News & Discussion: Public Transport Contracts, Service & Policy

[AtD]

Do have fun compulsorily acquiring entire suburbs.

He might have more luck in the People's Republic.

[cleverick]

I'm not advocating compulsorily acquiring any suburbs. I just think there will soon come a day when the government is forced to say, screw this for a joke. We literally can't afford to supply houses north of Main North Road with water, power, sewerage, and roads anymore. Either move into the urban boundary or pay our own way, folks!
This would be coupled with fantastic PT within the boundary, more stringent requirements for water and energy efficiency, and most of all higher buildings- 3m above every 1/4acre block is another 1/4 acre block waiting to be developed. There is no reason apartments can't be designed and built to suit families as well as yuppies. They manage in London, Tokyo and New York!

And they will still win, because all the people who were clever enough to move closer to the CBD before will vote for lower taxes, since there is no longer this enormously inefficient redirection of funds from the profit-making city to the loss-making suburbs. (Another reason not to join Adelaide City and West Torrens Councils!)

[Wayno]

I'm not advocating compulsorily acquiring any suburbs. I just think there will soon come a day when the government is forced to say, screw this for a joke. We literally can't afford to supply houses north of Main North Road with water, power, sewerage, and roads anymore.

i think they said this today with the announcement of 11 TODs

[AG]

I'm not advocating compulsorily acquiring any suburbs. I just think there will soon come a day when the government is forced to say, screw this for a joke. We literally can't afford to supply houses north of Main North Road with water, power, sewerage, and roads anymore. Either move into the urban boundary or pay our own way, folks!
This would be coupled with fantastic PT within the boundary, more stringent requirements for water and energy efficiency, and most of all higher buildings- 3m above every 1/4acre block is another 1/4 acre block waiting to be developed. There is no reason apartments can't be designed and built to suit families as well as yuppies. They manage in London, Tokyo and New York!

And they will still win, because all the people who were clever enough to move closer to the CBD before will vote for lower taxes, since there is no longer this enormously inefficient redirection of funds from the profit-making city to the loss-making suburbs. (Another reason not to join Adelaide City and West Torrens Councils!)

The government has been managing to support the population living north of Grand Junction Road (I presume that's what you meant, not Main North Road), for the past few decades, albeit at a high cost. Noone is going to suddenly force everyone to live south of the "border", it would be political suicide for a start. Not only that, but there would be an even bigger cost of trying to relocate everyone, not just on a financial level, but also a social level. It's good to be aiming for higher density living, and more efficient use of the way we use infrastructure, but not everyone is going to want to live in a shoebox. We're dealing with humans here, not robots.

[cleverick]

The TODs are the tip of the iceberg, the beginning of a century or more of change, a rethinking of urban planning around Australia and the world.
I meant Main North Road: I'm prepared to accept the benefits of industry at Elizabeth, and suburbs near by, probably in the foot hills around Craigmore and Salisbury East. The precise line would of course be for the government of the day to decide, but it will be something like that. Which is to say, Elizabeth will probably survive in its own urban boundary, but it will be discrete from Adelaide's urban boundary. (Sort of like Galwer has an urban boundary, even though it's separate from Adelaide.)
Of course not everyone wants to live in boxes. And everyone wants a Ferrari. In the end, econominc necessity makes a lot of choices for us. You might say, "How dare you discriminate against my ability to live in Rose Park based on how much money I earn!" But in the real world, that's how things work. In a world where city council costs are increasing much faster than the rate of inflation, where water is becoming scarce, where oil is running out, where population is projected and encouraged to rise significantly, and where we need more farmland to feed all these people, 570 houses a week (or whatever the Advertiser headline was the other week) is actually not going to solve the problem. We need that many apartments in the city, or units at Marion or housing commission flats in Brooklyn Park.
For those who want to and can afford it, there will still be suburbs within walking/riding distance of the city, or an industrial precinct at Elizabeth, or a commerical hub at Marion, where houses can be bought, houses with a back yard and a rumpus room.
And if we're lucky, the western suburbs might start producing food again.

Oh, and not all apartments are boxes. A well designed apartment can be as appealing as a house- and there's no reason for the government not to stipulate a minimum size, as with houses. If people demand bigger apartments, just as they demand bigger houses, they will get them. If people on incomes which currently stretch to buy a house at Smithfield Plains start demanding inner-city apartments, they will be as big and as family-friendly, I can promise you.

