Roads & Rail

[Bulldozer]

The_Q195, if I didn't know better I'd say you're trolling. Either that or you have a scatterbrain. Your arguments are all over the place and you appear to be saying things that bear no relation to what you're replying to.

Funny. The car industry spends billion on advertising telling us that cars are the material symbol of liberty and prosperity. Anyone who dares contradict this is a loony with "baseless arguments and personal influences." All arguments against cars are thus dismissed!

blaming the multi nationals. It allways makes me laugth when leftys do that when they cant find a real reason why things are not going there way. No a multinational conspiracy was not the reason public transport declined in South Australia. It is because people decided to stop using it, and still prefer to use it. Perhaps you should look at why the noralunga line was build to see how hard the evil oil and car companys are conspiring to destroy public transport.

You do know that General Motors bought up loads of tram companies in the USA and shut them down so that they could replace them with GM Buses?

[The_Q915]

bulldoser I might of been too strong on personal attacks and disorganised arguments. Let me sum up my argument against public transport breifly

Public Transport allready has a large financial incentive in encouraging people to use it. Ticket prices only pay for about 25% of the service cost. At the same time there are taxes on motor vehicles bring in over 1 billion revenue to the state budget a year.

It is very dificult to get public transport to run efficiently in low density decentralised enviroments. This can be a bit difficult to explain. Public Transport can only take you along a fixed route. Suppose someone from Northfield wanted to go to Semaphore. If they want to get there by using Public Transport they have to first wait and catch a bus at Northfield go to the city walk to the train station wait for a train and go all the way back to Semaphore then walk to Semaphore beach, all the meanwhile orgainsing timetables. Quite a time consuming process. People generally will not tolerate trips greater then 45 minutes. Public Transport only really effectivly serves the CBD where it already has a large share, 30% of travel. Attempts to stop people bringing cars in the city such as raising parking fees will probably discourage visitors to the city.

It is difficult to serve areas with low population densitys. When you have a train station where only a small number of homes in range you wont get the patranage high enough to cover the cost of that train station. A solution to this is to build high density buildings around train stations. Services such as shopping centres could also be built around these centres. Why is there not high density development around Norlunga centre instead of suburbs spreading further south. Because Australians do not want to live in apartment buildings they want to live in a house.

As for the decline of the tramways in Adelaide it was a goverment decition. It was inevitable that they be closed down regardless if a private company brought them or not. Trams became too expensive to run as wages increased and patronage declined. People chose to travel on buses as opposed to trams.
Here are some figures
http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff11 ... ct0036.jpg
http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff11 ... ct0028.jpg

[rhino]

There were other reasons too, for the trams disappearing. After WW2 the tracks needed replacing due to wear. Tom Playford's government decided it would be more prudent to tear them up and buy busses, as was happening in many cities around the world. By committing our state to road usage, he enticed Holdens and Chrysler to South Australia, as well as Bridgestone.

That was good, for then. Now, public transport usage is on the increase and we need to look at vehicles that can carry more people, are faster, and greener. The further they head in each of those 3 directions, the more patronage we will see.

[Bulldozer]

Thank you for your quality reply The_Q915, it is a post of the calibre I believe we are looking for here.

You raise some good points about the viability of providing an attractive service. I think that we have covered those points on this site a number of times.

I agree that the so-called "transit oriented developments" need to occur in Adelaide. No doubt we will see these happen in the near future as the cost of private transport continues to rise, just as they are happening in Sydney. Brisbane last year decided that it is the way of the future and already you can see it starting to happen - apartment buildings are going up near train stations and also the major shopping centres, as they are hubs for bus transport.

I believe the development of these "mini-CBD's" around the metropolitan area lends itself to a method of being able to solve the inter-suburb problem as they act as aggregation points that provide the passenger volume to enable services between the centres. So in this case our passenger going from Northfield to Semaphore would catch a bus to say Mawson Lakes interchange and then catch another bus (or train) to Port Adelaide and then a bus or tram from Port Adelaide to Semaphore, rather than having to go into the centre of the city and then back out again. Yes, it's still not as convenient as driving a car, but if services run every 10 minutes or so it definitely becomes an attractive option - more so if petrol gets to $2-3/L and registration costs continue to rise above inflation.

