The gulf between public needs and private wants warrants discussion

Public transport comes in many
 forms and next to walking and
 cycling it is clearly the most
 efficient way to move
 people about.

People of the Goulburn Valley need to gather and talk about the gulf between public needs and private wants.

Both are many, but it is the former to which any reasonable, decent, thoughtful and community-minded person will acknowledge the most important.

Sadly, our individualistic and consumerist world has a slavish devotion to the latter, a perverse privatization that gives rise to despair and a largely unacknowledged and invisible inequality.

Many argue that we can only deal with society as it is or with what exists and although that might be an accepted philosophy today, it wasn’t when we abandoned, almost entirely, our rail network and decided the future belonged to the combustion engine, effectively the motor car.

The Goulburn Valley of the mid-1940s had a wonderful rail network, but gradually was dismantled as private wants prevailed over public needs.

We wrongly chose not to build-on our existing rail infrastructure, but pursue a privately energised idea, the motor car; a concept that has evolved to actually become a public disservice and in just 100 years has left a legacy contrary to human needs.

The purchase of a car is a private decision, but its use and convenience depends, almost entirely, upon a publicly funded infrastructure.

The era of the car is ending with the oil upon which it depends becoming prohibitively expensive to extract and deliver to users, as is the maintenance of the road network and without either the motor car has no reason.

It is time to gather and discuss how we can get thousands of road users back onto a tightly networked public transport system that would be vastly more energy efficient; enrich and strengthen linked communities; trigger a host of new job opportunities; be safer; and make a significant contribution to reducing the Goulburn Valley’s carbon dioxide emissions.

The idea of public transport contrasts with the modern market-driven individualism that has prevailed for decades to become an imagined part of our wellbeing, both emotionally and physically.

Rather than responding to Australia’s spacious geography, we should be consolidating our towns and cities; living close to our work; using a bicycle, or walking; negotiating our towns and cities on a tightly integrated public transport system of buses with light rail running as frequently as hourly between Goulburn Valley towns to connect with trains that unite us with all other destinations.

Establishing an integrated public transport network will be complex, difficult and expensive, but we must start now for as the world’s oil becomes increasingly scarce and subsequently expensive, it will be equally increasingly difficult to build the network upon which the future of the Goulburn Valley will depend.

That is “what” we need and now we need to gather and figure our “how” we do it.

Our understanding of phases and words frustrates the pedestrianization of our towns and cities

An entrenched way of living and our understanding of phases and words are just two things that stand in the way of making our towns and cities pedestrian friendly.

The freeways of the world have no
 consideration for the pedestrian.

Progressive thinkers sense that our way of life is herding us into a cul-de-sac and the way in which we think about and understand any possible solutions is only worsening the over-crowding.

A revolution that started in the late 19^th century with the arrival of the first motor car has since enveloped the world – the coup that has reduced humankind to passengers (literally) is complete.

Our towns and cities have been taken over by motor vehicles and despite adventurous ideas and enthusiastic attempts at securing our liberation we continue to huddle in the shadows while we afford absolute freedom and the joy of life in the sun to the motor car.

We conceived of the car as a tool to make our lives easier and more comfortable – it was, at first, our servant and now roles are reversed with us living in a way that ensures the motor car has the run of the world.

We built the car, a mindless mechanical thing, with the thought that it would free us, but something quiet to the contrary has happened. We have given the car freedoms and rights we afford to almost nothing else and as it rampages around the world, we stare out from the gloom almost like refugees on our own planet.

Roads of tar and cement spill around the world looking like a tangled and heartless mess and what were once beautiful spaces are turned into soulless parking areas for these modern day monsters.

The car has the world in a sleeper hold and we can’t even talk our way out of its embrace for we can no longer understand the language. Everything we do, every decision we make is tinted by this strange dilemma – the car tightens its grip and we begin to lose ours.

Mention pedestrian friendly to a community and immediately most see the job as done – that is that the community is already pedestrian friendly – it has a few walking paths, a couple of pedestrian crossings and a few pedestrian refuges that allow a few moments relief as the behemoths of the road surge by.

There is a distinct difference between walking for relaxation or exercise to walking as a part of daily life – walking to work, walking to shop, walking to school, walking to see a friend or walking to and from social events.

It is this difference, along with our failure to understand how we need to look at our towns and cities again with the need to reconsider our designs relegating the car to its rightful position of servant and the pedestrian becomes elevated, honoured and respected, making it easy and desirable.

Australian towns and cities are suffering from a similar difficulty as many in the population – obesity. We are becoming grossly overweight, spreading as we shouldn’t, while we should be trimming up, ensuring our towns and cities are taught and trim like a fit athlete.

Rather than sprawl we should be designing for compact communities that not only encourage walking, but make it possible, rewarding and so enhance our wellbeing as we walk our way to healthier and safer towns and cities.