Australia's road investment trumps public transport
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Governments across Australia are spending at least four times more on building road and bridges than on public transport infrastructure, a new analysis by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) revealed on Wednesday.
The analysis found that over the past 10 years all levels of governments in Australia spent 4.3 times more on construction of roads and bridges than on public railway construction.
"As people feel the pinch of rising petrol prices and concern about carbon pollution increases, more Australians are using public and active transport, but government planning and expenditure is not keeping up with this trend," said ACF sustainable cities program manager Monica Richter in a statement.
"Governments continue to prefer road building and reward car drivers," she said.
Richter said two thirds of funding should be spent on public transport and one third on roads.
"We just don't have a culture of investment in public transport by our governments in this country and as a result every single promised road project has been delivered. But the promised rail projects have not been delivered," Richter told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
"If we are to manage the increasing cost of petrol, which is affecting people, particularly in our suburbs; if we are to deal with carbon pollution; if we are to help shift people towards using public and active transport, we need to see greater investment by governments," she said.
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