Australian cities, transport integration and the global dilemma of mobility

The institutions of Australian urban transport planning have changed gradually over the last fifty years in response to the steadily growing awareness that transportation delivered by the traditional methods is moving further away from instead of further towards the basic goal of transport: to provide optimal mobility for people and goods. The stated intent of public policy in both Sydney and Melbourne has in this century been the integration of transport policy, meaning both integration of planning for the different modes of transport, and integration of land use and transport planning. But the problems of climate change and the peak of oil production present immense challenges to urban transport policy stemming from the fact that transport is everywhere dependent on cheap fossil fuel. These challenges cannot be met without a reinstatement of planning. In what follows, the dilemma of mobility is first explored, setting the scene for the need to form transport policy in conjunction with land use planning and energy policy under the rubric of ‘integrated transport’. Then the emergence of the goal of integrated transport and land use planning in policy reports in Australia’s two largest cities is described. This goal is then contrasted with the fragmented delivery of public transport services, driven by the ideology of public choice theory. Finally it is argued that a capacity for operational planning of public transport and a strengthening of land use planning is necessary to meet the challenges of the dilemma of mobility which will force a dramatic change in mobility globally and within cities.