Just following-up the post the other day about high fuel prices, more than anything, hopefully forcing action on public transport.

TonyH pointed me to this excellent article by George Monboit, who notes that so far there is no such action, and that high fuel prices are in fact the biggest thing currently helping to reducing carbon emissions:

What I know and you may not is that the high price of oil is currently the only factor implementing British government policy. The government claims that it is seeking to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, by encouraging people to use less fossil fuel. Now, for the first time in years, its wish has come true: people are driving and flying less.
…
In other words, your (OPEC’s) restrictions on supply – voluntary or otherwise – are helping the government to meet its carbon targets. So how does it respond? By angrily demanding that you remove them so that we can keep driving and flying as much as we did before.

Apparently some road engineers feel a similar way. Of all the things going, petrol prices are helping congestion like nothing else.

But what I really wanted to highlight was this article from the heady, optimistic days of 2004:

Melbourne motorists are likely to pay up to $1.08 a litre for petrol today but the good news is further significant price rises are unlikely.

RACV government relations manager David Cumming yesterday forecast that the New York crude oil price had peaked at $US44.50 a barrel at the weekend after markets reacted to the fresh woes at embattled Russian oil giant Yukos.

The RACV believes that while prices have peaked, they are unlikely to drop considerably for the rest of the year.

However, Mr Cumming said claims reported in the media yesterday that Australians would pay between $3 and $4 within the next three years were “absolutely nonsensical”.

Well, we haven’t reached $3 yet. But I wonder what David Cumming would have said about predictions for 2008 of paying $1.60 per litre, or crude oil trading at $130 per barrel.

There is some kind of a peak happening here, and it’s not the prices.

(The pic is from a Crikey article yesterday: “Fiddling with excise as the world burns”, though it no longer appears on the page.)

Public transport is by its very nature a social experience. Which probably explains the number of Overheard in Melbourne posts from PT.

It’s not all people with noisy phone ringtones, those with annoyingly sniffly noses, and raucous teenagers. These are the people I’ve randomly run into on the train/tram/at stations in the last couple of years, not counting those I was travelling with anyway:

• My mum
• My dad
• My sister and her husband
• Andrew W
• Stefi W K
• Veronica W
• Naomi D from an old job
• Steve C, my sister’s business partner
• L, my ex-wife
• Fraser B from the Greens
• Kerryn W from PTUA
• Ashley G from the Herald Sun
• Phil R from an old job
• Cam T
• Clay L from The Age
• Martin whose surname I can’t remember
• Helena C
• Karl T from PTUA
• Peter G from uni
• Chris L
• John D
• Michael R

Apologies to anybody I’ve forgotten. And there’s others who occasionally spot me.

Always good to have an unexpected chat with a friendly face.

I was helping on a PTUA stall back in January, at the Sustainable Living Festival. It was interesting to talk to the different people coming by.

One guy expressed disappointment about car pollution. He said some people would never want to part with their cars.

This is not an opinion I entirely agree with. People make travel decisions based on what’s quickest, cheapest, safest, and if you give them options that are as good, if not better, than driving, then they’ll take them. Some people also think about what’s cleanest, but that’s not often the first priority.

He didn’t seem to agree. Rev-heads will never give up their cars, he said. He sounded quite depressed about it. They don’t think about air pollution and global warming, he said. They just want to drive everywhere in their big grunty wasteful cars.

Personally I think the bigger problem is the government holding back on giving people alternatives. But I said something that cheered him up immensely.

“Don’t worry about it. Peak oil will sort ‘em out.”

He thought about this and smiled. “Yeah.”

Petrol last week reached $1.629 per litre in Melbourne, a new record, and there are predictions of $1.70 per litre soon. Around the same time, crude oil also reached a new record, US$135 per barrel, with OPEC saying they could do nothing to prevent higher prices because they are pumping at capacity.

I know people who have no choice but to drive are taking a financial hit from all this, but amongst all the doom and gloom, I can’t help but smile when I see the silver lining in the cloud.

Because surely sustained rises in petrol prices, if nothing else, must force governments to stop blowing billions on freeways and start giving people real transport choices. (Like, actual quality PT services, rather than spending up big on ticketing systems… or spending up big on tiny petrol tax cuts.)

Before half the city goes broke.

