Public Transport Deserts In Australia, Supertrams In Leeds… And The Wisdom Of Simon Munnery?
Or, what the Iran war can teach us about getting about
“The prime minister is telling us to leave the car at home and take public transport to work if possible, but the idea that people can just hop on a bus instead is just totally unrealistic” – Dr Kurt Iverson, University of Sydney
As Trump’s war with Iran (and now seemingly the Pope) rumbles on with no clear end in sight, you may have noticed, if you drive an ice car, the cost of fuel hitting eye-watering levels.
We’re talking about £100 to fill up an average car – the equivalent of about four top-ups for my EV. But that’s another story.
With fuel so expensive, the question becomes: do I really need to drive or could I walk, cycle or use public transport to make this journey?
This is the question that’s been raised in Australia.
Down under, according to Prof Jago Dodson:
“From the 1950s, sprawling low-density suburbs have been built on the assumption that households would own cars and that public transport was unnecessary”
Sounds like planning policy here, where the car is king ethos led us into a fool’s paradise consisting of Radburn layouts that only work if you’re speeding through them at 40mph and don’t have to pay much attention to what’s going on around you.
And now, with a barrel of Brent hovering around the £95 mark, the Australian prime minister is urging people to ditch the car and take public transport.
Well, what public transport?
A bus that takes an hour and a half with two changes to complete what would otherwise be a 15-minute drive?
Not likely! Not even if fuel now sucks up all the “leftover” money in the family budget.
You get what you invite. And if you’ve been inviting cars, cars and more cars for the past seventy odd years and ignoring public transport, well… you get the idea.
The Australian situation sounds all too familiar to me.
Just read any research from Transport for New Homes to see that we are still building car-dependent tat on the edge of towns, opposite industrial parks, with dual-carriageways to cross if you want to walk to a pub or catch a bus.
Hardly an opportunity for a pleasant evening stroll.
Is this really the “quality product” the big house builders are so keen to endorse?
Apparently so.
Item 1 in TfNH’s charter calls for:
“New housing to be located and configured to avoid people being dependent on cars, and to enable low and decreasing travel by private car”
Good idea. So why aren’t we building it?
Can we be sure that our new towns will be located in areas where public transport and active travel can be plugged in from the start?
This is the perfect opportunity to reduce our reliance on oil and make sure that the people who will be living in the government’s 1.5 million new homes can easily catch a bus or a tram to get to the places they want to go.
It’s good to see, then, that in Leeds there are rumours circulating that a tram system is finally going to be introduced.
This would be a great thing if it comes to pass as it isn’t the first time a tram has been mooted.
And it isn’t the first time I’ve spoken about trams in these newsletters. Could it be that the project in Leeds marks the beginning of our long-awaited tramway renaissance?
Here’s hoping.
Don’t forget, over in France:
“The allocation of roadspace to tramways was seen as a positive decision to provide a better transport service, not a negative decision to remove space from cars.”
This is not the war on the motorist. It’s simply a call for helping people get about easily without having to rely on a car.
And if you need proof of concept, just nip over the Pennines to Manchester. The Bee Network is a thing of beauty and unlike public transport where I live, can still get you safely home after a comedy gig that ends at – SHOCK, HORROR! – 10pm.
Here’s me on that very network sharing some wisdom from the brilliant Simon Munnery:
See you in a couple of weeks!
Question: Should our new towns be built around good access to a tram network?
#trams #publictransport #simonmunnery
… and if you enjoyed it…