Obviously Unsensible
Congestion Tax
reading todays Herald sun and inside was a story about a congestion Tax coming to Melbourne and Sydney.
it stated that it will probably be $10 each time to enter the city.
which will hopefully stop the traffic congestion and hope people will use public transport more. even though they say public transport will need to be made better.
seriously, i pay tolls to get into the city, out of the city, to park in the city (when i have to get to work and no public transport is available). and this is already a pretty big cost when you think about it, and now they want to add another $10!
sure if they fix up the public transport system it may work at getting cars off the road, but how much would they have to pump in to fix it up (melbourne this is)
im happy i can catch the old VLine service which takes next to no time to get into the city, but will soon be forced onto Metro which will take more then double, if not triple the time to get into town, and thats if its not late!
ive been to Japan and the train service there was amazing, it was cheap, they dont muck around, its on time, they use paper tickets not some cruddy card reading machine that doesnt work properly. how hard could this be to possibly do!
all i can say is if they bring in this tax i swear im going to move interstate, as it will do no good for anyone except for the governements back pockets, who cannot even keep a public transport system going.
so whats your thoughts on a congestion tax?
how about we make the pedals out of sticky rubber and the shoes with steel spikes. at least my shins would like thatOriginally Posted by Jonesy484
go
they have it in london, no one complains about it there. but as you said, our public transport is shit, who the hell wants to wait half an hour for a train???, the most i ever saw in the 2 years i lived there was 9 mins, in peak hours they have trains lining up to get into the station. and there buses come every couple of minuites not every half hour, on sundays in my areas you have to wait 2 hours for a bus.
we need a underground metro type train setup that works before they can charge any sort of congestion tax
Tells it like it is.
If memory served people complained long and loud when it was being introduced. It's done and dusted and pointless arguing on and on about it. Take a poll of people who pay it and I'm guessing there will be nearly universal condemnation of it.
As for Victoria, I really question a need at this time. Our biggest bottle neck is moving traffic from east to west via the abortion that is the Westgate Bridge. Finish that never ending story, put the Monash Fwy back to 100 km/h. Two big projects that need to get going is linking the Greensborough end of the ring road to the Eastern Freeway. The second being a link from the nothing end of the Eastern Freeway at Alexandra Pde to Citylink heading to the airport.
Reaper
Nil Bastardo Carborundum
Hey Reap
Is that all you have to do to sort Melbourne out?
Try Sydney's unfinished network, where freeways from every direction end well short of the city and dump traffic onto eighty year old surface road networks.
North - F3 ends at Waitara, leaving all traffic 8km of suburban road to link with the next freeway.
West -M4 from Western suburbs - ends at Strathfield, about 8-10 km from Sydney
South - F6 ends at Sutherland - 25? km from Sydney
South West - M5 - 2 lanes each way, should have been 3 each way. Huge project now to widen to what it should have been
North West - M2 - the only one that actually reaches the city, but again, much of it two lanes each way and now undergoing widening, but slowly.
Only a couple link up - nothing is finished and it's been that way for well over a decade. Labor Government promised railway after railway project for 16 years and delivered none, so the inadequate road network is still the only option for many. Large sections of Sydney have no railway at all and none planned. Others should get underway within next two years.
For those who have to drive, extensive and expensive toll roads exist from every direction, so the congestion tax will simply get piled onto existing living expenses, like everything else at present.
Shit, what a country.
australia is 1 of the highest taxed countries in the world and they keep adding more to be richer fat cats.. My wife works in the city and the parking for her is 14 a day and the 90 for fuel each week to get there.. She get public transport for free but she works late and traveling from teh city to lillydale at night is a NO.. dont trust the wankers out on the trains.. If the congestion tax gets added and the carbon tax added too then the cost of everything will go up again..
Tells it like it is.
Lol - Melbourne roads work pretty well save what I mentioned above. The closest I got to Sydney in about 4 years was Nowra last Christmas but from memory that's close enough. Every time I've been in Sydney metro the traffic has been an unmitigated disaster.
Reaper
go
dont forget they want to widen the m7 now... which is lucky to be 10 years old... why the hell wouldnt they do it properly first time
and the m5 tunnel, school boy error on building that one only 2 lanes, no easy way of fixing that
Nil Bastardo Carborundum
All because it was done to the lowest possible price, without any thought for growth in population. Typical of the last State Government though - promise everthing and give nothing. Bastards.
captain halfajob
certainly does. i was there about 6 months before it was introduced and around 4 years after, the difference it made to traffic was astronomical! oxford to central london in 55 mins. you would have NEVER heard of that before the charge.
mind you, the only reason it works is because they have a public transport system which can handle the additional traffic in the morning. their buses are brilliant, and the tube is.. well, it copes..
melbourne PT is horrific.
melbourne pt is the worst in australia.. It should be free cos of the delays and cancelations and the poor running of it..
DoNothing Member
i love that Metro is starting to ramp up the fare evader advertising again. i pay for tickets, but i can see the appeal in not paying when your train is 10 minutes late and packed to the roof.
metros business model; fine people without a ticket, cancelled/late trains, give refunds to consumers.
Tells it like it is.
So if they are 10 min late you think you should get the service for free??? What if you are late delivering a project in your job? Should the customer get it for free too???
Reaper
Obviously Unsensible
also from reading in the paper (was in the Herald sun mid week).
Melbourne has been voted at 2 outta 5 stars for public transport.
