Call for Perth toll roads
Perth's roads will be choked with Sydney-like traffic for years unless toll roads are considered and governments sink money into public transport for the city's outer suburbs, a new book warns.
Compiled by think tank Grattan Institute, the book finds Perth, which has one of the nation's best suburban train networks, needs to look at changes or confront motorist-maddening congestion that in turn will hurt the overall economy.
It also backs policy changes to enable the construction of more medium and even high-density units in suburbs a few kilometres from central Perth.
The institute has been examining the importance of the nation's cities to the Australian economy while identifying some of the growing problems likely to engulf them.
WA, despite being the nation's biggest State, is also the most urbanised, with almost 80 per cent of the population living in Perth.
In the book, entitled City Limits, authors Jane-Frances Kelly and Paul Donegan argue all major cities are broken because of policy and financial neglect.
While central Perth produces about 20 per cent of WA's economic output, people are increasingly forced to live in the city's outer suburbs that offer fewer jobs and poor public transport.
Public transport is so poor in some of Perth's newest suburbs that just one per cent of jobs in the city are within an hour on a bus or a train.
Kelly said though Perth's inner and middle suburbs were relatively well served by trains and buses, beyond that, more workers were being forced to use cars that then clogged up the city's major arterial roads.
Improving public transport, overhauling planning and zoning laws and introducing toll roads would improve the city.
"Cities are the engines of our economy, producing nearly 80 per cent of national income, yet policymakers must address failures in housing, tax and transport to ensure our economic and social future," she said.
"We're a nation of city dwellers. Our future prosperity depends on thriving cities offering good jobs and opportunities to everyone living in them."
Kelly and Donegan's most contentious proposals include the introduction of congestion charges for the use of existing roads.
They said that low-income earners could be compensated for tolls that would vary in level depending on the time people used a particular highway.
The State Government has repeatedly rejected the suggestion of toll roads for passenger vehicles, but will introduce a toll on heavy vehicles from 2019 to fund its contribution to the Perth Freight Link.
City Limits identifies Subiaco as one of the best suburbs in the country where higher-density housing has given people the chance to live close to their job.