• Greens Blog: Oil price rising, how surprising
• Australian fuel is cheap (compared to the rest of the world), says Shell

It would seem that big chunky cars are a symbol of luxury in automative design. Like that new big chunky Chrysler 300C that they keep advertising on SBS on Saturday nights — a snip at $54K for the base model — it might just beat the luxury car tax.

It looks like a big fat capitalist’s car. There’s been one hanging about in my street recently each weekend, driven by a big fat real estate agent.

Something about it, especially the design of the big fat front, says “Feck you, little people, I’m from the big end of town”, and suggests no mercy for any pedestrians it might hit. (So far there’s no rating for it on How Safe Is Your Car*).

It also has the look of totally rejecting any hint of aerodynamics. “I don’t care if crude oil’s breaking record prices, I’m going to burn it like there’s no tomorrow.” I couldn’t actually find any fuel consumption figures on the Chrysler web site… which seems to suggest economy is not a selling feature. But the Green Vehicle Guide says it’s around 11-14 litres per kilometre 11-14 litres per 100 kilometres, or about 3 times a Toyota Prius, though no worse than a Ford Territory. And the diesel variants fare better.

I noticed on the news the other night it showed Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan driving up to Parliament House in a Prius. I wonder if he really believes in fighting climate change, or if it’s just for show.

*I can never remember if it’s My or Your. The TAC really should have also registered howsafeismycar as well.

It apparently happened about 8:30am overnight, but was only noticed at 8:30am.

A 20 year old man decided to do a bit of “train surfing”.

He touched the wires. Zap. Dead.

By the time I went through at about 9:30, they were cleaning up the scene. Not that you could see anything; bystanders were kept well away.

What a stupid way to die.

Don’t do it, kids.

My street is a leafy side-street, well away from industrial land. We see the supermarket trucks rolling through our suburb, but other than that, few big freight vehicles are seen. In fact a bigger volume of freight probably goes through Bentleigh on the steel trains from Hastings than on trucks on the streets.

Not so for residents of the western suburbs, particularly the inner-west. Even in streets that are residential (and have always been so), the juggernauts go through constantly.

So it’s easy to understand why the Eddington report’s Truck Action Plan was greeted with acclaim. It says they’ll get trucks off residential streets. Sounds great, doesn’t it.

Well, it is, and it isn’t. The off-ramp on the Westgate to give trucks access into the port without going down Francis Street, for instance, sounds extremely logical. Shame an on-ramp can’t be provided too, but evidently the gradients would be too steep.

But another part of the plan involves road widening along Ashley Street and Ballarat Road, and flagging that as a truck route in and out of the port.

Some of Ashley Street is industrial, and you can see along there that VicRoads have obviously been planning this for a while. Much of the street has plenty of space for widening.

But Ballarat Road though is a completely different story. Most of it is residential. Throw in some churches, shops, a couple of new apartment blocks, and heritage elm trees… it’s going to get messy. Not that VicRoads hasn’t been planning ahead here too — around Droop and Gordon Sts, it’s very apparent that they’ve already bought a number of properties, ripe for flattening (if they haven’t been already).

(pic: whereis.com)

Cunningly, VicRoads say they’re not currently buying land for this. At least, not in response to the Eddington report. Of course not! They can’t respond to the Eddington report until the government says they’ll go ahead with that part of it. Besides, some of it is already bought!

So anyway, not all of the Truck Action Plan sounds so good anymore. It’d be great to get trucks out of residential areas, but not so much use moving them to other residential areas. All credit to Yarraville-based MTAG, who seem to recognise this.

We all know widening the road will lead to more traffic. Not just truck traffic, traffic in general. (OK, maybe we don’t all know this. The Premier seems to think motorways are actually environmentally friendly!)

How about spending some money on getting more freight onto rail, instead? Y’know, like, in line with the government’s goal of 30% of port freight on rail by 2010. (Currently: 15%, and dropping!) Most freight heading out of Melbourne would be more efficiently sent by rail. Even local Melbourne freight would benefit if trains took it from the port to localised freight hubs (as has been proposed in some circles) in industrial areas like Dandenong, Altona and Somerton.

And if in the longer term the main port is moved to Hastings, won’t most of the trucks go with it?

I love the concept of commuter cycling. While my trip to work is a little too far, I love the idea of riding to places like my sister’s house or my mum’s house or my dad’s place (all just a few km away) on the bike.

