This week in transport (22 June 2014)

Tuesday: Budget includes $60bn for infrastructure

The NSW Budget included funding for $60bn of planned infrastructure spending over the next 4 years. The spending includes new heavy rail lines (North West Rail Link, South West Rail Link), light rail lines (CBD and South East Light Rail, a yet undetermined light rail line from Parramatta), roads (WestConnex, NorthConnex, roads around Badgerys Creek in Western Sydney, Northern Beaches roads and Bus Rapid Transit), and new public transport vehicles (trains and buses).

Major transport infrastructure projects included in the 2014-15 NSW Budget. Click to enlarge. (Sources: NSW Treasury, Transport for NSW, Open Street Map.)

Wednesday: NWRL Skytrain construction begins

Construction has begun on the 4km Skytrain viaduct for the North West Rail Link (NWRL). Two stations, Kellyville and Rouse Hill, will be on this portion of the NWRL, elevated above the ground. It will also include a rail bridge crossing Windsor Road.

Video: NWRL Building Skytrain, Transport for NSW (17 June 2014)

Friday: New Rail Operations Centre for Sydney Trains

$11.4m will be spent this year to create a new Rail Operations Centre, which will consolidate the operations and communications functions that are currently geographically dispersed across Sydney. The concentration of these operations will allow for improved communications in responding to incidents on the network.

However, concentration of operations has been criticised in the past. Last year a fire at one of Sydney’s signal boxes (there are 19 in total, with most equipment concentrated in 2 depots) caused a virtual shut down of all trains for 30 minutes on the Sydney Trains network (other than the T4 line). The lack of contingency was blamed for the shut down, with no back up plan available to take over once the signal box was evacuated.

Friday: Transport Police make 5,000 arrests in 2 years

The Public Transport Command (PTC), police responsible for safety on public transport, was established in May 2012 and since then have issued 92,000 infringements, laid 9,000 charges, and made 5,000 arrests. Along with Transport Officers (responsible for checking that tickets are valid) the PTC replaced the old transit officers. Police and Transport Officers now patrol all forms of public transport (Transit Officers were only found aboard trains) but have been criticised for being fewer in number than the old Transit Officers.

When Libs came to Gov there were 600 Transit Officers & 300 commuter cops. Now 400 Police & 150 Transport Officers #SYDNEYTRAINS

— Penny Sharpe (@PennySharpemlc) June 2, 2014

2014 budget transport infrastructure summary

The 2014-15 NSW Budget contains $60bn of spending on infrastructure over the next 4 years. Major projects being funded are shown below.

Major transport infrastructure projects included in the 2014-15 NSW Budget. Click to enlarge. (Sources: NSW Treasury, Transport for NSW, Open Street Map.)

Highlights, along with the level of NSW Government funding and estimated completion dates, include:

• $8.3bn on the North West Rail Link, to be completed in 2019.
• $2.8bn on 65 new trains, to be completed in 2024.
• $1.8bn on the South West Rail Link, to be completed in 2015.
• $1.8bn on the WestConnex freeway: M4 East/M4 South/M5 East (topping up $1.5bn in Federal Government funding), to be completed in 2023.
• $1.6bn on the CBD and South East Light Rail, to be completed in 2019.
• $633m for roads improvements to the Northern Beaches, including kerbside Bus Rapid Transit, to be completed in 2019.
• $600m for roads around Badgerys Creek Airport (topping up $2.9bn in Federal Government funding), to be completed in 2024.
• $400m for light rail from Parramatta once a priority route has been identified (Parramatta to Macquarie Park shown in the map as a potential option) with no set timetable for completion.
• $400m on the NorthConnex freeway: M1 to M2 (topping up $400m in Federal Government funding), to be completed in 2019.
• $91m on 199 new buses to replace ageing buses and expand the fleet, announced in 2014.

Infrastructure contingent on the sale of the electricity distribution network: an under the Harbour Rail Crossing (previously cited at around $10bn) and Northern/Southern extensions to WestConnex ($1.5bn) have been omitted from this list, as has the Opal rollout ($1.5bn) and an M9 Outer Orbital freeway (uncosted).

