Great commentary David. I have been hoping that road user charging would become the hot topic here. I guess its a Fed matter now the courts have ruled. But rather than the NSW minister playing with tolls (and probably adding to congestion), it would be much better to incentivise bypasses and charge access to cores. The technology is quite simple if the scheme stays simple but can be quite complex if we want to make it complex. BTW, engineers will design anything they are asked to design and iteratively reduce risks and improve efficiency. But having some decent planners in Govt looking at the whole of network effects would also be wonderful. Building a parallel Metro from the west while also increasing road capacity seems a double spend for a single problem. And if we could add some cross regional lines that connected the NW through to the SW directly and avoided the city we would get there. We had a plan for that, but these plans are always hijacked by city based planners serving the city centre. And if you make it all about the city, that is where the investment stays. Hopefully Parra will keep growing strongly and become a truly competitive force for business with access to a huge pool of qualified people.
Great commentary David. I have been hoping that road user charging would become the hot topic here. I guess its a Fed matter now the courts have ruled. But rather than the NSW minister playing with tolls (and probably adding to congestion), it would be much better to incentivise bypasses and charge access to cores. The technology is quite simple if the scheme stays simple but can be quite complex if we want to make it complex. BTW, engineers will design anything they are asked to design and iteratively reduce risks and improve efficiency. But having some decent planners in Govt looking at the whole of network effects would also be wonderful. Building a parallel Metro from the west while also increasing road capacity seems a double spend for a single problem. And if we could add some cross regional lines that connected the NW through to the SW directly and avoided the city we would get there. We had a plan for that, but these plans are always hijacked by city based planners serving the city centre. And if you make it all about the city, that is where the investment stays. Hopefully Parra will keep growing strongly and become a truly competitive force for business with access to a huge pool of qualified people.