Time for Action: Get your kicks on Route 56

Base image © Depositphotos.com/@zager

A flat tyre on my bike and an approaching deadline left me with two choices: drive to work or be organised enough to catch the No. 56 from Palmerston to UC. I was organised enough so at 8:03am, I stepped onto the bus in Palmerston. 

Arriving at work, 10km away, I stepped off the No. 250 at 9:00am precisely. This represents a new level of inadequacy on the sole bus service for my suburb. Almost one hour to travel on the bus. The same trip can be covered on a bicycle in 30 minutes, and about 10 to 15 minutes in the car, depending on traffic.

But what is remarkable about this problem is that the latest Action bus timetable has made the Palmerston bus service worse than ever.

When I first caught the No. 56 bus back in 2005, it went from Palmerston out onto Gundaroo Drive and then on to UC in 15 minutes. Almost the same as the car. But then in about 2010, some bright spark thought that the service would be better it if went via Gungahlin. So, in effect, I got on the No. 56, went to Gungahlin, stayed on the bus, travelled back past Palmerston, then on to UC. Total travel time 30 minutes. About the same time as the bike.

But today, I discover the No. 56 ends at Gungahlin. So, too, it seems, does the No. 57. This explains why, when I miss the No. 56 and I ride down to Gundaroo Drive to intercept another bus there, I watch as at least two buses "Not in Service" travel past me quite smugly until the 250 comes along.

So the bus driver informs me that the 56 now ends at Gungahlin. I got kicked off Route 56. 

I wait patiently for the 250, and then, in gloriously bureaucratic efficiency, I arrive at my destination in twice the normal time. Thankfully, I use my time on the bus to read. Mostly, I use the bus/bike combo because it is relatively cheap and it means I do not have to waste fuel or pay for parking. Even though most bus stops are quite a walk away from wherever I want to go, it is so much easier when you can cycle to and from bus stops. 

But I can only imagine what it must be like to rely on the bus for the daily grind. Imagine living in Palmerston and working in Belconnen? A one-hour commute. That is the equivalent of living in Penrith and commuting to the Sydney CBD. This is hardly the way to encourage people out of their cars. It also makes the plight of Palmerstonians, in Canberra's most densely populated suburb, that much harder.

Want to get your kicks on Route 56? Then it's time for Action.

Book Notes: "Full Circle: How the Classical World Came Back to Us" by Ferdinand Mount

Full Circle: How the Classical World Came Back to Us by Ferdinand Mount

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


At first I thought this book was a typical airport read and I regretted purchasing it. But I pushed on and found, although the author's thesis was sufficiently unsupported by evidence other than what one might glean from travelling around a bit, that I quite liked the Richard Dawkins bashing section enough to give it a go. There are some useful references to a number of other works I would like to read, and otherwise I am glad to have finished the book. Nevertheless, I must be more careful in future about how I choose my books. Airport books tend not to deliver value for the time spent - time that could be invested reading more important works. But we live and learn I suppose.



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Traffic Congestion: An efficient solution to peak hour traffic...?

© Depositphotos.com/@alexandragl

This week, I've been reviewing the literature on transport infrastructure policy. If there is one, big, wicked problem in transport infrastructure, it is traffic congestion. Nobody likes sitting in a car capable of travelling in excess of  100km/h only to crawl along at a snail's pace for a substantial portion of one's waking day.

But respected American economist Andrew Downs (1992: 6, see Holden 2010) suggests that "traffic congestion is the balancing mechanism that allows [people] to pursue certain goals they strongly desire - goals other than rapid movement during peak hours."

Traffic congestion is the balancing mechanism that allows [people] to pursue certain goals they strongly desire - goals other than rapid movement during peak hours (Downs 1992).

The fundamental problem is the "resulting disparity between the high demand for traveling during [peak] periods and the limited supply of roads." Downs (1992: 7) outlines four theoretical solutions to this fundamental problem: 

1. Ration the use of roads through user charges when demand exceeds supply,
2. Increase the capacity of roads,
3. Increase public transport, or
4. Put up with traffic congestion.

In effect, whether by default or design, congestion is the preferred solution to the current problem.

Realistic solutions to transport problems tend to focus on what Dr Dinesh Mohan of the Indian Institute of Technology suggests is unsustainable: "You just increase transport, you don't reduce congestion."

You just increase transport, you don't reduce congestion (Dr Dinesh Mohan).

The biggest problem with any of the solutions proposed by Downs is that people do not want to have road use rationed, whether through tolls or other user-pays methods, and until public transport is reliably faster than travel by car (such as Hong Kong's MTR, for example), then increasing road capacity is the only logical solution. Unless, of course, governments stop funding ever-increasing road capacity that, despite the best of intentions, ultimately ends in traffic congestion closer to the CBD. Clearly this is not sustainable.

As Downs stated two decades ago, the only way to reduce peak capacity is to reorganise the times we go to work and school. Until then, traffic congestion, which is effectively making people line up to use the road system, is the optimal solution to this wicked problem.

References:

Dearnaley, M. (2014, September 17). Metro rail won’t fix congestion - expert. New Zealand Herald. Retrieved from http://www.nzherald.co.nz/mathew-dearnaley/news/article.cfm?a_id=111&objectid=11326500.

Downs, A. (2005). Still Stuck in Traffic: Coping with Peak-hour Traffic Congestion. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

Holden, M. (2010). The Rhetoric of Sustainability: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy? Sustainability, 2(2), 645–659.