Public transport fare increases in South East Queensland have been a complete failure

Back in 2009/10 Translink introduced it's new "fare structure" and with it the 15% a year increases in public transport fares. The stated reason, by both then Transport minister Rachel Nolan and Translink was to reduce the percentage of each fare that was subsidised by the government.

From the 09/10 Translink annual report section on fares:

(The new fare structure) "introduces a series of staged fare increases to ensure the long-term sustainability of South East Queensland’s public transport system. These fare increases will enable TransLink to continue to rollout services to meet growing demand, whilst gradually reducing state subsidies to a more sustainable level... TransLink aims to reduce the total subsidy requirement from 75 per cent to 70 per cent of the total cost of delivering public transport services, over a five year period."

Now you might have predicted that 15% a year fare rises would impact negatively on public transport patronage, and that the combination of less passenger growth and more services would outweigh any extra money coming from increased fares. And you'd have been right. Since 2009 the percentage subsidy paid by the government has actually increased to 77%. So not only is the government subsidising a larger percentage of each journey, the dollar amount of subsidy per journey has also increased. Although the entire 5 years period has not yet passed, I think it is already safe to call this policy a complete failure.

Looking at the actual patronage numbers (by comparing the 09/10 Translink report with the latest numbers) it also looks like the strong yearly increases in passengers seen between 2003/04 and 2008/09 have ground to a halt despite new and extra services. With customer satisfaction around affordability also taking a dive, it's not unreasonably to think it is the fare increases that have caused patronage numbers to flat-line.

So what about the future?
The Labour govt who introduced the fare increases is now gone, but it doesn't seem that the new LNP govt have fully learnt the lesson either. Although they have pledged to halve the fare increases, they are still planning yearly fare increases of 7.5% over the next few years. The last three years have shown that big fare increases don't work and don't save money for the government. Instead the state government (and transport minister Scott Emerson) should limit fare increases to CPI and focus on increasing passenger numbers.


HT to BrizCommuter for pointing me towards the latest passenger numbers and for their useful public transport blog.

Good on yer Dave

Now for a good news story. The ABC reports that winemaker David Bruer is on his way towards making his already organic winery carbon neutral. To do so he's persuing a number of strategies including lightweight bottles, carbon farming, revegetation and solar power.

Carbon neutral next step for organic winery

Best of luck Dave and I hope other wineries follow in your footsteps.

New ideas needed to combat rising power prices and drive energy efficiency

Power prices have been rising fast over the last few years and are expected to keep in rising into the future no matter what governments do about carbon pricing and clean energy. The major reason (as we have noted before) is all the extra poles and wires that are being put in to maintain and upgrade the electricity network. How much money is this you ask?

"A massive $45 billion over five years is being spent to upgrade and maintain the network, and that cost is being passed onto the consumer."

Basically our electricity network needs enough power plants, poles, transformers and wires to meet peak demand, even though this only occurs a few hours a year. As peak demand rises, more is spent expanding the capacity of the grid and our power bills rise to pay for it.

As the ABC outlines, people are now asking if this is the best way of doing things?

Currently power companies make more money from selling more power, but what if they could also make money from getting people to save energy? And what if households could also benefit financially by saving energy at times of peak demand? This way peak demand could drop, meaning less new poles and wires and lower bills for everyone.

Another benefit of such schemes would be increased energy efficiency, which is a key solution in tackling climate change. So both peoples wallets and the environment would benefit.

See the full story here, or listen to ABC radio program: Energy efficiency: Not in Australia mate!

I love when TT or Sustainability groups just get up and get going.

This is inspiring.....hope you think so too.

The Ultimate Grass Roots Experiment:

http://theautomaticearth.org/Earth/the-ultimate-grass-roots-experiment.html

TTKD April Meeting: Making Brisbane a Cycling City

DIY Brisbane -

A low-cost high-impact action plan of how we can all work together to make Brisbane a Cycling City

Presented by Rachel Smith

Thursday April 19

7.15pm for a 7.30pm start

Kenmore Library Meeting Room

The talk will include:

