Re: [luv-talk] Why is there a protest over the East West Link?
From: "Lev Lafayette" <lev@levlafayette.com>
On Mon, June 30, 2014 5:24 pm, Peter Ross wrote:
Back to the East West Link, the winners are obvious. And the way it was "planned" and gets rushed through makes it quite obvious that nobody cares about the outcome for Melbourne and Victoria.
Well, they've been 'planned' since the freeway was initially on paper. There is the famous protests in 1977 which prevented the freeway being extended past Gold St, Collingwood.
From today's newspaper:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/east-west-link-project-approved-with-royal... "Much of Royal Park's heritage-listed grounds have been spared the bulldozer after Mr Guy axed the Elliott Avenue interchange from the design. The road will instead be built with access to Flemington Road, "subject to further detailed design work", Mr Guy said. Refinements to the design of the nest of flyovers at the tunnel's western end in Parkville will also be required." It reminds me of Joseph Heller's "Closing Time", where someone's son, an unemployed designer, gets a job from his mate to draw pictures of a fighter the company is tendering for. How should he draw it with no technical knowledge about aeroplanes at all? "It does not matter. It does not need to fly. All we need is a contract with the government." That's the level of expertise required to decide how to spend many billion dollars in Victoria. Regards Peter
On 1/07/2014 3:11 PM, Peter Ross wrote:
"Much of Royal Park's heritage-listed grounds have been spared the bulldozer after Mr Guy axed the Elliott Avenue interchange from the design. The road will instead be built with access to Flemington Road, "subject to further detailed design work", Mr Guy said.
Yes, and lane closures to push people to /have/ to pay tolls or suffer in gridlock if one must travel at any kind of peak period. This is total BS .... not at all impressed. A.
People don't want to pay tolls but then they whinge about having to pay taxes. If there were tolls on the road you have the choice of using it or not and paying or not. Without tolls and with taxes funding roads you have no choice. It comes out of general revenue. I don't know that tolls on roads is the problem. The gridlock will occur because of increases in population and more cars on the road. The idea is to create a road system that alleviates gridlock. Does this alleviate gridlock or not? On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 10:13 AM, Andrew McGlashan < andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au> wrote:
On 1/07/2014 3:11 PM, Peter Ross wrote:
"Much of Royal Park's heritage-listed grounds have been spared the bulldozer after Mr Guy axed the Elliott Avenue interchange from the design. The road will instead be built with access to Flemington Road, "subject to further detailed design work", Mr Guy said.
Yes, and lane closures to push people to /have/ to pay tolls or suffer in gridlock if one must travel at any kind of peak period.
This is total BS .... not at all impressed.
A.
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On 2/07/2014 12:00 PM, Michael Scott wrote:
People don't want to pay tolls but then they whinge about having to pay taxes.
If there were tolls on the road you have the choice of using it or not and paying or not. Without tolls and with taxes funding roads you have no choice. It comes out of general revenue. I don't know that tolls on roads is the problem.
The gridlock will occur because of increases in population and more cars on the road. The idea is to create a road system that alleviates gridlock. Does this alleviate gridlock or not?
Plenty of monies are collected in taxes at the pump and in lots of other places even before the car hits the road for the first time; there is no shortage of revenue. More monies in GST, duties and other taxes. There is clearly plenty of greed to make everyone pay more and to line some road builders pockets with gold -- not so much the builders themselves, but the /owners/ of what should be a public road! Gridlock can be avoided somewhat by not closing off lanes and forcing /badness/ onto road users, particularly those that don't want to line those pockets ... I am totally against road tolls, the M1 should have been 100% self funded, but we have 30 years to pay and there is a chance that it will actually never end. Rise after rise with CPI, the costs will be enormous in not too many years. A.
On Wed, 2 Jul 2014 12:14:23 Andrew McGlashan wrote:
Plenty of monies are collected in taxes at the pump and in lots of other places even before the car hits the road for the first time; there is no shortage of revenue. More monies in GST, duties and other taxes. There is clearly plenty of greed to make everyone pay more and to line some road builders pockets with gold -- not so much the builders themselves, but the /owners/ of what should be a public road!
It's always ironic when people who claim to be in favor of market forces and competition advocate toll roads. Toll roads are the greatest example of avoiding competition and market forces. If there's a need for a road in a certain area there's no possibility of competition. I think that private companies shouldn't own anything which is inherently anti-competitive or which is essential to the national interest. So we should have no private police, roads, water, gas, or phone lines. If I have no option to encourage a business to provide a better service by boycotting them then I want the option to vote for a government that will change the policy. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
Russell Coker wrote:
I think that private companies shouldn't own anything which is inherently anti-competitive or which is essential to the national interest. So we should have no private police, roads, water, gas, or phone lines.
The term you're looking for is "natural monopoly".
Trent W. Buck wrote:
Russell Coker wrote:
I think that private companies shouldn't own anything which is inherently anti-competitive or which is essential to the national interest. So we should have no private police, roads, water, gas, or phone lines. The term you're looking for is "natural monopoly".
