Political Advisor: Minister, your voters are sick of being stuck in traffic. Your government needs to add more lanes to the motorway or build a new one.
Minister: I believe in progress. We will add more lanes.
Skip forward a few years.
Political Advisor: Minister, the new traffic lanes we last built quickly filled up and now we congestion again and the voters are not happy.
Minister: We will build a free flowing road intersection and cleverly connect all roads above. Let's call it an interchange.
And so under the former conservative government, traffic problems were solved once and for all with the completion of the AU$4 billion Sydney's Rozelle Interchange.
Minister: So Political Advisor, $4 million was so well spent to fix the traffic problem.
Political Advisor: Yes Minister. There are a few minor issues, but they will be sorted out.
They should throw the government out. Ah, they did, for various reasons and the interchange is now the problem for the Labor Party, but not of its doing.
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I will soon enough be 67 years old and this is one of the worst road planning results I've ever seen. It has been a total fail for all road users including passengers on public buses. It is an utter disgrace and a shocking waste of money, under the leadership of the former State Premier, the bible bashing Dominic Perrottet.
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Bible-bashing, as in super-religious? Or not religious at all?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, that's neither here nor there. It's terrible that we keep trying to accommodate more and more cars in our world, rather than expanding public transportation options.
Steve, I think the equivalent to your phrase, bible thumping. Very religious.
DeleteLondon and Barcelona are dealing with city traffic so much better.
Yes Minister. Not much has changed, either from country to country or decade to decade... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister
ReplyDeleteJayCee, I have a boxed set of either Yes Minister or Yes Prime Minister, I forget which. There were so many gems in the series and one that comes to mind was the excellent performance figures for a new hospital, that had not yet seen a patient. 'Just a minor detail, Minister. Focus on the performance figures'.
DeleteIt's always a cost-cutting exercise which means greater, more costly outlay in the end and no positive or final solution. Look at UK motorways - dreadful.
ReplyDeleteI rather liked your M6 JB, a pretty drive. The M1/A1 not so much. I don't think I'd like the M25.
DeleteMore people, more cars, more traffic. And roads get wider and wider as modernity marches on.
ReplyDeleteBuild them Kirk, and the drivers will come.
DeleteIt is always doing a catch up game
ReplyDeleteRoentare, we are always catching up. It is absurd that new housing estates are being built that don't have proper access roads and no public transport.
DeleteEvery government only looks at what will make them look good. Even if their party is still in office when the wheels fall off the perpertrators themselves will be long gone.
ReplyDeleteMerlot, that is oh so true. There is little long term vision, and whatever you think about the big train loop project, costing billions, that is long term vision and I expect will be successful.
DeleteI can commiserate to the point of boring you to death. lol Thank you for sharing your take on things, though. Cheers!
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DeleteDarla, you are not really affected by traffic where you live, I guess. Just a quiet tootle down the street.
The real problem is too many people which leads to too many cars. The solution could be dedicated expressways for public transport, bus, tram, train and people could leave their cars at home. Or just stay home. Ha Ha.
ReplyDeleteRiver, Sydney doesn't do too badly with express ways for buses. Certainly better than Melbourne. One major one here was closed a few years for....guess.....more cars.
DeleteThe real problem is too many people which leads to too many cars. The solution could be dedicated expressways for public transport, bus, tram, train and people could leave their cars at home. Or just stay home. Ha Ha.
ReplyDeleteRiver, that's what I silently say to other cars when we are in our car. "Just go home". That rather ignores the fact that we are part of the problem, but it wasn't always the case. There are just too many people.
DeleteThey the Government will never get the road correct, they build for years to come but those years to come happen sooner unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteQuite so Margaret. I'm glad to be approaching the time when nothing about population growth worries me.
DeleteOne thing I love about the subway, is not getting stopped in traffic. But even trains have a limit. There is a proposal to build a new 20,000 seat sports arena a couple miles north of us, adjacent to a new subway station. The answer to 20,000 people and traffic, was the subway, it took me about 2 minutes to calculate that it would take 90 minutes at current peak capacity to move that number of people from the arena after the games finish. Few people are going to want to wait that long.
ReplyDeleteTP, our Melbourne Cricket Ground can seat 100,000 and the vast majority of the crowd will use public transport to get there and leave. At times there are issues but generally the trains and trams move the crowds effectively and efficiently. It is actually quite amazing to see how vehicles just swallow up the crowds and they are on their way. The service provided does have to match the crowd numbers and there needs to be plenty of on ground staff to direct people and keep the crowds moving.
DeleteA problem all car centric infrastructure development cities are facing today.
ReplyDeleteME, indeed it is and Australia is certainly not immune.
DeleteTraffic here is a nightmare as we have so much construction going on - 1 new subway line and 2 lrt lines which are taking forever to complete.
ReplyDeleteMuch the same here Pat. It is something we have to live with if we want to live in a big city. R was complaining about the same yesterday, but as I said, if these pipes aren't replaced there could be a day when water fails to come out of our taps.
DeleteYes Advisor, thank you, I've done a great job fixing nothing and making things worse, don't you think? Proud to have served.
ReplyDeleteStrayer, yeah, and they don't have a conscience.
DeleteI'm not sure I've ever been in a country with lots of cars and lorries and commuters which doesn't have too much congestion in places.
ReplyDeleteGraham, quite true especially in recent times. But I do remember a much smaller Melbourne where most roads were free flowing.
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