Perth commuters, is your drive to work taking longer? You’re not imagining it

You’re not imagining it – West Australians are spending more time in their cars than ever.

Travel times from Google Maps show that if a driver is commuting between Joondalup and Perth City at 8am on a Monday morning, they can expect to spend up to 50 minutes in the car.

If they travel from Cockburn Central, it’s 55 minutes. From Midland, it’s an hour.

Experts said this aligns with new figures revealed by Main Roads WA, which shows drivers are spending up to 10 per cent more time in their cars than in the five years previously.

Outside of peak hour, all three of the above trips should take a driver less than 30 minutes, but a Main Roads WA spokesperson said travel times had increased over the years.

“Main Roads uses Vehicle Kilometres Travelled as an indicator of travel demand, which measures the total distance covered by all vehicles on the metropolitan road network,” she said.

“VKT has been increasing at an average rate of around 2.7 per cent per year since the 2021/22 financial year.

“Current VKT levels are approximately 10 per cent higher than five years ago.”

It is a figure backed up by the Department of Transport, which found there were more than 250,000 extra cars on the road than in 2019.

Dr Brett Smith, from the University of Western Australia’s planning and transport research centre, said the trend was something he’d observed both in his role and on the road.

“I travel on the Mitchell Freeway from the northern suburbs through Perth and on to UWA in Crawley,” he said.

“I personally believe the inclusion of the ramp signalling has helped improve overall travel times; I appreciate it does not feel that way when queuing on the on-ramp.

“What is interesting is that the afternoon peak seems to me to be more congested, and I wonder if improvements in travel time could be achieved by including on-ramp signalling in the ‘reverse’ traffic flow and I think that could be something for my colleagues in traffic modelling to investigate.

“However, that covers the freeway, but travelling on other major roads with traffic lights, I do note that there can be frustrating delays.

“Yet, the level of congestion in Perth may appear laughable for those who may commute along Punt Road in Melbourne or those having to cross the [Sydney] Harbour Bridge.”

Smith said the story behind the data was also interesting, and revealed a lot about Perth’s make-up and progression as a city.

“In many ways, congestion works hand-in-hand with the demand for housing and, in particular, the demand for land,” he said.

“Perth’s growth experience occurred essentially at the same time as the growth in household vehicle ownership. Planning in the 60s and 70s developed to accommodate the quarter-acre suburban block with a car or two in the garage.

“This means now that our inner and middle suburbs are low density. More recent, planning standards have allowed for smaller residential blocks, but these are being built on the urban fringes and this leads a negative effect on congestion due to two reasons.”

He said the increase in higher density housing meant more people needed to travel, and public transport could be hard to find in some outer suburbs.

Smith said Perth motorists were trapped between a rock and a hard place when it came to planning for congestion in the future.

“Perth is a sprawling city and new housing developments further and further from the city need to be considered carefully,” he said.

“On one side of the debate, we do not want to see inner moderate to high density developments or continued infill of middle suburbs – but on the other hand we complain about congestion.

“We must realise that we cannot have both – there is an inevitable trade-off.

“In balancing these policies, I believe a guiding objective should be equity.

“At present, wealthier households can buy into well-served areas, while fringe households face longer, car-dependent commutes.

“Ensuring affordable and encouraging more diverse housing typologies within established areas, along with improving public transport accessibility in outer suburbs, are key to managing the ongoing growth of our city.”

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.