GREG CLAUSEN
There has never been a climate impact assessment for the $40m+ Kingston Bypass project, yet the Kingborough Council Planning Committee must determine the Planning Application for the project on Monday 14 September 2009.
The implications for even greater marginalisation of sustainable transport options, greater commuter distress and climate impact are profound. With that background, alternative transport proponents will form a Sustainable Transport Advocacy Coalition in Tasmania (STACTAS) to advance better transport alternatives. A public meeting will be held on 13 September 2009 at the Kingston Beach Hall to determine what interest there might be in such a group.
Where was the climate impact assessment?
There has never been a climate impact assessment for the $40m+ Kingston Bypass project, yet the Kingborough Council Planning Committee must determine the Planning Application for the project on Monday 14 September 2009.
The implications for even greater marginalisation of sustainable transport options, greater commuter distress and climate impact are profound. With that background, alternative transport proponents will form a Sustainable Transport Advocacy Coalition in Tasmania (STACTAS) to advance better transport alternatives. A public meeting will be held on 13 September 2009 at the Kingston Beach Hall to determine what interest there might be in such a group.
A Sustainable Transport Advocacy Coalition would draw together a genuinely multi-modal group with representatives covering bicycles, motorized bicycles, scooters, car pooling and public commuter transport. Sustainable Transport acknowledges that future personal mobility transport will not be a one-mode-suits-all approach which dominates current transport thinking.
The Kingston Bypass is the antithesis of sustainability. It’s only appeal is to a car-centric commuter culture that has become established in Kingborough in the absence of an acceptable commuter transport alternative. With a price tag of $40m, the Kingston Bypass is no more than a giant money sink. Its economic justification is zero and it will not help commuters arrive at Hobart or beyond any sooner than they do now. It will exacerbate delays at the Hobart end of the Southern Outlet and put pressure on the Hobart end for a traffic management solution to Kingborough’s commuter woes. Furthermore, it will defer sustainable transport initiatives in Kingborough for years.
Integrated transport advocate Doug Duthoit has challenged Kingborough Council for years to come up with a strategy. He says; “The most sustainable path is to upgrade the present road system through Kingston, make the public system more people friendly by incorporating comfortable bus depots within all major towns, provide park and ride facilities, keep fares to a minimum and provide more frequent services using modern pollution free buses. All this could be achieved for less than $40m and have us well on the way to solving future transport needs.”
The Kingston Bypass project exemplifies the limited mindset of transport planners dating back to the days of the Kingston and Environs Transport Study of 2005. Schemes to reduce the number of single occupant commuter journeys were never developed, alternatives, including traffic management alternatives, were never costed and climate impact was never considered. The Kingborough Council Planning Committee must now consider the sustainability credentials for the Kingston Bypass in the absence of any expert, regulatory or political direction. Furthermore, three months out from the Climate Conference in Copenhagen, the Committee does not even have the benefit of the latest scientific forecasts regarding global warming and climate change to guide its decision.
What else could be done with $40m? Unless the Kingborough Council Planning Committee defers the decision so that it can consider the sustainability implications of the project, which are not included in the planning report (because they have never been considered), we’ll never know.
The Planning report will be available to the public on 10 September 2009 at the Kingborough Council website. The public meeting is on 13 September and the Kingborough Council Planning Committee meeting is on 14 September 2009.
More information about sustainable transport advocacy and the Kingston Bypass can be found at the link:
http://www.hybriped.com.au/main/modules/mediawiki/index.php?title=Sustainable_Transport_Advocacy_Coalition_Tasmania.
To contact us, send us an email at [email protected].
Greg Clausen
Keith Midson
September 10, 2009 at 00:24
This deserves a response.
In terms of sustainable outcomes, the bypass will reduce considerable congestion of vehicles currently caught up at both ends of where the bypass is intended to traverse.
The congestion levels are very real and queues of over 1km can be seen on any given busy weekday afternoon peak. The reduction in delays is likely to have a large reduction in greenhouse gas emissions – some would consider this to be a reasonable sustainable outcome.
The original Kingston and Environs Transport Study DID look at various alternatives, such as public transport options, and traffic management alternatives to a bypass, but none of them had a significant impact on reducing congestion levels. This is mainly because of the limiting effect of intersections not designed to cater for the levels of traffic that we are now experiencing (such as Summerleas Road roundabout).
The State Government and Kingborough Council are taking serious measures to investigate longer term public transport outcomes. These, in conjunction with reductions in congestion levels as a result of the bypass will have sustainable benefits.
I think it’s unfair to say that the bypass has no economic justification. Certainly on crash and travel time reductions alone there is a very strong argument for economic justification.
