Reforming transport planning in Australia

Abstract

This chapter considers ways to reframe transport planning in Australia by reorienting debate away from the traditional investment-only focus on big projects to considering transport as an organic enabling system interconnected with many spheres of policy. To date, most transport planners have been preoccupied with planning how people should move about as if they are in control of the system. Planners have devised various ways to move people and freight around more efficiently, including approaches such as ‘park and ride’, carpooling, avoiding peak hour, utilising freeways, avoiding ‘rat-running’ and requirements for delivery trucks to deliver at night. All of these approaches have one thing in common: they are attempts to work out what people should be doing and planning how they should move about.