Building more roads won't solve congestion in Australian cities: report

City-dwelling Australians need to end their love affair with private cars and stop building new roads to beat congestion, a new report has found.

It also downplays the idea of building new roads or expanding existing infrastructure, because new road construction signals to drivers that commuting will be easier so more road users fill the newly created space, which is known as “induced demand”.

The Remode, Reprice, Reshape white paper, published by car-sharing company GoGet and infrastructure and service provider peak body Open Cities, outlines a three-part approach to easing pressure on Australia’s bursting cities, with a large emphasis on reducing the reliance on cars for commuting.

The report asks governments to make public and alternative forms of transport easier to access and more efficient, implement further financial penalties on driving through congestion taxes and other measures, and rethinking the way new homes and communities are built.

New developments, on both the city fringes and infill, needed to be better designed to enable car-free living, GoGet transport planner Josh Brydges said.

“We need to design our communities so not everyone who lives in a community needs to access it by car,” he said. “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you live in one of these [car-dependent] communities, a lot of the trips you need to make are made by car so you’re adding to congestion.”

Reducing the need for cars reduced the need for car parking that in turn freed up more space in cities and communities, which Mr Brydges said should be used to add more commercial spaces to bring essential services like shops and health facilities closer to home.

“The way we build communities nowadays is a departure from how we built them historically. [Recently] we haven’t built them with human-centric ideas in mind,” he said. “You can’t really walk. The bulk of human history, people used to be able to walk to shops and schools.

“We find that communities that do have walkability, that have local cafes and amenities, they are the most in demand with consumers looking for a home, they have the highest house prices and demand.”

Managing director of data consultancy firm Smash Delta Ben Morley-John said increasing the capabilities and attractiveness of shared transport options also helped.

“Transferring people out of the car totally makes sense but we need to do that in concert with a more complete solution,” he said. “A certain amount of people jumping onto a road will push it over a tipping point and suddenly a large amount of congestion will occur and the travel speed will drop precipitously.

“The interesting flipside of that is that a small push in the other direction, concessions and other transport options, can push that congestion back from the brink.”

Open Cities chief executive Lisa McLean said a lack of last-mile and mid-mile transport options made people stick to driving, and said car share vehicles helped to overcome the convenience hurdle.

“Shared mobility is just absolutely critical when tackling congestion. We’d like to see tax systems supporting shared mobility membership and more novated leases,” she said.

“Instead of getting off the train and the only option is a private car or a bus, we can go into a shared car or a scooter or that sort of thing.”

Ms McLean said reducing congestion would also improve air quality and have health benefits for city dwellers.

RMIT Centre for Urban Research PhD candidate Lusiana Paganelli said building more roads would not reduce congestion, and car share services could be a way of allowing more commuters to access public transport.

“Some cities have had public car sharing, and others partner with private operators and others create regulation for car sharers to operate in these environments,” she said. “Cities are trying to find out how best to deal with the private market in some areas.”