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
8usvio$qg$1@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU">news:8usvio$qg$1@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU...
>
> >> 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.
>
> Peter Berrett <pberrett@optushome.com.au> wrote:
>
> >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
>
> Your argument has a respectable pedigree; it's been put by a number of
people
> before, most notably John Brotchie at Monash University.

I am not familiar with this gentleman although it is clear he has a degree
of common sense. The arguments seem relatively obvious.


  The trouble is that
> encouraging dispersal of workplaces does not guarantee people will travel
less
> distance to work, unless you simultaneously cajole people into living in
the
> same suburb as where they work.

One does not need to cajole. Their choices of where they live and work are
probably determined to a degree by the availablity of public transport.
Build it and over time they will come.

A good example is the high speed railway to Gippsland. once the railway is
built I expect to see a sharp rise in land prices down there as people
choose a country lifestyle and commute to Dandenong.

  The only way you can do this is by making it
> harder to travel.  People will always have reasons for wanting to live and
> work in different parts of the city (hence your reason 4, which indeed
> contradicts reason 2), so the actual distribution of homes and workplaces
> will always have little to do with average travel distances.

4 does not contradict 2. Currently if I live in Hawthorn and work in
Dandenong (as I once did) my public transport option is to go by train to
Richmond and change trains to Dandenong. If however the Alamein train
continued past Alamein and onto Dandenong I'd only have to take one direct
train. I would then have two options to get to work which makes public
transport a better option for me. As a point of interest I drove to
Dandenong each day but had I had an extended Alamein service I would have
travelled by train.

Taking the shorter route via Alamein is more direct (less distance to travel
to work).

>
> Brotchie himself has also admitted that a dispersed pattern of workplaces
> virtually guarantees a reduced 'market share' for public transport.
Having
> a predominantly radial pattern limits the number of high-capacity links
you
> have to provide.  With a dispersed pattern, you have similar numbers of
people
> wanting to travel between any given origin and destination.  This destroys
the
> economies of scale that appear when travel is concentrated in corridors.
It
> makes travel by private car more attractive but public transport less
> attractive, because the services have to be spread more thinly.
Eventually
> you wind up with a situation like Los Angeles where traffic jams are worse
> than ever, because car dependence has become entrenched.

Granted to you have a evening out of traffic as so to speak but your
analysis above assumes that overall traffic volumes remain constant.

My argument is that a cheap, fully comprehensive, frequent, safe system able
to get people quickly and efficiently from where they live or work to where
they want to go (with as few buses as possible) will attract signficantly
increased patronage sufficent to compensate for the evening out effect cited
above.

Melbourne has other factors that are holdings its public transport system
back

In my opinion the factors in Melbourne that cause public transport to not be
used as much as it should be are as follows

1. No railway to AFL (Soon to be Packer?) Park

2. Insufficient cross town high speed links.

3. Broadmeadows and Coburg lines need to be joined (by extension to
Craigieburn in both cases)

4. Fast Electric service to Geelong required

5. Frequency of service to be raised to every 10 minutes most hours

6. Railways need to be regarded as safe. This means increased staffing.

7. No railways to Chadstone, Northland, Airport West, Doncaster, Southland
etc shopping centres

8. Shorter lines need to be extended. Ie extend Williamstown line
(seriously - make it the terminus of a ring railway). If you have the $$$
and the will to run the line under the bay  and through to the Dandenong
line.



>
> Which leaves the 'more options' argument.  People will always want to live
> where they choose, as they do now.  Inevitably there are pros and cons
with
> any particular choice of residence, and there's only so much transport
> planning can do to make things easier.  Melbourne's radial network is a
> reasonable compromise; there's sufficient diversity within most radial
> corridors to permit genuine choices.  With a high-quality bus network
> providing cross-suburban links, a wider range of choices can be catered
for
> though at a cost - there is always a cost involved after all.  But there's
> only so much choice you can cater for.  To live in Sunbury and work in
> Rowville is a silly idea regardless of how much infrastructure you
provide.
>
> Cheers,
> Tony M.
>
> Public Transport Users Association       http://www.vicnet.net.au/~ptua/
>

It is not a silly idea if the choice is between that job or no work at all.

cheers Peter