In new report for the NSW State Government Nick Greiner debunks the myth that new rail links are necessary and economic. According to the AFR, Greiner says
The finding challenges the O’Farrell government’s commitment to its costliest election promise, the $8.5 billion North West Rail Link from Chatswood on Sydney’s north shore to the Hills District in the north west.
Concerning the proposal to construct a downtown light rail Greiner says
“Light rail down George Street does not work remotely well as a mass-transit activity. It will not go very fast, it will not take a lot of people – it can’t.
“To do something that runs the risk of gridlocking … the CBD more than it already is is a huge risk and you should not go there lightly.”
Wendell Cox of Demographia shows there is no let up in the long decline of public transport in spite of massive expenditures on urban rail networks. Its share of the US journey to work fell from 6.4 per cent to under 5 per cent in the thirty years from 1980. Major transit developments did not stop the share halving in Atlanta, Dallas and St Louis. Nor did it even the most extravagant expenditures on light rail stop major falls in transit’s share in San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.
Cars are basic to modern cities’ liveability because modern cities have highly dispersed destinations. Sixty years ago cities were radially focused with work, shopping and leisure trips tending to move to the city centre. Today, even the most efficient public transport struggles to serve the nine-tenths of trips that don’t radiate to the city centre. As a result, trains, trams and buses account for only 10 per cent of our trips.
Cycling features prominently in government transport plans though it represents only 0.6 per cent of trips and, unlike cars, pays no direct costs for the pathways created for it.
Road capacity needs to keep pace with users’ needs. The consumer/taxpayer is demonstrating a willingness to finance more and better roads, including within urban areas, with their outlays in fuel excise, licence fees and tolls, outlays that far exceed the expenditures.
Aside from the fact that motorists already overpay for roads, the problem with a congestion tax is the government monopoly over roads. This gives governments an incentive to skimp on new building in order to increase its revenues.
Hopefully, the Greiner report will pre-empt a move to copy the massive and wasteful expenditures on light rail that is being seen in California where an ability to recognise trends and consumer needs has been undermined by a political correctness that is leading to state bankruptcy
Just like vocational guidance counselling, public transport is a filthy Communist conspiracy. It is based on the smug belief of a few, that they know what the world is meant to look like, and what each of us is meant to be doing and where we are meant to go each day, and how much stuff we need to carry with us.
Bike paths and light rail are (wasteful) rewards for those who go with the program, and congestion tax etc is punishment for those individuals who commit the heresy of realising they want to do something else, and do it.
Ooh Honey Honey
4 Oct 12 at 6:32 am
A good place to start would be in reducing the cost of taxis. The license costs are ridiculous.
http://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/b2b/taxi/licence-value-chart.pdf
Then we just need driverless taxis.
TerjeP
4 Oct 12 at 6:53 am
Another market grossly distorted by people who think they know what a taxi industry should look like.
Ooh Honey Honey
4 Oct 12 at 7:00 am
They say that the larger streets in Melbourne’s CBD were set that wide so that there was enough room for a horse and carriage to do a u-turn. If planners could take one of the unintended consequences of this and build new roads exceeding required capacity by just as much these days, maybe the new super-freeways might not be under capacity as soon as the new road is opened.
To continue the Melbourne example, perhaps the Ring Road was set too far in to the city and the scope for a decent capacity was missed by building it among the developed regions instead of just outside between the old suburbs and the new developments where there could have been enough land for an additional 4 lanes in either direction without destroying residences.
Nato
4 Oct 12 at 7:13 am
No, no, no. Expensive boondoggles and unionised monopolies are good.
dd
4 Oct 12 at 7:34 am
Heavy rail, at least, is a serious transport system. A grown-up transport system. You can respect it even if you debate the costs and benefits.
The same can’t be said of light rail. Here we have a system of cute little vehicles, bustling about, navigating the ebb and flow of the crowds and roads of the metropolis. It’s redolent of whistles and shiny pressed uniforms, and passengers waving to passersby in the street.
