Grab light rail while City Deal on the cards

TRANSPORT economist Bob Cotgrave suggests that evidence is important for decisions about light rail and then provides a series of opinions as to why it would ‘hinder efforts to improve amenity (Talking Point, February 15).

Transport issues are inherently about evidence and opinion.

I have spent the past 40 years gathering data on how cities do transport, land use and energy.

The results are in 20 books including End of Automobile Dependence: How Cities are Moving Beyond Car-Based Planning in 2015.

This book gives all the data on how cities everywhere in the developed world and now in China are reducing in car use, especially amongst young people.

It also shows how there is a second rail revolution occurring as cities of all sizes are seeing that fast electric rail systems can go around the traffic and most of all can enable urban regeneration associated with stations.

Economic development is attracted to cities with good rail services as they help create knowledge economy centres.

This is why Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull likes urban rail.

There is a new agenda now with the need to remove fossil fuels from our economy.

The evidence I have gathered on cities shows many of the leading cities in this area are also doing better economically.

The great challenge now is to move into totally electric transport based on renewable power sources.

This will need electric cars, buses and railways, and the easiest and quickest is electric light rail.

Hobart has to decide now whether it actually commits to a light rail down the old train line that used to be operating when I lived in Hobart.

There is strong evidence from cities around the world that you should commit to light rail.

But many commentators like Bob are not convinced and believe cars and buses will be the only modes needed especially as we move to more autonomous vehicles.

The opinions are divided by the relative value assigned to flexible modes like cars and buses and fixed modes like trains. In our work we find the best cities have a combination of both flexible and fixed modes.

That is likely to be the case whether we have autonomous vehicles or not and many cities are preparing for autonomous vehicles just to feed into their train stations.

City centres could descend into chaos if filled with autonomous vehicles roaming around looking for people.

This is my opinion, but it is based on evidence.

It is my strong opinion that a fixed rail line in the northern suburbs of Hobart would greatly improve amenity and economic activity along the route as well as doing the right thing for the earth.

I urge Hobart to grasp this chance of a City Deal that can create the partnerships needed for a new rail line and associated urban regeneration.

Professor Peter Newman is a John Curtin Distinguished Professor of Sustainability in the Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute at the School of Design and the Built Environment at Curtin University in Perth. He attended The Hutchins School 1959-1964 and has a long-term interest in Hobart’s rail issues.