The Australian Road Lobby: Bitumen Mafia or Bogeyman?

Abstract

Transport academics and activists alike frequently build up the “road lobby” to be a menacing force, secretly controlling transport policy across Australia. Just who makes up that lobby and how it affects policy is rarely explained with rigour. This article seeks to start the process of demystifying the road lobby. It identifies two approaches to defining it and, using various documentary sources, charts its channels of influence, as well as some limits to its power. It ends by setting down a challenge: for our discipline to ascribe such influence to the road lobby, we must seek stronger, more compelling evidence.