Independent Inquiry On Sydney’s PT

For those that follow PT developments across the ditch it has been pretty obvious that the NSW State Government has been less than hopeless at resolving Sydney’s public transport issues, in particular rail system issues, where the State Governments have repeatedly announced major rail projects only to cancel them a year later. Bus services are also poor with improvements focussing on local areas without any seeming integration at a regional level (and no legislative power to integrate services). Sydney has higher PT use than Auckland though for two main reasons:

• It has a very dense, large CBD, where 70% of workers arrive by public transport.
• It was much larger than Auckland in the days where railways took precedence over roads and had a large electrified rail system by the 1920s, which has a CBD loop, and has served the city relatively well.

Apart from that our cities are relatively similar transport-wise, there is almost no grid road system in Sydney and public transport services are disjointed, with a mixture of public and private providers and with no clear public planning agency and accountability.

Citylink Rail System - The backbone of Sydney's public transport system

Late last year the paper of record for Sydney, the Sydney Morning Herald, finally said, “enough!” and sponsored an independent inquiry by academics, public transport consultants and retired public servants lead by Ron Christie the State’s former head of both the Roads and Rail Departments, into the problems in Sydney and how to resolve them. In February the Inquiry team reported back with a 500 page draft report. Their recommendations can be summarised as:

• Public Transport Priority – The report stated that major investment in roading to the inner city would only flood more cars onto already congested streets and should be halted. It further stated that a survey of 2,400 residents showed the public understands and supports the funding of public transport over roading.
• Tactical Planning – The report recommended a public transit agency with control over network planning, fares, quality control and infrastructure spending. This agency is to be called Transport for Sydney after Transport for London the organisation it is based on.
• Integration – Namely of fares, as Sydney is one of the largest first world cities in which you get charged a full fare for transferring but this integration would also allow for the design of a simple more frequent network and lead to more cross-town routes and therefore less buses crowding the CBD and the elimination of bus lines that duplicate train lines.
• Rail Development – The group looked at what the rail system currently does and what it’s shortcomings are to see where new metro and rail lines really do make sense.
• Low Hanging Fruit – These are cheap improvements that could be made immediately to greatly improve services. Such as; increasing rail frequencies throughout the day, restructuring bus routes and improving information systems.
• Funding – The report even included a plan to pay for it all which had majority support in the previously mentioned survey of 2,400 Sydney-siders. Funding streams such as new taxes and user fees, household rates, fares, CBD congestion charges, and carbon taxes on petrol were all mooted.

You can see the full story here: http://www.smh.com.au/national/finally-a-plan-that-will-get-sydney-moving-20100212-nxm0.html.

What I found striking reading the report is how it could have been written for Auckland. Of the six points above not a single one doesn’t apply to Auckland and would be beneficial if introduced here. We should look at adopting many of it’s recommendations and recognise how they replicate the systems in cities with good public transport as diverse as London to Curitiba.

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