Action for Public Transport (NSW)

Bus priority measures already operate on Sydney’s Northern Beaches’ North-South corridor. Key components include: a continuous dedicated bus lane between Mona Vale and Seaforth; transit lanes; intersection upgrades; and, bus priority at traffic signals.

The NSW Government has made a commitment to examine the feasibility of Bus Rapid Transit for Sydney’s Northern Beaches.

The Northern Beaches Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Pre-Feasibility Study (the Study) was undertaken between June 2011 and March 2012. A summary report has been developed to outline the findings of the Study.

The Study sets out objectives, provides an assessment of the transport challenges, identifies needs and briefly investigates a wide range of options for Bus Rapid Transit on the Northern Beaches.

Transport for NSW is currently seeking comment from stakeholders in the region on six of the shortlisted options to inform the direction of more detailed studies and analysis.

Feedback is invited until 30 April 2013.
For further information
Phone: 1800 802 888
Email: Bryony.Cooper@transport.nsw.gov.au

Introduction

Action for Public Transport (APT) is a transport consumer advocacy organisation, funded by subscriptions and donations from members.

Our principal response is that the scope of inquiries into the Northern beaches' public transport needs should be widened from the one-mode-only focus of this study.

Widening the Scope

• We believe a study should not begin with one mode only under consideration, but should examine other modes.
• We note (p.5) the study's conclusion that the benefits of BRT options may not exceed costs. This should surely be a reason to widen consideration to other transport modes.
• The Northern Beaches region provides essentially a concentrated and linear corridor – one route can serve much of the population, for intra-region journeys as well as commuting trips to the city and North Sydney (Chatswood being a separate route as currently organised). This may improve feasibility for higher-cost heavy or light rail options.
• There is scope for more use of ferries, especially fast ones, integrated with feeder bus services in / from the region.
• A heavy rail or metro option would offer a link across Middle Harbour from Chatswood, thus providing this regional link (obviously in conjunction with more cross-Harbour capacity) and avoid the Military Road bottleneck.
• Transport planning and land-use planning should proceed together. This study takes a relatively modest population increase under 20% to 2036 as given (p.7) Potentially this might be higher which would affect transport outcomes. Residents of the region may face a choice as to whether they want higher densities through redevelopment, which would support a higher-cost and faster mode of public transport. Many in the region may well say “no” to this. However the state government will be faced with the practical need for urban consolidation throughout much of Sydney and may not wish to exempt this region which has very good amenity on many scores.
• The study notes that some options will worsen conditions for private vehicles (which is given adverse cost-benefit consequences) but there is no overall consideration of projected or desirable public / private transport modal splits or shifts.
• A high-level Spit Bridge is an issue that has exercised the region for many years and this would be tied with what decisions are taken about public transport.

At the level of daily use, regardless of the mode used, a public transport user has the right to expect in terms of levels of service:

• Frequency;
• Clear information, on arriving at a stop, when services will arrive and where they are going to;
• A seat, where possible (keeping in mind that Northern Beaches trips are longer than the average Sydney bus journey)
• Good riding quality.

Although the above comments question the entire basis of the BRT study, the following points are more directed to options within the study's framework.

• An alternative to the North Sydney interchange option (4) to ease terminal congestion around Wynyard, would be through-routing of Northern Beaches routes to other directions from the CBD e.g. Inner West or Eastern Suburbs.
• Current Northern Beaches articulated buses can have very poor riding qualities due to suspension, transmission and pavement quality. Does the study provide for replacement of vehicles or road surface?
• We agree with the study's conclusions that aside from the costs, neither a tunnel nor a viaduct along Military Road would be acceptable aesthetically or for the user.
• The proposed route system represents little change from the present – e.g. that all services will be all stops beyond Narrabeen. It would be worth considering a BRT system that for benefits of reliability and legibility, places more emphasis on a trunk route with high-frequency services and interchanges with local / branch services.
• All BRT engineering works should be designed to allow conversion to light rail use with minimum difficulty at a later stage if desired.

We would be happy to provide further information if required.


Yours faithfully,






Allan Miles
Secretary
Action for Public Transport