Look beyond the horizon

The RACT’s attempt to force a conversation about the future of transport in our capital city is a welcome initiative.

Traffic congestion in Barrack St, Hobart.

VISIONING is important. Without it we are doomed to forever be fixing problems that have emerged in the rear vision mirror. By visioning, we have the opportunity as a community to focus on making things better.

The RACT’s attempt to force a conversation about the future of transport in our capital city is therefore a welcome initiative. The motoring club’s Greater Hobart Mobility Vision program seeks to engage Hobartians in having a say on what we should be doing to ensuring traffic improves, rather than just accepting it will always get worse as we continue to grow. Through this engagement, in turn, the hope is that policymakers will get serious about big picture thinking — instead of just chipping away at the edges of the problem as tends to happen now.

Earlier this week the RACT unveiled five scenarios as conversation starters. None are supposed to be a solution in themselves. But, taken together, they paint a picture of what could be possible — or indeed what could happen if we don’t move away from the current “predict and provide” model of transport planning.

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And indeed the status quo is the first scenario put up by the RACT’s experts: a Greater Hobart where infrastructure spending is focused on pinch points as they arise, where most new housing developments are in the outer suburbs, and where small-scale initiatives are implemented around incentivising public transport use and cycle and walking paths.

The second scenario envisions a Hobart where we spend big on large-scale road infrastructure such as bypasses, wider highways and more carparks. The third scenario proposes the opposite approach, where authorities encourage a shift away from private motor vehicles to public and active transport through a carrot-and-stick approach of much better and cheaper public transport options and the imposition of restrictions on road space for cars.

The fourth scenario proposed by the RACT is for a totally overhauled Hobart with high-density infill housing in the central business district, strict restrictions on vehicle movements in the inner-city, an extensive rapid transit system, and the conversion of roads into shared spaces.

Finally, the RACT envisions the conversion of Hobart into a city focused on using its river as the primary means of mobility. Under this final scenario there would be an extensive ferry network servicing the entire Greater Hobart area, with investment in a “first and last mile supporting network” –— so it would be easy to get to and from the terminals.

Each of the scenarios is a fairly blunt instrument, and so any solution would likely be a mix of several. But as a conversation-starter the RACT has done some valuable work here. The next challenge will be to engage our politicians in the conversation; to encourage them to also be looking beyond the horizon.

What we need are councils and government working closely with residents, experts and the private sector to develop and start investing in the big-picture thinking that is vital to getting beyond the curve. The alternative is the slow, steady but inevitable destruction of one of the biggest benefits of living in a small city.