I don’t ordinarily read annual reports but this story in Melbourne’s Herald-Sun acknowledged its source was the Victorian Department of Transport’s 2010-11 annual report. The newspaper noted a 3.4% increase in reported crime on Victoria’s public transport system in 2009-10. Much to my surprise, the paper acknowledged up front that patronage had also increased over the period, by [...]

Under-estimating the cost of major infrastructure projects and over-estimating the demand is so chronic that forecasters deserve some harsh medicine, according to Professor Bent Flyvbjerg from Oxford University’s Said Business School. He says “some forecasts are so grossly misrepresented that we need to consider not only firing the forecasters but suing them too – perhaps [...]

There are, but in Victoria those limits appear to be very elastic. Because it controls the use of land, the whole complex edifice of planning regulation touches to a greater or lesser extent a lot of the things we do. In a newly released report commissioned by COAG, the Productivity Commission gives us an insight [...]

Almost everybody, it seems, from political parties to academics, think tanks and planning experts, reckons the key priority for improving planning and public transport in Melbourne is to reform the way they’re managed. The clamour for revised governance arrangements in order to effect reform has been increasing in Melbourne, with groups like the Committee for [...]