The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand | Keeping Melbourne Moving (and Sydney too)

Keeping Melbourne Moving (and Sydney too)

Posted by Phil Hart on April 29, 2008 - 7:56am in The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand

Politicians are feeling the consumer pain at the pump, so they have to be seen to be doing something, anything..

The Age: Brumby to spend $112m to fight traffic

Keeping Melbourne Moving
A new strategy of stricter policing of clearways, more bus priority lanes and new cycle paths will begin on July 1 in an effort to cut road congestion in Melbourne. The $112 million Keeping Melbourne Moving strategy is aimed at shifting up to 12,000 people onto bicycles and walking tracks, and improving the flow of traffic by keeping clearways free.

The first stages of the plan starts in July. But the state government has again ruled out a London-style congestion tax, which charges all drivers who enter the city. Victorian Premier John Brumby said the strategy announced on Tuesday represented a balanced solution.

More than $12 million will be spent beefing up the policing of clearways and extending their hours of operation to 6.30am-10am and 3pm-7pm
Almost $38 million will be injected into the trams and bus priority program to pay for new tram platform stops and bus priority lanes.
More than $28 million will go towards boosting the bicycle and pedestrian network.

And an odd $20 billion or so for a tunnel; very balanced.

Meanwhile, in Sydney:

NSW considers double-decker buses

The NSW government says it will consider bringing double-decker buses back to Sydney streets, almost two years after the idea was slated by transport operators.

...

After recently inspecting a double-decker model bus from Hong Kong, Mr Watkins again raised the possibility of using them in Sydney.

Inspirational stuff.