Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 9.1
Income and expenditure due to Australian transport funding, with
resulting 'deficit'
Expenditure
• $7.0b Road construction and maintenance
• $15b Road crashes (health and personal loss, and time loss)
• $3.0b Other health (noise and air pollution)
• $3.3b Refunds and subsidies (tax concessions)
Total expenditure = $28.3 billion
Income
• $8.5b Fuel excise
• $3.8b Registration fees
• $8.0b Insurance
Total income = $20.3 billion
Net Road Deficit = $8.0 billion
Note: the year of these figures is late 1990s; the deficit will be worsened by decisions in subsequent years
to reduce taxes on diesel.
Source: Reproduced from Laird
et al.
2001 with permission of the University of New South Wales Press.
There is a clear need for a better system that can target the innovative
changes that are needed for more sustainable cities and sustainable trans-
port in Australian cities, as well as behaviour change programs discussed
above. The new Federal Government transport funding system has finally
incorporated rail freight into its system. However, there is a complete
vacuum when it comes to cities and projects like urban rail and the kind of
innovations needed for the renewable transition. Cities in Australia in the
knowledge economy are the basis of our participation in the global econ-
omy; they will not compete well unless they are more sustainable with less
overall car dependence. A new funding system is required to enable this
transition to occur. If transport and housing funding were redirected into
a new 'Sustainable Cities' program (Newman 2002) there would be suffi-
cient funds to provide innovation and demonstration sustainability
projects.
Challenge 4: Encouraging true public participation in planning
It is not possible to make the kind of transitions outlined above unless the
public in our cities is part of the process. Planning is inherently democratic
in its processes but has lost a lot of common involvement in the issues of
transport and sustainability. Experts in bureaucracies have become too
dominant on the major planning issues impacting on our lives.