Where we have to be careful is ensuring that land use development to the south is carefully managed, so that we don’t induce too much transport demand due to the improved travel time along the new bypass.
Regards,
Keith Midson
Director, Midson Traffic Pty Ltd
Elisabeth James
September 10, 2009 at 04:03
This article almost had me believing that they had to do a climate change impact assessment! But if you go to Kingborough’s Planning Scheme there is actually no reference to such an assessment whatsoever!
So somehow, according to this new group, Kingborough Council are suppposed to consider climate change without any framework for doing so? And it’s suddenly ‘big news’ just before it goes to Council.
Then there’s the question of whether the bypass even has an impact on climate change in any significant way. Surely there would be some positives in terms of ease of congestion? Are you just talking about carbon emissions or other long term effects? There’s a lot to consider in doing all that.
Would the Council really have any real information from the climate summit that would help them assess this (what is it 2 or 3km of road) road? Seriously? I don’t think so.
Sure the government(s) could have spent the $40m on other things, but they aren’t so get over it.
Stephan
September 10, 2009 at 12:29
Keith, your response is well thought out and written. While I agree that the by-pass will reduce congestion somewhat I don’t believe it’s the panacea that some seem to think it is.
Apart from increasing traffic volumes, my observation is that much of the congestion at the roundabout and on the by-pass is from either nervy, nervous, selfsih or ignorant drivers.
At the roundabout I often see drivers waiting interminably for just the right break. To their defense I say that sight lines at this location are pretty bad but this delaying factor has a concertina effect in holding up following vehicles. Many drivers don’t indicate properly or go through the roundabout at an optimum speed either.
The outlet, as you’d be aware, has a speed limit of 100kph. There’s a traffic regulation that says keep left unless passing on any dual/multiple carriageway with a speed limit of 90 or greater. I am grateful that many drivers do keep left (other than in peak hour). What is rather infuriating though is those people doing 80 in the left hand lane continuing to do 80 when/if they move to the right hand lane to pass a vehicle slower than themselves. Once again, this has a concertina effect slowing down following vehicles.
Let’s get it straight, the nervy, nervous, slow or selfish drivers are not necessarily doing anything wrong. But they are just like the slow student in the classroom.
As truckies in Sydney have amply demonstrated in the past, multi lane carriageways simply distribute the “slow” more evenly. All it takes is a few well placed slow vehicles (large or small), sprinkled with the occasional breakdown, and traffic WILL jam as a result.
As for the EIS and a requirement for it – The traffic numbers are increasing because of increased urbanisation and development. The time to consider Environmental Impacts is well before THAT development not prior to the building of a road to cope with it.
pat synge
September 10, 2009 at 12:59
Keith Midson might be able to provide us with some some crash statistics for the section of road in question. Julie Collins claimed to me that the main reason for the bypass was not traffic congestion but that this is an “accident black spot”.
I don’t believe her and she provided no evidence to back up her claim.
Keith claims that “queues of over 1km can be seen on any given busy weekday afternoon peak”. The question then arises about the definition of a “queue”. I very rarely have to stop in this “queue” and just crawl along in first gear at walking pace. Is a long line of slowly moving traffic a queue? It’s long not because of the number of vehicles but because many drivers leave a large gap in order avoid constantly stopping and starting. I’ve never spent more than 5 minutes here and if the traffic entering from Summerleas Road could somehow be diverted there would be virtually no delay since the roundabout would flow much faster.
There are a number of initiatives that would help reduce traffic congestion and while any single one of them might not be very effective on its own the combination might well be.
As Keith Midson says “we have to be careful in ensuring that land use development to the south is carefully managed so that we don’t induce too much transport demand due to the improved travel time along the new bypass”. The proposed Huntingfield development would certainly benefit from such a bypass and might, perhaps, be one of the motives behind its construction.
Gerry Mander
September 10, 2009 at 13:03
The carbon emissions from a once-a-week queue of cars is more than covered by the carbon emissions produced in the amount of concrete used to construct the bypass, so this is a bit of a non-sequitur.
But it was a nice try on the part of the council to do a bit of their own emissions trading.
Chris Harries
September 10, 2009 at 15:17
Keith’s response doesn’t stagger me. It is so typical.
Doing mad things under the name of ‘sustainability’ has become a trademark response of bureaucracy, both here in Tasmania and nationally. The word ‘sustainability’ has become the second most abused word in the English language, just behind ‘democracy’.
And so, with weasel words we end up with endless convolutions – like sustainable mining.