·         Why cycling isn’t in Brisbane’s DNA

·         What Brisbane women (and men!) really want 

·         Targeting the right ‘target’ audience

·         How we can make cycling in Brisbane safer than sitting on the sofa

·         What we can learn from Jamie Oliver

·         Daring to share and sharing success

·         The peer produced city

·         Bottom–up self-organising

·         Emotions and engineering


We are lucky to have Rachel Smith present this months meeting. Rachel is a Principal Transport Planner within AECOM and one of Australia’s leading practitioners of sustainable transport. She has led the active transport team on most of the major transport infrastructure and policy development projects in Queensland. Rachel is part of the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a mobile laboratory travelling to nine cities over six years led by international, interdisciplinary teams of emerging talents in urbanism, architecture, technology and sustainability. The Lab addresses issues of contemporary urban life and its goal is the exploration of new ideas, experimentation, and ultimately the creation of forward-thinking solutions for city life. Rachel was nominated by Enrique Penalosa, the former Mayor of Bogota. Rachel is the Founder and Creative Director of ‘Cycling Super Highways’ a vision for 7 metre wide cycleways completely separated from parked and moving cars, Co-Creator of Lazy Sunday Cycle, a crowd-sourced social-media cycling initiative, a freelance writer for multimedia in the UK, USA, China and Australia, a blogger at This Big City and Cycling Rachel Smith, on the curatorial panel for Queensland Arts art + place and guest lecturer at the University of Queensland.

As usual the meeting will be followed by supper and conversation. Please feel free to bring along a plate to share. No need to RSVP.

Can't do clean energy in Queensland?

One big area of change with the election of the LNP government in QLD will be in sustainability and climate change. Probably the easiest way to summarize it is that (baring the feed in tariff) the Queensland government will no longer be taking action on climate change or promoting clean energy*.

This means that along with the Office of climate change, the:
Queensland Climate Change Fund
Queensland Renewable Energy Fund
Queensland Smart Energy Savings Fund
Queensland Future Growth Fund
Solar Initiatives Package
Solar Flagships Program
Waste Avoidance and Resource efficiency Fund
Local Government Sustainable Future Fund

are all being scrapped.

These LNP plans didn't get much airing during the campaign, mostly because they weren't released until a day or two before the election. 

Most galling for supporters of clean energy will probably the the LNPs decision to pull out of the 250 mega watt Solar Dawn project in western Queensland. If this ends up killing the whole project another big loser, along with the environment and prospective employees, will be the University of Queensland, which, I have just discovered, was to get $60 million in research funding to use the Solar Dawn plant as a test bed for research into improvements and innovations in solar thermal technology.

Cambell Newman has stated that state based schemes are now unnecessary because of the impending national carbon price. However, I assume this is not a tacit admission that carbon pricing will be effective in tackling reducing greenhouse gas emissions, although it most likely will be.

Although there is some truth some Newman's argument, it also misses a very important point. Which is that climate action will bring with it investment in clean energy and pollution reduction technology. Investment means money and jobs for the states it occurs in. Call them what you want but states provide subsidies, co-investment, tax breaks and build infrastructure all the time to attract investment to their state. Not doing this in QLD just means we'll be less attractive to invest in.

The LNP policy document (view here) does state the government will instead help business access the $10 billion + dollars for clean energy that is part of the carbon price/ clean energy future package. However, since the state LNP opposes the clean energy future plan and the federal Lib-Nats plan to scrap the clean energy package if elected, this appears to be a policy the LNP hope not to implement. And again without the full support of the state government it is less likely QLD will get that money now anyway. 


There is also concern amongst conservation groups that the new LNP government will allow more pollution from farming to reach the great barrier reef due to their "regulation busting". With a new report indicating that the herbicide Diuron is being found way above safe levels on the reef at the moment, the impact of agricultural runoff on the reef will be an ongoing concern.


* If I'm wrong on this please comment and I'll make a correction.


This post represents my personal view and before anyone gets upset note that I've have been critical of Labour governments in the past as well.

Household energy links from Dr David Mills

Here are some of the links for more information and government rebates Dr David Mills showed in his talk earlier this month on reducing your household energy use.


GreenPower
http://www.greenpower.gov.au
- Power your home or business with Green Energy (this is Green Energy in addition to the MRET: mandatory renewable energy target).

ClimateSmart Home Service
http://www.climatesmarthome.com/
- Popular scheme to help households save on the electricity bill and help the environment at the same time.

Solar Hot Water
http://brightthing.energy.qld.gov.au/rebate-and-incentives/solar-hot-water-rebate/
- states based rebates are still available to switch to solar hot water and slash your power bill

BCC Ezygreen program
http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/environment-waste/green-living/green-homes/ezygreen/index.htm
- what's available from the Brisbane City Council

Green Vehicle Guide
http://www.greenvehicleguide.gov.au
- provides mileage and air pollution rankings for all new cars on the road. Find the most fuel efficient cars on the road.