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The car is doomed, scientist warns
Clay Lucas, The Age
CAR travel should be cut by 80%, road construction halted and public transport boosted if Australia is to meet carbon emission targets, energy experts have warned.
“The car is doomed,” Monash University associate professor Damon Honnery said, discussing the findings of a soon-to-be-published research paper, Mitigating Greenhouse: Limited Time, Limited Options, written with Dr Patrick Moriarty.
Federal and state governments should stop building new arterial roads, the two scientists from Monash University’s department of mechanical and aerospace engineering argue.
Instead, governments must focus on phasing out cars, improving the energy efficiency of public transport and making people use it, they argue. “Ultimately, we are going to have to move to a decentralised society where most people need to travel far less,” Professor Honnery said.
… Dr Moriarty also believes there must be big reductions in air travel. “An overseas trip might become a once-in-a-lifetime experience rather than an annual event,” he said.
RACV public policy general manager Brian Negus said there needed to be a balanced approach to planning for future car use: “We need to improve the road system so you get more efficiency and less congestion.”
(3 March 2008)
Contributor SP writes:
“We need to improve the road system so you get more efficiency and less congestion.”
Aren’t these somewhat contradictory aims? Isn’t the “efficiency” of a road maximum in the period just prior to grid lock?
Radical plan to drive cars from key roads
Clay Lucas, The Age
SPEED limits will be dropped on key routes, lanes removed and traffic lights changed to favour public transport and pedestrians under a new strategy for Melbourne’s inner north to be launched by Public Transport Minister Lynne Kosky today.
Darebin Council’s new transport plan – the first in Melbourne to explicitly give priority to trams, pedestrians and cyclists on key roads – could lead to the removal of clearways on some routes in a bid to discourage drivers.
(4 March 2008)
Police bust copper theft racket
Matthew Burgess, The Age
Victoria Police have cracked the state’s largest copper theft racket, which they say is valued at more than $1 million.
The copper wiring, believed to be stolen from a variety of locations including rail tracks, power stations and scrap metal depots, was destined for the Asian black market, police said.
The bust is the culmination of a series of police taskforces set up after the copper thefts were identified as a major problem for Melbourne’s public transport network.
(3 March 2008)
Contributor SP writes:
Well, kind of related. Public transport for one may be disrupted if other resource shortages lead to “sabotage” due to theft. This has some parallel to the theft of oil from pipelines (with fatal consequences) in Africa stories; only this is the “developed world” equivalent.
No place for pedestrians?
Times of India
BANGALORE: Skipping over dislodged pavements, skirting around vegetable vendors, swerving past electricity junction boxes and darting between vehicles… the pedestrian in Bangalore would be a natural at Parkour, the urban obstacle race.
The development of the Garden City, once teeming with walkers who leisurely ambled down the wide pavements in the evenings, has turned the simple act of crossing the road into a gamble.
The BBMP, in its enthusiasm to provide motorists with hassle-free rides, has let pedestrian safety fall by the wayside. Flyovers, underpasses and one-ways have squeezed pedestrians out of the roads.
Major infrastructure projects either eat up footpaths or shrink them so much that they are practically useless.
(2 March 2008)
