Explosive cost blowouts are all around us. In Melbourne, the
proposed “suburban rail loop” was promoted by then Premier Andrews as costing
$50billion. It was later revealed the cost has already ballooned
to four times the original estimate to $200billion – which exceeds the
entire state debt of Victoria.
In Queensland, the Cross River Rail was persistently
promised to be delivered for a fixed $5.4 billion but it is understood to be
over budget by $1 billion at around $6.3 billion. It’s hard to work out what
this includes as related works like yards are understood to be under separate budgets.
Then there’s the Queensland
Train Manufacturing program, which was originally budgeted at $7.1 billion but
which is now estimated at $9.6 billion – a blow out of $2.4 billion.
Add to that the Logan and Gold Coast Faster Rail project,
which duplicates lines over an 18klm section of the network with station
upgrades and better alignment. That was to cost $2.6 billion but has now
been revealed to cost an estimated $5.75 billion – an increase of $3.1
billion, more than double the original costs.
Prior to all this was the new Moreton Bay Rail line to Kippa
Ring, a new 12klm line with 6 stations which opened in 2016 at a cost of $1.15
billion – roughly $100 million per kilometre. That almost looks cheap compared
with over $300 million per kilometre just up upgrade the Logan-Gold Coast line.
Undeterred, we are now also canvassing a new
37 kilometre line from Beerwah to Maroochydore, with perhaps 7 new stations
and a tunnel section. No costs for this yet and its fate is hard to determine.
But if we used the per kilometre upgrade cost for the Logan-Gold line, and
multiplied that by 37 kilometres, we could easily be looking at a project costing
$12 billion. My bet is that an initial estimate will come in closer to $20bn BB. ("BB" = before blowout).
Are your eyes starting to water? Worried about where the
money is coming from? Maybe consoling yourself that this is all necessary to
support transport infrastructure in a growing state and to “solve” congestion.
With better and more train services, loads of people will happily give up their
cars and use public transport, and all this is supported by rigorous business
cases which are readily accessible by members of the taxpaying public. No?
Here are some numbers for context.
The population of the greater urban conglomeration of SEQ
(Greater Brisbane plus Sunshine and Gold Coasts, Ipswich and Toowoomba) was 3.6
million people (2021 Census). Of that number, 1.58 million went to work –
somewhere. 280,000 worked at home. How many of the 1.58 million caught a train
or light rail as at least part of their journey to work? Only around 44,000. The
2021 Census was taken in the midst of Covid so an unfair year to sample train
travel. The comparable figure from the 2016 census was around 64,000 people
catching a train.
With Covid behind us, passengers are returning but are still
at only
around 80% of pre pandemic levels. Because rail people like to use trip
numbers (which are much bigger numbers to talk about given just one person can
generate more than 10 trips in one week) direct comparisons with actual numbers
of people are hard to find. But if you assume current passengers are around 80%
of the 64,000 pre pandemic, there might be around 55,000 people using a train
to get to work in South East Queensland today.
Why do more people not catch the train? And will all this
investment mean it becomes a more attractive proposition?
Sadly, heavy commuter rail for Australia is battling against
a changing economic geography and a changed society. An “all roads lead to Rome”
centralised economic model (much like mega Chinese cities, or mega centres like
NYC or London) can work for heavy commuter rail. But in our region, only around
10% of jobs are in the inner city, for which rail is well suited provided you
can access a station with convenience. The greatest growth in jobs is not in the
inner city, but across suburban centres. These are not typically serviced by
rail.
Little wonder then that there is a high correlation between proximity to the CBD and use of public transport. Why? Because people who live in middle and outer suburbs do so because they don’t work in the CBD. People with jobs in the CBD prefer to live closer to it, and are also more likely to use a service which is CBD centred. It’s not rocket science.
(As an aside, proposals by The Greens to make public transport
free would therefore most benefit inner city residents who already earn higher
incomes and own more expensive real estate. And who work in the CBD. It will be
of no benefit to lower income suburban workers who would in all likelihood need
to pay for it via higher taxes).
Plus, once those tracks are in the ground, the wires overhead and the stations in place, there’s no changing that route - ever. Irrespective of how demand and economic geography might change, you’re stuck with that network. Buses and projects like the Metro can be re-routed, but not heavy rail.
In addition to that is social change. Trains are fixed
route, schedule-based services. They were suited to a time when the trip to
work did not involve any side trips and you scheduled your trips around the train
timetable. For many, those trips now change every day – dropping kids to
school, picking up from sport, gym classes, shopping for groceries… any number
of reasons why a fixed route, fixed schedule service doesn’t appeal to as many people
as it once did.
You might think the basic numbers and reality is sinking in?
Not it seems with any number of economically illiterate politicians who offer
nothing more than glib phrases and vague promises about “congestion busting”
while proposing projects that are budget busting, and supported without transparent
business cases due to “commercial in confidence” reasons.
So we are spending tens and perhaps hundreds of billions of
dollars on a mode of transport which is best suited to a minority of inner city
workers, and which currently carries fewer than 100,000 people in the region, and
which, despite spending many many billions more, is possibly unlikely to carry many
more people in the foreseeable future.
Who wins in this? Loads of consultants doing multi million dollar
business cases which will never be put up for scrutiny, sheltered industries and
work practices, and a very small number of commuters who will get better
service at the expense of a majority who won’t.
