Locking in car use makes no sense at all unless it makes you money...?

Here is a copy of a letter published in the Melbourne Sunday Age on 28/3/10 in response to this article: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/new-suburbs-forced-to-adopt-car-culture-20100320-qnag.html

DEBORAH Gough's article ''New suburbs forced to adopt car culture?'' (21/3) highlights the government's short-term focus on building car-only suburbs. Good road infrastructure is essential. However, for every dollar spent on roads, a dollar should be spent on transport alternatives to private cars (trains, buses, trams, taxis). New roads alone will not keep traffic flowing.

As the Greens candidate in the recent Altona byelection, I campaigned for proper access to effective public transport. For this electorate, the starting point is providing good shuttle bus services to the train system and community hubs. Instead, the government has spent more than $1.4 billion upgrading the West Gate/Monash Freeway, which will provide only momentary relief (once you get over the bridge bottleneck).

The only benefit of the current ''plan'' is locked-in government revenue from water, electricity and petrol taxes.