City lacks plan to curb traffic congestion

I BELIEVE the issue of traffic congestion is of increasing concern to all road users.

It seems there is no clear plan by the city council of how to relieve the situation.

I know we need to make more use of public transport, but am not convinced that the BRT system will do enough to remedy it.

Even a well-functioning rail system might not be sufficient to rectify the problem. At every challenge we fail to do a thorough job. The problem is we do not take a long-term view of our future. Political gamesmanship dictates that most improvement efforts end up being quick-fix Band-Aids.

In all instances, we fixate on the current issue, and fail to stop and ask: “What is the best future condition?”.

In order to address any problem effectively, it has to be understood at a fundamental level.

There are tools available to help any troubleshooter understand a problem.

One of these is called root cause analysis, and in its simplest form it consists of asking a series of “why?” questions until the origin of the problem is identified.

I do not imagine that the solution to the local transport issue will be simple.

However, to me it is obvious that the layout of the city is not optimised to supporting its growing population, residences and industries. It was never designed for this purpose.

The question is: why do we persist in trying to make this work? Is it not time for bold, critical thinking? Are there not some tough decisions to be made here? Where are the voices of the city’s engineers? Can anyone admit that we need to dig it up and put our best foot forward?