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One of the pretty results of road supply theory is that if you add extra links to a road network you can make everyone on the network worse off. Equivalently closing down links can improve all traffic flows. JB pointed me to this nice exposition. It is called the Braess paradox and its a well [...] Here is a seminar I gave at La Trobe University on road tax reform. Comments, questions, outrageously over-the-top praise and emphatic disagreements very welcome. Mobile phones have revolutionised our lives. Analogous communication devices in vehicles can change and improve the way we travel. Economy-wide efficiencies can result from adopting these technologies. [...] Here are some libertarian ideas on privatising roads. Roads would be ‘privatised’ like ‘bubblegum’ and ‘beer’ according to the author. It is difficult to understand how network externality effects would be catered for or how the local monopoly aspects of having what would inevitably – given the subadditivity of the costs – one supplier connecting many nodes. [...] The system by which roads are provided in Australia is in a mess. Roads are funded from revenues collected from fuel excises in the most part by the Commonwealth which builds some roads. Most roads however are provided by local government (which gets funds from the Commonwealth, from [...] The implementation plan for Kevin Rudd’s $43b already-announced broadband plan is now to begin. This is to now determine how the project will be built, financed and operated. I guess better-late-than-never. Ziggy Switkowski is rumored to be a candidate for the chief honcho position. I assume Ziggy’s enthusiastic endorsement of [...] Much traffic congestion in urban areas is caused by cruising for a parking spot. Shoup (2005) suggested charging market-clearing prices for parking and leaving 15 per cent of parking spots vacant so that people can always park if they pay the requisite fee. [...]
I have posted recently on congestion externalities and traffic accident externalities. I want to finish this series of posts with some comments on externalities associated with doing damage to roads. They are among the most interesting transport externalities in [...] Tim Lambert at Deltoid discusses the idea of taxing heavy vehicles more (or giving light vehicles a tax concession) on the grounds that they do more (less) damage in collisions. I support the sentiment of this proposal although drawing on my earlier post on accident externalities the taxes should ideally [...] The bypass around Frankston will be toll free and will cost taxpayers $750 million. It will go ahead as a public-private partnership even if the Commonwealth Government gives not a cent towards its funding. To Premier John Brumby it is another instance of Kevin Rudd’s ‘nation-building’. Quote: ‘..quite frankly, the economy and [...] Peter Martin has a good article on troubles in the Australian car industry. I’ll comment on a few points. Australians have traditionally had a liking for large medium cars. This was the market segment where our manufacturers had a comparative advantage. We then imported small cars and exported, with for a time growing success, [...] A tunnel is again being discussed linking CityLink with Melbourne’s Eastern Freeway. The project estimated to cost $10 billion would link the Eastern Freeway in the east of the city to the Tullamarine Freeway, CityLink and Melbourne’s west. An inquiry will be headed by Sir Rod Eddington who runs Victoria’s Major Events Association. The inquiry [...] In trying to dig out some facts on how Melbourne developed its road system I came across Max Lay’s, Melbourne Miles, The Story of Melbourne’s Roads, Australian Scholarly Publishing 2003.This is not my idea of light reading though Dr Lay obviously loves this stuff. My main finds in this book were parochial. I live north-east [...] It interests me that Melbourne’s urban transport problems have become an election issue in the current Victorian State elections. Like Sydney, Melbourne’s population is expected to grow strongly over the next 20 years and, while the city is expecting much higher levels of car travel, and hence much higher congestion, the public transport system has [...] In preparing classes on traffic congestion externalities in recent years I have touched on some other important externalities associated with driving. One very expensive externality is provision of free parking which is equivalent to a subsidy of 22 cents per mile for a US motorist taking the average journey to work. Another important cost is [...] This little critter (or more plausibly a distant relative) I encountered in a pocket of rainforest near Atherton in Queensland while travelling for the second time through some of the most interesting countryside in Australia. In a group of four we were mainly looking for birds in a group led by Ben Bluett of [...] This is a draft of a paper on urban traffic congestion I will present at The Australian-Melbourne Institute ‘Making the Boom Pay’ Conference, November 2-3, 2006. Comments are very welcome.Introduction Demand-based economic policies, such as congestion tolls and market-based curb-side parking charges, should be tools for addressing congestion in Australia’s large cities. These policies are [...] I am ambivalent about Mr Baillieu’s proposal to offer free public transport to young people and full time tertiary students in Victoria.Fares on buses and trains in Victoria are well above marginal cost (and a long way above social marginal cost given un-priced congestion externalities) but I do not believe these marginal costs are zero [...] London’s population is 3-4 times that of Melbourne, although it is 25 per cent smaller in area. Like Melbournians, Londoners prefer living in residential suburbs, segregated from industry and therefore have high car-dependence. Like Melbourne too, most jobs, retail, entertainment and educational institutions are located in central and inner suburbs while most people live [...] Melbourne’s has, or will have, two types of priced roads: The CityLink tolled roads that operate as a radial link from the North and from the East to Melbourne’s city centre and the proposed cross-town road, the Mitcham-Frankston Project that links the Eastern Freeway in Donvale to the Frankston Freeway near Seaford. Neither of these [...] |
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