The responses to my email from both parties were somewhat predictable but also somewhat strange.
Alarming even?
There was the usual we are committed to.......; the other party has left us in a terrible situation....; ...........key priority;.
Both agreed that alternative options to providing further road infrastructure were required.
Both acknowledged the damage to local suburbs caused by the infrastructure work.
But where it got weird was that while talking about alternative options and the need to actively encourage people to use these I was told that we need to get our road infrastructure up to speed first. My immediate question to the person who said this was "And then what? Do we turn around and pull down that infrastructure again?"
And that is the thing. Do we spend gazillions of dollars on roads when those same dollars could be spent on alternative options. Are we spending dollars on road infrastructure at the cost of alternatives?
It seems so simple but I am probably missing something substantial.
But it seems so stupid to be chasing our tail trying to get road infrastructure "right". I have never seen it right for any length of time. It is a never ending circle of infrastructure being built to deal with the problem. This leads to short term improvement until people realise that the road "improvement" has made things better. As a result they decide it is now faster to drive. This leads to more people on the roads and ultimately back to the start of our sad tale.
I can remember when there was 1 lane each way to the Gold Coast. This got too congested so they built a 4 lane highway. Too congested. Motorway. Congested.
Urban sprawl has a lot to answer for too, but that is another post.
I have had the chance to communicate with my State Member, Murray Watt and his opposition Tim Mander on the subject of our congestion woes. As happens in many cases contact commenced with written correspondence. This correspondence rose out of a newspaper article that I had read where Murray Watt was campaigning to put a bypass through an area of his electorate due to the inability of a major intersection further up the road to cope with the high levels of traffic through that area.
This bypass will see a significant increase to the traffic flow through that road (which passes through a residential area). Here is the transcript of the correspondence that I sent to each of them.
I am sorry Murray but the proposed bypass and all of the other traffic infrastructure “solves” nothing.
It is time to make a hard decision and actually do something that will be in the interests of our suburbs rather than take the easy route and continue to band aid the real problem which is that we have far too many people using our roads and far too few workable alternative options.
The tunnels and bypasses that we are seeing spring up all over Brisbane will give us a temporary fix but it has been proven in the past that these “fixes” ultimately end up just as crowded as the previous problem.
Yes it is the popular choice by your voters who refuse to entertain alternatives but I do not believe it should be your job to take the popular option (although I do recognise that if you don’t stay popular, you don’t stay).
When will it be time to say enough is enough with roads?
How many suburbs do we need to destroy?
Kedron is almost there, along with large sections along Lutwyche Road.
Wooloowin is suffering too.
Enoggera and now Everton Park?
Out further we have major widening of Becketts Road that ultimately will funnel into the Rode Roundabout.
I can see the next project being a rebuild of this roundabout as it will not cope with the extra traffic flows that will come.
Not so much your area but the upgrade of Gap Creek Road has led to substantial increases to traffic via that route and through The Gap.
Hamilton Road from Old Northern Road through to Chermside has seen likewise.
I cannot think of a single time when additional vehicle infrastructure has seen an ongoing improvement to traffic flow.
The problem is not roads.
It is traffic.
It is the people that use these roads.
And it is these people that need to be re-educated about their actions and “actively encouraged” to use the alternatives.
Providing free and improved access to the CBD does nothing to this end.
Not sure if you have ever seen this video and information, but perhaps it is time for our governments (local, State and Federal) to start thinking about this.
It worked in San Francisco, Portland Oregon and in Seoul Korea so there is absolutely no reason it cannot work here.
Jeffery Kenworthy, from our Curtin University and who was involved in the Korean Cheonggyecheon project effectively says in the attached video, that traffic behaves like a gas and will expand across all infrastructure until it is clogged regardless of how much infrastructure is provided. So ultimately you are trying to “solve” a puzzle that cannot be solved by adding more roadways.
More public transport at the expense of car lanes is what is needed along with improved cycling infrastructure (up from basically none in our Northern suburbs despite the much talked about bikeway program).
I hope that you actually spend the time to read and watch the links provided and then spend some time thinking about what is being said and how similar our current situation is to these cases.
Then take the time to work out how you (and others in power) can actually FIX the problem rather than taking the popular option.
Don’t be one of our politicians who are remembered for creating more ugly LA style fly overs.
I look forward to your response
Tomorrow we will talk about those responses.
Until then, if you are reading this and like what you read, tell your friends.
Leave a note to say hi.
Tell me your thoughts on the "improvements" that we are seeing in our city.
Tell me about the issues that affect your residential community.
Hello seemed as good a way to start as any.
Before we get too far, let me make a confession.
I drive a car a few days a week to get the 16km from my home in Albany Creek to my office in Nundah. I also ride my bike to work on the other days and barely drive at all on the weekends unless I have to.
So I am no saint and admit that I am just as much to blame as others who clog up our roads some of the time.
But that time on the road (whether in a car or on my bicycle) has provided me with the stunning realisation that we have some problems with our infrastructure in our beautiful city on the river. And those problems mainly revolve around traffic.
Yes you are saying. We need better infrastructure to deal with this traffic.
Well this may come as a surprise to you but from my seat in the car or on the bike we have PLENTY of infrastructure for vehicles. Seems that there is infrastructure for vehicles running North, South, East and West. Also some running South East, South West, North East and North West.
The problem as I see it is that there is simply too many cars for this infrastructure to cope with.
I believe it is cars, not infrastructure that is the problem. Additional road infrastructure is a band aid fix and it has been proven time and time again all around the world that ultimately these "fixes" ultimately end up just as congested as the previous "problem".
It is time to start to talk about proper alternatives.
Alternatives that wont be popular to those who refuse to entertain anything more complex than walking out to their garage and starting up the engine of their car.
I would also like to use this blog for people to communicate issues that they see in their community. I am a simple bloke. Get up and ride my bike for training for my racing or to commute to work or sometimes jump in the car and head to work. Same route every day. Therefore I dont get to see the messes in other neighbourhoods. Tell me what you see.
