My story is only one of several hundred thousand that drivers in Perth encounter daily. A combination of short-sighted road network planning and bureaucracy has led to a series of unneccesary bottlenecks in and around Perth during peak hours.
Daily on Perth's three freeways (Mitchell, Kwinana and Graham Farmer), traffic is always at a crawl during peak hour extending for kilometres. This is also the case on Perth's main arterial roads such as East Parade, Beaufort Street, Tonkin Highway, Loftus Street, South Street and Stirling Highway amongst a plethora of others.
Here are what I think the main problems are:
1. The failure to invest in improving roads such as increasing lanes on the freeways and other roads such as Great Eastern Highway;
2. Poor traffic management control through traffic light patterns, especially in the CBD;
3. Failure to promote schemes such as car pooling lanes. According to
The Sunday Times on July 18 (I know, not always the reliable source), during peak hour 9 out of 10 cars on the freeway on had one person in the car and;
4. The lack of public transport infrastructure, especially in the suburbs East of Perth.
I know that peak hour traffic is non-avoidable and is a part of many cities across the world and Perth is no exception but it really should not be this bad.
Extending Perth's public transport infrastructure can lead to reductions in traffic congestion.
According to new figures released by Main Roads, an additional 50,000 cars will clog Perth roads by 2015. With no new major road projects in the pipeline to be completed by then, this situation will only become worse. There is only so much a road can handle and there are only so many car parks you can provide. Inevitably it will only become worse and if there is nothing proactively done to solve this problem, it will be permanent.
At this point in time, the state government has no plans to increase the amount of lanes or extending the public transport system beyond its current infrastructure as Transport Minister Simon O'Brien said:
"Managing traffic confestion requires multiple strategies, including land-use planning to achieve more balanced traffic flows and reudced travel, encouraging car pooling and the use of public transport, cucling and walking as alternatives to private vehicles. The growing use of technology...will also help manage congestion and reduce bottlenecks."
Personally I think the minister is extremely short-sighted in his views towards the reduction of congestion on our roads. The ultimate aim is for the population is to live close where they work, educate, recreate but we know that is never going to be the case so the government needs to work on strategies to reduce congestion around the city. These are my suggestions:
1. Expand the public transport network infrastructure by building light rail, additional train lines and invest in more buses and rolling stock for train lines to improve service frequency.
2. Integrate traffic flow through a centralised control of traffic lights through a system using GPS and CCTV at all major intersections in the CBD and on major arterial roads heading into the CBD.
3. Promote the use of public transport and car-pooling.
4. Increase the amount of lanes of traffic on the Mitchell and Kwinana Freeways.
5. Remove merging points to improve flow of traffic and prevent bottlenecks.
6. Variable speed limits to adjust to road and traffic conditions and improve traffic flow.
7. Businesses can stagger start and finish times to enable their employees be on time and reduce traffic on roads during peak periods.
8. Introduce part-time traffic lights that only operate during a certain period of time (peak or off-peak periods).
9. Improve the link between public transport and roads such as increasing parking at train stations or increase in feeder bus services from suburbs to train stations.
10. Congestion charge for driving in the CBD (e.g. London)
11. Reduce the cost of car registration whilst introducing a system of road pricing where cars are charged for using certain roads during different times of the day (e.g. ERP in Singapore).
12. Increase the amount of Variable Message Signs on Perth roads to alert users of incidents and estimate times to the next intersection/exit.
There are 12 ideas here but there are much more that could also be considered. All in all, a solution to curb traffic congestion is needed as soon as possible and has to be long-sighted to take into account future population and vehicle growth in the Perth Metropolitan Area.
Traffic congestion can also be caused by stupidity
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