Operation Phoenix

As a historian by training, I was inspired by this thread at the Other Place to think about some counter-factual transport history scenarios in Australia. 

In general, the counterfactual history is interested in the incident or event that is being negated by the counterfactual, and seeks to evaluate the importance of that incident or event by refracting it through the lens of the counterfactual. The counterfactual historian attempts to provide reasoned arguments for each divergence from the factual, with changes outlined usually in broad terms, since the results of the counterfactual are effects rather than causes. The counter-factual historian’s narrative is also limited to exploring a single effect or set of effects from a particular incident or event occurring differently, as to regress or extrapolate further from the original incident enters the realms of alternate history.

On the other hand, alternate history writers are interested precisely in the hypothetical scenarios or narrative that flows from the divergent incident or event. Alternate history writers are therefore free to invent very specific events and characters in the imagined history, much as fiction writers do.

Of course, like all things in life there are good and bad counter-factual histories. Among the best are volumes such as this, this and this which promote different ways of thinking about a given historical problem or paradigm. However, there needs to be some intellectual rigour applied to the historical counter-factual, lest it (using the example from the Other Place about Operation Phoenix) degenerate into a foamy festival about how many more steam locomotives could the VR have ordered or how much better the L class would have looked with a rounded nose.

This rivet counting counter-factual ‘history’ is perhaps (as eminent British historian E. H. Carr would have it) more of a “parlour game” than historical analysis and as such more correctly consigned to the bargain bin of ‘alternate history’. This is the home of the modern equivalent of the ‘penny dreadful’ mystery or ‘pulp’ sci-fi novel, typified by the alternate history/war porn of the prolific Harry Turtledove and John Birmingham.  These works tend to stress the operational and tactical level of history with emphasis on hardware, battles and character-driven scenarios, rather than the unseen, hidden actors of history and the storylines behind what the French <i>Annales</i> school of historians called ‘the <i>longue duree</i>’ of history that stresses the evolution of structures of institutions and governance over time rather than individual men and machines.

Therefore my point (and I do have one!) is that counter-factual histories allow us to examine a particular event and the implications of that event having ‘gone the other way’.

Thus, in some research I’m doing at the moment, I’m looking at how the push to bring give the federal parliament strong powers to control the national railway network, to undertake gauge standardisation and build ’national’ railway lines (by representatives from South Australia in particular) at the Australian Federal Conventions of 1891 and 1897-8 were voted down by delegates focused on preserving states’ rights, giving a federal government strong powers to make interstate trade ‘totally free’ (thus solving the predatory ’rate wars’ on the colonial railways – especially between NSW and Victoria). The end result was the weak powers in S. 51 of the Constitution giving federal governments control of railways for military purposes and to only acquire and build railways with the consent of the states. In this context, I am interested in how the enacting of a different form of federalism by the founders of Australia would have had different results on the following century of Australian railways.

Some other rail transport ‘what ifs’ worth pondering:

• What if Labor had won the 1949 Federal election? Would some of the US$250 million loan from the World Bank that was approved the following year (sponsored by the Truman Administration for Australia’s support of US foreign policy) have been spent by the Commonwealth on (among other things) the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme (the historical result) or alternatively on furthering Harold Clapp’s gauge standardisation scheme, or something else altogether? 
• What if the Federal Cabinet in 1991 had decided to grant tax concessions on infrastructure investment? Would this have enabled the construction of a Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne high speed rail link to go ahead? Would this hole in the Federal Budget (estimated at the time to be up to $1.4 billion) have effectively killed off the Building Better Cities and One Nation infrastructure investment programs ($816 million and $454 million respectively)?
• What if the Railway Agreement (Queensland) Act, 1961 had a clause on gauge standardisation included as a condition of Commonwealth funding of an upgrade of the Collinsville-Townsville-Mt Isa line? What would this have meant to the ’splendid isolation’ of the Queensland rail system on narrow gauge into the 1970s and beyond as the haulage of export coal became big business? Would it have led to a Pilbara-style heavy-haul standard gauge railway built to US standards?
• What if the Victorian Railways’ Operation Phoenix had have been overseen by an American railway executive (such as the ones who’d been out here in US military uniform during the war) than the Chief Executive of British Railways? Would the Americans have advocated a rehabilitation solution involving diesel-electric locomotives, steel-bodied bogie rolling stock and infrastructure upgrades on key rail corridors instead of locking into a technological dead-end of steam power and 4-wheel wagons that would be obsolete when they were delivered?

So as you can see from these fairly simple examples, counter-factual histories are not hard to think up, it’s marshalling the evidence to make them stand up to scrutiny that’s the hard bit without finding ‘correlations without causation’.

I am sure that other readers and contributors can think of some other ‘what ifs’ worthy of further study.

Professor William Mitchell – Director MIT Design Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Wants to “democratize” public transport. Judging by later comments I think he was getting at “transport equality”, where everyone, everywhere should have equal access to public transport.