The federal government has funded (or is helping to fund) not just this but many dozens of new highway infrastructure projects around Australia. I have no doubt each and every proponent will happily and earnestly rationalise that decongesting their road by supplying greater facility for more private car travel is a wonderful environmental boon.
Blind Freddie can see otherwise.
Keith Midson
September 10, 2009 at 17:56
Chris #6: No one said the bypass was being installed for sustainability reasons! My comments were in response to Greg Clausen’s article.
The bypass has been planned for 20+ years mainly regarding traffic congestion, access to properties on Channel Highway through Kingston, and safety.
The need for the bypass is a direct result of continued land use development along the Channel corridor over a prolonged time period. So in terms of sustainable outcomes we are probably getting upset about it 20 years too late.
Keith Midson
September 10, 2009 at 19:02
Pat #4: Crash data can be found in the original KETS report here:
http://www.transport.tas.gov.au/pdf/publications/transport
_study/Kingston_Environs_Transport_Study.pdf
Pages 9, 10 and 11 cover this in some detail. Further work was also undertaken after this report was released.
Regards,
Keith
Dave
September 10, 2009 at 19:07
I am so glad, for a moment or two, I thought we are about to get a development without a new quasi green front group being formed to oppose it. It would have been most untasmanian, if I may offer a suggestion start by saying there was insufficient consultation and then go on to attack the RPDC its a tradition I would hate to see broken. Next try its undemocratic, it will hurt every endangered species on the planet and it will cause flooding in Bangladesh after that propose to lie down in front of the earth moving equipment.
Tony Saddington
September 10, 2009 at 21:17
It staggers me that we are still building bypasses and bigger highways and yet put nothing into rail infrastructure.
Even the poorest of third world countries have rail. It is the cheapest form of transport and by all means the safest.
For those with native wildlife concerns, I suggest that someone obtain a report on wildlife crossings at Dilston by Dr Daniel Ramp of the Univ. of NSW.
Dr Ramp performed a survey for DIER in relation to the Dilston Bypass on the East Tamar. The report failed to see light of day until the very end of council consideration, where it was finally obtained under FOI.- too late to be considered in detail.
The recommendations made by Dr Ramp may prove to be beneficial in relation to other road works. The type of wildlife crossing and associated ‘furniture’ would prove useful in avoiding vehicle accidents with wildlife and the costly repairs or injury that may result.
George Harris aka woodworker
September 11, 2009 at 03:04
The bullshit express staggers onward! Sure, there will be emissions! There will be emissions, no matter what. There will be emissions whether we do something, or nothing. But one day, there will be zero emissions vehicles travelling the bypass! And there will still be remnant GHG emitting vehicles continuing to exist and move along our roads for years to come. There are many addresses along the route where people will still want to live and comute from, as well as visit, and surely that will not be a fucking crime??? What is all this attention-seeking bullshit? Christ, if climate change didn’t exist, some bludging couch-dweller would have to invent it, just so they would have something to bitch about!
Django
September 11, 2009 at 11:41
The bypass has been planned for 20+ years, mainly due to traffic congestion, access to properties on the Channel Highway and safety. Traffic congestion is only an issue on peak hours (around 8:30am and 5:00pm weekdays). This traffic congestion generally consists of a 5-10 minute wait, mostly due to the Summerleas Road roundabout.
The vast majority of this traffic goes on to the Southern Outlet, where it joins other peak hour traffic coming from the Huon Valley. The Southern Outlet ends in traffic lights at Davey and Macquarie Streets, habitually causing greater congestion and waits than at the Summerleas roundabout (though nothing compared with other major cities around the country).
Therefore, in terms of traffic congestion, this will remove a very minor bottleneck at a roundabout, at the tradeoff of causing adding more cars at the same time to a much bigger bottleneck at the Davey Street lights, and the same amount of time spent in traffic. It’d also be nice to hear how and why options like public transport and blocking traffic from Summerleas Road to Kingston centre at peak hour were considered not to ease congestion. That seems counterintuitive to me.
Also interesting to hear how traffic jams cause safety problems. Fender benders are imaginable, but it’s difficult to imagine dangerous accidents and safety issues if everyone’s stuck in traffic. Let’s hear about access to Channel Highway properties, then.
phill Parsons
September 11, 2009 at 13:07
Midson alludes to the next 20 years and beyond in addressing traffic and transport.
Where is that plan or indeed any plan to address traffic problems beyond widening roads until the whole surface is a moving mass of mobile homes?
pat synge
September 11, 2009 at 14:55
Thanks, Keith, for the link to the accidents information paper. Unfortunately the document appears to have been withdrawn and is not available.