Sydney was voted 3 stars.
whereas Perth was voted 5 stars.
if they want to sort out fare evading have people manning the gates to get onto platforms like they do in japan.
you have to go through barriers with proper security watching.
how about we make the pedals out of sticky rubber and the shoes with steel spikes. at least my shins would like that
DoNothing Member
i think metro seem to think they have the consumer over a barrel. for a lot of people PT is the only option.
if i consistently deliver late projects in my job. i'd expect the client to go elsewhere. when Metro are consistently late, people don't have that luxury. hence the argument could be made that paying for a service which does not deliver on promises.
Don't blame Metro. What people fail to realise is that Metro is only the operator. (As was Connex) The government owns all the shitty infrastructure and are therefore responsible for funding it.
As said before they have the congestion charge in london and that was supposed to minimize traffic but it doesnt. I lived there for years and people actually do complain about the charge because it does not work at all. London is still packed with bumper to bumper traffic everywhere. This charge will not do anything but raise revenue. They do need an underground train system of some kind like the london underground but that will take years to develop.
There are a few ways around the charge in london. One of them is if you have a hybrid car and the other one is to register your car as a taxi and pay that fee every year which saves you lots of money if you're a regular city commuter. I dont know if they'll have the same sort of thing in melbourne and sydney. Im just glad im in adelaide where we are behind everyone else by 10 years
-The Pommy With A Commy-
I Don't Care What You Say, But My Commy Is The Fastest Car In The World
they need FREE public transport cos ours is crap.. Every time it gets taken over it gets worse..I would rather walk and get there and be hours late or even worse dont make it cos its been cancled all together..
thats capitalism for you... the people at bottom have to crunch the numbers to make them selves and the boss one level above look better, and its get worse up the chain till in the end there building a 2 lane tunnel with the only thing considered is saving money not planning for the future. spend the money only when the situation turns ugly to fix the immediate problem, and even then its on skeleton budget... my brother is always talking about it. he does NDT testing for oil companies. seems like they only spend money when theres a one site death due to lack of maintenance or something. as long as the numbers look good #### everything else...
dont sweat the petty... pet the sweaty...
Tells it like it is.
According to the news on the radio the Vic State Government have ruled out a congestion tax.
Commissioned and overseen by the then state Labor government. Done half arsed like the old South Eastern Arterial in Melbourne during the 80's. Nothing to do with capitalism - just old fashioned bad planning - one of the Labor ideals.
Reaper
Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story.
SkyFall
Is this part of queen clovers plan for Sydney to make everyone ride a bike?
I would never get a job in Sydney, #### having to drive or train into there each day. Most of the CBD is a bike lane now, Cityrail was a nightmare back when i used it to get to school (only 3 stations, no changeover) half the time the train would get cancelled and you have to wait 30 mins for the next one.
The few times i have been into the city via car its a nightmare, hundreds of detours and closed streets for roadworks, or streets are closed to force you onto a tollway......
The Black Beauty
youll know more about this stuff than me cause im an import, but i think these politicians are smarter than your giving them credit for. all this money there making with the traffic cams and they dont even want to give cops a raise. look at overland cooking the books to make the politicians look better. its all a numbers game and whos look better...
dont sweat the petty... pet the sweaty...
L337
the Monash is a fail and so is our trains in Melbourne . They complain about people not buying a ticket for the train , But why should you when its all ways late 30mins to 1 hour and most of the time they are doing track works so bus's taking even longer . And yeh the Monash if you even want to go faster then 40kph you have to get on it before 6am lol
there was talk of it being introduced into Brisbane as well, which met with some fierce opposition
Brisbane has a terrible public transport system if you want to travel from one side of town to the other. My 25km drive (in the car) from the northside to the southside each day in peak hour traffic took about an 1hr 10 each way - which is bad enough. I tried taking the train instead. First I found the train I needed expressed straight past my station (which was a 5 minute walk from my place) at that time of the morning. So I had to still drive to the next closest station, which had a full carpark, so I had to park half a km down the road in a suburban street. Then when I did get on the train, it stopped in the city, I had to jump out and wait for the next train travelling on the correct line. About 10 minutes later the train arrives, but it terminates at the station just before the one I need. So I have to wait another 20 minutes for a train that does stop at the station I need. When I finally arrive at the correct station, it's a 10 minute brisk walk to where I work. All up, nearly 2.5 hrs..... And then I have to do it all over again to get home. And I might add, whilst it was cheaper than driving the car to work, it still wasn't cheap....
And the problem with Brisbane is that if you need to drive from one side of town to the other, you MUST drive through the city - even if you take the inner city 'bypass' road. So if they were to implement a congestion tax in Brisbane, first thing they would need to do is build a northside/southside road that bypasses the city alltogether. Secondly, until Australia has the sort of public transport system in place like England, then a parallel can't be drawn between the 2 countries when it comes to bringing in congestion taxes. Because England's public transport system is so good, that a lot of people in London don't even own cars. Third, Australia's cities cover a far greater geographical area than little dots on the map like London. Hell, Brisbane alone covers about the same geographical area (if not larger) than many European countries. Hence we have a far greater need to drive cars. Fourth point, if one of these politicians with the great ideas would actually ride on a train during peak hour, they would realise the trains are already at capacity. People are squished up against the doors! And during peak hour a train comes past on average every 10 minutes, it would appear that the train lines are at capacity too. They will need to build more train lines.
And I'd imagine it's fairly much the same for most Australian capital cities.
Obviously Unsensible
Yeah it is. It is pretty pathetic but it seems the government is reluctant to do anything to fix the problem.
It makes me think about the taxi pay rise debacle. They want more money yet don't want to fix up existing problems in order to do it.
The whole public transport needs to be overhauled so we can get places in reasonable times. Such as express trains that stop at only a few stations and make getting places faster then cars like how Vline currently does
how about we make the pedals out of sticky rubber and the shoes with steel spikes. at least my shins would like that
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