This submission, by Action for Public Transport (NSW) Inc., is in response to a call for comments on the Long Term Transport Master Plan discussion paper.
Errors and omissions in the discussion paper are discussed section by section. Many suggestions are offered, including recommendations for public education and the appointment of a widely-experienced non-political official who will control Sydney transport and land-use planning, for both passengers and freight, subject only to policy direction from relevant Ministers.
Several major decisions must be made immediately, such as where (in general terms) about a million new residents are to be accommodated.
There are many references to "Connecting Our City" (City of Sydney Council, 2012) and to the Independent Public Inquiry into a Long-Term Public Transport Plan conducted by the Sydney Morning Herald in 2010.
The 20-year horizon of the plan is appropriate. However, this horizon should be maintained, i.e. the plan should be updated and extended every couple of years in order to preserve its 20-year horizon. Note that, as mentioned at February meetings of all four advisory groups, transport and land-use must be planned together as an ongoing activity.
The plan might also need updating on other occasions, such as a Federal announcement of a new intermodal terminal.
Note that Goal 7 of NSW 2021 is to reduce travel times by actions including delivery of road infrastructure to relieve congestion. In metropolitan areas this is expensive and not an appropriate action for the 21st century, because the extra road space invariably generates extra traffic. It is better to relieve congestion by removing some vehicles from the road, preferably single-occupant cars.
Again, figure 1 (page 4 of the discussion paper) gives the following as a vision: "To maintain and improve a comprehensive network of smooth-flowing roads in metropolitan, regional and rural NSW". There is no indication of the means by which this is to be done, however the figure should clearly state that no attempt will be made to make metropolitan roads free-flowing by expanding road space. As the history of congestion in Sydney and in many other cities clearly shows, expanding road space merely spreads congestion. Regional and rural roads are another matter and should be discussed separately.
Page 5 of the discussion paper states: "[t]he road system needs to be joined up and efficient, providing sufficient space for public transport and freight services, as well as giving priority to high occupancy vehicles to encourage more efficient use of available capacity." How is this to be accomplished? Over a complex network which comprises roads of many different types, how will undesired vehicles be discouraged?
The vision does not say anything about how transport policies can help the people of NSW achieve economic, environmental and social sustainability. It should. Nor does it say anything about ensuring safety of transport services provided by others. Again, it should.
Converting visions into actions: It should be noted that many of the suggestions below are realisable at low cost. They should be implemented as soon as possible, on an experimental basis if necessary, so that benefits can be enjoyed quickly. Other improvements may well take years to eventuate.
Figure 2 (page 6) correctly distinguishes between integration of tickets and integration of fares. It is perplexing that the Opal smartcard has been announced, and that installation of Opal machines has happened at many railway stations, without proper integration of fares. The Plan should address integration of fares urgently. MyZone did not go far enough to integrate fares properly.
It is understood that NSW Treasury has reportedly been hesitant about integrated fares, probably because of fears that the total farebox takings would suffer. A positive view should instead be taken, that there would be an increase in ridership.
Figure 3 (page 7) includes a road strategy. Should it also include a car strategy, a truck strategy and perhaps a rail freight strategy?
The paragraph at the foot of page 7 does not mention greenhouse gas emissions strategy, pollution strategy, and the economic effects of dependence on oil imports. It should.
The timetable seems rather optimistic. It will be quite a challenge to absorb all the submissions etc. and produce a detailed plan by November 2012.
No comments.
No comments.
These works are all very well, however it is not clear that the North West Rail Link should be the top priority. Until the Plan is completed, we will not know which works should be carried out first. However, there are several things that could be done at small cost to improve public transport and these should be accelerated as soon as identified.
The planned walkway from Wynyard to Barangaroo will help but will not solve all the transport problems that will be created by the opening of Barangaroo nor even those that already exist around Wynyard.
Page 15 states that the light rail system is being extended to Dulwich Hill. However the writer understands that work on this project has been suspended.
It is not clear why a section on public transport improvements includes the cycling paragraph on page 15. Wherever it is printed, the paragraph would benefit by mentioning new cycleways constructed by the City of Sydney.
Rather than complement public transport priorities, some of the metropolitan road system "upgrades" actually work against public transport by seducing passengers to become drivers and by worsening congestion around centres. This section should acknowledge traffic generated by metropolitan road expansion and indicate what is being done to mitigate it.