Don’t even get me started on bicycle ways.
dd
4 Oct 12 at 7:44 am
*Not that my earlier comment would meet the demand that exists now, but it would have been a step 1.
Nato
4 Oct 12 at 7:54 am
Don’t forget the cafe fucking lifestyle DD.
Actually I have heard arguments to the effect that rail transport of freight makes much more sense than trucks, except for one huge problem: it is very efficient and doesn’t employ enough people. So politicians close them down as fast as they can.
Ooh Honey Honey
4 Oct 12 at 8:08 am
As Terje says, the taxi licensing is a big problem.
Requestable buses would solve a lot of the problems, but are effectively banned by the taxi licensing laws.
2dogs
4 Oct 12 at 8:09 am
Phillip Clarke on ABC RN interviewed an “expert” on urban planning who remains under the misapprehension that everything is still happening in the CBD.
blogstrop
4 Oct 12 at 8:17 am
One of the best aspects of leaving Sydney is that public transport no longer blights my life.
The novelty will never wear off…
Rabz
4 Oct 12 at 8:25 am
George St is wall to wall buses nowadays. All of them going nowhere extremely slowly.
At least light rail would theoretically have an unfettered run – leaving George St, I’m presuming, as a one lane busway.
That’s the sort of industrial grade stupidity I’d expect from sussex St or that dog collared, egomaniac clown moore.
Expect o’barrell to adopt it, then…
Rabz
4 Oct 12 at 8:30 am
Driverless cabs are going to happen, probably within the next decade or so. The technology will be there, although governments will put up a fight.
Autonomous vehicles are the future of city transport, requested via a smartphone app.
As for congestion charging, I actually don’t have a problem with it in principle as long as it is a floating price, which is feasible with modern technology. It needs to be able to float between 0 and whatever the maximum ‘bid’ is.
brc
4 Oct 12 at 8:30 am
Yep Rabz, it sure is good to be out of Sydney’s traffic – I’m going back regularly though and it is a nightmare every time.
Just like my childhood picture books dd, full of little toy towns and only the occasional Noddy car.
Urban planners hate cars. I once went to a planners’ seminar where the anti-car vibe was so strong that when a lone-voice planner suggested that there would always be a need for personal motorised transport, he was frosted out of the debate. This was in Sydney, a dispersed city of hills and suburbs moving around 4 million even then.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
4 Oct 12 at 8:36 am
that’s a good point. The CBD needs its own solutions. Let’s not pretend that they are solutions for the whole city.
dd
4 Oct 12 at 8:38 am
It may sound like a cliche, but that is the whole world to those guys.
That transport plan addresses so many real issues for the broader Sydney public.
I listened to O’Farrell work through the list with AJ this morning. Will post when 2GB puts it up.
Token
4 Oct 12 at 8:43 am
True Lizzie – I head up there regularly for meetings and ironically the most sensible way to get from the Airport to the CBD is the f*cking rail link.
Cabs take forever, they cost a bomb and the queues are horrendous.
Then you’re just as likely to be stuck with a smelly, surly islamist cab driver with nothing better to do than piss you off.
No thanks. The trains, as unpleasant as they are, cost a fraction both time and money wise.
Rabz
4 Oct 12 at 8:50 am
Rabz, if the train does the job, then why are you complaining. Stop being a miserable stale bun
Rococo Liberal
4 Oct 12 at 9:31 am
This is why Sydney blows. Public transport affects every decision you make, even if you don’t use it or try to live away from it.
Then we have some clowns shutting down the bridge for a party (not New Years either). Not cool, guys.
Sydney needs so much infrastructure the costs are diabolical and nearly no one would be willing to pay.
It’s just a fucking joke there isn’t a privately owned subway system to every suburb. That would solve most problems.
Good luck getting the planning approval…
.
4 Oct 12 at 9:39 am
It’s the lesser of two eebils and is still extremely unpleasant, despite its advantages over driving or getting a cab.
Rabz
4 Oct 12 at 9:58 am
Alan
Your examples are all American. America has never been big on public transport. Are these examples therefore relevant in a Sydney context?
