Road
Costs andBenefits

The Federal Government does not have any spare money, having to deal with the Covid-19 crisis.

Benefits of a dual road carriageway from Lithgow to Katoomba

Tunnel Option (dollar cost of construction = $5-$8 billion, remembering that projects announced during an election campaign run, on average, 23% over budget)

• 10 min of travel time saving initially, according to TfNSW, but only between Lithgow and Katoomba

• improved safety between Lithgow and Katoomba initially, remembering that accidents are caused by people not roads (see Safety and Freight)

• reduced costs for freight and related industry west of Blue Mtns, initially

• less congestion, fewer big trucks in the town of Blackheath and village of Medlow Bath (if the tunnel goes under Medlow)

Above ground option (Station St or Centennial Glenn - dollar cost of construction = $3 to 5 billion)

• 10 min of travel time saving initially, according to TfNSW, but only between Lithgow and Katoomba

• improved safety between Lithgow and Katoomba initially, remembering that accidents are caused by people not roads (see Safety and Freight)

• reduced costs for freight and related industry west of Blue Mtns, initially

Social Costs

• Landmark research reveals 'horrific' mental health crisis facing Australian truck drivers (ABC, Nov 2020)

General Economic Costs

• "Truck driver shortage heading down the road to an economic roadblock" (ABC June 2019)

• "Road generates over 40% more carbon pollution than rail travel per kilometre travelled" [Deloitte, p.19]

• Road travel causes almost eight times more accident costs per kilometre travelled" [Deloitte, p.19]

• "It is estimated that crash costs related to freight were 0.58 cents per tonne km in 2006 (BITRE, 2009b) for road and 0.04 cents per tonne km for rail in 1999 (BITRE, 2002). " [Deloitte, p.32]

• "road freight produces 16 times as much carbon pollution as rail freight per tonne kilometre." [Deloitte, p.44]

Costs of a dual road carriageway from Lithgow to Katoomba

• $4.5 - $8 billion for construction plus external costs, ( remembering that projects announced during an election campaign run, on average, 23% over budget and see also points further down)

• minimal overall travel time saving between Lithgow and Lapstone (for a very large initial expenditure)

• increased travel times between Katoomba and Lapstone due to increased traffic

• reduced safety between Katoomba and Lapstone due to

  1. 1. more traffic (natural increase and induced demand)

     2. a mixture of cars, rigid trucks, semi-trailers, 30m long B-doubles

     3. 23 / 26 sets of traffic lights: stop-start traffic

     4. phantom traffic jams (video explainer): a jam that happens in dense traffic for no apparent reason, caused by small disturbances (hitting the brakes too hard, or tailgating). In some cases it can grow into a real traffic jam especially if there are traffic lights and a lot of slowing and speeding of the general flow of traffic

• increase in costs for freight and related industry west of Blue Mtns due to increased demand for road space

• increased congestion due to natural and induced demand leading to unreliable travel time

• social and economic costs to residents, businesses of Medlow Bath and Blackheath

• environmental destruction (especially as it is adjacent to a World heritage area ( eg. the large footprint of tunnel portals, which may be 10-15m deep and 50-60m wide - see image in Environment)

• unsightly bridges and flyovers, decreasing the amenity of the adjacent World Heritage Area

• CO2 emission increases, poorer air quality, noise

• destruction of built heritage

• increased dependence on road transport (putting all our eggs in one basket), thus greater exposure to "black swan" events: eg. we only have about 3 weeks worth of fuel in Australia. All of it is imported. What if there is a geo-political event in the Middle East or the South China Sea and the ships can't get through.

When the congestion returns will there then be, in a few years, a return to the call for a $100kph motorway over the Bells Line through another part of the World Heritage Area?

The Central West Transport Needs Study found that proposal had a BCR of 0.01.

For an infrastructure project to return more benefit than cost the BCR has to be 1 or above!

Cost Recovery : Taxpayers are subsidising road freight

Road charges for heavy vehicles do not recover the cost of building and maintaining roads

"On 22 November 2019, the [National Transport} Council considered options for setting heavy vehicle charges from 2020–21 to 2021–22. By then, government expenditure on roads had increased to an extent that heavy vehicle charges would have needed to increase by 11.4 per cent for 2020– 21 to achieve full cost recovery." Source: NTC "Heavy vehicle charges determination – scope April 2020"

"The NTC estimates that current heavy vehicle charges would need to rise by 11.4 per cent in 2020–21 to ensure governments recover the amount spent on providing roads to heavy vehicles in 2018–19." Source NTC

Trucks are destroying our roads and not picking up the repair cost (The Conversation 2017)

• • • • "a B-Double can cause, per kilometre travelled, 20,000 times the road wear and tear that a family car does."

      • "The ongoing hidden subsidies for heavy long distance trucks is one reason why there has been a steady drift from rail to road for interstate freight."

"Controlling for mass and distance, rail access charges greatly exceed road user charges. This has led to claims that differentials in access charges confer a competitive advantage to road transport" Source: APH 2000