In this second week of a new series – which explores planning: our future – we look at traffic and parking.

Phillip Island – and to a lesser extent San Remo – are natural bottlenecks and with the resident and tourist population growing annually, pinch points are quickly seen in congestion on roads and towns. Here we explore the pressures and possible solutions.

“Phillip Island: Capability, Conflict and Compromise”, by the Centre for Environmental Studies, University of Melbourne, 1975:

“The primary justification is simple, that a natural resource is degraded and destroyed by excessive use. Bondi Beach can accommodate huge crowds – but we doubt that is what the public wants from Phillip Island. To keep it as ‘natural’ coastline, therefore, it is at least time to begin thinking about ways of limiting access.

“Late arrivals cannot enter a football ground when it is full. Several means are available. The first is to turn people away at the bridge, the cut-off point being determined by the traffic count.

“Another method is to limit car parking and to enforce regulations against illegal parking so that people leave the island voluntarily. A third method is to limit the carrying capacity of the roads. During peak periods, congestion will lead people to go elsewhere as social tensions increase.

“Control at the bridge is the simplest measure: such controls are commonplace in state and national parks in the USA, where regular radio broadcasts give bulletins on the capacity of the more popular parks, so that the number of those actually turned away at the gates is reduced by forewarning.”