The problem with public transport, we’re often told, is the shape of our cities: Australian sprawl is impossible to service effectively with trains and trams and buses. So we end up reliant on the car and stuck in traffic. If only Australia’s capitals were more compact, more closely settled, more, I don’t know, European! Then we could really make mass transit work. Our next guest says this argument is just an excuse for doing nothing, he says we can have efficient public transport without re-building the ‘burbs. Paul Mees book is very important in showing us that high density is not a pre-requisite for good public transport. The essence is how public transport is run. Population boosters have long used the argument that we need to increase density in order to have an effective public transport system.