After last year claiming that commute times and congestion across Australia’s cities has not worsened (see here and here), the Grattan Institute’s Marion Terrill has demanded that Australia’s governments implement congestion charging to alleviate congestion pressures and prevent our cities from grinding to a standstill:
Australia’s capital cities should join many of the great cities of the world by charging drivers who use the busiest roads at the busiest times.
We recommend a three-stage reform: within the next five years, state governments should introduce cordon charging, where drivers pay to cross a boundary into the capital city CBDs in the morning peak and out in the afternoon peak; within the following five years, people should pay to drive along the busiest urban freeways and arterial roads at peak periods; and eventually people should be charged on a per-kilometre basis for driving across the city’s entire road network at the busiest times.
