October 2010 State Election to Test Transport Policy As November’S State Election Approaches, Calls for the Area Having No Regular Transport Service
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N e w s Public Transport Users Association www.ptua.org.au ISSN 0817–0347 Volume 34 No. 4 October 2010 State election to test transport policy As November’s State election approaches, calls for the area having no regular transport service. Local me- an overhaul of public transport management are dia report that schoolchildren waiting to catch the new growing in volume, and still more stories of failure service on the first day of term were left stranded as a are biting the government. result of this bureaucratic bungle. The PTUA’s long-standing call for an independent pub- Apparently, the local community had been forced into lic authority to plan public transport is now firmly en- convincing the private operator to run the service (at its trenched in the political and news agenda, ever since own risk) after failing to get action from DoT bureau- the Victorian Greens pledged in August to create such crats. This is another case where a planning authority, an authority as part of their election platform. Trans- with a set of universally applicable service standards port spokesman and upper house MP Greg Barber is and a board that meets in public, would have produced regularly quoted raising the issue of a planning author- an outcome better reflecting the community’s wishes. ity in the media, alongside calls for services every 10 Meanwhile, there is no danger of any risk being faced minutes, and pointing out—along with the Liberal / Na- by the private consortium building the Peninsula Link tional opposition—the need for trains and buses to co- motorway. In return for funneling more cars onto the ordinate as a multimodal network. Peninsula, the Southern Way consortium is guaranteed It is a sign that the political focus in the public trans- $2.3 billion in taxpayer funds. A fraction of that sum port crisis has moved on from being simply about over- would have given the Peninsula a world-beating public crowded peak hour trains. As we forecast in May this transport network; as it is, action on the region’s woe- year, performance on the train network has improved as ful bus services has been mired in bureaucratic inertia a result of new train timetables that make better use of while the government boosts car travel. the system’s inherent capacity. In September, operator Public transport now rivals hospitals and schools as an Metro finally reached its official punctuality target for election issue for a reason. November’s election will be the first time since taking over from Connex last year. fought on choices of policy direction which will shape Of course, crowding problems are far from solved. Pa- the way we travel in Victoria in decades to come. tronage on all modes of public transport is still growing strongly, just not at the extraordinary levels seen prior Roads get rich, buses suffer =) Page3 to the global financial crisis. Thanks to the lack of for- Our demands =) Page4 ward planning, we will still have to wait years before our train and tram fleet is back at levels commensurate In this issue with the size of our system. And bureaucrats seem to have no answers for the crowding problem emerging on State election..................... 1 buses, even on weekends—see our Page3 article. Keeping in touch................... 2 Our system still manages to combine the worst as- Notice of AGM: 2 December............ 2 pects of public-sector bureaucratic management with Westerfield destroyed for tourist road....... 3 903 SmartBus stuck in traffic............. 3 the worst aspects of private-sector fragmentation. The PTUA's State election vision............. 4 latest in a litany of system failures is a new bus route Metro rail tunnel................... 5 from Hurstbridge to St Andrews, negotiated between RRL from bad to worse............... 5 the community and the private bus operator, which had Geelong Branch.................... 6 to be scrapped at the last minute on 4 October because Stud Road bus lanes.................. 6 the operator had not lodged competition policy paper- 901 SmartBus not so smart............. 7 work with the Department of Transport. This is despite Tollways on the nose................. 7 PTUA News—October 2010—Page 1 Keeping in touch: Committee Member Meetings Melbourne PTUA Office Daniel Bowen—President Tony Morton—Secretary Dates / times as advised Ross House Kerryn Wilmot—Treasurer Ross House 247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne Michael Galea 247 Flinders Lane, City Telephone (03) 9650 7898 Myles Green More details: see below Email: [email protected] Ian Hundley Eastern Suburbs Membership Enquiries Mark Johnson Third Tuesday of every month, 7pm Call or email the office (see above). Jason King ‘The Barn’ (behind Box Hill Baptist Commuter Club Tim Long Church) PTUA members can obtain cheap Rob Meredith 3 Ellingworth Parade (off Station St) yearly Metcards. See www.ptua. Tim