Related to the benefits of REDUCTION of choice in infrastructure and public services; I some times wonder whether consumers wouldn't also be better off; if the choice of much design novelty; which is little more than "different from last month"; was constrained by some functional interface standards. The chaos of digital interfaces across TV remotes, mobile phones...etc even OS GUI's comes to mind ? regards Rohan McLeod
Rohan McLeod wrote:
Related to the benefits of REDUCTION of choice in infrastructure and public services; I some times wonder whether consumers wouldn't also be better off; if the choice of much design novelty; which is little more than "different from last month"; was constrained by some functional interface standards.
Are you suggesting legislation that requires products to follow a HIG? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_interface_guidelines Good luck with that.
Trent W. Buck wrote:
Rohan McLeod wrote:
Related to the benefits of REDUCTION of choice in infrastructure and public services; I some times wonder whether consumers wouldn't also be better off; if the choice of much design novelty; which is little more than "different from last month"; was constrained by some functional interface standards. Are you suggesting legislation that requires products to follow a HIG? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_interface_guidelines
Good luck with that.
Trent ; thanks for the that link; yes legislation might be a bit of an ask. Though philosophically I consider the economic ideology of ' laissez faire'; to be little better than economic fatalism; to even get the basic functionality of a competitive free-market requires enforced anti-monopoly, anti-collusion legislation! Perhaps the Australian Standards Organisation ; could have recommended HIG standards, which importers/ manufacturers; might advertise as features ? Couldn't seem to see any sign of this though with : http://www.standards.org.au/search/results.aspx?k=%22Human%20interface%20gui... regards Rohan McLeod
On Wed, 2 Jul 2014 12:00:07 Michael Scott wrote:
People don't want to pay tolls but then they whinge about having to pay taxes.
If there were tolls on the road you have the choice of using it or not and paying or not. Without tolls and with taxes funding roads you have no choice. It comes out of general revenue. I don't know that tolls on roads is the problem.
When there is a toll road the government guarantees profits to the toll operator by closing other roads. So the benefits from a toll road in terms of reducing traffic jams won't be as great as they would be from a tax paid road. The tolls are paid by all companies that use road transport and then passed on to customers by increased prices. So it's not as if you can escape from paying by having a toll that is paid by almost everyone else. Finally the toll revenue has to be a lot greater than the taxes because it pays for staff and equipment to collect the toll money, legal action when people don't pay the tolls, and a significant profit for the toll company.
The gridlock will occur because of increases in population and more cars on the road. The idea is to create a road system that alleviates gridlock. Does this alleviate gridlock or not?
The best way to alleviate gridlock is to have more public transport. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
Thanks Russell. At least your response makes sense. On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 12:22 PM, Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au> wrote:
On Wed, 2 Jul 2014 12:00:07 Michael Scott wrote:
People don't want to pay tolls but then they whinge about having to pay taxes.
If there were tolls on the road you have the choice of using it or not and paying or not. Without tolls and with taxes funding roads you have no choice. It comes out of general revenue. I don't know that tolls on roads is the problem.
When there is a toll road the government guarantees profits to the toll operator by closing other roads. So the benefits from a toll road in terms of reducing traffic jams won't be as great as they would be from a tax paid road.
The tolls are paid by all companies that use road transport and then passed on to customers by increased prices. So it's not as if you can escape from paying by having a toll that is paid by almost everyone else.
Finally the toll revenue has to be a lot greater than the taxes because it pays for staff and equipment to collect the toll money, legal action when people don't pay the tolls, and a significant profit for the toll company.
The gridlock will occur because of increases in population and more cars on the road. The idea is to create a road system that alleviates gridlock. Does this alleviate gridlock or not?
The best way to alleviate gridlock is to have more public transport.
-- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
On Wed, 2 Jul 2014, Michael Scott wrote:
People don't want to pay tolls but then they whinge about having to pay taxes.
If there were tolls on the road you have the choice of using it or not and paying or not. Without tolls and with taxes funding roads you have no choice. It comes out of general revenue. I don't know that tolls on roads is the problem.
The gridlock will occur because of increases in population and more cars on the road. The idea is to create a road system that alleviates gridlock. Does this alleviate gridlock or not?
