News - Transport

Catherine Carter's regular column in the City News sometimes talks a lot of sense, on behalf of the Property Council of Australia (i.e. major developers).

But just as often she is just sprouting spin, with lots of numbers to try to lend credibility to an underlying flawed premise.

This article is one of her regular reprises of the "Canberra was designed for cars and public transport will never work" and "Canberra has a car parking crisis" topics.

What car parking crisis, I ask? No shortage of available spaces all around the city. About the only area that is tight that I know of is over the ANU side - maybe that's where her office is? I think what she is really saying, is that "there is a shortage of car parking within 100 metres of where I work." Swap your high heels for something you can actually walk in Catherine, and you'll find there is actually a stack of parking around the city centre.

Also in ths article she bemoans the funding that goes into bus services, as if proposing that they should be done away with, and tough luck for anyone who doesn't have a car. However she is falling into the usual trap of only looking at public transport budgets as a stand alone "expense". But considered as just a part of the whole transport budget, you find that the public transport costs are actually an "inverstment". This is backed up by the ACT Sustainable Transport Plan, which states that every dollar spent under tha plan would have a multiplier of between two and three times in saved or deferred road construction cost and the like.

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