Regional areas are influenced by issues which are quite different from those in metropolitan areas. However, the Government should be doing more to put long-distance freight onto rail. This section, despite its heading, does not mention passenger rail nor freight rail. The most important improvements would be to speed up rail freight. Some curve easing has been done on the North Coast and South lines but much more is needed.
No comments.
This paragraph seems to concern public transport only, and certainly not private cars. Perhaps the heading should be changed.
As will be seen below, the emphasis in metropolitan public transport should be changed from individual services to a focus on the whole network.
The rapid spread of "prepay only" bus services has had a downside - the difficulty of buying tickets in some locations has resulted in passengers being left behind. This is partly due to the risible commissions paid to ticket vendors and to the arrangement whereby the vendors must pay for their tickets before selling them. Too few vendors stock too few types of ticket. The introduction of Opal should see topping-up facilities available everywhere. Opal recharges should be as easy to buy as mobile phone recharges, which are available from many ATMs and supermarket cashiers. Opal smartcards and recharges should also be available from railway stations and transport interchanges.
Again, this paragraph seems to concern public transport only, and certainly not private cars. Perhaps the heading should be changed accordingly.
The NSW government should consider extending travel concessions to students from overseas; it would help those with limited finances and might result in a reduction in car travel.
Note that mobility scooters which can travel several kilometres without recharging are becoming more popular; appropriate allowance should be made for them in building footpaths etc.
The NSW government should embark on a campaign to educate the public about the importance of the Peak Oil issue. A recent accessible article on this is Walsh (reference 4) but there have been many others in the last few years.
The NSW government should also embark on a campaign to educate the public about the relationship between atmospheric levels of greenhouses gases and expected climate change.
If this paragraph is referring to sustainability of car transport, it should indicate that single-occupant car travel (which is a heavy user of fuel) should be minimised as much as reasonably possible.
Improving road safety and limiting speed go together. Public education campaigns should stress this.
Safety needs to be considered carefully, not only because it is important but also because of the way it is used as a vehicle to carry other targets. To illustrate, some people might want the road speed limit lowered in their suburb in order to improve safety while others might want the adjacent highway widened ostensibly to improve highway safety but really so there is less incentive to rat-run through their suburb.
Also, some people pressing for road improvements ostensibly for the sake of safety will, when the improvements are complete, take the benefit in the form of a speed increase that negates the safety.
We point out that road accidents can be reduced by encouraging people to make their trips on public transport, reducing the total numbers of vehicles on the road. Also, shifting road freight to rail reduces accident risks because there are fewer vehicles on the roads.
It is worth pointing out that transport is merely a means to an end. Although the people who build roads or who make, repair and drive trucks and cars are often contributing directly to economic growth they are doing so by making mobility. We primarily need access to services and places, and we need mobility only to help us get access.
Rather than seeking economic growth per se, we should be seeking quality of life.
It should be noted here that some costs of transport are externalised, i.e. the transport happens at some cost to uninvolved people. For example, anyone within earshot of a busy transport corridor suffers from the transport activity. These costs should be assessed and taken into account.
It must be emphasised that the need for transport is affected by land-use planning. That point should be made loud and clear in this section. The objectives with planning should be to emphasise:
The connection with health education and tourism referred to at the top of page 24 is not clear and should be explained.
The NSW government has an important role to play in educating the public as to the best way to develop transport. At the very least, it should strive to correct the misinformation given over the years by the DMR/RTA/RMS claiming to solve congestion by expanding road space on routes radiating from dense centres.
The reference to maintaining the state's AAA rating seems to preclude borrowing that might jeopardise this rating, including borrowing to construct essential infrastructure. Borrowing should not be ruled out at this stage but only after consideration of priorities.
Note that, according to the SMH/Christie report (reference 1 page 397), adequate progress could be made on public transport projects without pushing debt levels into the band which would trigger a review of the rating.
Most local government areas in metropolitan Sydney are so small that transport issues span at least several LGAs and there is limited point in working closely with individual councils on network issues.
The exception is the City of Sydney whose area is at present quite large. There apparently is a Memorandum of Understanding in force between the City and the State covering some transport issues. The MoU is referred to in recommendation 19 (page 57) of Staysafe's report on Vulnerable Road Users (reference 5). Also see Connecting Our City (reference 2) which has been prepared by the City of Sydney but which will require co-operation from various units of the NSW government.