While the statistics for this stretch would have been interesting they would be fairly uninformative without comparable statistics for other areas of similar traffic densities etc. To give us an initial idea of how serious an “accident blackspot” this is, Keith, perhaps you can you tell us how many fatalities and serious injuries have there been between the two roundabouts in the last 10 years?
As Keith would probably acknowledge better roads almost inevitably lead to an increase in traffic and that easing congestion in one area tends to simply shift it to the next bottleneck unless the flow is diverted onto other routes. In this situation that is problematic for city bound traffic.
It seems fairly obvious that a combination of other options could reduce the currently fairly minor congestion problem. By effectively encouraging driving to work in Hobart the current congestion at the city end of the Southern Outlet in the morning will increase. The few minutes you may save on the bypass will be spent waiting at the other end.
It’s unfortunate that the Kingston and Environs Transport Study is no longer available online as Keith claims that it “DID look at various alternatives, such as public transport options, and traffic management alternatives”. All too often such studies start out with a preconceived outcome and then set out to justify it.
Since you undoubtedly have a copy, Keith, perhaps you could send me a copy – [email protected]
Chris Harries
September 14, 2009 at 02:33
There’s been an exciting story doing the global media rounds during the past week about the opening up of the Arctic sea passage now that the polar ice cap is melting. We are told that freight ships can now travel between Asia and the West (via the ‘Arctic shortcut’) thus shortening the route by 4,500 kilometres – and saving on greenhouse emissions for shipping!
Here it is: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/science/earth/11passage.html
What on Earth has this got to do with the Kingston bypass. Well the logic behind building freeways to reduce traffic congestion so as to reduce greenhouse emissions has about the same upside down, perverse logic.
I agree with Keith that this debate is about 20 years too late. No doubt the bypass will be built and Macquarie and Davey Streets will so become the next bottlenecks – engineers are predicting that traffic volumes there will double within 10 years.
But 20 years late or not, the passage of the bypass’ planning approval is a moment to reflect and strike up real debate about where the traffic is really taking us. For this is just one of many hundreds of road projects being vigorously pursued across Australia under the ‘Nation Building – Roads to Recovery’ highway building program. Under the very same government that has set a lowly 5 percent as a reasonable greenhouse abatement target.
There’s something strangely schizophrenic about these contradictions. Every government across the world is infected by them – because we are all confronted by the sheer, unstoppable momentum of the old, unable to cope with the new, we are creatures of habit and hard wired to accept change with reluctance.
I thank and admire those wonderful folk who have the temerity to expose this disease and dare to question where the traffic is really taking us.
pat synge
September 14, 2009 at 11:45
Having now had a chance to look at the Kingston & Environs Traffic Study (KETS) I am further convinced that the proposed bypass is a waste of money that will simply increase the amount of traffic and increased congestion in the Hobart CBD. There is no real need for it in Kingston since alternative options could ease the relatively minor congestion. The study acknowledges that it’s focussed on Kingston and that Hobart is another problem. Good planning!
The study barely touches on public transport and doesn’t even consider some simple and relatively inexpensive ways of minimising the existing bottlenecks.
As Chris (#15) says we should have debated this years ago. We must eventually find an alternative to the ever increasing use single passenger cars pouring in and out of the CBD.
With Chris raising the nautical link it is interesting to note that Trinidad and Tobago have just ordered 4 x 405 passenger fast ferries to ease commuter congestion on their roads and reduce the need to build new ones. Some of these will be built in Margate. Here we are ready to spend $40 million (bet its $60m before it’s finished!) to help increase congestion and parking problems in Hobart. The 4 minutes saved travelling the bypass will be spent going down the hill into the city.
Gerry Mander
September 14, 2009 at 13:58
Maybe for a similar amount of money they could construct a monorail above the existing roads all the way into the CBD of Hobart.
That would certainly ease congestion, be faster, cut greenhouse emissions and also be a tourist attraction. Add the four factors together and it may well be a very viable option.
Stephan
September 14, 2009 at 14:40
Gerry
You use the Internet (well you post here at the very least). Why don’t you do a little research before making a suggestion?
http://www.monorails.org/tMspages/HowMuch.html
Cheers
Stephan
Barnaby Drake
September 14, 2009 at 15:51
#18. Thanks for the links, Stephan. The thing that emerges from them is:- ‘No matter what the cost of building one is, monorail has the one of the best chances of all transit modes of turning a profit.’
However, I haven’t got the time to do a detailed study of this but I’m sure the government (as usual) could spend a couple of million evaluating it. That is, if they haven’t already decided on a more costly option and a desire to push it through regardless.
The problem is, of course, you can’t put log trucks on a monorail, and that might have a bearing on the matter!