I was driving along the M1 (Gateway Motorway) on the weekend, through the road widening works between Nudgee and Deagon, despairing at the number of trees (including some very large old ones) that have been removed in order to create additional lanes. Less trees for more cars…sigh

I was hoping someone could explain to me how adding extra lanes is going to help traffic congestion. No matter how many lanes you add to the  motorway, aren’t you always going to have a funnel effect once you reach the city edges where lanes have to merge and traffic lights force cars to stop? Won’t it just change from a long parking lot to a wide one instead?

Do we want to more of this:

Or do we want an integrated transport system cleverly combining rail, bus and roads?