Re: Travel patterns (was Re: New form of rail transportation)

["Peter Berrett" <pberrett@optushome.com.au>]

Anthony Morton <amorton@mullian.ee.mu.oz.au> wrote in message
8uqajj$g1e$1@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU">news:8uqajj$g1e$1@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU...
>
> >Peter Berrett <pberrett@optushome.com.au> wrote in message
>
> >> When people take on a new job their choice of place to live is
influenced
> >> by the availability of public and private transport routes to their
job.
> >> Promoting a radial network has the following effects.
> >>
> >> 1. People are less likely to go for jobs in areas that they do not have
> >>    good transport options to eg across town.
> >> 2. People are more likely to moved to suburbs that have good transport
> >>    options in terms of getting them to their work.
> >>
> >> The effect is that transport journeys become centred on the radial
> >> networks.  The population is servicing the rail network not the other
way
> >> around.
>
> You put your case well, but I think you misunderstand the nature of town
> planning.  It's the rule in virtually any Australian city that the
> infrastructure comes first and the people follow.  Thus in Melbourne, the
> first great age of 'urban sprawl' occurred in the 1880s when suburbs
sprang
> up along the new railways and tramways.  For a while Melbourne was the
> lowest-density city in the world because people could live on their
quarter-
> acre blocks in Camberwell or Caulfield and catch the train into the city
to
> work.  Thus for virtually its entire history Melbourne (unlike Sydney) has
> been a city organised around radial rail corridors.
>
> Remember that at the same time as these first suburbs were growing, there
> were some circumferential rail lines built as well, including the Outer
> Circle, the Rosstown railway and the Box Hill-Doncaster tramway.  But all
of
> these services folded within a decade due to lack of patronage.  They
failed
> to attract the kind of development that had accompanied the radial
services.

The situation today is far different from the time when these lines were
closed. Arguably population densities in some suburbs are higher now and
many previously uninhabited areas are now inhabited.

Let's take each of the three lines you mentioned.

1. Box Hill - Doncaster Tramway.

If this was put back in place today it would attract substantial patronage
as Box Hill station is on one end of the line and Doncaster shoppingtown on
the other.

2. Outer Circle

If the Alamein line was extended past Chadstone to the Dandenong line along
the former outer circle route, passengers could travel to Chadstone to shop
by train from a variety of lines. I believe patronage on an extended line
would be substantially higher than on the existing Alamein line as the line
would no longer terminate in a quiet suburb but provide numerous transport
options for commuters.

3. Rosstown railway

From

http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ncas/multimedia/gazetteer/list/carnegie.html

"Carnegie is a residential suburb 12 km. south-east of Melbourne on the
railway line between Caulfield and Oakleigh. The area was originally known
as Rosstown after William Ross, an entrepreneur who constructed a railway
line through the area from Oakleigh to Elsternwick. The line had the dual
objectives of transporting sugar beet from Gippsland to a processing mill at
Elsternwick and opening up land for residential subdivision. (The latter
objective had good prospects until the South Yarra to Oakleigh line was
opened in 1879, as it was supported by the minister for Railways, Thomas
Bent, whose electorate also included Elsternwick.) However, the failure of
the Rosstown railway, made worse by the 1890s depression and its effect on
land speculation, made the name unpopular."

There are a couple of factors at work here. First was the depression which
would hit any railway. Secondly the line was not very long. Had the line
extended around as an extension of the outer circle railway I believe it
could be viable today.

What I'm driveing at is the issue of utility. Longer lines that go across
town and cross many other lines provide greater utility for passengers than
do cross town lines that only join up a couple of other lines. A decent
viable ring railway would circle right round Melbourne enabling passengers
to get to destinations on other lines without having to travel into the
city. Of course frequency of service is necessary to make the system work
well.

A good example is Hong Kong. The  subway runs in various directions and you
can get quickly and efficiently to a number of destinations across town,
under the harbour etc etc. Each line is relatively long so that it provides
good transport options for people along the route and the lines intersect
which means that passenegers on other lines can utilise the service as well.
Hong Kong has a much greater population but the principle still holds I
believe.

>
> Even today in Melbourne, when the vast majority of people travel by car
and
> roads go everywhere, people's 'mental maps' are still oriented radially.

I think you will find people's mental maps are orientated by where the
nearest highways, freeways and major roads go. As they travel these major
roads they become used to travelling to various suburbs whether cross town
or radial.


  The
> census data bears this out.

Perhaps the simple truth is that the bulk of jobs are in Melbourne City and
to get there you have to follow a radial route.

 Now if you want to encourage people to switch to
> public transport, having predominantly radially-oriented travel patterns
is
> indeed fortunate, as much of the infrastructure to service radial travel
is
> already there.  So if we wanted to, we could shift a large number of car
> trips to public transport without first having to expend vast sums of
money
> on new infrastructure.

I agree

>
> It's not a question of whether people serve the rail network or vice
versa.
> People will _always_ 'serve' the transport network in your sense, because
> people will always organise their home and work locations according to how
> easy it is to travel from A to B.  The real question is whether it is a
good
> thing to deliberately engineer more dispersed travel patterns, with a
greater
> emphasis on circumferential travel for its own sake.  I can't myself see
any
> good reason to do this, and plenty of bad ones.
>

Reasons

1. Dispersal of car traffic means less traffic jams particularly near the
city

2. Less distance to travel to work

3. Public transport is used more evenly - less crowding

4. More options to get to workplaces

The arguments are nuch the same as though used for decentralisation.

cheers Peter


 >
> Alex Pout <alpout@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>
> >I agree with Peter's comments there about jobs and transport access.  As
it
> >was pointed out in another message, one of the things that eastern
suburbs
> >employers wanted in the east and south east was better PT for their
workers.
> >I've lived in Sydney, Newcastle, Brisbane, and Melbourne, and Melbourne
> >definitely had the biggest "the city is where everything is" attitude and
> >feel about it.  The way I interpreted that was (and I raised a few
eyebrows
> >with people there) that trying to avoid the city was something to be
avoided
> >in itself.  So while that persists, it's not going to help.
>
> So be it.  If you want to avoid the city, live in the country.  There's a
> lot to be said for country life; I'd find it infinitely preferable to
living
> in Los Angeles.
>
> >You also wouldn't want to include purely home-work-home journeys in that.
> >Does the census data have anything in it about all the non-work related
> >journeys that are made, especially across suburbs (i.e. shopping, nights
> >out, etc)?  The fraction of overall trips that work-related trips  make
up?
> >Or for the ultimate test, what are the traffic volumes on roads that
cross
> >connect suburbs, such as Frankston-Dandenong, Springvale, Stud, Bell St,
and
> >Camp Rd?
>
> Generally non-work trips follow similar patterns to work trips, but with a
> greater emphasis on local travel (particularly for shopping).  However
it's
> the journey to work in peak hour which accounts for virtually all the
genuine
> traffic congestion we have in Melbourne.
>
> >Finally, and I think I'll get a fair bit of agreement here, when is
> >Melbourne going to do something about the level crossings?  Springvale Rd
> >and Nunawading one good example, 4 sets of lights plus the crossing in
300
> >metres, and Bell St (pick one there).
>
> If the bureaucracy wasn't so keen to throw money at freeways they'd all be
> gone by now.
>
> Cheers,
> Tony M.
>
> Public Transport Users Association         http://www.vicnet.net.au/~ptua/
>