So despite climate change, Australia's federal government has just committed an extra $3.25 billion into building a toll road and a 20-lane freeway widening.
"Pouring an extra $3.25 billion worth of federal funds into Melbourne’s North East Link is a good use of taxpayer money, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has insisted, despite the project’s cost doubling just a few months ago.
...
"The North East Link – which includes 6½ kilometres of tunnels – will stretch from Bulleen to Greensborough. It will widen the Eastern Freeway by up to 20 lanes.
"Allan revealed in December that the 10-kilometre toll road had more than doubled in cost since it was first announced.
"The toll road was initially budgeted at $10 billion and reassessed in 2019 at $15 billion. But the government revealed last year that the updated cost estimate was $26 billion."
It's also a failure of politics. If you tell people you're going to raise taxes to pay for the road, you're probably not getting elected. Toll roads ideally are just another form of tax that is more sneaky than straight up raising taxes.
People won't stop driving entirely. Some are legitimately afraid of rain, sun, wind, snow, etc . Placing the toll booths every 100m would go a long way to reducing traffic and reducing dangerous vehicle speeds.
The saga of Waverley Park — Melbourne's car-dependent suburban AFL stadium with a planned seated capacity of over 150,000 (not a typo!)
A really good run down by @philip on the plans by the AFL (and its predecessor, the VFL) to build the world's largest stadium in outer-suburban Melbourne.
Unfortunately, a planned railway line past the stadium to Rowville was never built. That meant a massive 25,000-spot car park as the only real means to get there.
While most of it has been demolished and redeveloped for housing, the oval itself still used by Hawthorn Football Club as a training and administration centre.
@awelder@jedsetter@nictea@philip@fuck_cars You often hear from Melburnians that it's the world's most livable city, and how the CBD is laid out nicely in the Hoddle Grid is laid out compared to inner-city.
And how Melbourne's inner-suburban tram network means it has much better public transport than Sydney.
And it's true. Colonial Melbourne, funded by its gold rush, did a much better job at planning than early Sydney.
But after the World Wars, it's a very different story.
Sydney is at least constrained by Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park to the north, the Royal National Park to the south, and the Blue Mountains to the west.
That means the only places for new sprawl are either northwest past Rouse Hill, or southwest around Campbelltown and Camden.
As a result, there's a lot more pressure from developers to densify.
Meanwhile, Melbourne just has the Dandenong Ranges to the east and Port Phillip Bay to the south.
As a result, even right now, you have new housing estates past Pakenham, Melton, Wyndham Vale, and Craigieburn.
As for sprawling Australian capitals, I think Perth has definitely been punching above its weight since the 2000s mining boom.
There's now continuous McMansions sprawl right down the Coast from north of Joondalup to south of Mandurah.
And there's new subdivisions that are closer to Bunbury than they are to the Perth or Fremantle CBDs.
@ajsadauskas@awelder@jedsetter@nictea@philip@fuck_cars And Perth doesn't even have much of a pre-car inner-city, so it's dominated by car-friendly suburbia. The new train lines are good, but it's a pity they run between freeways and thus miss out on local walkable neighbourhoods around them.