Journoz: Updates for Australian Journalists

Make them pay

London started charging people to take their cars into central London, and guess what? It worked. Fewer cars now enter the charging zone, public transport use is up, travel time is quicker for all road users and the money made from charging drivers is going towards improving public transport even more. What is wrong with this picture? Nothing, which is why other countries are looking at the London experience as a way forward for car-choked cities. Read this success story at http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/results.chtml?filename_num=00923.

On yer bike

Brisbane roads don't need to be congested -- with a mixture of timeshifting, better public transport and road-use charges, it could all flow very freely in Brissie, according to John Nightingale. He says: "The idea that congestion can be resolved by more roads has been disproved by long experience in genuinely congested cities elsewhere. Over 50 years of freeways, ring roads, arterial bypasses, bridges and tunnels has demonstrated that none of this works in cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Birmingham, London, Paris, Tokyo, Singapore, Bangkok, the list is endless. There are no 'build your way out' success stories. Not one. The only success stories are where alternatives to more roads have been chosen." His piece for the Brisbane Institute is at www.brisinst.org.au/resources/nightingale_john_uncongested.html.