We went to Brisbane the other day; driving through the multi-lanes of traffic on tonnes of earth, concrete and bitumen. All the people busily travelling to the shops, to work, to school, dental appointments (that was us) and to have coffee with friends. As a result of all this driving to and fro, the government has allocated billions of dollars to create even more lanes on more roads to ease congestion. That’s $2.86 billion just in the area we were rumbling over, part of an $18 billion, 4-year Roads Implementation Program (RIP). (Need I say more about the poorly considered acronym?) It’s an amazing amount of money just to ensure city-dwellers can maintain their ‘quality of life’ …if quality of life means more pollution and higher stress levels.

We parked close to the inner-city and hopped on a train to finish our trip, rubbing shoulders with an eclectic mix of humanity. A 20-something, pretty professional sat quietly reading a book on her i-pad; nearby, an olive-skinned muscle guy stood in his singlet top, surreptitiously clenching his fist in his pocket to make his biceps bulge. I was amazed – not by his buffness, but by his technique. Meanwhile, uni students, construction workers, trades apprentices, elderly shoppers and the odd crazy guy sat, or stood throughout the carriage.

Trains are a wonderful way to travel. So much easier than the bus, which can take a variety of different routes and holds so many more chances for getting on the wrong bus in the first place, or missing your stop and getting hopelessly lost, and then never being able to find your way home except if you are found by a kindly old woman who lets you have a cuppa in her kitchen while you call family for help. I’ve read about it, so it must be true. Although I think it was in an Enid Blyton book and the kindly old woman was actually a gnome. When I was a kid, the only bus I remember catching was the 172 that went from Kelvin Grove Road all the way into town. Who knows what we did in there but that’s besides the point.

My favourite mode of public transport is the train, as it was something I rode on about 2000 times to and from school over the course of my high school career. That doesn’t count the times we went into town to meet up for a movie, or the times we went to the pool on the weekend. So I consider myself a moderate expert on the subject, inasmuch as any student or work commuter is an expert on their daily travel.

Before the busy peak hours of the morning, at around 7am, diesel engines hauled passenger cars along the rails, and there was a time when me and some friends caught those trains to get to school very early in order to ‘bags’ the best hand-ball court. A highlight of our day, as I’m sure you would understand. Only problem was, no-one else was stupid enough to be at school before 8am to express amazement (or offence) at our snatching the prime position. Batting a small furry green ball with only the cleaners to witness our hand-eye co-ordination was a bit of a let-down. But such are the highs and lows of being a teenager. 

We loved to get in the empty carriage first, smelling the leather upholstery and being able to flip the backrest of the adaptable seats so that the chair faced in whatever direction we liked, or even make a double set of chairs facing each other. Then the next step was to slide the windows up and let in the fumes of the engine and the deep rumble of the mighty motor. The ‘early train’ phase passed as the seasons changed and travelling in the morning chill lost its appeal. Usually my schoolmates and I took the electric train - a metallic capsule sliding smoothly along the rails.

I remember the carriages filling with more and more passengers as we neared town, and as we held free student passes, we were obliged to stand and allow the paying passengers to sit, only to see them snatched by the impeccably groomed private-school girls. If looks could kill.

In contrast to snobbish students, I have also shared journeys with the sweaty residents of Darwin, during my stint in the Northern Territory. Buses were the only form of public transport there, and such a great way to get around; for some reason this showcased a larger slice of the ‘working class’ than I’d seen in Brisbane. But it was more those who didn’t work at all that I ended up sitting next to – the mums with curly-headed toddlers, the back-packers and penniless. I had conversations with ancient Aboriginal men that I never would have had the opportunity to enjoy, had I been driving myself to work in the air-conditioned cocoon of a Ford Telstar.

Meanwhile, the Queensland government rolls out the concrete and bitumen in an invitation for Brisbane’s population to drive and pollute. And don’t give me that argument about bio-fuels being a wonderful solution to our oil-consuming, carbon-monoxide-producing ways. Producing fuel out of material that could actually feed people seems a terribly misplaced set of priorities. In Australia we are making bio-fuel out of sorghum, and in the USA, it is made from corn. A statistic I found on the Internet (the source of all things true and noble) says that the amount of pure ethanol used to fill the fuel tank of an SUV (which stands for Scary, Useless Vehicle) comes from over 200kg of corn – containing the same amount of energy that can feed a person for a year in a developing country.[1] Imagine that, being able to contribute to helping a hungry person live for a year, but saying, “No, I honestly think driving a pretentious vehicle to the shops is what really matters.” And so we wonder why there is poverty, and over 1 billion hungry people in the world.

On the other hand, we could all highlight the benefits of public transport, of walking, riding, or even staying home for once. It could be a brave new world for us all. I saw a badge worn by a passenger on the train last week that announced, “I dream of a brighter tomorrow where a chicken can cross the road without having his motives questioned.” With less traffic on the roads, it would be a brave new world for chickens also.

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