Wollongong and Newcastle councils also cover substantial parts of their metropolitan areas and the NSW government should continue to work closely with them on transport issues in their areas. However, their local viewpoints must be balanced with the state-wide need for encouraging rail passenger and freight services.
The control which councils exert on land-use in their areas has effects on travel demand in and around their areas and should be a concern of Transport for NSW. For example at East Chatswood, Woolworths intends to put a large supermarket in Smith St near the new large Bunnings shop (reference 8). Over-use of the Chatswood business district by cars has probably inspired the plan (note that Chatswood Westfield has recently announced reductions in the free parking it allows shoppers - reference 9). Although there are buses in Smith St, they are very unlikely to carry many shoppers to Smith St because the same buses also go to the main Chatswood business district. So the consequence of the Woolworths opening will be extra car trips between East Chatswood and suburbs like Roseville Chase and Castlecrag.
Some councils operate local bus services, typically fare-free loop services. These often connect business districts and trains with local hospitals, educational facilities and/or industrial areas. Such bus services should be encouraged.
NSW should press the federal government for a fair share of revenue, including GST revenue and access to loans for important infrastructure.
NSW should press the federal government to recognise the externalities of long-distance road freight and the desirability of controlling its overuse by, among others, retailers who rely on overnight road freight to keep their outlets stocked.
Note that the federal government is trying to solve its own financial problems by keeping immigration at high levels. While that may be a good idea for Canberra, the federal government should be compensating states for the adverse effects of immigration on them.
The NSW government should curtail its involvement with the private sector in developing transport infrastructure, because recent history has many examples of large costs to the public that were not explained at the start of projects. Some of them are in anti-competitive clauses that prevent the development of facilities, such as public transport, that might be regarded as competing with a PPP motorway. But the private sector has learned some lessons too, and we need not expect more road tunnels to be built!
At a minimum, there should be no more "commercial in-confidence" clauses in new PPP contracts.
No comments.
This section should canvass the government's opportunities to influence customer needs and preferences. Valid methods include fares, public education campaigns, taxes (including tolls on cars), land-use planning and of course public transport services and frequencies.
One particular point that should be made clear to the public is that expanding radial highways is expensive and does not help much in the cause of reducing road congestion. Generated traffic invariably consumes some of the gains of roadbuilding.
Note that much hinges on where the new population in the Sydney basin live and work - see the remarks re 5.2 below about Sydney tending towards a typical Asian city or European or American.
This section would benefit from having a clearer explanation of the projections, with particular regard to the benefits likely to accrue to NSW residents from the itemised contributions to the economy.
This section should indicate whether people are likely to be required to reduce their energy consumption and if so what the effect on their lifestyles will be.
Note that quite different issues arise for servicing Sydney's extra population by public transport depending how far out from the centre they live and work.
No comments.
For a fuller discussion of these challenges, see chapter 2 of the Technical Report volume of Connecting Our City (reference 2b) and note the reference there to looming capacity limits.
Note that none of the three centres discussed, not even Parramatta, has anything like the focus of North Sydney. This is unfortunate for them, as they have missed opportunities to increase their importance to the metropolitan area. North Sydney has been limiting parking space since the 1970s and as a result now has a modal split almost as high as the Sydney CBD has.
These major centres should be seen by the Plan as opportunities to develop public transport services. Most of the biggest centres have a railway station and should encourage visitors to use it. Macquarie is doing so very well - the Macquarie Centre is adjacent to a station and has numerous bus services calling at its front door.
Many observers have pointed out that intelligent use of rail would reduce the pressure on roads around Port Botany and the airport. Unfortunately, political considerations have delayed the development of intermodal exchanges although there could be a working interchange near Moorebank by 2014 and other(s) later. The Plan is an opportunity to confront the problem.
Port Botany is expected to exhaust its capacity of 3.2 million TEUs per year and a decision should be announced now about where the overflow will go, presumably to Newcastle or Port Kembla. Obviously, the choice has major ramifications for planning surface transport of freight.
Projections of future demands on airports should estimate possible fall-off in demand for air carriage, of both freight and passengers, in the event that fuel prices rise sharply.
It is confusing that two growth areas (the North West Growth Centre and the South West Growth Centre) are described as centres rather than areas. The term "centres" occurs with its ordinary meaning in many planning documents. We need consistency and precision in our use of these terms. The "growth centres" should be renamed "areas" or "regions".
