A flick through Infrastructure Victoria's 30-year strategy

The cover of IV's strategy document

Infrastructure Victoria recently came out with their 30-year strategy. There are some recommendations that I want to do full posts on, but a lot of stuff that just needs a couple of lines - so I thought I'd do something like Gareth Dennis has done with various policy documents, and just flick through it and give some brief commentary. 

Just like Gareth's Rail Natters regularly do, this post has gone longer than I intended, so the TL;DR version is that there's a lot to like here. There are some howlers, and my subsequent posts will detail why they're howlers, but the takeaway from this post is that there genuinely are a lot of good recommendations in the strategy and I hope the government takes them seriously - even the politically difficult ones. 

Recommendation 01 - Accelerate consumer purchases of zero emissions vehicles 

They correctly identify that upfront purchase price, charging infrastructure access and range anxiety are the three biggest barriers to ZEV purchase. They recommend:

 - keeping an eye on purchase subsidies to make sure they're doing the right thing

 - creating a statewide charging infrastructure strategy

 - committing to not register new petrol or diesel vehicles in Victoria by 2035 at the latest, by increasingly tightening rego emissions standards 

This is all extremely sensible, and provides a pathway for the state to do the right thing while the Feds refuse to act. Good stuff! 

Recommendation 02 - Transition government fleet and freight vehicles to zero emissions

The report says "Buses, trucks and light commercial vehicles generate more than one third of transport sector greenhouse gas emissions". This is true but misleading, since almost all of that is the trucks and LCVs and only a small amount is the buses. We could dramatically cut our transport emissions by getting people out of cars and onto buses, even if those buses were diesel. 

Nonetheless it's a bad idea for us to keep buying new diesel buses, since they have long lives and will lock us into future emissions, and since zero-emissions buses are well-developed technology and cheaper over their whole life cycles. So it's good that the government has committed to only purchase zero-emissions buses from 2025, even if this is later than I'd like. 

They suggest that zero-emissions trucks could be given exemptions to run in some places diesel trucks can't, but add "This should only be done where appropriate and safe, noting that zero emission freight vehicles can still create safety concerns and disruption". Well, yes. Shifting at least some freight off trucks and onto trains would both reduce emissions and help address the safety and congestion issues on local roads - particularly in the Port of Melbourne example they use - but sadly this isn't mentioned. 

The commitment to only buy zero-emissions buses from 2025 is good, if a little late (via Ryanmirjanic)

Recommendations 03-10

Various electricity network and energy efficiency things, outside the scope of this post

Recommendations 11 & 12 - Specify climate scenarios and carbon value in assessing infrastructure; Strategically review climate consequences for infrastructure 

Basically says "there are no guidelines for this, you should have them". 

Part of the issue they identify is there's no definition of what's in scope - for example, if you build a road, do you just count the emissions involved in building it or do you also count the cars that drive on it for years afterwards? 

Done properly, this kind of assessment could be a game-changer, and it's hard to see another urban megaroad being approved before 2050 if they include usage emissions in the scope. (Which is why I fear that won't happen). 

Recommendations 13-20 

Water stuff and resilience stuff, N/A

Recommendation 21 - Prepare for increasingly automated vehicle fleets 

A reasonably balanced assessment of the future of automated vehicles - yes, they might be able to run closer together and therefore more efficiently, but they might also increase traffic through empty running. 

Notably the stuff they suggest about flexible kerb space makes sense regardless of automated vehicles. 

Recommendations 22 & 23 - Facilitate integration of public transport with new mobility services; Incorporate personal mobility devices in regulation 

The Dutch Railways' bikeshare model is a good example of integration (via Willem_90)

When techbros start talking about "new mobility", it's a good idea to proceed with caution. 

