Re: Road spending campaign.

["David Bennetts" <davibenn@pcug.org.au>]

Tell <telljb@ozemail.com.au> wrote in article
<6knr6k$5ua$1@reader1.reader.news.ozemail.net>...
> One of the, dare I say ....dubious things about living
> in the centre of Australia is that a lot of our
> imported TV and Radio programs emanate from Sydney.
> One of these is the John Laws radio programme which is
> currently running a "fax the bad roads in your area"
> campaign where listeners around Oz are given a fax
> number to the Road Transport Federation to complain
> about poor roads.  They are talking about "billions of
> dollars _short fall_ in road expenditure".!
> 
Rail does need an industry group to push its barrow!  Maybe this is one
good thing that privatisation could deliver.
Much of our rail infrastructure has not changed for decades - tortuous
tracks laid down 50 - 100 years ago are commonplace.  Look at the road
improvements - not only have they been widened, straightened and duplicated
in many places, many have been deviated two or three times in the past 20
or 30 years.

The road lobby is a very powerful one.  The 'Fix the Roads' campaign has
been quite vocal and obviously large sums have been spent on television
advertising.  The truck industry also advertises extensively -eg Kenworth.

Sure, we need good roads - but we also need good railways to efficiently
carry freight and passengers.  Rail should be getting the message across
that is a safer and more environmently friendly mode of travel.  In most
states marketing of rail is rather poor and it needs to improve its
customer image if it wants to compete with other modes of transport.

The current issue of Choice magazine (June) has an interesting comparison
between  private car, rail and air travel  for passenger transport within
Australia. 

David Bennetts
Canberra