Commentary: Is this worth it?

This budget appears to be seen as quite popular. So much so that the Sydney Morning Herald began the losers portion of its “Winners and Losers section with “There are few obvious losers in this year’s pre-election budget”. Ultimately this budget provides a way of achieving the infrastructure that Sydney desperately needs in order to sustain the additional housing construction that is required to accommodate the millions of new residents it will have by the middle of the century. Asset recycling, the sale of 49% of the electricity distribution network seems to be the only way to achieve this. However, as the Daily Telegraph’s Andrew Clennell quoted a “senior Labor MP [who said]: The poles and wires gives you 10 years, then what do you do? The sale of Sydney Water? Then what?”.

That question of how to fund infrastructure long term on an ongoing basis does not appear to have been answered yet. If it does get answered, the most likely response is higher taxes. So it that worth it? Quite possibly, though privatisation does give the state a decade or two before it needs to be answered.

Sydney buses moving in the right direction

Bus services in Sydney are operating well and are set to improve when compared to a survey of US bus operators showing what changes had been effective in improving travel times. However, the lack of traffic light priority, no plans for all door boarding for buses, and inability to design new motorways for express buses means these improvements will not be as effective as they otherwise could be.

The survey, included as part of a report called Commonsense Approaches for Improving Transit Bus Speeds, found 11 improvements used to increase bus speeds. Streetsblog USA has included a good summary of the report, parts of which have been quoted below. These are, from the improvements most widely implemented to least:

Consolidate stops

More than half of agencies have thinned bus stops, some by focusing on pilot corridors, and others by gradually phasing in policy changes. Many agencies moved stops to far side of intersections at stoplights, and 13 agencies adopted physical changes like longer bus stops or bulb-outs, which help passengers board faster and more conveniently.

Bus stops in Sydney are generally not found clumped together with 100m or 200m between them. However, the current plan is to ensure that bus stops are placed every 400m for most bus services, with “Rapid Bus” corridors having bus stops every 800m to 1km (Source: Transport for NSW, Sydney’s Bus Future, p. 6). Bus bays are also quite common.

Verdict: Currently often good, but being improved.

Streamline routes

Straightening out routes, trimming deviations, eliminating duplication, and shortening routes didn’t just simplify service, it also sped up service for two-thirds of the agencies that tried this approach.

The current CBD bus network is complex, inefficient, and leads to unnecessary congestion. The current proposal would consolidate buses into 3 main North/South corridors and 1 East/West corridor. Click to enlarge. (Source: Transport for NSW, Sydney’s Light Rail Future, p. 17)

Much of Sydney’s inner suburban bus network is a continuation of its old tram network, parts of which have been around for 100 years or more. The result is a tangled web of bus routes that are hard to interpret, include many deviations, and are often duplicated. Current plans involve simplifying the bus network to make “routes more direct, reduces duplication and increases the number of locations which customers can travel between by bus” (Source: Transport for NSW, Sydney’s Bus Future, p. 5), though details have been light beyond proposals for changes to the bus network following the opening of the CBD and South East Light Rail (CSELR) at the end of the decade (see image above). Proposed changes to the suburban bus network with the CSELR have more details, but as with the CBD changes these are 5-6 years away and are far from guaranteed.

Verdict: Currently not being achieved, the goal is in the right direction but plans are still sketchy.

Transit signal priority

The 22 agencies with signal priority can change stoplights for approaching buses. They mostly report a minor to moderate increase in bus speeds as a result. In fact, agencies singled out traffic engineering approaches like TSP as the closest to a “silver bullet,” one-step solution.

Traffic light priority for buses is theoretically possible in Sydney, but has been opposed by the RMS (and the RTA before that). Plans to introduce traffic light priority for the Parramatta to Rouse Hill T-Way were scrapped when it opened in 2007 because of RTA opposition. This remains the single improvement that could potentially provide the biggest improvement that has yet to be even partially implemented.

