Curtin University professor of sustainability Peter Newman says the planned toll road into the Inner Harbour at Fremantle Port undermines the bipartisan push to get more freight on rail at the port.
Newman spoke last week at Fremantle’s Victoria Hall, about the state government’s planned extension to the Roe Highway, and upgrade of a number of other roads, to create a toll road for trucks to bring containers to and from the port.
The former Infrastructure Australia board member criticised the plan, which he said was not economically sound. He compared it WestConnex in NSW and the East-West Link in Victoria.
“All of these were dropped from the sky,” he said, “in the sense that at Infrastructure Australia we never assessed them. They were not viable projects. They had to be delivered politically, if they were delivered at all. And [now] they’re not doing politically well, either.”
Newman said from Infrastructure Australia’s perspective, the road projects often didn’t hold up too well to cost-benefit analysis when they relied on freight traffic for the bulk of their revenue.
“They need cars, too,” he said. “[The Abbott Government’s] Roads of the 21st Century therefore have often got a rationale for freight, but are mostly justified on the basis of moving cars, despite the fact that in Australia, car use per capita is going down.”
Newman suggested the WA government was only going after a road project for Fremantle because of the guarantee of funding from the Commonwealth, noting in particular the $499 million commitment made in this year’s Federal Budget, all of which was reserved for roads.
“This federal money was dropped on WA,” he said. “A bit of a surprise. It wasn’t asked for.
“It’s part of the Roads of the 21st Century spending that was committed to by the Federal Government, and by Tony Abbott with his famous statement that urban rail was ‘not in our knitting’. So the prime minister for infrastructure is building roads.”
Newman supports a plan where containers are railed in and out of the port via one of several planned intermodal terminals. He said the bipartisan approach to Fremantle’s growth, for the last decade, has been improving truck management, preparing a shift to the outer harbour, and to shift more containers onto rail.
A Fremantle Port Authority survey showed 66% of community members surveyed ‘strongly support’ the use of rail for containers through the Inner Harbour, while 29% ‘support’ the use of rail, 3% are indifferent, 1% ‘oppose’ and just 1% ‘strongly oppose’ rail. Figures for the Outer Harbour are slightly less dramatic, but still heavily in favour of rail.
“The reality is very strong support to get more containers on rail,” Newman said, “both for the Inner Harbour, and for the Outer Harbour.”
Currently at 14% share, the goal is to increase the share of railed containers at Fremantle to 30%. But progress has been slow, with railed container growth barely keeping up with overall growth, and the share of rail therefore sitting relatively stagnant for some time.
Perth Freight Link wouldn’t make that situation any better, he said.
“If you’re going to build a toll road which is faster for trucks, why would you keep subsidising rail? Newman pondered. “You want to pay off the road. I don’t think the case has been looked at, at all, to see how this really undermines the whole process of the rail option.”
Newman’s comments are among a growing movement against the toll road plan. Fremantle Council has formally stated that it does not support the plan, going so far as to publish a report (penned by Newman and colleague Cole Hendrigan), which suggests a rail alternative, among other options.
Greens Senator Scott Ludlam has also made the Perth Freight Link one of his key issues of late. He is concerned over the impact the highway extension could have on the Beeliar Wetlands, and has also stated that the project undermines the 30% goal for rail through the port.
“We need a proper infrastructure for the 21st Century,” Elton told Fairfax in an online video. “We need to investigate the Outer Harbour, and get the freight onto rail. You cannot put six-lane highways through numerous communities in an effort to service an [Inner Harbour] port which was built for a different century.
“Clearly the environmental damage is deeply, deeply concerning. But I think we should be much more arguing the economic nonsense.”
This $1.6 b truck freeway has many flaws, but one of its most blindingly obvious is that inspite of the fact it is supposed to link Roe Highway with the Fremantle Port, it stops about 1.5km before the Port on the south side of the Swan River, in the middle of suburban East Fremantle. The State government will have to find an additional $500million ( conservatively) to get the freeway across the Swan River and through historic North Fremantle to the Port. Not to mention the fact that the Port is expected to reach capacity in around 10 years.
Considering that Perth has train lines in the middle of motorways then maybe it isn’t such a bad thing. Build a motorway with federal government money and then put a train line down the centre after it has been paid for by abbott.