Rococo Liberal
4 Oct 12 at 10:05 am
“Cars are basic to modern cities’ liveability because modern cities have highly dispersed destinations.”
That is mostly true, but didn’t happen on its own. Modern cities were designed around the car, so it’s no wonder the car is central to their existence. In Sydney, for example, rail lines already built were torn up, and the effective and popular tram system (which went all over the place, not just to the CBD) was destroyed.
“Road capacity needs to keep pace with users’ needs.”
That is right, but it’s not simply a matter of adding more roads. There’s only so many you can build before there’s no more room.
Jarrah
4 Oct 12 at 10:06 am
I don’t understand why a 15 minute train trip can be so unpleasant. What do you want absolute luxury for $5?
Rococo Liberal
4 Oct 12 at 10:07 am
The NIMBYS in Bondi have a lot to answer for. I visit their bloody beach not even annually and to get back to Bondi Junction is an absolute shitfight. A half hour bus trip on the 333 or 330, IIRC.
They reckon this makes their own lives better off somehow.
Dullards.
.
4 Oct 12 at 10:11 am
“an “expert” on urban planning who remains under the misapprehension that everything is still happening in the CBD.”
It does have a big slice of the workforce. It also has the pass-through commuters to other regions adding to its congestion woes, which are substantial. That’s why it gets a lot of attention.
“Urban planners hate cars.”
The current fad for urban planning is ‘walkability’ (it used to be highways and dormitory suburbs). That means designs that discourage cars, or obviate their necessity.
Jarrah
4 Oct 12 at 10:16 am
Heavy rail is economic,especially if you can run driverless trains.With light rail, however, it is doubtful that you can do that
sabena
4 Oct 12 at 10:43 am
Here is the interview between BOF & AJ discussing the plans.
Note part of the strategy is to remove one big problem which is where roads force people to go through the city to get to destinations like the airport.
Token
4 Oct 12 at 10:56 am
Driverless cabs will help a lot with parking issues, but its doubtful they’ll help much with congestion. A combination system of automated car with aspects of public transport (eg car will stop to pick up people going to similar locations a long the way) might. And they could probably remove the need for a second car for some as the car could be used by other people in the family during the day.
I’ve found the airportCBD rail link to be really quite good. I’d much rather take the train than drive in the CBD of a city I’m not familiar with. And the taxi queue at the airport is horrendous.
I wish there was a train to the airport where I live. Would be preferable to a taxi (expensive and you never really know if they’re going to turn up on time) or driving (parking is stupidly expensive).
It was a lot more than $5 last time I took the airport->CBD train. They charge more than the standard train fare to get off at the airport stop.
Good luck getting private funding! Are there any large public transport systems out there which make a profit (without a government subsidy)?
Chris
4 Oct 12 at 11:00 am
As the locations families/old people need to go to are not focused on the city, it is natural the car is the preferred method of transport.
For people like my cousin looking after my 80yo aunt in the ‘burbs, doing trips like going see a GP, then see a surgeon on referal the return to the GP, there is no other option but a car.
Token
4 Oct 12 at 11:00 am
I think the take-home message from all of this is merely that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to moving people around in Sydney, because Greater Sydney is really at least half a doz. sub-cities. The only sure thing is that, just like for the last 40 plus years that I have been a sentient being, there will be an expert report unveiled which will be eitehr discarded or only partially implemented and we still manage to muddle through.
dragnet
4 Oct 12 at 11:04 am
Yes.
Now shut up and learn the material.
.
4 Oct 12 at 11:09 am
Only in Japan AFAIK.
Yobbo
4 Oct 12 at 11:22 am
This reminds me of the contrast between the privately owned Manly Fast Ferry vs the Sydney Ferries slow ferry to the same destination.
The Fast Ferry is a pleasure to use. Staff are very friendly, you can even buy a beer and drink it outside while the wind blows through your hair.
Compare that to the state-owned version which is manned by surly staff, and full of warning signs telling you what you can’t do and the fines for disobeying those instructions. No beer either.