[cleverick]

And remember this is to take place over decades, perhaps only really come into focus by 2100. I'm not advocating we move everyone tomorrow morning. Alternatively, if we do nothing to ease into the process, it really will happen overnight, and you'll have ridgy-didge 3rd world slums in the parklands where waiters, nurses, shopkeepers and teachers live when their day jobs are over.

[muzzamo]

Edgar, you have to "revalidate" (it's more checking, it's not being validated) your ticket at all Sydney train stations and at all central Melbourne train stations. It's the same in Brisbane and Perth.

Adelaide Station simply needs more gates. In morning peak, sometimes the queue can reach back into the train!

I dont think they can get any more crouzet machines so there is your problem :-p. Until this new ticketing system arrives.

[Omicron]

I'm not advocating compulsorily acquiring any suburbs. I just think there will soon come a day when the government is forced to say, screw this for a joke. We literally can't afford to supply houses north of Main North Road with water, power, sewerage, and roads anymore. Either move into the urban boundary or pay our own way, folks!

Er, yes we can - we're doing it right now. As cities grow, so too does stamp duty; so too do land taxes, so too does GST revenue, so too do car registrations, et. al. Just because the number of residences increases does not mean that we cannot afford to support them - certainly, the Government must seek ways with which to reduce the reliance of private residences upon publically-funded services (which explains in part the trend towards privatisation), but by no means does an increase in private residences equate with the potential financial instability of the state.

This would be coupled with fantastic PT within the boundary, more stringent requirements for water and energy efficiency, and most of all higher buildings- 3m above every 1/4acre block is another 1/4 acre block waiting to be developed. There is no reason apartments can't be designed and built to suit families as well as yuppies. They manage in London, Tokyo and New York!

It is clear that we must find ways to increase our population density, but we must do so with the mindset of a city aiming to become one of 1.5 million; even 2 million people, rather than twelve times our current size.

One of the main failings of the aforementioned large cities is that families more suited to larger homes are forced to seek out cheap, small apartments in flooded inner-city locations because their only other options are houses far away from the CBD that lack appropriate public transportation, health services and retail shops. In no way does this enhance the liveability of any city. Small apartments must not become the sole domain of lower-income families simply because they are cheaper alternatives to homes. Larger families deserve the choice of larger homes and appropriate means of transportation to their places of employment, which demand appropriate land sizing and public parks, as well as a mix of affordability for lower-income residents and increased material quality for higher-income residents.

And they will still win, because all the people who were clever enough to move closer to the CBD before will vote for lower taxes, since there is no longer this enormously inefficient redirection of funds from the profit-making city to the loss-making suburbs. (Another reason not to join Adelaide City and West Torrens Councils!)

Any given person/couple/family cannot simply move all of a sudden to suit their employment requirements - there are so many income/asset/lifestyle et. al. factors that determine such a move. In any case - on what basis is the city 'profit-making' and the suburbs 'loss-making'?

The core goal must be to develop desirable living options that people will choose to buy - rather than be forced to. If that is not the case, we end up with nothing more than public housing - developments not subject to market forces and constructed with nothing but cost in mind. If higher-density developments near public transport corridors are good enough to justify high demand, then people will abandon their larger homes on large blocks of land of their own accord, without any need for dramatic government intervention.

[cleverick]

As Adelaide's population grows, its density declines. Even today, in connection with the TODs, I read in the Advertiser another of the main recommendations of that report was to further increase the urban boundary. What folly! It is in this sense that cities are profit making while suburbs are loss-making: taxes from goods sold in the city, parking fees from spots in the city, income derived from a better-paying job in the city are redirected to support the sewerage treatment, the road maintenance, the electricity substations and other infrastructure that a suburb needs but which rates and land tax will never cover.
You assert that we must increase the population with a view to less than double the present. Why is more population always the answer of your type? When Australia was 15 million it was populate or perish, now it seems like you're arguing that to populate would make it rain, increase the productivity of our deserts, solve poverty, prevent species extinction and help Australia deal with climate change. When will it be enough? Like Alexander the Great, who always ordered his Generals over, "just one more hill", we will meet a sticky end if we follow this incessant mantra of growth.

[Xaragmata]

$2bn to overhaul public transportMICHAEL OWENKIM WHEATLEY
March 03, 2007 01:15am
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A SECRET Government report reveals a complete overhaul of the city's public transport system would cost up to $2 billion.
[...]
USING a "European-style" hybrid tram-train system that allows mixed use, which could cost between $1.73 billion and $1.97 billion, depending on the mix.

