Submission to the East West Link Needs Assessment
June 2007
Prepared by Jess Fritze
Victorian Council of Social Service (VCOSS)
The Victorian Council of Social Service (VCOSS) has served Victorians as the peak independent coordinating body of the social and community services sector for almost 60 years. VCOSS raises awareness of the existence, causes and effects of poverty and inequality and advocates for the development of a sustainable, fair and equitable society. As well as promoting the well being of those experiencing disadvantage and contributing to initiatives seeking to create a more just society, VCOSS also provides a strong, non-political voice for the community sector.
VCOSS works together with its members on issues such as poverty and inequality and ensures that community resources and services are available and affordable. VCOSS promotes community participation as well as strengthening the value of citizenship in our community.
VCOSS has been working in the area of transport policy since 2003. Our central goal in relation to transport planning is the achievement of a sustainable city in which all residents have access to an affordable and accessible transport system which meets their mobility needs.
To this end, we are concerned that social equity issues have not been included in the terms of reference for the East West Link Needs Assessment (EWNA). VCOSS is also concerned that the issues of climate change and peak oil have not been adequately considered as the context in which transport policy will operate.
VCOSS would also wish to see that investments and projects represent an efficient and equitable use of community resources. With this in mind, we have also addressed the lack of synergy between transport patterns and the proposed tunnel solution.
Melbourne: a divided city
Transport disadvantage
The transport decisions made by Government play a critical role in the development - or not - of a sustainable city. Transport systems are also essential for social inclusion. A growing body of research has established the relationship between access to transport and ability to engage with education, employment and community services.[1]
Individuals and households without access to sufficient affordable transport are considered 'transport disadvantaged'. Factors which contribute to transport disadvantage include:
· low-income or unemployment
· disability
· age (both the elderly and young people are more likely to experience transport disadvantage)
· geographic location (outer suburban/rural communities have less transport services)
· language barriers
· caregiving responsibilities (of either a dependent child or adult)
· lack of access to a car[2]
Twenty per cent of Victorians have some form of disability and this proportion will increase with an aging population.[3] Nine per cent of households have no motor vehicle and within single vehicle households, access to a car may be limited. [4]
Low income groups represent the majority of public transport users and many people who rely on public transport are disadvantaged in other ways, for example though age or disability.
Source: Department of Sustainability and Environment, Melbourne Atlas, 2006, 6:14
Unequal access to transport services
The benefits and costs of Melbourne’s current transport infrastructure are unequally distributed.
The benefits of pubic transport investment are currently enjoyed predominantly by inner city residents. While Meeting Our Transport Challenges (MOTC) contains substantial investment in Melbourne's outer suburban bus services, communities without access to the tram and train networks will continue to have only limited access to comparatively slow, infrequent and poorly coordinated services.
This is especially problematic for socio-economically disadvantaged communities living in transport poor areas. The co-location of disadvantage and lack of transport resources in Melbourne is overwhelmingly in outer suburban areas.
Source: G Currie and Z Senbergs, Identifying gaps in public transport provision for socially disadvantaged Australians – the ‘Melbourne needs gap study’ Australasian Transport Research Forum, 2007.
Lack of public transport directly affects the ability of low income and transport disadvantaged people living in the middle and outer suburbs of Melbourne to participate in employment, education and community life. For example, less than 3 per cent of jobs in Melbourne are accessible by public transport for residents who live outside the inner city area.
Source: Department of Sustainability and Environment, Melbourne Atlas, 2006, 6.14
Meanwhile, public transport in Melbourne has seen a rapid increase in patronage. Train patronage has grown by 18 per cent in the last 2 years.[5] This has exacerbated existing congestion on Melbourne’s peak hour train services especially those servicing residential growth areas in the south east.
