Wednesday, September 30, 2009

What is the government doing?

Honestly, when the new government came to power, I thought that it was going to be a change for the better. That fresh blood would mean new ideas, ideas that would make a difference to the country. It seems not.
Close to where we live, we have had a bridge extension built - it was clearly done to keep people in jobs, instead of being done because it was needed. The problem here is congestion, the only solution is to provide people with an alternative means to get to work that would keep them out of the CBD. Not exactly rocket science, but to keep people in jobs, we built another bridge. That by itself seems to have been a bit of a nightmare as well, part of the bridge build was automatic tolls - you can't pay with money, and instead have to pay within three days - how the hell is that ever going to work, for those that are visiting the area? Even if the automated system worked flawlessly this is a silly idea, but it didn't so instead people who could not get hold of the tags to allow the automation to work got through the tolls for free. Well planned and executed. Kind of a bit of a waste of money was that, wasn't it?

So, here's the thing, why instead of building a bridge and a tunnel, to get yet more traffic into the city, don't we build an underground rail network, and get people to park outside of the CBD, and commute in? If the tickets are reasonable prices, and the service has decent coverage, and runs on time, then that is going to both raise revenues, and solve the problem. And there's the thing, the problem appears to be with a complete lack of lateral thinking.

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