Time to shift the balance from road to rail?

It’s not exactly a great surprise…

Roads have been far more generously funded than rail. A recent report released by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) provides some interesting documentation on the extent of this imbalance, showing that “over the last 10 years, the amount of money spent on construction work by all levels of Australian governments on public roads and bridges has been 4.3 times compared to that spent on public railway construction.”

The ACF’s Public Transport Report argues that governments across Australia have been under spending on public transport projects for decades, whilst favouring road investment.

While this may not have been problematic in times of cheap petrol, the report makes the point that we may still be living in a fool’s paradise as long as the Australian dollar remains strong. Now importing more than half our oil requirements (at a cost of $16 billion a year), the report warns that by 2015 we may be importing some 70% of our oil requirements.

China is already moving to electrify even its entire rail freight system, precisely because of oil security concerns.

To read the full report, go to http://www.rebuildingthenation.com.au/transport/time-to-shift-the-balance-from-road-to-rail