Much of what they've got here is very sensible; the ability to plug an origin and a destination into an app, and have it figure out the best way to get there - not limited to buses, trams and trains but including bikes and scooters - and having all those modes on the one payment system? Genuinely a good thing. Doing this as a platform, and allowing "new mobility" companies like Lime, or neo-taxis like Uber, onto that platform? Maybe not so much. 

The way to do this, in my view, is in-house - for the Department of Transport to run their own bikeshare and/or scooter service, and incorporate that into myki and the relevant apps, a la OV-fiets. Keeping it in-house also helps mitigate the data-sharing (and cost-sharing) issues they mention. 

They're absolutely right to recommend incorporating personal mobility into regulations - some prior discussion on that topic here. 

Recommendation 24 - Introduce new road network demand management technology

They present a high-tech vision of AI that detects buses, trams, emergency vehicles, or pedestrians and give traffic light priority, or extend or curtail light cycles as required. Cities around the world have of course been prioritising roads better than us for decades, simply because the people running the system had their priorities right - it doesn't take a supercomputer to tell you that pedestrians shouldn't have to press a beg-button for a too-short light cycle, and of course bus lanes aren't newfangled technology. 

Still, what they're recommending is fundamentally good, even if they've had to put a technological sheen on it to make the pollies pay attention. 

Bus lanes aren't exactly new technology (via Philip Mallis)

Recommendations 25-32

Health, courts, cops, recycling, education, etc 

Recommendation 33 - Publish Victoria's transport plan

Yes, please! We need the government to put together an integrated transport plan - not 40-odd disintegrated ones - and to actually make it public, so they can be held to it. I'm very glad to see IV continuing to push the government on this. 

Recommendation 34 - Review Victoria's infrastructure contribution system to cover gaps 

Not a lot to say about this, except it sounds like a good idea

Recommendations 35-37 

Housing and open space stuff, N/A

Recommendation 38 - Partner with local governments to fund pedestrian infrastructure

Our pedestrian networks are an incomplete patchwork, and this sorely needs to be remedied - not only for local trips, but to help connect people to buses, trams and trains that can take them further afield. Pedestrian infrastructure is pretty cheap compared to the other stuff the state government funds, but there's such a backlog of work it is a little challenging for local governments to get on top of this as quickly as I'd like, so it absolutely makes sense for the state to set up some kind of grants program to help fund this. 

It's also great to see them recommend more pedestrian-friendly timing at traffic lights, since this is a state responsibility and an ongoing problem, even for newly-installed lights in high-pedestrian areas - the DoT really need to be put on notice that they have to get this stuff right, and that needs to come from the Minister. 

Recommendation 39 - Transform cycling in Melbourne, Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong

This is great to see, not only that they recommend it but that it's not just focused on Melbourne. The state and many LGAs have detailed cycling strategic network plans (though not all - I've been surprised at how far ahead of the curve Ballarat is on this) but the funding hasn't been there to back it up, so it's great to see IV pushing for this. 

I've written a lot on this topic but the most recent and probably most salient post is here. 

The State's Strategic Cycling Corridors for Ballarat (via DoT)

Recommendation 40 - Improve walking and cycling data to better estimate travel, health, and safety impacts and benefits 

I'm not particularly keen on this. The fact that Victoria prioritises cars massively over pedestrians and cyclists isn't because of a lack of data or evidence, it's because of politics and ideology; better data would be nice but probably won't change much on its own. We need to change the culture in government more than anything else. 

There are also potentially privacy implications for the collection of all this data; it could probably be done in a truly anonymous way, but you can bet that if the government does this they'll do it in a way that identifies and tracks individuals, then purport to anonymise the data in order to allay privacy concerns. Except you can't really anonymise that kind of data, as we've seen with myki. 

Recommendation 41 - Reallocate road space to priority transport modes

This is all great, and very important. 

Recommendations 42 & 43 - Redesign tram routes; Activate urban renewal with new tram links

I don't quite see the same magic as IV does when it comes to the shuttles - I think they might be useful in some limited circumstances, but they're no silver bullet. Still, worth looking at. 