St Hubbins
4 Oct 12 at 11:40 am
Yobbo,
Western Sydney buses are/were profitable, even to the point of being profitable without subsidies – check the NSW IPART reports.
Some brain damaged zombie will probably chime in that they are subsidised because they use public roads…we also are all protected by the army and so none of us can call for tax cuts…black is white and I get wiped out on the next pedestrian crossing.
.
4 Oct 12 at 11:57 am
The trains are fine to the CBD from the airport Rabz, but not if you are going anywhere else. When I’m up there I’m usually scooting around all over the place visiting friends and rellies right across town from Balmain to Bondi to Bankstown, Surrey Hills to Seven Hills, and I just couldn’t do it in the time without a car – so I take a hire car from the airport, fall back into the aircon, play some music and hit the traffic jams. Drop it back at the airport on my way out a few days later.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
4 Oct 12 at 12:05 pm
I think driverless cars will be very interesting I can see many in congested areas will not own a car but will call a driverless cab up when required as they will be so cheap due to no labour cost. It will put a lot of cars off the road. Parking will be dramatically improved. You won’t have to pay for parking when you get to work as driverless cab goes off to next fare.
Still have problem of large number of people wanting to get to work in same place at same time. The key issue there is town planning. Very tall skyscrapers concentrate huge numbers of people funnelling into one place at same time. People occupy workspace in 3 dimensional space ie height as well as length and breadth but people can only access in and out from the bottom. Restrict CBD buildings to say 10 storeys and make CBD surface area much bigger. Spreads people out and consequently the perimeter area they are trying to enter and exit from.
It will also be time to buy a pub. No more worries about blowing 0.05. You’ll have that 2nd beer and because you had the 2nd you’ll have the 3rd. Then providing voice recognition in driverless car is up to recognising slurred speech off you go to home, never driving under the influence.
kingsley
4 Oct 12 at 12:23 pm
The widespread nature of Sydney was already taking shape in the Macarthur era, when they had properties at the various ends of what’s now the metropolitan area, from Campbelltown to Parramatta and Bella Vista, while convicts worked on the Great North Road from Wiseman’s Ferry on the Hawkesbury, north of Castle Hill.
The North Shore above the main harbour was settled long before the motor car became an everyday thing.
blogstrop
4 Oct 12 at 12:28 pm
Back in the good old pre-DUI days I never had an accident, always made it home despite having a goodly quantity of drinks. Hardly go out these days though, good food, wine and entertainment all plentiful at home, and the risk of losing license means little or no socialising, or trips to jazz clubs.
blogstrop
4 Oct 12 at 12:34 pm
The widespread nature of Sydney didn’t mean it had to be filled in as a car-centric city, the problems of which were obvious to planners after the very first comprehensive implementation of that approach in the ’50s.
Jarrah
4 Oct 12 at 12:48 pm
From the 2010 IPART report:
Note that both metro and outer metro operate at a loss – its not the metro area cross subsidising the outer metro area.
Chris
4 Oct 12 at 1:03 pm
You are agglomerating metro and non metro data for public and privately owned companies.
Bugger off.
.
4 Oct 12 at 1:09 pm
The cost of a return train ticket from the airport to the CBD is around $28.
The trains on that line are the horrendous non airconditioned trains provided so graciously by laybore on the airport and inner west lines, the reasoning being they were safe laybore constituencies.
And in high Sydney summer (with the attendent humidity) there are few more unpleasant experiences than a non airconditioned Sydney train.
Rabz
4 Oct 12 at 1:28 pm
Jarrah is on the money there alright. Look at Brisbane. The older established suburbs on the north side of the river have roads that are narrow, winding goat tracks. Southside, developed mostly in the last fifty years, has wider roads and the housing is more spread out.
Entropy
4 Oct 12 at 1:49 pm
“Phillip Clarke on ABC RN interviewed an “expert” on urban planning who remains under the misapprehension that everything is still happening in the CBD.”
