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

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

Peter Berrett <pberrett@optushome.com.au> wrote:

>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.

This is my point.  Doesn't this mean people are travelling longer, not
shorter, distances to work?

>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.

No, if Melbourne's public tranport were operated in an at all sensible manner
your obvious choice would be tram down Glenferrie Rd and change to a train at
Malvern, or frequent bus down Tooronga Rd and change at Caulfield.

That said, I'm not personally averse to the idea of extending the Alamein line
back to Hughesdale, if it went past Chadstone shopping centre.  I just don't
think it's terribly high on the list of priorities, compared to (say)
overhauling the bus services.

I interpreted your reason 4 to imply that people would be able to locate
themselves more or less anywhere relative to their work and wouldn't be
constrained to living locally or on the same radial rail line.  So if someone
worked in Ringwood and wanted to travel by public transport they could choose
to live in Frankston or Watsonia or even Sunbury if they wished, rather than
considering just the Ringwood area itself or places on the same line such as
Hawthorn or Box Hill.  I think the net effect of this would be to increase
people's distance from where they work.

>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.

I see a problem of economics here.  If you build a new circumferential railway
in an established urban area without much circumferential travel, then you
have to generate a _lot_ of extra circumferential trips in order to recover
the cost of construction and operation.  Whereas if you concentrate your major
infrastructure on the radial routes where the bulk of people already travel,
and use relatively inexpensive, though high-quality, bus services on the
circumferential routes, you can recover the cost of boosting services
relatively easily.

Everything else you say I agree with (although I'd put off electrification to
Geelong for a few years yet).  As I say, I think we come from the same
direction where public transport is concerned, the main difference being that
I'm wary of spending money to put rail lines everywhere they're not currently
needed.

Cheers,
Tony M.

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