The south-west rail link as presently being constructed is too short to serve much of the growth in its region. The Plan should consider extending it as soon as possible. Also, there is not enough spare capacity in the railways under the CBD to handle all the trains expected to be needed, and this will reduce the effectiveness of the SWRL.
The north-west rail link as presently envisaged is hamstrung by the way it will connect to the existing rail at Epping. Capacity constraints between Chatswood and the CBD mean that only a couple of NW trains per hour can be run into the CBD without prejudicing services from the upper north shore line.
The matter of rail capacity between Chatswood and about Central needs to be faced immediately in order to ease constraints on development in both north-west and south-west.
Expanding the M2, i.e. providing an extra lane which might carry 2000 cars per peak hour if all goes well, is of course of negligible value in developing the north-west although it might be profitable at the tollgates. Likewise, expanding the M5 does not help the south-west much.
Figure 16 (page 40) is confusing. It blurs the fundamental distinction between rail corridors (which go through and under major centres) and motorways (which skirt dense areas and tend not to serve short trips). What happens to the M2 corridor west of Macquarie Park? What happens to the M5 corridor around Bankstown and Liverpool?
The correct approach will depend very much on the NSW Government's intentions for Sydney. Broadly speaking, where are the new residents to be accommodated? - within 5km of the GPO (like some Asian cities), or within a belt spanning 5km to 25km from the GPO (like some European cities), or beyond 25km (like some American cities). The American solution is not recommended, as it brings serious social problems to the "transport disadvantaged" (see reference 12).
Section 5.2 seems limited to passenger transport, despite its title. What about freight?
The NSW Government will also need to decide what proportion of transport resources should be reserved for services at off-peak times or to sparse areas. Public transport services have economic, environmental and social benefits; choices must be made between ridership and coverage (see reference 3, chapter 10).
Then these policies must be implemented. Sydney needs an official to co-ordinate planning of transport services, both passenger and freight. Ideally, this official would have had extensive experience in co-ordinating services in large cities elsewhere and would know how to keep the network paramount in planning rather than just individual services or modes. The official would need direct access to planning and transport Ministers, including the roads Minister if different. The position would have to be seen as a non-political and long-term one.
The official's decisions must be seen to be transparent, meaning that they are made in the best long-term interests of the transport network and not influenced by political expediency or anything else. There can be no micro-management by Ministers. The approval process for the north-western rail link, whereby the tunnelling etc. has been separated from the railway building and has its own EIS even though there can be no possible benefits from simply digging tunnels, is a good example of what should never happen again.
It is absolutely essential that there be no department whose mission is to build roads in response to traffic demand in an attempt to reduce congestion.
And, somehow, it needs to be made clear that the tradition of repeatedly announcing new transport facilities then not building them (at which stage the promised funds mysteriously evaporate) is unacceptable and will not be perpetuated.
The official's responsibilities would not cover regional areas; there is too much to be done in Sydney. The Hunter and Illawarra regions would require their own supremos.
The outstanding single cheap improvement to train services in Sydney would be to restore train speeds to their pre-2005 level. The discussion paper does not even mention this matter.
Another improvement, at small cost, would be to introduce properly-integrated fares which did not penalise transfers between services. The improvement would be shared with bus services - see comments on 5.2.3 below.
A number of commentators (for example, see the SMH Final Report in reference 1) have stated that putting an extra pair of railway tracks under the Sydney CBD and across the harbour somehow is essential to the expansion of services and would increase the overall capacity of the rail network by perhaps 30%. The Plan should consider this and if found correct examine how best to resolve it. However, Figure 18 (page 45) suggests that the Plan views it as something that can be deferred for some years.
The emphasis in the current timetable is reliability, even though it has not been achieved. For the sake of a better network service, more attention should be paid to speed and convenient connections at interchange stations.
Access to some stations could be simplified at low cost. One example would be platform 1 at Asquith station where most passengers approach from the north yet the only entry is around the middle of the platform. A second entry could be added near the north end of the platform at very low cost.
Another example, although not low-cost, would be putting a new entrance to Central near Railway Square, cutting a new pedestrian tunnel from about the Redfern end of platform 16 to the Devonshire St tunnel.
Despite the bad name it has with motorists, road congestion has a major positive aspect, namely the incentive it gives travellers to shift their trips away from peak times. This enforced peak spread reduces the peak demand for expensive road space and thereby saves much money.
