Planning transport infrastructure: examining the politics of transport planning in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth

Abstract

Australian cities have observed a “consensus turn” expressed as broad public support of greater accessibility and public transport provision as revealed in metropolitan strategic plans. In contrast large-scale road projects proposed to traverse the inner-city of three major Australian cities reveals an ongoing and deep-seated attachment by some to car-based travel in Australian urban transport planning. Comparative case studies of these three road projects in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth explores the impact that an antagonistic relationship between the state and community has on the culture of transport planning. Through observational insights, policy and media analysis and interviews with community groups, we show that this antagonistic planning culture arises when there is a fracture between metropolitan strategic plan-making and project planning, and when clear channels of communication and deliberation are undermined.

澳大利亚的城市经历了一次“共识转向”，体现在城市战略规划上，则是提高可达性和公共交通供给获得了公众的广泛支持。相反，连接澳大利亚三大城市中心区的大规模道路工程则折射出一些人在澳大利亚城市交通规划中倚赖小汽车的观念。这样的观念目前依旧盛行，而且根深蒂固。本文对三大城市——墨尔本、悉尼和帕斯——的道路工程进行对比研究，说明国家与社区的对立关系对交通规划文化的影响。通过观察分析、政策分析、舆论分析，以及对社区人群进行采访，本文指出对立的规划文化源自城市战略规划和项目规划的分裂，以及清晰的沟通和协商渠道的缺失。

Keywords:

• Consensus planning
• transport policy
• accessibility

Notes

1. This decision was recently overturned on appeal and is now the subject of a further crowd funded appeal.

2. Notwithstanding that accessibility performance is also influenced by morphological differences concerning urban geography and settlement density, the pace of public transport expansion during the past 25 years has been much more rapid in these cities too and especially when compared to road infrastructure. Since 1991, public transport infrastructure (measured by additional rapid rail stations opened, under construction or with a funding commitment by 2016) expanded at a faster rate in Vancouver, Munich and Barcelona than in Sydney and Melbourne, with only Perth performing close to its international counterparts (Curtis and Scheurer 2016). Despite the more road-friendly policy settings in Australian cities, the actual extent of freeway and tollway infrastructure differs little between the cities (Table 2), but the greater focus on road building over investment in public transport in the Australian cities over the decades has produced relative stagnation in public transport accessibility.