Melbourne's public transport `at the crossroads'

By Alex Cooper

MELBOURNE -- Two hundred people packed the Assembly Hall on July 28 to hear Mike Colle from the Toronto Transit Commission urge people to defend Melbourne's public transport system.

The issue is more than just rolling stock or timetables, he said; it involves quality of life. Melbourne, he said, “is at the crossroads”. Public transport should be at the forefront of public expenditure, he said.

According to Colle, Toronto has a good public transport system because, in the 1970s, people protested against freeways which they felt gave them less control over their neighbourhoods. At the time, Toronto had the world's widest freeway -- 16 lanes.

Today the Toronto public can expect to wait no more than five minutes for a train or tram up until 10pm. Here, a wait of half an hour is common.

Rick Jarman, deputy head of ambulatory paediatrics at the Royal Children's Hospital cited evidence from a 1990 study that revealed a quarter of all Melbourne's children suffer from asthma, mostly caused by particulate smog from cars and trucks. In 1990, 3475 children sought treatment for asthma. Some of these had to be treated more than once. Half these children were under five.

If the Liberal government goes ahead with its plans to build more freeways such figures can only get worse.

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