Source: Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission, Making the right choices: options for managing transport congestion, Sept 2006, xxxvii
Congestion on peak and shoulder peak public transport services impacts on the ability of passengers with increased mobility needs to travel. Passengers using wheelchairs and other mobility aids, those who require a seat for their journey due to age, disability or illness and parents with young children have difficulty using overcrowded services. This has flow on effects not only in terms of unequal inconvenience in needing to alter travel patterns but may impact on the ability of these passengers to engage with education, employment which requires travel at peak periods.
As petrol prices rise, the demand for high quality public transport services will continue to increase.
Unequal costs of transport
Given that the RACV has calculated that the cheapest weekly cost of running a new car is $116.54, car ownership remains a prohibitively expensive option for low income earners.[6] As the costs of private transport rise with higher petrol prices, public transport will remain the most affordable transport option for low income households.
Yet due to the unavailability and poor quality of public transport services outside Melbourne's inner city, low income households who have moved to outer suburban areas to access more affordable housing need to spend a disproportionate amount of their income to meet their basic mobility needs.
Analysis by Professor Graham Currie from Monash University shows high rates of 'forced car ownership' in low income households outside the inner city. Low income households are forced to own and operate multiple private vehicles due to a lack of alternative transport options.
Source: G Currie and Z Senbergs, ‘Exploring forced car ownership in Melbourne’, Australasian Transport Research Forum, 2007.
This link between 'forced car ownership' and public transport availability is clearly shown by mapping high car ownership in low income households across the Melbourne metropolitan area. The availability of high quality public transport, namely heavy rail, is clearly correlated with reduced car dependence in low income households.
Source: G Currie and Z Senbergs, ‘Exploring forced car ownership in Melbourne’, Australasian Transport Research Forum, 2007.
Oil vulnerability
Transport is already the second highest household income expenditure category after food. This suggests that transport costs, and their fluctuation, have a significant impact on household budgets.
Source: Department of Sustainability and Environment, Melbourne Atlas, 2006, 5.10.
Melbourne's inner city is well provided with affordable, high quality public transport allowing inner city residents to adapt their travel behaviour away from the private car when the price of petrol becomes prohibitive. Residents in Melbourne's outer suburbs and country Victoria do not have similar access to transport alternatives leaving many residents of these communities extremely vulnerable to high petrol prices. This assessment is supported by the Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport report on Australia's Future Oil Supply and Alternative Transport Fuels.[7]
Dodson and Sipe (2005) have developed an oil vulnerability index which has been used to represent the distribution of households in Australian cities which are likely to be hard hit by high petrol prices[8]. In Melbourne, these households are shown to be distributed in outer suburban areas due to their high levels of car dependency and lack of alternative transport options. Subsequent expansion of the index to reflect household debt levels and associated levels of disposable income further reinforced the vulnerability of outer suburban residents to increased fuel prices.[9]
Source: J Dodson and N Sipe, Shocking the Suburbs: Urban Location, Housing Debt and Oil Vulnerability in the Australian City, Urban Research Program Griffith University, Research Paper Number 8, June 2006, 34.
Unequal effects of noise and air pollution
There is also highly unequal distribution of transport costs such as exposure to noise and air pollutants, in particular from freight traffic. VCOSS shares the concerns of the Maribyrnong Truck Action Group who argue that residential areas of the inner west are currently exposed to high levels of air and noise pollution due to current truck access arrangements to the Port of Melbourne.[10]
Critical factors to assess plans to address congestion
VCOSS believes that addressing inequalities in the availability and cost of transport in Melbourne should be a central aim of transport planning. This would reduce transport disadvantage and the financial vulnerability of low income households dependent on running multiple cars to meet their transport needs.
It is therefore concerning that social equity is not included in the terms of reference for the EWNA, especially given increasing recognition of these issues by the State Government.
Transport planning decisions are typically based on economic cost-benefit analysis including economic benefits from reduced congestion. While environmental sustainability is increasingly considered in planning decisions, social equity has recently been considered as a transport planning goal in Victoria.
