Light-rail and public transport debate - "It's our political culture that's to blame"

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"... The biggest problem in building light rail systems in this country is the lack of political leadership, an aspect of our political culture. All these systems that were proposed have been drawn up and promoted from a public transport point of view. The problem is that most people don't care about public transport.

"But people do care about health, civic pride, housing, their environment and - most of all - about their local economic prospects. Public transport has a significant impact on all these things, but because local agencies are divorced from many of these policy areas, they can't embed public transport in a broader vision for our cities, that people can relate to.

"Politics is about forming a broad coalition. Until local government is empowered to tackle issues that motivate people, then it's going to prove very hard to motivate people to support increased local transport investment, even with improved financial instruments [like more localised taxation]."

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