By tolling peak-hour travel on major roads, further beneficial pressure could be put on motorists to reduce their demands on peak road space. Additionally, a cordon toll around the CBD, replacing the cross-city tunnel toll, could encourage drivers to use the tunnel instead of driving through the CBD.
The Plan should recognise that building new road space to meet peak demand may not be in the best interests of transport efficiency.
It would be worth mounting a public education campaign pointing out that limited-access roads are by their very nature susceptible to major delays in the event of any incident that closes one or more lanes. Because access points typically occur only every few kilometres, detouring around the blockage is at best awkward.
This subject is discussed at length in section 5.2 of reference 1 (the 2010 SMH/Christie report). The most important improvement would be to re-organise services in the inner suburbs, mainly in the east and south-east, to reduce the number of services and the number of buses coming in to the CBD. Part of doing this would involve integrated fares that did not penalise transfers. Figure 5.6 (page 315) shows a first cut at changing specialised services to connective services.
It might be possible to make an analogous improvement in some northern services, perhaps reaching to Lane Cove, Cammeray and Mosman. This possibility should be investigated.
Generally, the coverage by services with a frequency of at least every ten minutes should be maximised in area and time.
All buses should be required to have clear windows at least 400mm high along 85% of each side. At present, many buses are covered with perforated advertisements which, in wet weather, prevent passengers from seeing outside.
Any NSW Treasury policy inhibiting increasing bus services in existing service areas (see section 5.2.2 of reference 1) should be reversed immediately.
Opportunities should be taken to speed buses up by providing bus-only roads where appropriate. One example would be to connect Woronora Heights to Sutherland via Woronora, rather than via Engadine. Using a road that has been sealed for years but has been gated and padlocked would require only
With the number of separate bus companies covering the Sydney region steadily decreasing since the Unsworth reforms, the time has come to consider uniform livery for all buses around Sydney. London's red buses demonstrate what a difference in image might be made.
There are advantages in having bus interchange points always busy with people passing through. Such interchanges make bus passengers feel safe and welcome. A good example of what to avoid is the interchange at North Sydney station. An expensive but badly-planned station modernisation in about 2006 closed the extended-hours shops which used to face the Blue St bus stops, resulting in the area now seeming like a ghost town (reference 11). One solution might be mixed-use developments with a moderate residential content.
Finding more bus stop space around Wynyard will presumably require displacing car parking and will not be popular. A difficult decision must be made soon.
New buses are wheelchair-friendly. They should be made stroller-friendly too, as strollers greatly outnumber wheelchairs on buses.
Construction costs currently hamper the development of light rail. However, Connecting Our City (reference 2) argues for its use in George St in conjunction with a re-organisation of CBD bus services. This proposal should be considered carefully.
Expansion of the ferry network will cater for population growth over the next twenty years. It will also allow for higher urban densities and reduce vehicular traffic associated with major trip generators.
The Plan should aim to:
Current Problems with the ferry network are:
Current problems with the transport network in harbourside suburbs are:
Our main recommendations are:
Three new finger wharves are proposed for Barangaroo. The location of this ferry terminal provides good access to the city and is located adjacent to the office towers at Barangaroo. We propose six new services:
Our recommended option for funding fleet would be to seek commonwealth assistance. Historical practice has seen the New South Wales government fund the development of a prototype vessel for a new class. Once the vessel has entered service and proven successful, then commonwealth funding can be sought to build further examples based on the same design.
Once the Plan is complete new vessels can be ordered. In the meantime, work should start on specification and design of the new ferries.
It is worth noting that the Geelong Bicycle Plan Study was approved by the Victorian cabinet in September 1976 (reference 6). Sydney would seem to be decades behind Victoria.
One suggestion that could be looked at is building cycleways alongside railway land where possible. However, there would be significant costs in relocating some railway equipment.
If cycling is to become more popular, the questions of safety and perhaps insurance will become more important. Some attention should be paid to these matters now.
An increasing number of motorised bicycles (and occasional illegal motorised scooters etc.) can be seen on streets. The RTA announced some time ago that it was reviewing the law about these vehicles. As the investment in purchasing one can be considerable, the legal position should be the subject of a public education campaign.
There would be many locations where roadworks have widened road lanes or where authorities have shifted poles at the expense of the adjoining footpath. And there are many locations where vehicles block the footpath rather than park on the roadway. Both these issues should be attended to. Generalising from walking, standards need to be set to meet the needs of prams and mobility scooters on footpaths in areas where their use is likely.
