What the Pollies say

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.