The other way of increasing rail patronage is to restructure bus routes so that they are used to aggregate passengers to the local train station rather than all run to the city as they currently do. I think that public transport planners in Adelaide could learn a lot from looking at the way the Internet (or the postal system) is designed. Consider passengers as data packets, stations as routers and rail links as backbones.

I don't think that government should force people to use public transport, but I do think that there are tangible benefits to society, the environment and the economy for increased use of it compared to the status quo and government should be using policy to encourage increased use of it - starting with allocating a proportion of transport funding to public transport that is in line with the desired "market share" of it. That's not to say that freeways shouldn't be built, because there is clearly a need for at least a north-south route to alleviate stop-start congestion and allow for the more efficient transport of goods (and this isn't just an economic benefit, it's also a safety benefit due to less intersections and an environmental benefit because of less air pollution because of no more stop-start driving) - just that roads shouldn't get as big a slice of the funding pie as they currently do.

The reasons for the removal of Adelaide's tram system aren't clear-cut and in hindsight we can look back and see that it probably was for the best in order to develop the state, but going forward it seems that all signs are pointing towards an increased need for more public transport.

[Cam]

When it comes to building a Southern Expressway from the City , smart money would have it follow the existing train line - branching down to Tonsley.

[mattblack]

When it comes to building a Southern Expressway from the City , smart money would have it follow the existing train line - branching down to Tonsley.

Why would the smart money be on that idea? Wouldnt it be 'smarter' to make Anzac Hwy a highway to South rd to join up to the North-South freeway?

[Cam]

When it comes to building a Southern Expressway from the City , smart money would have it follow the existing train line - branching down to Tonsley.

Why would the smart money be on that idea? Wouldnt it be 'smarter' to make Anzac Hwy a highway to South rd to join up to the North-South freeway?

Well along the existing train line it will be a true Expressway .

As the expressway and train tracks will need a width of at least 80 metres ,
will need to purchase homes. Cost will double in 10years.

Basically the idea ( as pointed out by member LAT brilliant layout on page 3 of this thread ) is to create a free flowing artery north and south passing along the western side of the city .

[AtD]

Oh god no. We want less traffic, not more.

[Cam]

Oh god no. We want less traffic, not more.

Chill. There will be a cycling lane for you.

[AtD]

Doesn't matter, it would still fall flat on any cost/benefit analysis due to the required acquisitions.

When will people realise that "widening roads to cure congestion is like widening your belt to cure obesity?" The extra capacity will be gone in a few years and you’ll be back where you started (Melbourne has some great examples of this). At least public transport can be scaled up without the demolition of entire suburbs.

[monotonehell]

...[W]idening roads to cure congestion is like widening your belt to cure obesity...

Great analogy.

Some people are starting to realise this. Most of them are not drivers who can only see the congestion in front of them. They want less congestion on the roads, but they still want to drive on them. Most of the large metropoli who have been through the whole freeway system thing through the '50-'90s are beginning to realise this and do something about it. Although piecemeal. LA have run light rail down the middle of some of their freeways and trialled busways. Although their BRT experiments were poorly funded and executed (the orange line for example), which is unfortunate as people point at the shortfalls as proof that PT doesn't work.

[Cam]

To me if the City is the Heart then it requires big free flowing arteries to function healthily . Doof Doof Doof Doof.

[monotonehell]

To me if the City is the Heart then it requires big free flowing arteries to function healthily . Doof Doof Doof Doof.

So why clog them with caresterol ? People can be shifted about better with PT.

[Omicron]

To me if the City is the Heart then it requires big free flowing arteries to function healthily . Doof Doof Doof Doof.

So why clog them with caresterol ? People can be shifted about better with PT.

Groan!

[Cam]

To me if the City is the Heart then it requires big free flowing arteries to function healthily . Doof Doof Doof Doof.

So why clog them with caresterol ? People can be shifted about better with PT.

Groan!

lol. actuallly the vision for this was the possibility of driving from and to Maclaren Vale , Gawler or Murrray Bridge through the City edge without a single Traffic Light.