Focus on urban personal mobility. In this case, mainly battery-electric ultralight foldable vehicles (2 seats), although other light vehicles (eg scooters, pushbikes) also figured in his vision. The vehicles were about the length of a Smart car (2.7m) while driving and half that folded for storage.

Banks of vehicles, basically the same as the successful Velib bicycle system in Paris, which for those unfamiliar operates by having racks of bikes around 4-500m apart around Paris. You pay (free for 20 min, then sliding scale) and borrow the bike, credit card used as security. You drop off at another Velib bike rack close to your destination and pay (electronically) any applicable charges. In the ultralight vehicle instance, the vehicle bay also serves as a charging station (inductive charging). They’d probably operate much like the current “car-share” schemes but look like they’d really only carry passengers (no golf clubs, bulky goods).

Proposed fix to the “last kilometre” problem, ie work in conjunction with existing public transport infrastructure. However, Mitchell also proposed these vehicles work in the outer suburbs more like a “last 5 kilometre” solution, operating as feeder services to train stations and the like. My take is that the inner-city scenario, with many cross-town, random direction trips would keep the vehicles evenly distributed, but that in the outer suburbs you essentially end up with a “park and ride” situation in which the vehicles only get used twice to get to/from the station to the charging bay nearest your house/estate, and that feeder buses (minibuses?) might be a better solution.

Suggested that the batteries could be used to store intermittent energy (ie renewables) and sell back to the grid when required. However, he had previously indicated that the batteries on these ultralights were small in view of their intended usage to save weight and in light of this, depleting the batteries to balance the grid might detract from their primary function – I’d probably call this one “greenwash” right now.

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Professor Rob Adams – Director, Design & Urban Environment, City of Melbourne

Adams indicated 80-90% of the infrastructure required by 2020 is already in place, such that we shouldn’t be expecting to build ourselves out of congestion/transport problems.

Suggested that viable PT requires a minimum density of 100-150 persons per hectare (pph), and cited Barcelona as a good example. Barcelona has around 7 storeys in built areas, but 40% open space and a density of 200 pph. This to me contrasts with Moreland in Melbourne, which is increasing substantially in density but has one of the lowest parkland/open space levels in the city, which will have long-term consequences for liveability.

Adams cites early planning failures for our “sprawl” but contends that growth along major transport corridors can help preserve the suburban block (which would be “green” – water tanks, solar panels etc). This would mean around 10% of the city would become high density (4-8 storeys) and the other 90% (current suburbia) let alone. This approach would permit an additional 2 million residents without any further subdivision (by which I think he meant land release…?)

High density housing proposed not just on train lines (as Melb 2030) but also tram and bus routes (eg Johnston St, especially east end). Indicated the investment had been made in the transport infrastructure and suboptimal outcomes were being achieved where they ran next to low density zones. He provided examples (the “wild west” – single dwellings on garden blocks) on tram lines within view of the city (eg 96 terminus, Route 70 Riversdale Rd east, etc). In my view it’s not surprising some of these are low density, as the time to CBD (assuming that remains the primary destination) is much the same as a train line more than twice the distance (these tram routes also have less opportunity than some for heavy rail interchange, meaning more one-seat trips and less passenger “recycling”).

Provided Curitiba as an example of what he would like to see – dedicated bus lanes, bus/tram combinations (ie extend buses past tram termini, but have them run on the tram route once they encountered it, alternating with the tram service. Wanted more buses pronto, thought heavy rail had too long a lead time to be useful right away.

Wanted no “big ticket” PT items – things you could take a photo from 4km away. Preferred distributed improvement.

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Dr Jago Dodson – Senior Research Fellow, Urban Research Program, Griffith University, Brisbane

Approached transport/ planning from the energy (read: petroleum) security perspective. Used VIPER (Vulnerability Index for Petrol Expense Rise) and VAMPIRE (Vulnerability Assessment for Mortgage,Petrol and Inflation Risks and Expenditure) assessments to gauge geographical vulnerability to fuel price rises.

High vulnerability in both cases were essentially areas with poor PT, low socio-economic status, and outer metropolitan / growth areas. Low risk were the inverse – old “rail” suburbs, inner Melbourne, PT-rich areas.

The high-risk areas were also indicated (through budgetary and planning constraints) as having the least capacity to switch to non-car modes of transport (ie walking, cycling, PT).

Dodson described the current urban structure as regressive and socially inequitable. Most 2030 “nodes” are planned for the inner PT rich suburbs, already low-risk on the VAMPIRE index. Asked the question of what to do in the outer suburbs, which are essentially being let be rather than integrating into a non-radial network of PT (many linked nodes – “network effect“).

He also noted that any gains from increased PT ridership/mode switch from cars through higher density housing could easily be offset by efficiency losses in that housing mode – current high density housing is built to very low standards (3 star, maybe 4 star efficient) and no legislative requirement exists to do any better (despite negligible cost difference to 7 stars).

Dodson suggested improved PT network planning could solve many urban transport problems but currently the focus is too much on infrastructure (built out of the problem) rather than planning.

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Professor Nicholas Low – Director, Australasian Centre for Governance and Management of Urban Transport, University of Melbourne.

