Patrick Moriarty
Spatial income distribution is changing rapidly in Melbourne. At the
time of the first post-war census, the inner suburbs of Melbourne were
among the poorest. By the 1996 Census, however, higher income households
were heavily concentrated in these inner suburbs and adjacent suburbs to
the east. Relative to these suburbs, the per capita incomes of the outer
municipalities has steadily worsened, as shown by comparison of the 1996
and earlier census income data. Table 1 shows for selected Australian Bureau
of Statistics (ABS) defined Statistical Subdivisions, the average household
per capita income for 1996. It is clear that per capita incomes steadily
fall with increasing distance from the the inner and adjacent eastern suburbs;
for Greater Dandenong to only about half their income levels.
Source: Census results, 1996a. Outer suburban residents have a greater need for vehicular travel than inner suburban residents, and this is reflected in their higher levels of personal travel. For example in 1994, an ABS survey (ABS 1995) found that workers resident in Inner Melbourne had a median work trip of about 4 km. For workers from the outer south-eastern suburbs the corresponding figure was nearly 13 km. Travel distances for the main shopping trip were also found to be longer for outer suburban residents. At present outer suburban residents must do most of their travel by car. It is not surprising that car ownership per $10,000 annual household income is much higher in the outer suburbs than it is for (usually wealthier) suburbs closer to the centre. For example, households in the Yarra Ranges Shire owned 0.380 cars per $10 000 income in 1996, compared with only 0.217 for Boroondara City, and even lower values for Inner Melbourne (ABS 1996b). Travel levels can also be examined by income. A survey done in Melbourne by the Transport Research Centre showed that in 1993–4, for the 39 % of survey households earning below $25 000 annually, 383 litres were used per $10 000 income. For the 28 % of households earning more than $50 000 annually, only 212 litres were used per $10 000 income (Loeis and Richardson 1994). Low-income households are thus very vulnerable to cost increases for car travel (for example from petrol cost rises, or more tollroads), or if their income falls. Outer area low-income households are doubly vulnerable to cost increases for motoring, because of their higher travel needs. Cost increases for motoring could soon be on the way. Official Australian supply forecasts, coupled with oil industry demand figures, project that net self-sufficiency will decline from a high figure of 96 % in 1999 to 65 % by 2006, with even steeper declines thereafter. Australia will face increases in both supply insecurity and oil import bills. Further, around the year 2010, 50 % of the world’s discovered and yet-to-be-discovered conventional oil reserves will have been consumed, if present growth rates continue. US oil-field experience suggests that production starts to fall when one half of reserves have been exhausted. (Campbell and Laherrere 1998). Thus by 2010 or thereabouts, global production will probably not be able to match demand at present price levels for crude oil. The rest of the world, including Australia, will have to pay increasingly higher prices for oil from the handful of Gulf states that will still have substantial amounts for export. Of course, unconventional oil (e.g. shale oil) is a possibility, but it will have long lead times for introduction and could be even more costly than imported oil. The risk of unprecedented climatic change from rising emissions of greenhouse gases has prompted some industrialised countries to introduce carbon taxes in order to limit consumption of carbon-based fossil fuels. It is possible that Australia will have to follow their example. Higher-priced petrol arising from either global oil price increases or global warming would make it even more difficult for lower-income households to maintain present levels of car travel, especially if their real incomes stagnate. Their high costs for motoring, together with the shift of low-income households to outer suburban areas, may already be affecting personal travel levels. Per capita travel (passenger–km/capita) by private vehicle seems to have peaked in the late 1980s in Melbourne overall (ABS 1996c). It could be that this drop in travel is the result of lower travel by outer suburban residents (Moriarty 1998). Per passenger–km, public transport is much cheaper than car travel. It thus offers a potential means for poorer households, particularly in the outer suburbs, to stem rising travel costs. The problem is access to public transport for outer suburban residents is inferior to that for residents of the inner suburbs. The 1996 census results also show that central and inner eastern suburban commuters use public transport more than commuters resident further out. Further, since many-high income jobs are located in the CBD, it might be thought that higher income groups in general use public transport for commuting more than lower income earners. Such is not the case. A 1984 ABS survey (ABS 1985) found that clerical and sales workers used public transport for 22.4 % of work trips; for professional, managerial and administrative workers, that figure fell to 10 %. Driving to work (and parking, whether free or paid) in the CBD is not likely to be an option for many clerical workers. Analysis by total household income in the same survey confirmed this result. So did an April 1996 Australia-wide ABS survey on travel for work or study, where it was concluded that “people on lower incomes make greater use of public transport than those on higher incomes” (ABS 1997). Lower-income households, wherever they are located in Melbourne, use public transport more for commuting (and study) than higher-income ones. Non-work travel, which today accounts for about 70 % of public transport travel, is even more heavily biased in favour of lower-income groups, as is evident to all of us who use public transport at off-peak periods. Unfortunately, low-income households are increasingly located in the outer suburbs, which are poorly supplied by public transport. Given that their ability to continue high levels of car travel in the future is increasingly in doubt, what is needed is better middle and outer suburban public transport, not freeways. |
References
ABS (1985). Travel to Work, School and Shops, Victoria, October 1984, ABS Cat. No.9201.2. AGPS, Melbourne.
ABS (1995). Travel to Work, School and Shops, Victoria, October 1994, ABS Cat. No.9201.2. AGPS, Melbourne.
ABS (1996a). Australia in Profile—A Regional Analysis, ABS Cat. No. 2032.0. AGPS, Canberra.
ABS (1996b). Census data for 1996. Also earlier censuses.
ABS (1996c). Survey of Motor Vehicle Use Australia 30th September 1995, ABS Cat. No. 9202.0. Also previous surveys. AGPS, Canberra.
ABS (1997). Transport and the Environment, ABS Cat. No. 4605.0, Canberra.
Campbell, C. and Laherrere, J. (1998). “The end of cheap oil”, Scientific American, March, p. 60.
Loeis, M. and Richardson, A. (1994). “Penalising older cars: the social and environmental implications”, Proc. 19th Aust. Transport Research Forum, Nov. 1994.
Moriarty, P. (1998). “Inequality in Australian cities”, Urban Policy
and Research, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 40–47.