But it doesn't. Everywhere around the world, the average commute time is 45 minutes. Regardless of where you are. It's fundamental, because no one wants to commute more than that, so they create whatever conditions are necessary to achieve that commute time. Live closer in. Build more dense housing. Find a job closer to home. Get a motorbike. Building freeways just induces demand. In 10 years time if the link is built, the projections are that traffic will be absolutely no different than it is today. Given that it's not even going to shift 150,000 per day, wouldn't it be more worthwhile wasting that $18B ($120,000 each for those 150,000 regular users! Bet they've not paid that much tax in 10 years) on something long term useful instead of getting the army to dig ditches and fill them back up again? Like perhaps train and freight links (since this freeway is just for Lindsay fox, build him a dedicated train line!). -- Tim Connors
Hi Tim, I guess my post was largely a response to one bemoaning the payment of tolls and creation of gridlock, where I was simply asking the question of whether people would rather pay tolls or taxes, and that gridlock isn't created by a new road but by more traffic. The one positive I can see from the new road is the potential flow from the Eastern Freeway, away from the Hoddle Street-Alexandra Avenue-CBD to the Tullamarine Freeway, creating more of a ring affect around the city. I was merely countering the post from Andrew, and asking a question more than making a point. Michael On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 11:07 AM, Tim Connors <tim.w.connors@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, 2 Jul 2014, Michael Scott wrote:
People don't want to pay tolls but then they whinge about having to pay taxes.
If there were tolls on the road you have the choice of using it or not and paying or not. Without tolls and with taxes funding roads you have no choice. It comes out of general revenue. I don't know that tolls on roads is the problem.
The gridlock will occur because of increases in population and more cars on the road. The idea is to create a road system that alleviates gridlock. Does this alleviate gridlock or not?
But it doesn't. Everywhere around the world, the average commute time is 45 minutes. Regardless of where you are. It's fundamental, because no one wants to commute more than that, so they create whatever conditions are necessary to achieve that commute time. Live closer in. Build more dense housing. Find a job closer to home. Get a motorbike.
Building freeways just induces demand. In 10 years time if the link is built, the projections are that traffic will be absolutely no different than it is today. Given that it's not even going to shift 150,000 per day, wouldn't it be more worthwhile wasting that $18B ($120,000 each for those 150,000 regular users! Bet they've not paid that much tax in 10 years) on something long term useful instead of getting the army to dig ditches and fill them back up again? Like perhaps train and freight links (since this freeway is just for Lindsay fox, build him a dedicated train line!).
-- Tim Connors
On 09/07/14 11:07, Tim Connors wrote:
Building freeways just induces demand. In 10 years time if the link is built, the projections are that traffic will be absolutely no different than it is today. Given that it's not even going to shift 150,000 per day, wouldn't it be more worthwhile wasting that $18B ($120,000 each for those 150,000 regular users!
those income figures look reasonable as they equate to a mean toll price of $12.50 per day when considered over 25 years with an NPV calculation and with cars at half the price of trucks this is about the same as what is paid on the current toll roads. Thus cars at $6.90/day and trucks as double. The $120,000 each for user looks big when aggregated over the life of the project, but not when considered for a single trip which could be as low as $4 initially. http://www.citylink.com.au/files/GUIDE_TOLLS_010714.pdf The road would split much of the traffic from the Eastern Freeway with the part heading to the western end of the city using to toll road as most of the commercial part of the city is now west of Queen Street and in Docklands. Steve
On 2/07/2014 12:00 PM, Michael Scott wrote:
People don't want to pay tolls but then they whinge about having to pay taxes.
If there were tolls on the road you have the choice of using it or not and paying or not. Without tolls and with taxes funding roads you have no choice. It comes out of general revenue. I don't know that tolls on roads is the problem.
Paying taxes for public infrastructure is quite different to paying tolls for private owners to extort monies year on year. A.
On Wed, July 9, 2014 6:30 pm, Andrew McGlashan wrote:
On 2/07/2014 12:00 PM, Michael Scott wrote:
If there were tolls on the road you have the choice of using it or not and paying or not. Without tolls and with taxes funding roads you have no choice. It comes out of general revenue. I don't know that tolls on roads is the problem.
Paying taxes for public infrastructure is quite different to paying tolls for private owners to extort monies year on year.
This raises an interesting point; usually such infrastructure is considered a public good, which ideally means individuals can't be excluded from it, and individual use doesn't prevent use by others. Now of course even a road isn't perfectly aligned to such criteria. The presence of tolls does create a means of exclusion (i.e., it excludes those who can't or won't pay), and a road is not entirely non-rivalrous, as gridlock illustrates. What a tollway system does it's shifted a slightly progressive fee system (through taxes) to a flat-rate tax system which, of course, effects the low incomes more onerously. It also provides for monopolistic income generated to go to a private company which, to use the language of classical political economy, acts as both landlord (rent-seeking) and capitalist (profit-seeking). A user of the services rents both the economic land (i.e., location) that the tollway is based on, as well as paying an interest fee for the infrastructure itself. Very smart business sense, but possibly not so great for the economy in aggregate, or for those who are paying. -- Lev Lafayette, BA (Hons), GradCertTerAdEd (Murdoch), GradCertPM, MBA (Tech Mngmnt) (Chifley) mobile: 0432 255 208 RFC 1855 Netiquette Guidelines http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt
participants (9)
-
Andrew McGlashan -
Lev Lafayette -
Michael Scott -
Peter Ross -
Rohan McLeod -
Russell Coker -
Steve Roylance -
Tim Connors -
Trent W. Buck