Extending trams to Fishermans Bend is extremely necessary and should happen ASAP. 

The Arden tram's a bit awkward because it's just a short hop from the existing tram network, so it doesn't make much sense as a terminus and any logical western/northern continuation of the route would duplicate the existing tram routes. Probably a good idea, but needs work. 

The Maribyrnong Defence Site tram I think has a lot of potential, though it's all quite contingent on the Feds getting their act together and developing the site (it seems to have dropped off their radar a bit since Turnbull was knifed). 

I very much like the idea of a tram along Dynon Rd to Footscray, although again there's the question of where it goes next (not much point doing it if you just stop at Footscray IMO). My vote is: continue west along Barkly to Central West shopping centre, and eventually, Sunshine. 

What I think is missing from these two Recs is short extensions of tram routes to logical termini - like extending Route 11 to Reservoir Station (~2.5km), or Route 3 to East Malvern Station and then Chadstone (~3km). This PTUA policy is a few years old but has some more examples - they're mostly quite short and cheap, and make for a much better-connected network than some of the middle-of-nowhere termini we have today. 

Projected tram capacity issues in 2051 (via IV)

Recommendation 44 - Plan for and fund public transport accessibility, including tram stop upgrades

This is hugely important - it's something that successive governments have dragged the chain on, and that the current government (and, moreso, whoever is in power after the next election) needs to really get cracking on. 

Disability Resources Centre are currently running a campaign on this, and I'd urge you to support it. 

Recommendations 45-48 - Various recommendations about transport fares and pricing

They recommend adopting permanent off-peak discounts for PT fares; I agree. However as always I'd note that price signals can only do so much (which may be why their modelling said you'd need a 50% discount to be big enough to shift behaviour). Service levels will usually be more influential in changing travel patterns; if you want more off-peak travel, run more frequent off-peak services, to make it a more attractive option for people. 

They also recommend scrapping fixed fare myki passes, and making buses and trams cheaper relative to trains, which I vehemently disagree with; more on this here.

They recommend scrapping the Free Tram Zone, which I do agree with. 

They also recommend appointing an independent transport pricing adviser. I'm lukewarm on this; it could be good in theory, but they have one in Sydney and their transport pricing is worse than ours. It probably depends on who gets the job, what their background is, precisely how the government crafts the enabling legislation, etc etc - so it's potentially worth digging deeper into. 

Recommendations 49-50 - Pricing parking

Pricing parking more comprehensively in central Melbourne, as well as at train stations, is fundamentally a very good idea. 

Part of the problem though, as we've seen, is that politicians - across the political spectrum and at all levels of government - see providing free car parks as a big vote-winner, and rather than trying to manage demand by charging for parking they would mostly rather spend huge sums of taxpayer's money to build expensive new free parking. 

This is a tough nut to crack politically, but their suggestions about allowing people to book parking spots in advance (rather than relying on first-come-first-serve) might provide a politically palatable way to do this? We'll see, I guess. 

Recommendations 51-53 - Congestion and road-user charges

Rec 51, to implement congestion pricing on new metropolitan freeways, is a bit of an ineffectual half-measure. The actual recommendation should really be "stop building new metropolitan freeways, they manifestly do not reduce traffic you dingbats", but confining ourselves to the pricing question for a moment, selectively applying congestion pricing to new urban freeways only will introduce a perverse incentive for drivers to use (free) existing roads, whether existing freeways or smaller local roads. For road pricing to work as a congestion measure (as opposed to a revenue-raising measure as is the case with CityLink et al) it needs to be comprehensive. 

Recs 52 and 53 essentially do this - phase out fixed rego in favour of distance-based charging, and have a congestion component in Melbourne - so I'm guessing Rec 51 is the politically palatable "Well if you're not going to do it properly then AT LEAST do it for these new roads!" fallback option. (They say it acts as a "building block" towards full-blown congestion pricing, but because of the perverse incentives I don't think it'd function as a particularly good example if tried in isolation). 

