So, it is time for government to get back to basics, and there is nothing more basic for households in the Hunter than roads.
Of course, it need not have been like this.
Had our region's urban shape evolved differently, with Newcastle offering a concentration of jobs in commerce and services, with clusters of industrial activity located strategically across the region, we could have lived in a world where public transport could get people to and from work and to most other places they need to go.
But it's not like this. Our constant companion is our car. The NSW household travel survey shows the Lower Hunter depends on the motor vehicle more than any other of our nearby regions, more than the Central Coast and the Illawarra, more than any Sydney region, including Sydney's outer western fringe, that other public transport desert.
For the Lower Hunter, this is a bad time to be car-dependent. Petrol prices are at record highs and seem likely to remain there. Prospects for government funding for public transport are dimming. And the condition of our roads is worsening.
Sadly, unfairly perhaps, roads expenditure in the Lower Hunter isn't keeping pace with the region's surging population growth. New suburbs and industrial estates spring up willy-nilly. The Hunter Expressway enables cookie-cutter developments further and further up the valley. Roads built to link villages and country towns are choked with commuter traffic. When the rains came in 2021, old asphalt road surfaces fell apart. Repairs are stop-gap at best.
Now we learn COVID-19 and its economic downturn have stripped spending capacity from state and federal budgets. In May, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Catherine King, announced a 90-day review of the Albanese government's 10-year, $120 billion, infrastructure pipeline. According to last week's Financial Review, a draft report is doing the rounds. Major cuts to federal spending on roads and infrastructure are anticipated. Don't hold your breath for good news about a fast train to Sydney. And worry that money to fix our roads adequately will not be forthcoming.
Of course, cuts to the roads and transport budget won't act as a brake on low-density sprawl across the lower Hunter. Eventually, the M1 Pacific Motorway crossing of the Hexham swamps will be completed. Paddocks and woodland from Raymond Terrace to Karuah will explode with new housing estates. Like the Hunter Expressway did for the valley, the upgraded M1 will push Newcastle's commuter zone further north. Like for the valley, local roads will carry traffic loads they weren't built for. Intersections will become choke points. Developers will say it's not their responsibility. Local councils will say they don't have the money.
Nothing is more basic for government than building and maintaining roads, from high-speed motorways to the street that runs by your dwelling. Build them properly, and maintain them, and they last forever. They don't have moving parts, new technologies don't come along and make them redundant. But neglect them, make them do work they aren't designed for, cut back on repairs and maintenance, and the costs of rebuilding and restoration soar.
This is where we have arrived in the Lower Hunter, and the future for our roads looks grim. An appalling lack of public transport condemns us to car dependency. But the condition of the roads makes our journeys slow, uncomfortable, costly and unsafe.
Moreover, for NSW the issue has a distinctive non-metropolitan and regional bias. Away from Sydney, which offers nation's best and cheapest public transport system, car use is compulsory. But as an understanding of the needs of regional Australia in Macquarie Street and Canberra diminishes, the quality of our roads diminishes lock-step. The condition of the roads around you are a live indicator of how well governments are performing right now.
From my vantage, there is little to be pleased about.
