Freeways aren’t the answer to our gridlock. (The Age / Kenneth Davidson)

I agree with everything in the above article. It’s not often I agree 100% with something in the press, but this is a clear cut case of applying logic to a problem to find a solution. As a traveler on most of the roads mentioned in the article I know first hand that the current traffic levels on those roads are unacceptable. This morning while driving to work on the Monash Freeway I spent most of the time doing a leisurely 20Km/hr, in a 100Km/hr zone. Oddly enough the freeway status indicators classed this as ‘medium’ traffic.

I recently discovered an alternative route for about half the length of my journey which uses a combination of 60Km/hr roads and 50Km/hr residential back streets. I don’t have a lot of data yet, but early indications are it should be quicker than the freeway at least 70% of the time. If I can figure this out other people can too, and its only a matter of time before large numbers of freeway users abandon the gridlock and head for the back streets.

The government really should be doing something to address the problem. As the article points out the Monash Freeway would need to be triplicated to meet the demands of housing growth in the south eastern corridor. There is no way this could happen for a reasonable price and without demolishing large tracks through the suburbs to make room extra lanes. Instead the government should be fixing the public transport problems. Here are a couple on issues specific to myself which are indicators of wider problems:

* There is a bus stop at the end of my street with a route which goes past the nearest train station. The bus service is too infrequent to use to connect with trains making it fairly useless.
* If I make it to the train station the trains are frequently overcrowded due to insufficient services on the line.
* Due to the lack of express train services the travel time to the city is not much different from a car on the congested freeway. Although since with a car you travel directly from point A to point B without having to get to/from the train station closest to A and B at each end of the journey the car works out to be many times quicker.
* If taken into account the fact that I already own a car for journeys other than commuting to work, it actually costs more for a weekly train ticket than it does for petrol to drive the equivalent journey.

So to sum it up commuting on public transport will cost me more, take me longer to reach my destination, and be a far more uncomfortable journey than if I take my car. Multiply that by many commuters and you have the reason for the congestion on the roads.