This is a guest post from Community Action for Sustainable Transport Inc

Reducing the fuel excise and Federal investment in roads will not make travel affordable.

This is the message coming from a coalition of more than 20 transport and environmental groups who have signed off on an open letter to PM Kevin Rudd (see below), urging the Federal government to invest heavily in public transport to reduce the impacts of rising petrol prices.

“The Federal government’s urban transport priority must be to create a public transport system that takes people where they need to go, when they need to be there. More than anything else we need better alternatives to the car,” said Tristan Peach, spokesperson for Community Action for Sustainable Transport QLD (CAST).

This is the first in a series of posts co-authored with Phoenix and Matt Mushalik. In my previous post I took a high-level look at solutions for Australia. This post starts the process of iterating down from the high-level view. It assumes that we will not be able to instantly convert to sustainable solutions - we need to get there in steps. This article is co-authored with Phoenix, a qualified mechanical engineer who has been working in the infrastructure construction industry for over 28 years. He has held senior manangement positions with a number of organisations delivering projects to key energy providers. These projects have included oil refineries, power stations, LNG plants and gas processing facilities. He currently works as the National Manager – Power Generation for a major Australian construction group.

Action Plan

1.0 INTRODUCTION: THE IMPORTANCE OF TRANSPORT

Transport is critical to the functioning of our society. If Australia’s transportation stopped tomorrow, then most of us would be starving in the dark a few weeks later.

Yet this is exactly the scenario that is emerging. The vast majority of transport in Australia is fuelled by oil. Without oil, transport stops. And we are being warned from every direction that our oil supplies are no longer secure.

This scenario will be the most serious threat experienced by our society since the Second World War. This is the first in a series of discussions that look at ways to secure Australia’s oil based energy security into the future. Over the next few weeks we will look at short and long term goals for personal and industrial transport.

Recently there have been a few articles on hypermiling - driving your car to make the most efficient use of fuel. They mention taking junk out of your car so it has less weight in it, not hitting the accelerator hard, and so on. What's remarkable is that none of these articles suggested, "don't drive". Not even "don't drive so much." So that is my immodest proposal: "Don't drive, or at least not so much." I realise that this is insane radicalism, but there you go.
"But I need to drive! I have no options!"
"Perhaps. But do you need to drive so much? Is every kilometre you drive essential?"

SMH - Oil Search reports drop in profit

Oil Search is following an interesting strategy:

Mr Hartley said exploration expenditure in 2008 would be lower, following a disappointing run of dry holes in PNG and the Middle East.

"Capital expenditure this year will be just under $US400 million ($A438.21 million), similar to 2007/08, with more emphasis on production drilling," he said.

ABC - Govt defends 'hand-me-down' transport ticketing system

The 15-year-old ticket readers from Brisbane are being bought to replace Tcard machines, which were being trialed on buses in Sydney's south.

The machines had to be replaced because the Government cancelled the company developing the Tcard integrated transport system's contract.