Engineers recognised as part of the solution for congestion in Greater Hobart Thursday, 30 June 2016

Engineers Australia was invited to attend the second summit on traffic congestion in Greater Hobart, with local councils on 10 June 2016, hosted by the Hon. Rene Hidding MP, Minister for Infrastructure.

Representing Engineers Australia, Dr Vicki Gardiner, General Manager – Tasmania highlighted to southern council representarives the importance of a well-designed transport system as part of a smart Hobart future.

“Well-designed transport infrastructure underpins productivity growth and high standards of living”, Dr Gardiner said.

Dr Gardiner advised the councils to consider a holistic (systems) evidence-based approach with a ‘transit city’ mindset, a sustainable funding model, and to collaborate when planning transport infrastructure.

“Transport infrastructure must be managed to advance the socio-economic goals of the community and must be de-politicised.

“To meet our current and future transport needs, integration of transport and land-use planning and a full life-cycle sustainable management is required”, said Dr Gardiner.

Mr Hidding said “Traffic figures obtained by State Growth have identified a significant peak hour increase of traffic into the Hobart CBD combined with the fact that the majority of traffic is moving into, rather than through, Hobart as the major contributors to traffic congestion, especially relating to the four key arterial links: the Tasman Bridge, the Southern Outlet, Main Road and the Macquarie/Davey Street couplet.

"However, the figures also estimate that it would take only an eight per cent reduction in cars coming into the CBD during peak hours for the congestion issues to be significantly lessened, which is a clear indication that increasing the attractiveness and availability of public transport is a key part of the solution."

Mr Hidding stated that it is important for the Government and the Councils to work cooperatively to resolve the congestion, and announced an agreement to support several key priority actions:

  • Updating existing Hobart traffic models to be used as a future key planning tool for the management of traffic on key arterial routes and within the Hobart CBD.
  • The Department of State Growth and Hobart City Council to establish a Traffic Management Working Group.
  • The Department of State Growth and councils to establish a Hobart Congestion Project Team to develop a Network Operational Plan for greater Hobart.
  • Development of a set of key performance targets for travel time reliability into the CBD.

Commenting on the agreed priority actions, Dr Gardiner said "it is pleasing that everyone has agreed that a collaborative approach is the way forward for developing a better transport network for Hobart".