[RSgerry]

It is a bit like the smoking debate. Both sides refuse to accept that the other has any valid points or rights. how about improving the roads AND creating a more efficient, safe and clean public transport system with the creation of cycle paths for those that want them? That way, people who prefer the privacy and convenience of their own car can enjoy it, people who like to ride their bike can do so safely and people who believe public transport is the way forward can do their thing? Build a tunnel, make it wider and stick a train down the middle and a cycle path at the side or on top.

Now, if you Melournians think your public transport is poor, come over to sleepy Perth. It is truly awful here. Melbourne's trains run often, including public holidays, there are trams and taxis everywhere and it is very easy to get around. You just get loud, pretentious arts students talking very loudly about how good they are...

[Bossxr8]

Doesn't matter how good the public transport system can be made, people will still prefer to take their own car, because they can go at whatever time they want and leave or go to where ever they want, not just to somewhere near a trainstation or bus stop.

[Rodp]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

Doesn't matter how good the public transport system can be made, people will still prefer to take their own car, because they can go at whatever time they want and leave or go to where ever they want, not just to somewhere near a trainstation or bus stop.

That's the beauty. We're willing to pay a high cost for the feeling of convenience and freedom.

Many years ago, the last time I had a job that didn't neccessitate a car, I would, more often than not, drive into work, park several k's away from the office and walk. It would cost at least $50 a week more to do and the train station was right next to the office. Travel by car was at least 30 minutes longer. Didn't matter to me, I wanted my car nearby.

[Wally]

Originally Posted by Geez Louise

Coming from Perth, I had never known what everyone was going on about "Peak hour" traffic, but my first day at work near the city...boy I understood Melbournians frustrations. The roads in Melbourne, whilst designed to cope well are no where near the roads in Perth.

Granted Perth has less traffic (it is a vastly growing city though) but the "Peak Hour" is no where near the hazzardous frustration that it is in Melbourne. If you are stuck on the Freeway in Melbourne...well you are stuck! At least in Perth the exits are much closer and hence, the frustration less.

Melbourne needs a complete overhaul of it's road system....by ROAD USERS....why doesn't the government listen to the road users??

Perth has a great interlocked freeway system. That was Carmen Lawrence's doing wasn't it?

You guys don't know what gridlock is till you try Brisbane's pitiful excuses for roads. I swear the imbeciles that are in charge of roads here live in another city, because they have NFI about easing congestion here.