Generally, there should be more taxis, which would make them easier to hire.
There should be better protection of taxi drivers, too many of whom are shortpaid, robbed or assaulted. Part of the responsibility for this should lie with the taxi industry itself, which maintains an environment in which passengers are charged more for paying by card, even by debit card. Taxi drivers often have enough cash to be worth robbing. Other industries encourage card payments, thereby reducing the amount of cash likely to be on hand. The taxi industry should do likewise.
The first step would be legislation creating a proper framework for CT to operate in. This includes vehicle registration, the legality of CT vehicles in bus lanes, and the legality of charging passengers. CT services need money to operate and should be able to recoup costs legally.
There is an urgent need to re-vamp the public transport fare system to facilitate transfers between modes and/or between vehicles. It would obviously be easier to do this while or before installing Opal, however that opportunity will soon be lost.
The Plan should investigate the feasibility of extending and/or developing Metrobus services to the airport terminals.
The Plan should consider removing the rail station access charges at the two airport railway stations. The current adult GatePass fees are $12 single trip, and $19 return (in addition to the rail fare).
The Plan could consider special family rail fares to/from the airport, such as a maximum of $25 total day return fares for one group of up to 8 whatever the distance.
It may be possible to provide more coach stops at the airport, designed to facilitate transfer between air and long-distance road coaches.
We already have time-of-day tolling (southbound on the Harbour Bridge) but could benefit from more. There are obvious opportunities for tolling on routes like Roseville Bridge, Harbour Bridge northbound, Eastern Distributor southbound, Anzac Bridge, Iron Cove bridges, Gladesville Bridge, and several roads near the airport.
As discussed above, cordon pricing might be appropriate for the CBD and other centres.
Notice how North Sydney's longstanding controls on car parking have yielded a very beneficial result, that of making North Sydney's modal split strongly in favour of public transport, and much more so than Parramatta's. Controlling parking can be a powerful way of controlling road traffic. We should be limiting parking in centres where traffic is a major problem.
The word "planning" has apparently been omitted from the heading of this section.
The integration of transport planning and land-use planning should be the job of a very senior official, as described in the comments on 5.2 above.
The simple fact is that the vast majority of personal transport in rural and regional NSW is the private car on a public road. Freight also travels by road, in vehicles of various sizes. The rail service has been run down but mostly without significant protest. For example, the North Coast country trains used to stop three times between Coffs and Grafton but few people are now aware of this. And there is apparently no bus service along the Orara Way that replaced the train services.
While the present state of rural and regional services is regrettable, public transport development is also needed urgently around Sydney. Funding for regional public transport services should be a top-level decision, balancing Sydney and the regions.
Note that a Legislative Assembly inquiry into inter-regional public transport was announced on 21 March. The inquiry, which was initiated by the state and regional development committee, seems to be aimed at Countrylink despite its title.
The biggest regional highway challenges are attaining safety and controlling road surface damage caused by heavy trucks. A legal and economically efficient method of limiting damage must be sought urgently. There would be benefits to both safety and road surfaces from removing trucks from the roads.
At present, many regional roads (for example, much of the Princes Highway beyond Gerringong) have speed limits which are too high for safe operation of trucks and some stretches have limits which are too high for safe operation of most cars; these speed limits should be brought down to safe levels.
Much could be done to reduce rail travel times. For example, the Bethungra rail spiral should be eliminated, and the separation of tracks at Frampton eliminated with it. There should be an adequate number of 1800 metre passing loops on the north coast line and beyond Wagga. The Sydney-Albury line needs much straightening, for example between Menangle and Mittagong and also around Cularin. However, all of this will cost money. A strong case should be made for Federal assistance.
School bus services should certainly be available for adult travel where needed, provided space is available.
Distances in Australia, even on the eastern seaboard, are long by international standards and justifying high-speed rail will be difficult with our population. However, Queensland now has regular tilt train services up the coast; when will NSW do the same with its smaller distances and larger population?
It is time to consider "fairly fast trains" which are much cheaper than very fast trains and yet yield considerable time savings over present rail services, both freight and passenger.
No comments.
No comments.
The challenge in Newcastle is to reduce reliance on the car and bolster public transport services. This is unlikely to happen without increased densities in the Newcastle CBD.
