On the road (and rail) to frustration

THE chronic state of transport infrastructure is a continuing frustration for much of the ­nation, according to a special Newspoll.

Megan Guest, 29, says our cities ‘need to achieve better economies of scale with the current public transport network’. Picture: Britta Campion

THE chronic state of transport infrastructure is a continuing frustration for much of the ­nation, with 38 per cent of people considering that our roads are worse than most other first-world countries.

A Newspoll taken exclusively for The Australian’sGreat Aus­tralian Survey shows that 16 per cent of motorists think our roads are better, while 40 per cent think they are about the same.

The frustration is worse outside capital cities, where 45 per cent of people say road infrastructure is worse.

The assessment is especially grim among railway users. Of the 1215 people surveyed, 62 per cent rank our network behind those of other first-world nations and just 9 per cent believe it is better.

NEWSPOLL: How does our infrastructure compare?

There is less frustration with airports — 23 per cent of people answered that our airports lagged other developed countries’, although people on higher incomes took a darker view, with 29 per cent of those with household incomes exceeding $90,000 rating our airports down.

Most people — 56 per cent — believed Australia’s airports were on a par with those of our counterpart nations.

The findings back the warnings of bodies such as Infrastructure Australia, which has said that traffic congestion will only get worse if the nation fails to find better ways to deliver the infrastructure it needs.

Sydney teacher Megan Guest blames urban sprawl and challenging topography for the difficulties governments faced providing public infrastructure.

The 29-year-old from Sydney’s inner west, who catches buses and trains most days, said the high dissatisfaction rate with transport options wasn’t surprising and should prompt state governments to become more imagin­ative with solutions.

“Take Sydney for instance: getting rail to certain parts of Sydney like the northern beaches is prohibitive, so you need to accept that and move on,” Ms Guest said yesterday.

“I think there’s a lot of potential to embrace new transport options like Uber (taxis), which can not only assist reducing the number of cars in peak-hour traffic, but it’s also convenient and accessible. The challenge is decreasing costs and increasing convenience.

“Buses are great but they don’t run frequently enough to be considered a default option.

“It shocks me that Bondi and Manly — two of Sydney’s biggest tourist icons — are some of the hardest places to access by public transport.”

Ms Guest travelled through Europe for two years and said public transport was so easily ­accessible that it made a car ­“superfluous”.

She said Australian cities needed to achieve better economies of scale with the current public transport network.

“I would be looking at trying to help suburbs that are already in place making more train stations and building better roads,” she said.

“Travelling in Europe really showed me how great a metro system is. There are no timetables for trains because there was one every three minutes.”

She said that if Australia was serious about improving transport it needed to ensure frequency was improved.

“So for people living out in the suburbs it’s about trying to change people’s mindset so they turn to public transport as the first option rather than the road,” she said.

Sydney could look at penalties for driving in the CBD, such as London had implemented. “But I don’t think that we could do that until we improve the public transport system,” she added.