Anyway, I completely agree that we should be moving towards an RUC that taxes all road users based on the externalities they cause, whether it's congestion, carbon emissions, roadway damage, road trauma, and so on. (I do however agree that this should scale with income as much as is practical, and agree that splitting it into full + concession rates is the easiest way to do this). As I've said before, I think the EV RUC shows that politicians are scared of electoral blowback but ultimately keen to find a way to do proper road-user charging, so good on IV for pushing it and trying to tease out how one might go about phasing it in. 

Toll gantries on the Tullamarine Freeway (via Wongm)

Recommendations 54-56

Housing and hospitals, outside scope

Recommendations 57 & 58 - bus reform, 'next generation' buses, and road upgrades

Great to see a recommendation for substantial bus reform. Good that when they talk about 'next generation' buses they're focusing on the key elements of zero emissions, direct routes, and high frequency, and remain agnostic on the 'trackless tram' question. 

Very disappointing that they name-check Melbourne and Geelong but don't mention Ballarat or Bendigo or other regional cities, when we fundamentally need exactly the same kinds of reforms. 

They mention that the existence of infrequent, meandering services through low-density suburbs is "partly influenced" by the coverage requirement that 95% of households be within 400m of a bus route, note that people will often walk further for better service, and suggest the standard could be changed. I think this is an oversimplification - our routes are this way because they're chronically underfunded, and as I discussed here, we could have a very high-quality 800m grid supplemented by a few low-frequency routes that would maintain that 400m coverage, with only a relatively modest increase in funding. (Which does basically align with what they say in the "case study" section about a three-tier bus network). The coverage standard is important not just because of how far the average person will walk, but because of accessibility reasons, and it's disappointing this doesn't seem to have been taken into consideration when floating the distance be extended. 

They suggest some specific immediate priorities, including the northwest and southeast in time for MM1's opening, and shadowing the SRL's route to build patronage; all very sensible. 

They're not too keen on the government's Caulfield-Chaddy-Monash-Rowville tram, at least in the short term, and suggest next-gen buses instead. This is tricky because I think this project is a weird mismatch - access to both Chaddy and Monash needs to be improved, but I'm not sure this is the way to do it, and the subsequent announcement of SRL serving Monash complicates things too. But I don't think "just do it with next-gen buses" is the answer either - there needs to be more detailed strategic work on the best way to address these two needs. (If only we had some sort of integrated transport plan...)

Recommendation 59 - Increase off-peak service frequencies and suburban rail corridor capacity

Yes! This is hugely important, can take many cars off the road, and can be done mostly on existing infrastructure, and/or with relatively modest investments in line duplications and so on. 

Incidentally, I recently had this piece published which argues for this and the above bus upgrades - it was published after IV's strategy but written several weeks before, so it's pleasing to see it align so well. 

IV's suggested reconfiguration of the City Loop

Recommendation 60 - Reconfigure the City Loop for more frequent and reliable services

IV propose to reconfigure the Loop such that half the tunnels wouldn't really be loops any more - instead of flowing into the Loop and using it to head back in the same direction, trains on the Craigieburn line would flow through to the Frankston line, and trains on the Upfield line would flow through to the Glen Waverley and Alamein lines. This would boost the number of services that could run on all lines, providing a significant uplift in capacity for minimal cost. After completion, this would leave the Belgrave/Lilydale lines and the Hurstbridge line using the Loop as an actual Loop. 

I like this! The basic idea has been floating around for a while (eg in past Network Development Plans) but they seem to have developed it further. 

Part of the justification is to free up space for Seymour and Shepparton services, potentially shifting them to the Upfield line. This probably makes sense in the short term, but I think it can't go unmentioned that this is just a stopgap solution. Shepparton is growing fast and will need a comparable level of service to Ballarat pretty soon, and that is fundamentally incompatible with slotting amongst stopping Metro trains for that kind of distance - eventually there will need to be some kind of Regional Rail Link-esque project to separate the two. When, and on which alignment? Hard to say, but certainly before 2051, so we need to be considering alignments pretty soon. 

