What we're talking about

Phil of Springwood on "He's a dog..." @Bigfellah, with your permission, I would like to add that I thank you sincerely for acknowledging my success at being a ... more
Bella on Preferential voting FIRST PAST THE POST ~ is not as democratic as you may like to think.In a preferential system every registered voters final ... more
steve on A few facts on illegal boat people Hey Wendy - I'm an immigrant - I've lived here for 40 years and have learned to ignore people with attitudes like yours but ... more
James Weir on A few facts on illegal boat people Wendy, I'm surprised anyone lives in Adelaide. Even the Welsh born redheads are getting out of the place. more
Phil of Springwood on "He's a dog..." @Bigfellah. Again in typical Socialist Fashion, you are denying me my right to form an opinion. Mr. and Mrs. Newton ... more
Meg on "He's a dog..." I believe that any ordinary person who assaults women would have been charged and jailed not sent to rehab. Has Matthew ... more
Wendy on A few facts on illegal boat people Look around..In Adelaide now, you cannot spot an Aussie. Everywhere you look its Chinese/Asians, Indians and Pakistani's. ... more
bigfella on "He's a dog..." Hi z,The point is: How the heck would Phil of Springwood know what sort of parents Bert and Patti were to their son? For all ... more
z on Bob Brown Lazarus Where is the costings that they demand of everyone else, thier 5 minutes of fame will be up shortley more
Shanelle on System failure The whole system is stuffed. I have been apart of it for 10years now and still im confused. Im in a bad place at the moment ... more
James Weir on Barnaby Joyce How many Clem 7's would you like in your Super Fund, Barnaby? It lost $1.5B in it's current reporting period. Only Govts can ... more
Steve Martin on "He's a dog..." Rebecca Wilson as per normal is just plain out of touch.The hitting of women is wrong but personalising this with "he's a ... more
Ronny Of Brighton QLD on Preferential voting MichaelIve just come back from a holiday.That bloke Dean Jaensch Siad that if someone(call Him RONNY) had 40% he said 60% of ... more
z on Preferential voting the way it is working at the moment is the first loser joins with 2nd loser and so on untill they beat the winner, so a ... more
brisman on Bob Brown The guy is not green he absolutley red through to the core. His environmental visions are shallow and don't serve ... more
z on "He's a dog..." bigfella, Phil of Springwood is not talking from so called flippantly expertise, Ivory tower stuff but more from commonsense ... more
robert goodchild on Support our Diggers the sticker Idea is great.I would happily part with $20 for one and would like to see the profit go to families who have ... more
Phil of Springwood on "He's a dog..." Hey Bigfella, back again so soon after your mobs magnificent defeat by the Tories, I thought you and the rest of your Left ... more
z on "He's a dog..." Hey Phil, why don't you say what you really mean more
bigfella on "He's a dog..." Congratulations to Phil of Springwood,We've become accustomed to his astute political and social commentaries based on ... more

This Traffic!

Posted by: Michael Smith | 29 June, 2009 - 2:22 PM

I am so far beyond believing things that most politicians say.

How good an example did Stephen Robertson make last week. The government does a lousy job in managing water infrastructure – so they set up a board, SEQ Water – the same old problems happen – but Robertson gets the chance to say the board faces the sack if it doesn’t lift its game.

Isn’t that great if you’re Stephen Robertson? What do we have ministers for? What does he do? Walk around with a knowing look saying “the board has to do much better.”

Well they did it again on the weekend. We all know traffic’s congested. Until this year’s budget we used to get figures that proved just how badly the government was performing. The budget papers used to show a “congestion indicator”.

The system measured traffic speed on a certain number of roads in peak times.

10 years ago the average speed was 28 km/h slower than the posted speed limit during morning peak hours.

Today it’s 38 km/h slower. That’s 10 km/h slower than 10 years ago. It’s been steadily building, getting slower every year. It’s slowed by 6 km/h in just the past 2 years. The data show that just 40% of the state’s urban roads provide an acceptable standard of service according to the government’s own measures.

But because the picture those data paint is so bad, the government is dropping the measurements. It will stop collecting and publishing the data.

There are 23 separate performance measures tucked away in the budget. Craig Johnstone of the Courier Mail has done a great job in exposing this. Next to each of the 23 measures is a note saying “this measure has been reviewed and it is considered that the measure should be either replaced with a more meaningful measure or discontinued.-View story here

The Minister Craig Wallace put out a statement about this. “The Minister is committed to transparency in departmental reporting and that measures reported on are meaningful and effective.” He said that he had no current replacement for the measures they’ve dropped, but the likely replacement would use “real-time data” and would be more relevant.

Well let’s help him out! What are your real-time measures of congestion? How do you feel about Brisbane’s roads? How long does your trip take now? Do you have a measure of the congestion on the roads? I know I used to be able to leave Noosa at 6AM and get someone onto an 8.30 flight at Brisbane airport. I wouldn’t dare risk that now with the Gateway. What are you congestion measures?

Anna Bligh is very keen to tell us that things are improving. What do you have to tell Anna?

Blog comments

The Australian birthrate is 1.7. So the growth is not coming from us. It is coming from immigration. Everytime you get grid-locked in traffic, know that it is to help an elite make heaps of money from high immigration. Suggestion: put money from immigration fueled infrastructure into encouraging Australians to have more children.

tammy winfeld Tuesday 7 July, 2009 - 10:47 PM
Smithy, it takes me about an hour to go 60 kilometres (using the Logan and Gateway motorways). If I head towards the city using main roads (and traffic lights) it takes me around 90 minutes to go 50 kilometres. Congestion ... what congestion .... it's appaling. There is very little public transport from where I live and what does exist is not suitable for those who work.

Christine Wednesday 1 July, 2009 - 2:09 PM