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Massive traffic jams near Mandurah will not be relieved by $1.5 billion white elephant.

While crawling along in my car in a 16 Km long traffic jam on the highway to Mandurah (a coastal resort 80 km south of Perth in Western Australia) on Boxing Day, I had time to reflect on the stupidity and profligacy of academics, bureaucrats and politicians when they are driven by ideology rather than logic. 

During the hour and a half of frustration it took to travel the last 16 Km to Mandurah, I wondered why the Gallop government could spend $1.5 billion of taxpayers' money to build a glitzy railway system to Mandurah (population around 60,000), but could not find the money to upgrade the highway that services the vast majority of travellers. 

As previously revealed on this site, the reasons are made clear in The South West Metropolitan Railway Master Plan. This report discloses (page 4) that the planners and academics main concerns about South-West traffic relate to the "unrestrained private car use" of the public. Their aim is to get people out of cars and into public transport. 

The academics, bureaucrats and politicians are misusing $1.5 billion of taxpayers' money for a giant experiment in social engineering.

What these ideologues have overlooked is that the overwhelming transport requirement in WA's South-West is for upgraded highways to take the massive tourist, local and business traffic between Perth and the rapidly growing tourist and regional centres of Bunbury, Busselton, Dunsborough and Margaret River.

When I finally made it to Mandurah, I noted that the vast majority of vehicles were continuing on past Mandurah. 

WA Planning Minister Alannah MacTiernan is in lockstep with the social engineering academics in her attitude to the construction of the Mandurah railway system. 

The transport by rail of a few hundred Mandurah passengers daily will have no impact on the growing traffic jams on the highway to the South-West.

Trains have six times the pollution level of buses

A study by RMIT published on 17 January 2003 reveals that trains produce six times more pollutants than buses.

The report states that trains produce 0.23 kg of CO2 per passenger kilometre while buses generate just 0.04 kg of CO2 per passenger kilometre. 

Assuming 400,000 passenger kilometres daily when fully operational, the railway will add 33,000 tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere annually while an equivalent bus service would produce only about 6,000 tonnes. 

Zero-emission hydrogen fuel cell buses are only two or three years away from production while a number of vehicle manufacturers will have fuel cell cars in production within seven years. 

Meanwhile the coal-fired power stations will continue to belch thousands of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere to power the electric railway system.