Sick of traffic

[rogerg (Roger)]

Here in Perth, it seems that in the last 2 - 4 months traffic has become steadily worse, in general.

It used to be that I'd leave home at 7:30, my trip to work would take 45min. I'd leave home at 7:00, my trip to work would take 36 minutes. (average)

Now, no matter when I leave (in busy hours 6:50 - 9:00) it takes at least 45 minutes. The quiet period has gone.

There's no road works or any other obvious reason why it's taken longer, it's just that bit more busy that it takes longer. I really don't know why there's been the change. It was fine for a long time before that.

It's really quite frustrating. It's the same for everyone I talk to - there's been an increase of between 6 and 15 minutes across the board for everyone I talk to. Why?

More to the point, what can be done about it?

I'd love to catch the bus, but the public transport system here is close to being so bad it's unable to be helped. Buses are infrequent and do not cover enough routes. Trains do not branch out to enough suburbs. It'd be so nice to sit on a bus or train and just spend the time working on the laptop. I'd even buy a new Toshiba ultra-portable just to take advantage of it.

I can't help but think if they doubled the number of buses (increasing frequency on some routes and expanding to new routes) it would make a huge improvement. But no political party in WA has ever had the foresight to improve the public transport system that dramatically.

There are busier city's than Perth in the world (just about every city that is), how do you guy's cope? Or do you just sit in traffic for over an hour every morning?

Roger.

[erick (Eric)]

Less than an hour's drive to work! (In the words of Monty Python) Luxury!!

I can only get that the days I leave home at 5:30 to go to the gym by about 6:35.

Yes, and I hate it and will one day leave it and the light-saturated night skies behind!

Coping in the meantime? - Good radio stations and CDs.

ps. bus/train/tram trip to my workplace would be 2hrs 45 mins one way.

[Adrian-H]

probly isnt anywhere near as bad as whats going on here in sydney..

espeically with epping road, they have so many new tunnels and roads opening everywhere with ripp off tolls yet they arnt even helping at all, whats the sense in them?

anybody in sydney feel the same? hahahaha... i bet you do.

usally there isnt much sense sitting in it in the peek hours here, though some might not have a choice, id imagine that many ditch the car and go straight for the trains, or drive there car halfway to a train station for the rest, but it dose allso depend on where you are living.

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

Roger - I live south of Sydney - and drive along the M5/Airport Tunnel/Eastern Distributor to Pyrmont every day. It takes me (on the way in) an average of 110 minutes every day to get to work. The home trip takes just under two hours. This is for a 75km one-way trip along major freeways.

Add that up - and it comes to an average of 230 minutes per day or just under four hours. A weeks-worth of travel averages out to 20 hours of travel time. I kid you not. If i didn't need the car during the day I'd probably stoop to taking NSW public transport, and suffer everyone else's colds my whole working life.

Luckily I'm starting to work a bit more from home - thanks to decent high-speed Internet communications these days.

Enjoy Perth.

[rogerg (Roger)]

This isn't sounding good

[fringe_dweller]

hehe i was gonna say, i wouldnt complain about traffic in Perth on a board full of sydneysiders lol - I have heard in extreme cases in sids, one drives home, and then turns around immediately in order to complete the journey and arrive at work on time in the morning well thats an exageration of course, but not toooo far off.
yes public transport in regional Oz is crap to put it mildly, and since they let all the loonies free around 10 or so years ago?, it is too creepy (specially for women - my partner got sick of being accosted very regularly on the bus years ago now, and stopped working in the city) now they drive the taxi's instead .

So a booming gold rush ecomomy has its problems eh Roger - I remember when a car was virtually a luxury - now their a dime a dozen, thats the real problem (altho petrol is now the luxury lol).

[rogerg (Roger)]

That's amazing. Surely there's a point at which people would move to a job closer to home, or move home to a location closer to their work?

Probably too expensive to move closer to work and jobs close to home are probably too low paid.

[leon]

Although I don't work anymore , my longest trip to work would have been 10 minutes tops, it was always between eight and ten minutes.

My first job took only three minutes, and I would come home for lunch during the half hour lunch break that we had, but then it was less than 1 kilometer away.

I'll be honest, I don't think I would care to travel 45 min's to any job, but I suppose things have changed over the years.

Cheers Leon

[ving (David)]

45 mins... I can get that in off peak with a touch of speeding...

I drive from campbelltown to rockdale which is roughly 50km and back again of course so 100 km per day. it takes me 1.5hrs each way in peak, thats 3 hrs of travel each day or 15hrs each week....

45 is something i'd love to have
I need a job closer to home

[fringe_dweller]

yikes, David, you guys need those flying cars!