The third rail track beyond Maitland (intended to increase the capacity for freight services) should also be available to passenger services when required. Extra platforms should be built at those stations which don't have them for the third track.
Densities on the Central Coast are high enough for viable public transport only around a few centres. Funds for developing services would probably do more good if spent around Sydney. A top-level decision is needed to balance unviable services in the Central Coast with needs in Sydney.
Sydney's public transport fares should be integrated, including across the Central Coast.
Again, densities are too low to support quality public transport services. But the state of the escarpment rail line, and rail travel times to Sydney, will nevertheless require major resources before long. Planning should commence now.
As in 6.7.9, fares should be integrated with Sydney's.
No comments.
The over-riding issue with freight is to undo the dominance of the truck industry, which has been very successful at winning concessions which advantage it relative to rail freight.
We need to decide now on the best way to handle freight when Port Botany's capacity is exhausted. Presumably a choice will be made between Newcastle and Port Kembla.
Freight access to the airport and Port Botany precinct urgently needs improvement. Rail freight must be encouraged; possible projects include:
These include:
No comments.
Controlling a minority of drivers and operators who put profit before safety.
Accounting for costs externalised by the truck industry.
No comments.
Rather than say that the road network will carry an increasing freight task even if rail freight is expanded, this section should discuss how rail freight could and should be expanded to reduce the road freight task.
Note that the truck industry's idea of high-efficiency vehicles invariably means even larger and heavier trucks.
Also note that there have been several fatal accidents involving B-doubles already this year (Jan-Apr 2012) and that there have been credible claims of tampering with truck speed limiters.
The best way to balance freight efficiency and local amenity is to maximise the use of rail for freight carriage. This will follow if full costs are recovered from truck operations.
As it is now too late to save the Woolloomooloo wharves for the larger cruise ships that are becoming more common, pressure should be continued on the Federal Government to make space available at Garden Island for these vessels.
Every effort should be made to encourage the use of greener engine technology but without encouraging larger and heavier vehicles. Bigger trucks don't sit well on the road with vulnerable road users and they tend to win large loads that are economic to carry by rail.
We need to make rail faster, so that transit times are more attractive. Possible projects include:
And we need to recover the costs which the trucking industry externalises.
No comments.
The goals of the NSW freight strategy should include safety (figure 30, page 87).
The ideal is to accrue enough funding to run transport at the desired standard without charging so heavily that desirable activity flees the jurisdiction. Funds come from NSW citizens and corporations, from Canberra, perhaps from PPP arrangements and perhaps from borrowing.
If much of the Plan is to be implemented within a generation, all types of funding will be need to be considered.
The SMH/Christie inquiry investigated the acceptibility of new taxes etc. as a possible way of funding public transport developments (section 1.4 and chapter 6) and reported "there is widespread support for funding significant public transport improvements through a package of funding sources involving a mixture of household taxes and user fees, including both fares and road user fees" provided there was tangible evidence that the money was spent on the intended purpose (reference 1, page 69).
Careful public consultation would be needed before any new taxes were levied.
These arrangements have been tried in the past. Disadvantages include the risks of poorly-run private entities, the fine print of agreements prepared by the private entities' lawyers and the exclusion clauses which can place the State at a disadvantage at some time in the future when expansion of neighbouring transport infrastructure is being contemplated. A current example of resistance to perceived competition is Sydney Airport's opposition to a new Sydney airport at Wilton or Badgery's Creek (reference 10).
Also, organisations considering entering into PPPs with NSW will be aware of projects that have failed financially and will price their involvement to reflect the perceived risk. On balance, new PPPs would seem to be a bad idea.
Road pricing is probably necessary to fund urgently-needed expansion of transport infrastructure and is now technically feasible on many main roads.
As stated above (comment on 5.2.12), Sydney's road network provides many opportunities for tolling equipment. And the feasibility of cordon pricing around the Sydney CBD should be investigated, even though cordon pricing is not mentioned in the discussion paper.
IPART takes the viewpoint that fares should cover a certain fraction of the operating costs of the relevant services. This attitude is unlikely to change much.
No comments additional to those above.
A definition should be added of "generated traffic" and "induced traffic".
There should be a definition of "customer". The foreword suggests that commuters, councils, businesses, transport operators and freight operators can all be customers.
There should be a definition of congestion pricing.
There should be a definition of cordon tolling.
There should be an objective to increase the proportion of trips made by public transport, cycling or walking and reduce car trips.