Sydney Morning Herald has all the answers - this time on transport - as always. Why do we even bother having governments?

I just love it when newspapers, crammed with journalistic talent as they are, start up a so-called independent 'study', an 'investigation' or a 'report' of their own creation and call it news. It fills a space, I guess. They usually make it sound so very official, only disclosing their self-interested "ownership" late in the piece, or in small print easily missed. Not so much this time with the Sydney Morning Herald's 'transport public inquiry'.Yes, we see the editorial, we see the front page blah, we see the lengthy opinion pieces dressed up as some sort of historical record of inaction. It's a bit disguised, but the clues are there. The content is scattered around the paper and yes, the alert readers will see the errors of fact, they will see the journalistic bias and the pre-judgement. They will realise it's not independent at all, rather it's part of the very sham that the newspaper seeks to critique. Why should it be any different? After all, the old media just want to sell newspapers and advertisements, not fix public transport. Indeed, selling newspapers and shuttling people around on trains and buses is a nice fit. People don't tend to read papers and drive, leastways not at the same time.

 Mind you, the old media also want you to buy cars via their classifieds. Now that's a conflict if ever there was one. Buy your car and your paper, then park the car and read your news on the train. But hang on, what if we worked from home or at nearby shared digital hubs, and read the news online? What are the odds of the SMH's "independent investigation" coming up with a game-changer like that?

 But enough of that. It's an interesting read for a whole range of reasons. But first, let me bore you a bit with my opinion. And yes - before you hate me too much - I *do* agree that public transport in particular has been mishandled for decades. I just think that blaming successive Labor governments for this mess ignores a lot of political, social and economic realities. And yes, the SMH articles make some good points, too.

 But let's be honest. people vote with their cash as well as their ballot papers. Many people buy cars, and they want to drive them to work. They want the amenity, the freedom to escape schedules; and they want more roads, better roads, and easier parking. Sure, the tide may be turning as costs rise and carbon awareness increases, and we *are* clearly seeing the downsides of widespread car ownership and daily use, but the car lobby is so massive and so entwined into our lives that spending capital on major rail projects has become /nearly/ impossible. It's easy to say we should have done more, but who wants to (a) pay for it and (b) give up their social amenity and land as a rail line is pushed through /after the fact/ to service people who *chose* to live away from public transport?

 Saturday's SMH article only touches on the political realities of raising capital, equitably distributing funds and effectively 'governing' the state of NSW. Whilst blaming Labor for every transport-planning inaction imaginable. But at the end of the day people elect governments, and boot them out, too. If people wanted 'more' or 'better' public transport to a greater degree than (say) health care, law and order or education they would have booted the longstanding Labor state members out long ago. Maybe they will next time around, but let's face it - the conservatives are for small government, private equity and individual freedom of choice. They may promise the world in Opposition but faced with the economic realities of the very next day they'll resort to first principles; which is not in any way shape or form to build costly public infrastructure. Forget the metro, or new heavy rail; forget seeing trams again. If it happens at all it will be a private/public partnership with high ticket prices.

 Sadly too there's little mention of opportunity cost. But plenty of mentions of the economic drag placed on the economy by 'Labor's inaction'. Traffic snarls cost billions, apparently, and it's implied that this cost would be better avoided. But to what degree? Completely? At what cost? Or perhaps incompletely removed? Just where do we draw the line on reducing this "snarl-linked economic drag"? What if traffic snarls actually serve a purpose, to discourage further car use?

 The impression is left that we should build roads as well as rails to meet the demand to ease these "snarls". But there's no mention of any checks and balances here that perhaps should apply, as it does for most of the products and services available to us. There's no mention of what we could do with this proposed stream of infinite capital that woudl subsidise road and rail construction. What if we chose to balance things a bit and encouraged better health with more usable bicycle paths, or actually discouraged energy-expensive mass transit and replaced it with shorter journeys to digital shared workplace hubs? Or encouraged more working from home? What if - heavens above - the ghastly traffic snarls that cost "billions" are actually serving the purpose of discouraging driving to work, or choosing to live 30 kilometres or more from the workplace? What if we remove that disincentive? What mess will we arrive at then? Presumably - if the SMH's "experts" are right, removing traffic snarls would release the billions previously lost in those snarls as productivity savings. But will it? Or will it just spread the malaise as planning errors are laid one upon another, allowing Sydney to sprawl and con-urbate to infinity?

 Maybe there's more to this than the Herald appears to suggest. It'll be interesting to see where the "investigation" heads. As an aside, check out the overwhelming public engagement with this SMH-provided this link to twitter: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23fd-etww
Yep, nothing. Yawn. Move on, nothing happening here.

 Or check out Andrew West's interesting yet somewhat error laden 'history of inaction' (better re-check some of your 'facts' in Wikipedia, Andrew) http://www.smh.com.au/national/blowing-the-whistle-20090821-ets7.html
Oh dear. Nice to see it's not opinionated either, eh? There's more of the same here: http://www.smh.com.au/national/another-transport-scheme-another-dream-20090821-etww.html

 Pick your reality. I've said enough.

Posted via email from gtveloce's posterous