Politicians are idiots? Or do they get political donations for their stupid decisions?

This East West tunnel will be a disaster. The longest tunnel in Australia that is joining the Eastern Freeway to the Western Ring Road that is going to cost 8 billion dollars. The new road will induce even more traffic, it is that simple. The Tullamarine Freeway will become more congested. The Doncaster Freeway will become more congested and, eventually, during peak times it will become an 8 kilometre long car park.

The irony for any major urban road project is that ultimately more road space just generates more traffic. This is the crucial point and is worth repeating, more road space simply generates more traffic.

One of the women I work with drives from Narre Warren to Richmond every day, along the Mulgrave Freeway. She said before EastLink was built, the Mulgrave Freeway used to be busy but it used to flow, now it is congested by the traffic that comes in off EastLink. With EastLink, it takes her fifteen minutes longer to drive each way.

Unsurprising is that the state government has rejected the 2 reports findings, which confirms the fact that the East West tunnel will either do nothing to improve congestion on Hoddle Street and the Eastern Freeway, or will, in fact, make it worse and the Liberal state government wants to push ahead with the new road anyway.

Why is the Liberal party so in thrall of the road transport lobby? Their addiction to creating roads that studies show will not work borders on pathological? They are either idiots, (shrug, if Abbot is any thing to go by) or there is money in play behind the scenes flowing into the Liberals coffers. Has it has been decided upon for political reasons?

If the government wants to fix the congestion problem that plagues Melbourne now a days, and which is rapidly getting worse, it has to reduce the number of cars on the road, not increase the number. 

If we spend 8 billion dollars on public transport, it would go a long way to helping the congestion problems. We need to encourage more people not to use their cars and to use public transport.

And that is before we even start to talk about environmental issues.