The report rejects expanding Adelaide's existing diesel rail service because it "is not seen as being able to provide the market edge to attract the required number of passengers away from cars, and achieve the targets in the most cost-effective, safe and robust way".

In an interview with The Advertiser last month, Transport Minister Patrick Conlon spoke of his vision for new urban projects that incorporated light rail, as has happened in Western Australia.

He also told The Advertiser of his personal vision to completely overhaul the metropolitan public transport system.
[...]
"If the light metro option is selected for the North West Corridor, then a short on-street tram system linking Semaphore, Glanville, the Port redevelopment, Port historic precinct and eventually to Commercial Rd bridge," it says.

Looks like much of this will come to pass ... the stuff in this year's budget was foreshadowed a year ago.

[Omicron]

As Adelaide's population grows, its density declines. Even today, in connection with the TODs, I read in the Advertiser another of the main recommendations of that report was to further increase the urban boundary. What folly!

It's not a causal relationship. With our existing tendencies towards low-density development and suburban living it's more likely that is the case, but by no means absolute - especially not as more and more people express a preference for apartment living ,and various infrastructure developments like the recent public transport announcements are better able to cater for, and enhance, higher-density development. The onus falls upon Governments and developers alike to promote the benefits of higher-density development (and, more importantly, to deliver on such promises) so that the aforementioned decreased density does not become the rule.

It is in this sense that cities are profit making while suburbs are loss-making: taxes from goods sold in the city, parking fees from spots in the city, income derived from a better-paying job in the city are redirected to support the sewerage treatment, the road maintenance, the electricity substations and other infrastructure that a suburb needs but which rates and land tax will never cover.

I could understand a point made on the basis of higher retail revenues, higher spend by tourists, number and value of approved developments or something measurable like that, but saying that the CBD makes a profit while the suburbs do not doesn't.......make any sense. There is no existing breakdown of GST revenue by region - one could make an educated guess based on the revenue generated on taxable items sold from businesses within the CBD, but it's impossible to know for sure. Besides, Westfield Marion alone generated half a billion dollars in retail revenue over one financial year; I very much doubt that the total sales of taxable items within the CBD exceeds that from all suburban shopping centres combined. In any case, GST revenue handed back to the States by the Federal Government is used for a multitude of purposes within metropolitan and country areas - it's impossible to attribute funding for any one project back to GST revenue contributed by goods sold within a specific area.

In addition, parking fees (or fines) for carparks owned (managed) by the Adelaide City Council go straight back to the Adelaide City Council, not towards projects in other council areas.

You assert that we must increase the population with a view to less than double the present. Why is more population always the answer of your type? When Australia was 15 million it was populate or perish, now it seems like you're arguing that to populate would make it rain, increase the productivity of our deserts, solve poverty, prevent species extinction and help Australia deal with climate change. When will it be enough? Like Alexander the Great, who always ordered his Generals over, "just one more hill", we will meet a sticky end if we follow this incessant mantra of growth.

Unless we shut the borders or shoot people, our population will continue to grow - very few places in the world have negative population growth, irrespective of their Government's policy on immigration/emigration. Our aim must be to accommodate these people in the most appropriate, sustainable, efficient and desirable ways possible. Many of the claims by scientists and researchers that we cannot support any more people are based on existing behaviours continuing well into the future - the same lack of stormwater collection, the same overuse of water, the same forms of sprawled urban planning, the existing ineffective public transport networks. When we alter these parameters with better solutions, we become far more able to support the growth of Adelaide, and that must be our goal.

[AtD]

I knew I had seen Conlon say "light rail, like in Perth." So I'm not insane!

[Norman]

Adelaide can't expand much further, we have already reached the unbuildable hills in the South, South-East, East and North-East, and the Gulf in the North-West, West and South West. Now North is the only way left to go.

[fishinajar]

Adelaide can't expand much further, we have already reached the unbuildable hills in the South, South-East, East and North-East, and the Gulf in the North-West, West and South West. Now North is the only way left to go.

And this can only go so far as Gawler before they would surely curb the sprawl.

[Shuz]

You seem to forgot a whole chunk of land called the south, last I saw there were probably about a zillion homes being built in and around Seaford, Aldinga, McLaren Vale...