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

[amorton@mullian.ee.mu.oz.au (Anthony Morton)]

>> 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.

Alex Pout <alpout@optusnet.com.au> wrote:

>Without being picky here, I think you're being contradictory.  First you
>said that there has to be sufficient patronage to justify building
>circumferential routes/transports methods, now you're saying that
>historically the infrastructure comes first then the development follows.
>If you use your first point, how was anything built in Australia in the
>first place?

There's no contradiction.  If you have a 'greenfield' site earmarked for
settlement (or a new suburb on the edge of town) then of course you need to
provide it with infrastructure, preferably before anyone has moved in.  But
once a settlement has developed with established infrastructure and travel
patterns, any new infrastructure within the settled area needs to be
justified on economic, social and environmental grounds.

Thus my contention: major new circumferential links within Melbourne are
unjustifiable because they don't serve existing travel needs, and because
they undermine the long-term viability of public transport.

>I think that there has been sufficient comment to prove that given options,
>people will live and work where ever it is convenient in transport.   For
>example, I could live in Campbelltown (god help me) and work in Penrith, and
>use the train to get me there directly.  However, in Melbourne, to live in
>Cranbourne and work in Frankston (god help me again) would involve two
>trips, of around an hour each way, even though there is only a few
>kilometres between them.

Of course there should be a decent bus service between Frankston and
Cranbourne, ideally running every 15 minutes from 6am until midnight seven
days a week.  There's now enough settlement and enough car travel along the
route to justify it.  The same with other circumferential links.  I think
the main point where you and I differ on actual service provision is that
you want to build high-capacity rail services and I don't.

>Also, I'd like to know what your points against dispersion/decentralisation
>are.

I've made those points in another response.

Cheers,
Tony M.

Public Transport Users Association       http://www.vicnet.net.au/~ptua/