[Peakoil] Light rail a Greens election focus

[Jenny Goldie]

I think you may be being a bit harsh. The meeting the other night (my report 
to ACTPO Exec below) made me think fondly of them, and they have dragged 
Simon Corbell into a better space as well.

Jenny

I went to the Transport Forum last night, organised by Canberra Loves 40% 
and the Canberra Con Council. On my way there I heard on the radio that 
Amanda Bresnan had launched the Greens' transport policy. When I walked in I 
ran into Caroline le Coutier and asked if this meeting was the 'offical' 
pre-election meeting on transport and she said she thought so - that is why 
the Greens had launched their policy that day. So, I wonder whether our 
doing one would not be redundant.

Having said that, the Liberals didn't show though Zed Seselja provided a 
written statement about their position which was read out. And, of course, 
there were no other parties there, just Labor (Simon Corbell) and Greens 
(Amanda Bresnan). Quite frankly, I was impressed with both of them even 
though neither explicitly mentioned peak oil nor climate change until asked 
in question time. But awareness of both was certainly implicit. Corbell 
hasn't decided between bus rapid transit and rail rapid transit but he is 
looking closely at cost-benefit analyses. (I asked the last question as to 
whether he would take into account peak oil and climate change in making 
that decision and he said that there were a whole range of technologies 
coming on the market such as electric cars, electric buses, hydrogen buses, 
etc that would affect the decision.) The Greens are much more pro-light rail 
but want a commission set up to determine the best route for starting - it 
could be the Parliamentary Triangle rather than Civic-Gungahlin, for 
instance, which is the government's preferred option. Interestingly, we had 
a speaker from Gold Coast Light Rail (Gold Linx) by Skype  with some 
interesting slides and he emphasised that a lot of the cost goes underground 
in shifting cables, sewer lines etc before they even start with the rail 
lines. Simon Corbell leapt on this - it's a point he's made often enough 
about the problems of running light rail up Northbourne Avenue.

There was a panel of three: reps from the cyclists, Light Rail (not Damian 
Haas), and community health who got to ask questions. I tried not to be 
miffed that we were not invited but I got my question in anyway.

Unless someone feels strongly that we still need a pre-election meeting I'll 
let it drop, I think.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Keith" <myrmecia at gmail.com>
To: "Jenny Goldie" <jenny.goldie at optusnet.com.au>
Cc: "ACT-PeakOil mailing list" <peakoil at act-peakoil.org>
Sent: Friday, August 31, 2012 7:43 PM
Subject: Re: [Peakoil] Light rail a Greens election focus


> On 31/08/2012, at 2:37 AM, Jenny Goldie wrote:
>
>> Light rail a Greens election focus
>> The ACT Greens have put light rail for Canberra at the heart of their 
>> election pitch this morning.
>> http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/light-rail-a-greens-election-focus-20120830-25289.html
>
> Isn't this just typical of the Greens? A vague belief that more gadgets - 
> expensive ones - will enable us to continue business as usual. Also 
> ignoring Jevon's paradox.
>
> They are really an ameliorist party, not a group looking to change the way 
> we do things.
>
> Far better if they addressed the more fundamental problem of setting up 
> social and societal arrangements which led to the majority of people 
> neither needing nor wishing to travel so far and so often.
>
> Keith
>