Recommendation 61 - Prepare for Melbourne Metro Two and direct Geelong rail services

Good to see they're viewing MM2 in a slightly more favourable light than in the draft strategy, saying the government should complete a business case within five years. It's clear they're still a bit on the fence about it though, particularly the northern section - more detail on this here. 

Recommendation 62 - Protect a long-term option for a new cross-city motorway

This one has been interpreted as IV "abandoning" East West Link, and they've certainly stepped back a bit from their previous endorsement, but we need to be clear - they are REALLY hedging here. They're essentially saying "other projects mean it's not necessary yet" rather than "it's not necessary". 

They still haven't recognised or acknowledged what a fundamentally bad idea it is, and they still recommend preserving the corridor for it. That leaves the window open to recommend it again in a few years (say, the next time the Liberals get into power). 

It's a dud, even the overly-generous assessment process for megaroads projects said it was a dud, and it's very concerning that a supposedly independent infrastructure body can't or won't call it a dud. 

There's no fixing the fundamental problem with East West Link

Recommendations 63-65 - Ports and freight

Lots to unpack here, much of it outside my expertise, but the various things that recommend moving more freight by rail are good (even if some of them are undermined by the truck stuff). 

Recommendation 66 - Construct an outer metropolitan road and rail corridor

I'm sure you can predict my response to this one. 

Rail corridor bypassing Melbourne? Very valuable for freight, definitely a good idea. 

Road corridor "bypassing" Melbourne? Won't just be used by freight to bypass Melbourne, will principally be used by cars to commute within Melbourne, will encourage urban sprawl to meet it so that it's no longer a bypass, will help justify the outer-outer ring road a few years hence. 

Recommendation 67-73

A bunch more stuff out of scope

Recommendation 74 - Extend rail services in Melbourne's western and northern growth areas

It's good that they're recommending full electrification to Wyndham Vale. I don't have a strong opinion on whether Beveridge is far enough north, but only electrifying as far as Rockbank rather than Melton makes very little sense - an in-depth post on this here. 

Recommendation 75 - Link outer suburbs to rail with 'next generation' buses

Essentially identifies a number of growth areas rail services could go in the next few years, and says "do next-gen buses ASAP", either instead of or until that happens. All of which broadly seems good, even if their hesitation to extend rail is as flimsy here as the previous Rec; doing good buses now would provide high-quality service years before trains could ever be provided, meaning people have a good non-car option in the short-term, and would build patronage for the medium term that helps justify the trains. Win-win. 

Quality buses in growth areas can only be a good thing (via Liamdavies)

Recommendation 76 - Expand and upgrade Melbourne's outer suburban road and bus networks

Most of this is spent talking about upgrading and expanding the roads, then says this will "provide a foundation" for better buses, cycling, and walking. This is exactly the kind of thing that already happens - it's assumed that arterial roads will get widened as areas grow and traffic worsens, so the DoT doesn't really need a push on this. 

What they need a push on is making sure that there actually ARE bus lanes, and good active transport infrastructure - this shouldn't be an afterthought when recommending a continuation of the status quo, it should be the whole point of the recommendation. 

Recommendation 77 - Target 30% tree canopy coverage in new growth areas

Outside scope 

Recommendation 78 - Deliver long-term funding certainty for regional road maintenance and upgrades

This is broadly quite good! Roads aren't inherently bad, they're just the wrong tool for the job in cities; in the regions they are often the right tool for the job and they're often sorely in need of maintenance. Having a long-term plan, with funding certainty, is a good thing. 