I love the idea of taking the whole family out for a ride, and as oil prices continue to climb, seeing lots of other people taking up cycling too. If it happens in a big way, the roads could be less busy, the air less polluted, and people would be fitter.

And then I see reports like this: some moron in a car deciding he doesn’t like being delayed by a group of cyclists, deliberately intimidating them, and then causing an accident before driving off.

There’s just no getting around the fact that you’re vulnerable on a bike. And one dickhead who doesn’t like the look of you can wipe you out in a second.

Call me a wimp if you like, but while I do enjoy recreational cycling, I continue to prefer — most of the time — walking, PT and, when I have to, driving.

Source: Australian Transport Safety Bureau. Figures also included pedestrian fatalities, but I figure that’s skewed as pedestrian trips are almost always much shorter than those by mechanical transport. Be nice to find some more up-to-date Australian figures, too — these are from the 80s. My Googling didn’t find anything better.

Update 8am Friday: James makes a good point — wouldn’t per travelling hour be a fairer comparison? Yep, here it is. Note cycling is about as safe as car driving in these terms.

Perhaps sometimes it’s a disadvantage knowing too much about all the transport options. When mild interruptions occur, it might make one more inclined to take the alternatives, even when ultimately it doesn’t really save any time.

Take, for example, Tuesday morning’s commute.

It started with two SMSs. The 8:36 and the 8:52 from Glenhuntly to the city, both cancelled. Two in a row means the following couple, the 9:01 and 9:13, would be crowded. (In theory they might stop some expresses to fill the gaps, but this doesn’t always happen).

So I decided after the school run to drive to Carnegie instead. Good ol’ dependable Dandenong line (!).

8:45am. Roadworks behind the library, so had to go a slightly different way, and I noticed where I sometimes used to park is now 2 hour parking, so I ended up a bit further from the station than planned. But no bother.

Walk to the station and… the host lady is saying there’s a problem. A car collided with a train on the crossing at Murrumbeena. And that was compounding an earlier delay with a sick passenger. “It’ll be at least half an hour. I’m really sorry”, she said. And while once a disgruntled passenger might have shot the messenger and cursed her and the rest of Connex and the powers that be, instead I heard one tell her “it’s okay, it’s not your fault.” Maybe instead they were silently cursing the car driver involved.

I didn’t feel like traipsing back to my car, so I walked to the nearby 900 bus stop, to catch it to Caulfield.

8:52am. My eyes narrowed as I got to the stop. The automated Smartbus sign claimed that the 8:57 and the 9:12 buses were both expected in 30 minutes. These signs aren’t known for their accuracy, but given the number of people already waiting, I pondered for a minute what I should do next. After a minute or two the sign was still claiming 30 minutes.

I decided to keep walking. It’s not that far to Caulfield anyway, and I was betting that because of the train disruptions, causing localised traffic problems around crossings, as well as heavy passenger loads, the buses might indeed be 30 minutes away, and might be so crowded when they arrived that nobody could board.

Someday someone in authority will dictate that all urban roads need to have proper footpaths. Until then, there are spots like on Dandenong Road between Carnegie and Caulfield where it’s just grass on one side. And they call this the 21st century. But no matter — what was more of a concern was that as I walked, I began to see city-bound trains passing me. D’oh! I should have waited at Carnegie.

9:05am. It took less than 15 minutes to get to Caulfield. Up on platform 3, a stopper was arriving. Packed. I could see the sign on platform 1, claiming an express was two minutes away, so I jogged down the ramp to switch platforms. And because the day had been going so well, you can guess what happened next, right? Yep. Train Controller Murphy switched the express from platform 1 to platform 3. Seriously, this kind of stuff is like nothing else for getting people onto the roads.

A bunch of us jogged back to platform 3, and got onto the train, which was, at least, express, overtaking the earlier packed stopped along the way.

From there it was smooth sailing. I decided not to change onto a Flinders St direct train — on days like this it’s better to stick with the one you’re on, which is confirmed to be actually getting somewhere. Was at Parliament by about 9:30, just a walk down the hill to work.

I can’t help thinking it would have all been easier if I’d just done the usual plan and gone to my usual station in the first place. But hey, at least I got some extra exercise.

And remember: we’ve only still got level crossings like the Murrumbeena because the programme to get rid of them all was cancelled in the 70s to pay for freeways instead.