| |
Email sent 10/12/08
Chris Hale,
Centre for Transport Strategy,
University of Queensland
Improving Queensland's Transport Policy Systems
I noted your suggestions in a
recent article ("Free transport idea doubt", Courier Mail, 8/12/08),
to the effect that:
- responses to pressure on
Brisbane's public transport have been inadequate;
- proposals for free public
transport services have now been put forward by this state Opposition, though
similar schemes failed in Victoria;
- increasing fares would
probably be better as this would provide the revenue streams needed
for quality services - while remaining cheaper than car transport;
- real progress in improving
public transport requires more enlightened decision-making and a longer term
approach. In particular, this requires:
- that new appointments in
key positions affecting transport (and other state services) be drawn from
the best candidates; and
- capacity building within
transport industries (eg training and career development; professionalism;
research driven solutions; and best technology);
By way of feedback I should
like to suggest:
- rather than merely
improving public transport there may be a need to make this into the core of
Brisbane's future transport systems (ie its long term share of the transport
task may need to grow by a factor of 8, not 2) - for reasons suggested in
Brisbane's Transportation Monster.
This refers to:
- the lack of access to
the cheap rights of way needed for motor-vehicle-based transport, as
Brisbane's growth is now limited by an urban footprint; and
- the transformation of
transport systems that will probably be forced in the next few years by the
global peak oil event;
- there is a need for
caution about 'research driven solutions'. Not all research is necessarily
realistic, especially in a world in which post-modern assumptions dominate the
humanities (ie where ideas are held to be valid because people believe them
rather than because they satisfy objective tests) - see
A
Crisis in Education at QUT?. Ideas emerging from
research need to be regarded as inputs for consideration by those with
experience - to avoid losing contact with practical reality (eg with the many
factors that need consideration because of details of current arrangements and
non-transport needs). Many of the difficulties facing transport development in
Queensland (eg the lack of industry capacity and professionalism that your
article implied) are the result of autocratically imposed idealised 'research
based' solutions to all government functions in the early 1990s (see
Queensland's
Worst Government?). Those responsible didn't
know that their idealised 'solutions' were neither realistic nor up-to-date.
And well-meant attempts to claim a commitment to 'professionalism' on the
basis of half-baked theories has resulted (not only in Queensland) in
administrative systems dominated by cronies and 'yes men' (see
Politicisation of the Bureaucracy).
In Queensland legislation was actually enacted that made it legally
unnecessary to make appointments to key positions from the best candidates
(see
Ombudsman's reasons)
- presumably because political elites assumed that their own knowledge and
skills were self-evidently the best available;
- it is not sufficient to
direct leading-edge policy options to governments. They must also be
communicated effectively to the broader community because the latter elect the
governments which, if community ignorance allows them to be dominated by
autocratic
populists, will continue to devastate the 'capacity' of transport (and
many other) industries (see
Comments on 'Is our System of Government in Queensland Working' and
More Competent External Support to Government).
I would be interested in
your views about these matters.
John Craig
|