http://www.ptua.org.au/melbourne/fact.shtml Melbourne Transport Facts from the Public Transport Users Association. These are pretty misleading facts.
“Melbourne has one of the largest rail systems in the world, with 15 lines. The Paris Metro is a third smaller, while San Francisco’s BART is less than half the size.” The Paris Metro is a subway, and is not comparable to Melbourne’s train system. The RER is a more comparable, and it extends much further out than the Metro. What is the point of comparing Melbourne’s public transport system to that of two randomly chosen cities anyway? It’s a simple matter to find cities that are either less well or better equipped than Melbourne.
”We also have the biggest tram system in the English speaking world.” Why the anglocentricism?
“Our motor vehicles produce 81% of those greenhouse gases attributable to transport, while public transport is the source of only 3%.” What the PTUA don’t tell you is that transport accounts for 21.3% of national emissions, and that of this, only 54.9% comes from cars—so overall, cars are the source of about 8% of all greenhouse gas emissions (source). (The PTUA pull a similar trick on this page, which contains a pie graph showing that 49% of household emissions result from transport. It is not at all clear that this is not a per-capita-style calculation.) I’m also suspicious of the 3% figure for public transport—the source linked above provides a category for railways, but it specifically excludes electric rail. (Also, trams burn dirty brown coal.)
“If Melbourne is to cut greenhouse emissions 20% by 2005 (the internationally agreed target), one in every six journeys now made by car will have to be shifted to public transport.” Cars account for only 8% of national emissions, so I don’t see what’s going on here. 08:48