'' Be careful what you wish for ..... " is an old adage that is coming back to haunt governments. For over half a century they have implored citizens to " leave the car at home " and " take public transport ". Now that is happening - and public transport has been found wanting !
Each time the cost of petrol at the bowser jumps another five cents a litre a further commuter segment joins the queue at train stations and bus stops. The new record of over seventy cents a litre will add substantially to that number - but if the pundits are correct and petrol tops two dollars a litre before Christmas - then we are about to see an avalanche of people switching to public transport.
People are not using public transport because they like it - or because they won't to. Sheer necessity is driving the change. Trains and buses are inconvenient, unreliable - and lack toilets and drinking water - and they are grossly over priced considering that passengers are packed in like sardines and expected to stand for journeys that often exceed two hours each way.
Sadly, the move to public transport is about to see a massive change in the economics that govern our lives. Homes in the suburbs which are far from railway stations and have minimal bus services will drop in value as commuters pay more for homes that have these facilities.
Country folk will fare even worse - because so many country areas have no bus service at all and a car is essential for getting to a place of work and getting the kids to school.
Either wages must rise to accommodate the cost of petrol in such areas - thus sending inflation soaring - or the government will be forced to finally provide public transport in the bush - which will blow the budget.
There is little prospect of the price of crude oil dropping sharply anytime soon - short of a calamity like a world depression of the 1930's magnitude. As a result, the onus will fall on governments to provide a method of people movement that has passed beyond the economics of using the car.
No doubt governments will urgently order more buses and rolling stock to increase public transport, but the necessity of providing transport beyond the major cities is probably beyond their financial capacity.
One of the strange anomalies of our tax system is that every time the price of petrol increases the tax take going to the government increases with it - and the majority of that tax disappears into the black hole known as " Consolidated Revenue " - with very little spent on roads and transport infrastructure.
There are promises of a complete review of the tax system to make it fairer and less complex. The government needs to make a major decision before it undertakes that review.
Either is bites the bullet and opts to provide a national public transport system that encompasses both city and country - or it opts for the lesser expense of restoring the car as the preferred means of public transport by doing away with the need for petrol.
That would be possible by legislating that all new cars be powered by auto gas - which we have in abundance - and subsidizing the conversion cost of all existing cars under five years old.
At the same time, it would need to remove the supply and marketing of auto gas from any form of control by the oil companies - and implementing a tax regime that keep auto gas within the reach of the average citizen.
The option of doing nothing will see the biggest change in living standards since the industrial revolution !
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