Valid point that there is plenty of activity outside the CBD, but for traffic jams CBD is king, and that’s what public transport theoretically addresses…
ads
4 Oct 12 at 1:50 pm
“The cost of a return train ticket from the airport to the CBD is around $28.”
Might as well catch a taxi. That’s what I do.
Jarrah
4 Oct 12 at 1:51 pm
“Jarrah is on the money there alright. Look at Brisbane. The older established suburbs on the north side of the river have roads that are narrow, winding goat tracks. Southside, developed mostly in the last fifty years, has wider roads and the housing is more spread out.”
And the South side is a much nicer place to live and travel around because of those facts.
Also public transport relies heavily on buses, which are much faster on the wider non-goat track roads.
I used to live on the inner North side, and moved to a similar distance out from the CBD on the south side. My commute went from 25 minutes to less than 10 every morning.
Point being that designing a city for cars also makes it more suitable for public transport – its not an “either-or” situation…
ads
4 Oct 12 at 2:07 pm
That doesn’t surprise me.
You’ll pay up to four as much or even more for a cab, especially if you need to go to the northern CBD.
It will also take a hell of a lot longer.
Rabz
4 Oct 12 at 2:11 pm
The cost of the driver isn’t the majority of the cost of the cab fare. I don’t know the numbers, but my guess would be that it wouldn’t be more than 10-15%.
The majority of costs for the cab is taxi plate return on investment, plus vehicle running costs. I’d say with driverless cabs, the only way the cost will go down is if more are allowed on the road. If the government sees it as a way to continue to extra rents on taxi licences the fare will not change.
Congestion will get worse with driverless cars because you’ll not only have 1-driver trips being made, but also zero-driver trips – empty cars driving around.
They will still improve things for inner-urban planning, including reduction in parking requirements as well as increased mobility for the afternoon drinkers, underage and overage passengers. The school run could be replaced with a car picking up 4 kids to deliver to a local neighbourhood, instead of 4 mums doing the retrieval from the same street. People too old for holding a licence may be able to stay independent for longer by owning their own driverless car.
But all this will require a free and open market in supplying driverless cars. Which means taking down ‘Big Taxi’.
My fervent wish for the upcoming driverless vehicle change is that driver licensing will become more difficult, and require more intensive driver training. This will remove numpties from the roads and leave them free for well-trained computers and those who actually take pride in driving their car.
brc
4 Oct 12 at 2:24 pm
More would be done in taxis if they were deregulated and the amortised scarcity value disappeared from teh price.
Roccoco Liberal
US cities are highly variable but the larger ones are not that much different from Australian cities. Journey to work modal split saw cars accounting for slightly larger share in Sydney in 2006.
US cities that have been the models for AUstralian planners have had massive rail spending and seen continuing decline in share. It is not a question of preferences, it is that the modern city has such dispersed orign and destination patterns that mass transit cannot work
2001 2006
Sydney 71 72
Melb 83 81
Brisbane 83 81
Perth 87 85
Alan Moran
4 Oct 12 at 2:48 pm
Not sure that’s universally true. In Adelaide a lot of the older suburbs have much wider residential streets than the newer suburbs. Though the “main roads” are narrower. The newer subdivisions often have stupidly narrow residential streets – can’t park cars on both side of the road. Even one car parked on the side of the road is quite obstructive so people often use up part of the footpath too
The old “high density” areas have pretty narrow streets though.
Very true. Wide residential roads are *much* better for cyclists too. I’m just glad I get to work from home and don’t have to worry too much about road congestion or how crap public transport generally is.
I suspect that for quite a few years driverless cars will in fact still be required to have a person with a valid drivers licence in the car to take over in case of emergencies. Not that they’ll necessarily be of much use in practice, but the government will take a very conservative line.
Chris
4 Oct 12 at 3:54 pm
“Note part of the strategy is to remove one big problem which is where roads force people to go through the city to get to destinations like the airport.”
I was impressed with Seattle, which had parallel motor ways either side of the CBD, so the CBD only had CBD traffic. Sydney’s real problem is that fucking great harbour which creeps into nooks and crannies everywhere. Beautiful harbour = transport nightmares, unfortunately.