Petersen Box Hill org.au/members/offers. David Robertson Geelong Vaughan Williams Internet First Saturday of every month (except Our website is at www.ptua.org.au. Branch convenors Jan), 10:30am The PTUA runs email lists for mem- Paul Westcott—Geelong Multimedia Room ber discussions, and to stay up to date Jeremy Lunn—Eastern Suburbs Courthouse Youth Arts Centre with PTUA events. Members can Contact Corner Gheringhap and Little Malop also view archived newsletters online. All committee members can be Streets, Geelong See: www.ptua.org.au/members/ emailed using the format firstname. resources. [email protected]. Notice of Annual General Meeting The Annual General Meeting of the nominator and the candidate, both of lor’s electoral staff, or a candidate for PTUA will be held on Thursday 2 whom must be current financial mem- election to political office. (General December at 6:30pm, in the Ground bers of the PTUA. council employees not directly em- Floor Back Meeting Room, Ross In accordance with the PTUA’s rules, to ployed by councillors are exempt.) House, 247 Flinders Lane Melbourne. be eligible for election a candidate: Finger food and light refreshments will Nominations must reach the PTUA Sec- • must not be a sitting MP; be provided for members. retary by hand or by mail (Ross House, The election procedure allows for the • must be a member of at least 12 247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne 3000) by AGM to elect a President, Secretary and months’ standing, and must not be a 4:00pm on Friday 26 November. Nom- Treasurer and up to nine ordinary Com- local councillor (unless the Commit- inations will not be called for at the mittee members. Nominations must be tee waives this requirement); and AGM unless nominations are insuffi- on the form attached below (a photo- • must disclose to the Secretary if they cient to fill all positions. There is no copy is acceptable) and signed by the are a member of an MP’s or council- proxy voting in the event of an election. PTUA Committee Nomination Form I, of (nominator) nominate of (candidate) for election to the position of: President Secretary Treasurer Committee Member I declare that the candidate is not a current Member of Parliament; is / is not a Mayor, Councillor or equivalent office holder of a municipality; is / is not employed by a sitting MP or Local Councillor; and is / is not currently a candidate for a political office. (delete as appropriate) Signed: (nominator) (candidate) / / (date) PTUA News—October 2010—Page 2 First the police, then the taxpayer bill for Peninsula Link Police intervened at Victorian gov- This is about $93 million per year for And of course a lot can change in ernment direction in late Septem- a road, in a region where a bus every twenty-five years. There is a seri- ber to break the community picket 70 minutes and a train every two hours ous risk that, after assigning a very which was protecting the bush- is held up as acceptable public trans- substantial flow of taxpayer funds to land of the heritage listed Wester- port. Last year the Victorian govern- unsustainable transport activity on the field property against the bulldozers ment could only find an extra $1 mil- Peninsula and severely damaging the clearing land for the Peninsula Link lion to boost bus services on the Penin- natural environment in the process, freeway. sula and in Frankston. when peak oil and carbon pricing hits In an intimidating display, about 100 These lucrative financing arrange- we will find the Victorian government police showed up on 28 September ments reflect the fact that the project has handed us a white elephant. to confront 20 or so mainly elderly would never have been viable as a toll In the meantime, there are signs that protesters. Five arrests were reported. road: there simply isn’t enough traf- the road lobby is girding its loins to The picket was established in July to fic. Despite the periodic traffic jams have the freeway extended to Rye. protect the Frankston South property. in Frankston, much of this travel is In another twist, the actual level of tax- local in nature, fed by a lack of public payer funds committed to the project transport alternatives. As with Eastlink over its life has been reported (The and Stud Road traffic, this Peninsula Age, 29/9) at $2.3 billion. These Link is unlikely to ‘solve’ congestion “availability payments” (the purpose in Frankston either. Meanwhile we are of which is to guarantee a risk-free privatising roads and subsidising oper- cash flow to the private operator) will ator profits with public money, without reportedly be made in 98 quarterly in- even a pretence at transferring ‘risk’ to stalments over 25 years. the private sector. SmartBus caught by dumb traffic planning The Government’s Smartbus pro- The main reason for the crowding on slight improvement for buses heading gramme is again failing to keep up weekends is the lack of frequency, re- north into Chadstone, but the biggest with its name, with growing prob- sulting from the failure of the gov- delays are to buses heading south.