Article: With Broad and Greiner driving us, chaos is just around the corner

[somebody]

With Broad and Greiner driving us, chaos is just around the corner

Date
    October 8, 2012
Category
    Opinion

Garry Glazebrook

Backbone of the city ... rail use is up more than 40 per cent in the last decade.

Paul Broad and Nick Greiner, of Infrastructure NSW, think we are in love with our cars. However, for many of us the affair ended some time ago. The Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (Report 128, 2012) examined trends in car use in 25 countries, finding that after rapid growth in the 1960s and '70s, growth in traffic per capita has consistently slowed, with many countries approaching saturation.

In the US and Britain, total car travel has actually declined since the global financial crisis. Even in Australia, which has a robust economy, per capita car use is falling. Total traffic volumes in the City of Sydney peaked in 2002 despite considerable growth in jobs and population since.

In contrast, public transport use is growing faster than population in Australia, the US, Britain and elsewhere, reflecting higher fuel prices, changing housing and lifestyle preferences, road congestion, the effects of tolls and other factors. We are no longer in the 1970s.

So why prioritise motorways over public transport? This clearly makes no sense from a sustainability perspective. Political sense? Surveys by the Warren Centre, The Sydney Morning Herald and the Institute of Transport and Logistics have consistently shown the public want the opposite.
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Financial sense? Already the Cross City and Lane Cove tunnel projects in Sydney, and the Clem7 tunnel project in Brisbane have gone bust. Brisbane's Airport Link project is in trouble. The proposed WestConnex tunnel will divert much-needed funds from public transport now. Even worse, private investors in the project are likely to demand that government takes all the traffic risk, creating future government liabilities. And as with the Airport Rail Link, a future government would have to pay dearly to buy back the road.

Sense for the motorist? If the IMF forecast of $180-a-barrel oil prices by 2021 occurs, petrol will be $2.30 a litre in today's dollars. Motorists from Penrith would have to pay $70 in tolls plus $130 in petrol each week to commute to inner Sydney by car using the proposed WestConnex toll road.

By now nearly everyone agrees that we should be focusing on public transport rather than roads. But Infrastructure NSW's public transport centrepiece, a $2 billion bus tunnel under the city, also makes little sense. Light rail on George Street can remove 20 per cent of bus kilometres in the city centre and provide a convenient, street-level access system at a fraction of the cost, as detailed in the City of Sydney's "Connecting our City" strategy. Extension to the south-east will remove a further 10 per cent of buses and provide a high-quality link to Moore Park, the University of NSW and other major attractors.

Infrastructure NSW's preference for buses over rail is interesting given that in the US, according to the American Public Transportation Association, total bus-kilometres have remained static over the past 20 years, but rail use has grown by more than 75 per cent. In Britain there are similar trends – Department for Transport figures show bus use has declined slightly since 1991, but rail use is up more than 40 per cent in the past decade. The fastest growth has been for light rail – up 190 per cent in the US and more than 200 per cent in Britain since 1992. In Europe, 65 cities installed new light rail systems or expanded their existing systems between 1980 and 2007; in the US there are now 29 cities with light rail; in Australia, light rail is being expanded in Melbourne and Adelaide and new light rail systems are under construction on the Gold Coast and being planned for Perth.

The final major concern with Infrastructure NSW's plan is the removal of the cross-city rail link, and conversion of the north shore line and west suburban line as far as Strathfield to high-frequency metros. But Town Hall and Wynyard were not designed to cope with 30 trains an hour. Even if they could be rebuilt to do so, and ignoring the massive disruption to the city while the stations were closed during reconstruction, this would mean unnecessary interchanges for intercity and outer suburban passengers, at stations not designed to handle them, onto trains with few seats. Picture the poor commuters from the central coast and western Sydney having to get off a train with 900 seats and crowding onto one with 400 seats, with most people standing all the way from Hornsby or Strathfield. Shifting to metros means losing at least 40 per cent of seat capacity per hour, even with higher-frequency services.

Sydney's rail system handles 70 per cent of the total public transport task (passenger-kilometres), and 20 per cent of the total peak-hour task. It is the backbone of the city, but it is nearing capacity. Without the second harbour rail crossing, Sydney will eventually lose its crown as Australia's world city.

Unfortunately, Infrastructure NSW's report is biased against rail – the cost for the next harbour rail crossing has mysteriously doubled to $15 billion, while the cost of the proposed WestConnex motorway has equally mysteriously shrunk to $10 billion.

What would John Bradfield make of all this? One suspects he would roll in his grave. The previous government lost office by refusing to make sensible decisions on transport, which in essence means expanding the heavy rail system to cater for travel in middle and outer suburbs, and light rail for travel in inner suburbs. One wonders if the lesson has been learnt.