Twodogs
4 Oct 12 at 4:25 pm
I think licensing is a major cost and there is no doubt that this should be reformed. However a driverless cab could be designed quite differently to today’s vehicles. For starters there is one more space for passengers. The front seats can face backwards creating a more sociable traveling space. And the same comfort and carrying capacity can probably be achieved in a smaller vehicle frame. So long term I think the costs could come down via vehicle design. Short term the major saving is the driver but even if the saving is only 10-15% this is nothing to snivel at. And you can also optimise such a fleet without the need to return to base every 12 hours for the shift hand over.
TerjeP
4 Oct 12 at 5:35 pm
Every government puts a lot of feel-good cycling shite into these plans. They never build any of it though. I’ve got a NSW cycle plan from 2000 – it promised lots of cash and new links, but very little of it has been built since.
Governments tax fuel because that’s where the money is (just as bank robbers rob banks). They don’t tax fuel to pay for roads – they tax fuel to raise revenue to spend on all sorts of tripe. The GST you just paid on a new pair of shoes doesn’t get spent on footpaths.
The money the RTA collects in fees, fines and levies is remitted straight to Treasury and ends up in Consolidated Funds. The details of this are spelled out in the RTA’s annual reports:
The money you spent on car registration, your driver’s license, speeding fines and fuel excise has not been extracted for improving roads – it has been extracted to pay for one-legged lesbian dwarf interpretive dance troupes, hordes of media advisers, school laptops that don’t work and so forth.
boy on a bike
4 Oct 12 at 6:59 pm
I’m surprised no one has mentioned arcologies. Ground level is open, apart from heavy lift shafts and building supports. It’s used for transporting goods.
First floor is open plaza reaching across to next mega building, and is a pedestrian only zone. The rest is a fifty story office, light manufacturing, retail, medical, and residence block. Every tenth floor can be open for winds and swimming pools, gardens, etc.
It would cover a couple of city blocks. Or five.
Winston Smith
4 Oct 12 at 7:20 pm
Treasury will always oppose hypothecation of taxes. I do not regard a general tax like GST as a payment for road use not fines etc.
But if you consider roads as a good that is like other goods paid for by the users then you would have to look to what the user is spending on the specific services and then you would conclude that was the demand for the goods. It is clear that if revenues from road use were down by half of their present levels much less would be spent on roads and that wold leave even less for lesbian dancing troops
Alan Moran
5 Oct 12 at 4:21 pm
The female soldiers in our new slimmed down, politically correct army, Alan?
Rabz
5 Oct 12 at 4:35 pm
“You’ll pay up to four as much or even more for a cab”
No, with two people a cab is actually cheaper than the enormous train fare.
Jarrah
5 Oct 12 at 5:20 pm
Cabs must be cheap there. Cab fare from my house to the Perth Airport is $60. There is no train.
Yobbo
5 Oct 12 at 5:51 pm
Except people don’t like traveling in that configuration.
JC
5 Oct 12 at 6:02 pm
“Cabs must be cheap there.”
I think the distances aren’t the same, rather than the price per kilometre
We don’t live a long way from the airport, so it’s typically under $30 for the cab fare.
Two adult one-way tickets on the train is $30.80. That doesn’t include the necessary changing of the line once in the city, or switching to bus to actually get home, which bumps up the price.
Jarrah
5 Oct 12 at 6:02 pm
We worked out that it was cheaper to park at the airport for a week than catch a cab there and back. Far more convenient too.
Infidel Tiger
5 Oct 12 at 6:06 pm
In Adelaide there used to be trams running up to the top of the Parade and Magill Road. They were stopped and the tracks were ripped up. At some future time, I’m guessing some public transport-happy State Government will put them back in again.
perturbed
6 Oct 12 at 1:45 am
FFS you are an obnoxious dickhead.
Stop contradicting me.
To catch a cab from the airport to the northern CBD would cost at least $60 one way and take longer.
I know this as I have compared the two options.
Rabz
6 Oct 12 at 7:39 am