VCOSS commends recent funding decisions and initiatives of the State Government which have acknowledged the critical role of transport provision to address social disadvantage. These include:
· Provision of improved bus services in outer suburban areas under Meeting Our Transport Challenges
· Announcement of a further $14.15 million for 30 new Transport Connections programs under A Fairer Victoria
· The Transport Social Disadvantage and Wellbeing conferences held at the Department of Infrastructure
While this is a promising start, VCOSS believes that equity considerations should be fully integrated into the assessment of transport planning options.
Forkenbrock (2001), for example, proposes a model of transport project assessment which incorporates the distribution of social and economic costs and benefits across the community in which the project takes place.
Source: D Forkenbrock and G Weisbrod, Guidebook for Assessing the Social and Economic Effects of Transportation Projects, Transportation Research Board, NCHRP Report 456, National Academy Press, 2001, 4.
Litman (2006) provides a comprehensive summary of equity issues in relation to transport planning. He suggests that transport planning should address both horizontal and vertical equity considerations.
· Horizontal equity leads to transport systems which support an equal distribution of resources, opportunities and costs across the whole community
· Vertical equity refers to the ability of the transportation system to meet the needs of community members who are disadvantaged in terms of income, socio-economic status or mobility[11]
This assessment of transport equity reflects the role of transport as an essential service and a public good.
From an equity perspective, does the EWNA ask the right question?
The East West Link Needs Assessment (EWNA) suggests that an alternative east west route is required in Melbourne to reduce congestion of the Monash Westgate corridor and to cater for population growth Melbourne's west and south east as well as projected increases in freight traffic originating from the Port of Melbourne.
This is based on the premise that there is a substantial and increasing volume of east-west traffic in Melbourne[12]. However, publicly available data does not support this assumption.
Analysis of Census 2001 journey to work data by the Bus Association of Victoria, indicates that only 2 per cent of trips are ‘cross city’ and only 1.5 per cent of commuter trips are between areas which would potentially benefit from a new east-west transport corridor.[13] In addition, the North Central City Corridor Study (NCCC) indicated that the vast majority of traffic travelling along the heavily congested Eastern freeway at peak hour was heading for the inner city. Distribution of Eastern freeway traffic analysis undertaken for the NCCC indicated that only 12 per cent of cars travelling westbound along the freeway were heading to destinations west of Royal Parade While 32 per cent of trucks were bound for the west, trucks represented only 3.6 per cent of traffic on the freeway.[14]
It would appear that the majority of congestion on Melbourne’s east-west transport routes is radial trips in private cars. Therefore, the most effective mechanisms for addressing this congestion issue would be increased transport alternatives for radial travel which will reduce traffic volumes or alleviate congestion.
Thus the EWNA focuses on the travel needs of a small minority of road users who travel across the city on east-west routes. Focussing on issues of congestion on these routes would more accurately reflect the needs of the majority of road users, some of whom are do not have adequate public transport alternatives to allow them to move away from their cars, and issues of congestion on overcrowded public transport services on which low income and disadvantaged Melbournians depend.
Future challenges and transport planning
"The world is facing twin energy-related threats: that of not having adequate and secure supplies of energy at affordable prices and that of environmental harm caused by consuming too much of it"[15] International Energy Agency
VCOSS commends the 30 year timescale of the EWNA as an opportunity to plan for Melbourne's future transport needs.
However, VCOSS is concerned that broader sustainability issues such as climate change and peak oil have been given little attention within the EWNA terms of reference despite the fact that these issues will have substantial impacts on transport patterns and the viability of Melbourne's urban form over the timeframe under consideration.
Climate change
The need for substantial and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in order to prevent catastrophic climate change is well established and is reflected by the State Government's goal of 60 per cent greenhouse gas emissions reduction by 2050. Climate change is an economic and environmental threat which has the potential to cause enormous disruption and damage to ecosystems, communities and economies. Victoria is vulnerable to the projected effects of climate change especially with regard to increased periods of drought, heat waves, increased bushfire activity and greater frequency of extreme weather events[16].