Dr Garry Glazebrook works at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney, and also works part time at the City of Sydney.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/with-broad-and-greiner-driving-us-chaos-is-just-around-the-corner-20121007-27770.html#ixzz28g60BT00

[ozbob]

I have little doubt that Infrastructure NSW's grand plan will just disappear down a plug hole some where ...

[somebody]

I have little doubt that Infrastructure NSW's grand plan will just disappear down a plug hole some where ...

Seems like WestConnex might be going to get political support.

[Stillwater]

Somewhere there must be a library of such reports.  There must be a reason, from time to time, to ask the librarian for a copy of Connecting SEQ 2031, but perhaps only for history students.  Someone might want to call their child Camcos in the hope that he/she will become a 'world class' citizen, unlike the hope of dreamers who first thought of that name.  Sunshine Coasters have started calling the Beerburrum-Landsborough duplication, Operation Market Garden after the ambitious, but fateful, WWII operation.  Nambour could be called Arnham.

[ozbob]

I have several copies of Connecting SEQ 2031, collectors item!   

Must get hold of the Infrastructure NSW report before it too is consigned to history ...   

[ozbob]

From the Sydney Morning Herald click here!

Greiner's traffic plan a real choker, says expert

Greiner's traffic plan a real choker, says expert
October 15, 2012 Jacob Saulwick

A PLAN to build motorways across the west, inner west and south of Sydney is a throwback to 1950s transport planning that will quickly lead to congested roads, says one of the state's most respected transport figures.

In rare public comments, the former chief road builder and rail bureaucrat, Ron Christie, has delivered a scathing critique of the plan being proposed by the head of Infrastructure NSW, Nick Greiner, as part of its 20-year strategy for the state released this month.

Mr Christie's critique argues the strategy includes no plan to allow commuters to switch between the new M4 and M5 motorways and public transport. It also says the plan for the train system is deficient. ''What is plan B when both the M4 and M5 run full in a few years' time after completion?'' Mr Christie said.

His comments carry the rare authority of one who has led the state's road and public transport arms. As a former chief executive of the Roads and Traffic Authority, he led the construction of the Eastern Distributor.

He also oversaw the widening of the M4 from four lanes to six between Penrith and Westmead before the Olympics in 2000. After the M4 was widened, it immediately became clogged again.

''That example indicates that without other measures, just taking a roads approach to the problem is doomed to fail,'' he said. ''It is back to the 1950s. It is a real LA-type solution.''

The state infrastructure strategy was built around new M4 and M5 motorways - dubbed WestConnex - to run through inner west and southern Sydney.

The government has since adopted the project but is yet to respond to Infrastructure NSW's other suggestions.

Infrastructure NSW, chaired by Mr Greiner, a former premier, argued against adding new lines to Sydney's train network beyond the south-west and north-west rail links already under development.

Infrastructure NSW argued that most journeys in Sydney were by car, therefore the city needed more motorways before new public transport projects.

But Mr Christie said that without investment in public transport, roads would inevitably become clogged. There was no plan to allow motorists to use the new motorways then change to public transport. The plan offered little detail on how to deal with congested traffic coming off the motorways.

''The report attempts, but not convincingly, to mount the argument that motorway extensions towards centres of activity do not in themselves attract more private transport,'' Mr Christie said.

''Experience is that they do, especially if there is a failure to develop a high-class public transport alternative.''

Mr Christie was also the co-ordinator-general of rail and ran transport operations during the Olympics. He has not commented on transport issues since chairing the Herald's independent transport inquiry in 2009-10.

He said the motorway plan condemns drivers to sharing road tunnels with large trucks heading to and from Port Botany.

''The mixing of trucks and private vehicles in a confined tunnel increases safety risks but also presents ventilation challenges,'' he said. Infrastructure NSW could have considered a separate truck tunnel for the eastern extension of the M5, he said.

A spokeswoman for Infrastructure NSW said: "Mr Christie is entitled to his opinion but the state infrastructure strategy is all about generating fresh ideas, fresh thinking and moving on from past failures."

She said the strategy did offer ways to reduce congestion near the airport and Port Botany, and options for interchanges between WestConnex and public transport would be considered as part of detailed project development in coming months.

[ozbob]

Sydney Morning Herald --> O'Farrell on front foot in backing 'genius' of Infrastructure NSW plan

... ''But we should be aware that the international evidence is that you don't fundamentally sort out road congestion by building more roads,'' he said. ''At best it can buy you more time while alternatives are found.

''The more strategic answer is to try and divert demand by providing alternatives such as public transport or indeed to plan a more diverse economic geography for Sydney than one solely focused on the CBD. ...''