He reviewed the proposed Brumby Transport Plan (ostensibly leaked) indicating a South Morang rail extension, 100 new buses, DART upgrade, Melbourne Central loop changes as proposed by Mees, Tarneit line, increase in Smart buses, and (medium term) Melton electrification.

He then contrasted these incremental improvements to the road projects expected to be announced – Frankston Bypass, Eddington road tunnel, Ring Road “Missing Link” via Heidelberg/Banyule Flats.

He quoted David Metz, a former UK transport planner who presided over massive roadbuilding during his tenure but now believes roads are not the answer. Bottleneck removal (used to justify most road building) can simply move the bottleneck somewhere else, and Metz believes bottlenecks in fact can play in important role in regulating congestion, and sometimes moving it can make things worse.

Australian data indicates despite massive road projects in the period 1991-2006, typical commute times have rises slightly for men (71 to 74 mins) and substantially for women (54 to 74 mins). $29bn of federal funds (our money!) was spent under the Auslink roads program under Howard, without any going to PT projects.

He believed greater Melbourne should have a Mayor – a metropolitan group that covered Melbourne proper, not just the limited Melbourne Council or State Govt (which presumably sees Melbourne as individual electorates rather than a cohesive whole). He talked about the utility of the political process – we elect Governments, not policy, and if the alternative Govt has the same policy we have no choice.

Since a dollar spent can’t be spent again he also orated on the need for proper consultation with the community on where it would like the money spent (ie on roads vs PT or whatever – a large road could provide a lot of supported childcare, for instance).

Low also discussed the costs of 2^nd/3^rd car ownership vs yearly PT - $6,400 (small car) to $16,000 p.a. (SUV) versus $1722.00 (Zone 1 and 2, 10% cheaper through PTUA!). He asked if the $6bn car industry assistance package would instead be better spent on more PT, giving people a choice between the more expensive car or cheaper PT ticket. However, Low did not discuss the ongoing cost of subsidy to PT required for this but clearly this begins to fall in the “PT as welfare” realm.

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Cath Smith - CEO, Victorian Council of Social Service, Melbourne

Indicated VCOSS is interested in the 15% of the population who don’t drive at all, and for whom roads can be considered mostly useless. Also costs of travel and “locationally disadvantaged drivers” (e.g. high-risk VAMPIRES).

Considered PT as an “essential service” along the lines of hospitals and schools. Claimed the current DDA compliance pace was “glacial”. While able-bodied myself I have seen a lot of improvement in this area and wonder if Smith is making ambit claims here.

She expressed a wish for improved co-ordination of door-to-door / community based transport (I assume mainly minibuses). I think she was getting towards the fact at the moment most of these are council or community group run and there is no overarching control to extract maximum efficiency from these operations (nor provide funding to do so). She also discussed the anomaly of school buses bypassing TAFE students, and although I can think of some reasons this occurs discriminatory PT does seem a contradiction in terms.

Advocates 7 day / ½ hourly bus services with emphasis on connections (trains), and mentions that many bus routes follow historical paths with little regard for current traffic movements, reducing their utility. Mentions as Peter Parker noticed recently that NightRiders now run more frequently than day buses in some locations.

Smith tried talking about speed vs modal connections, and again I think she was getting toward true end-to-end journey time here. With a ½ hourly bus service I’m not sure this is going to happen though…

With regard to climate change, she indicated that only 1.3% of carbon reduction is anticipated to come from modal shift (car to PT) and that this is going to need to be much higher for a decent emissions reduction.

Smith also believes that the current housing affordability debate should become an “affordable living” debate in which housing and transport costs are taken into consideration. In this context urban planning providing employment opportunities close to housing for a reduced commute is required.

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Respondents:

Robin Batterham (former Chief Scientist)

Believed common elements of the talks to be to provide mobility on demand in an equitable way, with emissions reduction.

Increase in population density required, increase spending on network to “fill gaps”.

Traditional PT is not the only way to provide mobility on demand. One of the other speakers earlier discussed Malcom Turnbull, who pushed legslative change that permitted him to use taxis and PT instead of a Govt car (19k p.a.).

Batterham mentioned we don’t just move people but also goods, but that more efficient people-moving usually leads to better goods movement. Wanted an increase in bike tracks.

Believed cars have their place but noted that Australia’s average fuel performance is the equal worst in the world; Europe’s is half ours. He noted legislative change could quickly remedy that.

David Eddershank (Kensington resident)

I’ve only a few notes from this one but noted that Eddershank discussed that when left to itself the private market does not necessarily deliver what’s best for livability or efficient use of space/resources. Highlighted the dichotomy of “Cranbourne Man” (apparently an ALP construct) whose #1 issue is roads (Cranbourne woman’s is services, but that doesn’t seem to rate) versus the inner-city “chattering classes” desire for more PT.

I’ve noticed that Peter Parker has posted a similar summary over at his blog while I’ve been writing this that covers the questions well so direct you there for them (although I’ve included some of their question responses into the speaker summary). Also Peter might have a few points I’ve missed and vice versa.

Dave