Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Economically, Australian cities are using around 13 per cent of their city
wealth on transport. This compares with European cities at 8 per cent and
wealthy Asian cities like Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong with just 5 per
cent (Newman & Kenworthy 1999); these cities also have strong and well-
patronised public transport systems. US cities that are similarly car depend-
ent like Australian cities are spending 12 per cent of their city wealth just
getting around. In other words the cities with the best public transport and
least car dependence are working better economically.
Nor are the community benefits of car dependence in any obvious way
an offset to these economic costs. A recent study of children being driven to
school in London shows that they have much reduced risk-taking ability and
community development characteristics compared to children who walk to
school. Hillman (1999) has shown that this is due to the lack of sense of
place and the development of trust in neighbours and strangers, which is
directly related to the way that cars cut us off from local community. Tranter
(1993) has documented in Canberra the decline of school children's travel
habits into car dependence and predicted many social consequences.
Environmentally Australian cities are amongst the world's heaviest con-
sumers of transport energy, producing smog emissions and greenhouse
gases as a consequence and sprawling over considerable areas of land. US
cities like Houston and Phoenix use over 60 GJ of transport energy per
person, Atlanta uses over 100 GJ, and New York's use is 46 GJ per person.
While major Australian cities are generally better than those of the US, the
worst Australian cities, Canberra and Perth, use 40 GJ per person and the
figure for Sydney is 30 GJ. There is considerable variation evident even in the
car dependent cities. European cities, however, use much less transport
energy - between 13 and 25 GJ (around half that of the car-dependent US
and Australian cities); and the wealthy Asian cities use between 3 and 8 GJ
per person (Newman & Kenworthy 1999).
These patterns of car dependence across the world's cities are mirrored
inside Australian cities in terms of access to public transport and environ-
ments where it is easy to walk or bike to destinations. In Melbourne, for
example, there is a major difference in the travel habits of people in the
inner/core compared to the outer/fringe which is of the same order as
between say US/Australian cities and European cities overall. People in the
inner/core take on average 2.12 car trips per day and 2.62 walk/bike trips but
those in the outer/fringe suburbs take 3.92 car trips per day and just 0.81