HOWEVER, one of the reasons regional roads are in such a poor state is because far too much of our freight travels by truck, and those trucks destroy regional roads. There's also increasing pressure for High Productivity Freight Vehicles (HPFVs, ie big long heavy trucks) to be allowed to access more of the road network, and these require even more investment (both in initially configuring structures etc to allow them, and increased maintenance costs). It's disappointing that there's no real discussion of using rail freight to reduce these pressures. 

Recommendation 79 - Fund and plan for ongoing regional rail freight network development and maintenance

Quite good, really - much better than I was expecting. They extoll the virtues of rail freight (cheaper, more efficient, etc) and note that rail freight is in decline, the network is in poor condition, and so on. They not only call for the maintenance situation to be fixed with a dedicated ongoing fund, but they call for a long-term network development plan - ie not just maintaining the existing assets better, but looking into how the freight network might be improved! I know I've set a very low bar, but I'm so glad to see them even talking about actual improvements. 

Notably, they want the network development plan to look at including the bits of the Murray Basin project that were removed from scope, a bunch of the ports and terminal stuff they talked about in previous Recs, AND to "determine the long-term rail gauge in different network sections, the sequence of projects, and ways to prepare for cost-effective gauge conversion". 

The prospect that we might finally actually solve the gauge problem? Be still my gunzel heart! 

Very glad to see rail freight get good treatment in the strategy (via IV)

(NB: rail freight is discussed in a silo in this Rec, so my point about there being no discussion about mode shift in the previous Rec still stands)

Recommendations 80-82

Power and tourism, outside scope

Insight - Is there a need for Very Fast Rail for the regions? 

There's a lot to unpack here if I felt like doing a full-blown post on it (I'm not planning to now, though it's a perennial issue so I might eventually). For one thing, they're being a bit sneaky by defining VFR as "over 200 kilometres per hour", since I think 200 is basically the turning point - I'm very in favour of having services that run AT 200km/h, but more skeptical about services that run OVER 200km/h. 

But in any case, I do agree with their point that capacity is a bigger challenge than speed, so that should be the focus in the short term. 

Recommendation 83 - Redesign regional public transport to meet local needs

Like "new mobility", "flexible" is a techbro red flag in public transport circles. Flexible buses are touted as being more efficient, but usually aren't, and when paired with smartphone apps are often touted as being new and innovative, when they're really just an evolution of poorly-performing telebuses that have existed for decades. Peter Parker has written on "flexible" buses before and really nails it. 

IV says that the government "must continue to design regional public transport for regional circumstances, and not simply replicate city-style models". This is probably the right move for a small town like Woodend, but as a Ballaratian this rhetoric is particularly concerning to me in light of the fact that Rec 57 on next-gen buses name-checks Geelong but no other regional cities. The truth is that somewhere like Ballarat has infinitely more in common with Geelong or suburban Melbourne than with somewhere like Woodend or Ararat, and replicating city-style models is exactly what we need (if hopefully more bus-friendly cities like Toronto rather than Melbourne). 

I think this kind of flexible bus can have a use in some scenarios that are - and will always be - low-patronage, where the alternative is no bus at all. So small towns like Woodend? Sure. Isolated parts of Ballarat with a particularly ungainly street layout, like Canadian? Maybe. Times of day when transport demand is low, like late at night? Definitely. But Ballarat's main routes, during the day, which can be made straight and efficient, and which would gain more patronage if they were higher quality? No way in hell. 

It's possible IV agrees with me on this, and they genuinely are just aiming at small towns, rather than regional cities - but if that's the case, they need to make it abundantly clear. 

Flexibuses have a role, but generally don't live up to the hype (via IV)

Recommendations 84-94

Digital, telehealth, community infrastructure and facilities, and housing - outside scope

Conclusion

Like I said, there are a few howlers, and a few more where they've confined themselves to surface-level tweaks where a more comprehensive rethink was required. But broadly there is a lot to like, and it helps ground our infrastructure planning a lot more than having politicians shoot from the hip - which can only be a good thing.