- Dr Michelle Zeibots, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney
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When confronted by problems like traffic congestion, amenity impacts and the need to curb greenhouse gas emissions, various transport commentators will state that ‘people love their cars’. The rejoinder to such claims is that nothing much can be done to change the high levels of car-use in Australian cities or reduce the consequences of this and that community attitudes are to blame for this.
This presentation confronts this view by first examining actual travel patterns in Australian cities where it is shown that the transport choices people make are highly dependent on the transport options made available to them - people can’t use public transport if services have not been provided in their neighbourhood or are operating at poor service levels, but they clearly do use low-impact modes, and in large numbers, when networks and services are reliable and frequent. Significantly, it is not individuals in the community that are primarily responsible for the provision and state of these networks but rather governments and transport professionals. To better understand how the relationship between travel behaviour and infrastructure provision plays out, this presentation briefly examines the travel behaviour changes that occur after a new urban motorway is opened to traffic. Through use of a Sydney case study, it is shown that adding new road space generates a sudden increase in road trips often referred to as induced traffic growth. Commentary surrounding this event is also examined. That dramatic changes to road travel behaviour are triggered by road building decisions from governments provides a different way of approaching the issue of sustainability and the Australian transport sector.
The presentation concludes that achieving greater sustainability within the Australian transport sector - reducing impacts and solving transport problems - does not require changes to public attitudes, but rather, requires changes to transport decision-making processes and the understanding that transport practitioners and politicians have of the projects they advocate.
BIO:
Dr Michelle Zeibots is a transport planner and academic researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney. Michelle’s current research focusses on the sustainability impacts of urban motorway development and induced traffic growth on cities. She recently presented evidence as an expert witness on induced traffic growth to the Frankston Bypass Inquiry in Victoria, where it was accepted for the first time that induced traffic growth needed to be included in traffic projections and greenhouse gas estimates for motorway proposals. While at ISF, Michelle has worked in a research capacity for government agancies in WA, Victoria, NSW and New Zealand on a variety of sustainable urban passenger transport projects.