Roger, anyway it's SA's turn next for an population/prosperity explosion - 6 billion dollars worth of (infrastructure) mining projects to commence in the near future! providing China and India continues on there present course.

[DobDobDob (Ron)]

I have absolutely nothing positive to add to this thread because I have worked from home for the last ten years. The highlight of my working life is having to get dressed on the odd occasion that I have human interaction, but that is rare

[Striker (Tony)]

I know exactly how you guys feal.

It takes me all of 10 minutes to get to work.

And my wife has it worse it takes her 5 minutes....lol

But I drive all day but thats in working hours not travelling to and from.

[Jonathan]

You guys drive to much no wonder we're running out of oil

I got sick of my last job where it took 30min each way, my current job takes me 8min to get to work and 5min to get home a huge 38km per week!!!

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

I'd love a job closer to home... but I'd be looking at being paid around a third of what I get now for the privilege.

[wavelandscott (Scott)]

The commute to/from work is a badge of honour that many of us have had the joy of wearing...

My commute now is not bad...about 15-20 minutes in peak time each way(But I could almost walk it in that as well!). That is a whopping 52.2 kms commute a week...

When I lived/worked in the Bay area of San Francisco I had a 22 mile drive...if I left the house at 5:45 AM it took about 30 minutes parking to parking...if I left at 6:15 AM it was 50 minutes...if I left at 6:30 AM...well lets just say I did not want to leave at 6:30 AM because I'd be lucky to be there by 8:00...same on the return trip...I got to drive in the dark both ways most days...I do not miss it.

The worst part of the California commute was that I had multi-lane (3-6) highways that would be full bumper to bumper...and everytime the roads were widened it encouraged more houses to be built which led to more traffic...

Here in Sydney in my opinion there is just not sufficient infrastructure period be it roads, buses, trains, rickshaws...you get the idea...

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

Originally Posted by wavelandscott

Here in Sydney in my opinion there is just not sufficient infrastructure period be it roads, buses, trains, rickshaws...you get the idea...

Agreed. The M5 (part of the Hume Highway linking Sydney to that other little town... uhmmm... what's it called?.... Melbourne?) is already completely full in terms of typical peakhour capacity. If there's a SINGLE accident, it holds the whole show up for 40 or 50 kilometers - a complete nightmare and everyday occurrence. Now they want to build an additional 10,000 houses near Prestons and feed these people straight onto this road as well.

Jeez I love this Labor government....not.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Ahhhhh... Sydney. I remember it well. Leave home from Lidcombe drive to Surry Hills @ 7:00, 45 min np. Leave it 15 min later 70-90 min +. (back in the mid '80's). Coming home...easy hour and 15 to hour and 30. Record was 4 hours 13 min.

THEN after I left that job I used to drive a 3.5 tonne loader with a scatback in it from Dural to Double Bay/ Rose Bay etc 3 or 4 days a week. Now THAT was lunacy. Oh and back again in the afternoon at about 3:30 Those of you who live in Sydney and know that route can well understand why I, to this day, do a double take and shudder when I see a volvo.

So I decided to move back to Qld. First job was 45 min from Nambour to Noosa. Horrible it was, travelling up the coast road looking at all that beautiful surf first thing in the morning and trying to convince myself my boss would notice if I turned up late (or didn't turn up ). Could only take it for 4 or 5 years so now I work a bit closer to home, 32 hour week and 6 min to work in peak hour. Life's hard in the sunshine state sometimes

[rogerg (Roger)]

It seems so blatantly obvious that the solution is not to build larger highways, yet that's what seems to be done over and over again. All around the world. Why does it keep getting done?? Bizzar! Can't anyone build public transport?

Is there a city in the world where they have solved this problem successfully?

Or do we have to wait for teleportation?

[acropolite (Phil)]

In Launceston where I live it's considered to be quite a distance (10Km) out of town it takes from 8 minutes to around 15 if the traffic's heavy. Before I moved I could get to work in five minutes by pushbike. The traffic here gets quite a bit heavier when the schools and universities go back, particularly for the first couple of weeks as the school-goers settle in to early rises....

[GrahamL]

I drive a little stretch(30kms) of the pacific highway between ballina and bryron each day ..for the last 13 years .. it dosn't take to long
20 minutes .. but it is getting a bit of a lottery with increasing traffic
volume and impatient drivers faced with a winding hilly two lane
road /highway ,A surveyer told me some time back that most of this stretch is built straight on top of the old bullock tracks .
Some of the accidents I have come across over the years are just numbing
in what you have to drive past .

Bit of peak hour dosn't seem to bad from here