Verdict: This has been a missed opportunity.

UPDATE (30 April 2014): A Transport for NSW spokesperson has sought to clarify this issue by stating that “Bus prioritisation started at Sydney traffic intersections in 2006 when the first public services under the State Transit Authority began. The Public Transport Information Prioritisation System (PTIPS) tracks about 5,000 buses in real time across the Sydney, Wollongong and the Newcastle regions and allows the buses to be prioritised through some 1,000 intersections to provide reliable and on time bus services for customers.”

Fare policy

Several agencies changed fare structures or payment methods. The one agency that collects fares before passengers board, and lets them board at both bus doors, decreased bus running times by 9 percent.

Prepayment of bus fares was first trialed in Sydney in 2004, and has since been expanded to a number of bus routes and bus stops in high patronage areas of Sydney (Source: Sydney Buses, Prepay). The rollout of Opal readers to all buses during 2014 will further expand prepayment. However, there have been no announcements or plans to allow all door boarding of buses once Opal is fully rolled out.

Verdict: Good progress on prepayment of fares and introducing Opal, but could be better with all door boarding.

Bus Rapid Transit

Ten agencies combined multiple approaches on specific routes and launched BRT service. Of those that measured the impact, almost all reported a significant increase in speed, typically around 10 to 15 percent.

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) was first introduced to Sydney in 2004 with the Parramatta to Liverpool T-Way, then added to in 2007 with the Parramatta to Rouse Hill T-Way (Source: Roads and Maritime Authority, Sydney’s T-Ways). There were originally plans for additional T-Ways connecting Strathfield to Parramatta and then onto Blacktown as well as between St Marys and Penrith as well as others (Source: Transport Sydney, New Transport Plan for Sydney). Today, other corridors are under consideration for BRT or light rail, including Parramatta Road, Victoria Road, Anzac Parade, and the Northern Beaches (Source: Transport for NSW, Sydney’s Bus Future, p. 6).

Verdict: Positive achievements in the past, with a promising future of further expansion.

Vehicle changes

More than half of agencies have moved to low-floor buses, which reduce loading times by one second per passenger. Smaller buses might be more maneuverable in traffic, and ramps can speed loading for wheelchairs and bicycles.

Since the passage of the Disability Discrimination Act (1992) by the Commonwealth Government, accessible public transport has been made a legislative requirement. Though a long lead in time has been allowed for existing vehicles, noticeable improvements have been made. For example, the proportion of low floor buses in service has increased from 38% in 2007 to 73% in 2012 (Source: Transport for NSW, Disability Action Plan, p. 17). Government operated STA buses are more likely to be low floor, 75% of publicly operated buses are low floor compared to 70% for private operators, but the gap between public and private has narrowed. Transport for NSW has set itself the aim of having entirely accessible services by 2022.

Verdict: Good progress in the past, with the achievable goal of 100% accessibility by 2022.

Limited stop service

Although new limited-stop services offered only minor to moderately faster speeds, it’s a simple step and 18 agencies reported launching new limited routes.

Limited stop services currently exist, and these are being expanded and standardised with plans to introduce “Rapid Bus” services with stop spacings of 800m to 1km (Source: Transport for NSW, Sydney’s Bus Future, p. 6).

Verdict: Good usage in the past and into the future.

Bus lanes

Dedicated lanes are used by 13 agencies, and one reported that “most routes are on a bus lane somewhere.” When implemented on wide arterial streets, this moderately improves speeds.

Bus lanes were first introduced into Sydney in 1992 and today there are 90km of bus lanes on Sydney streets (Source: Roads and Maritime Service, Bus lanes). Additional bus lanes are regularly considered and added as needed and appropriate.

Verdict: Good usage in the past and into the future.

Adjust schedules

Almost all of the surveyed agencies have adjusted running time, recovery times (the time spent turning the bus), or moved to more flexible ”headway schedules.” All of these actions improve on-time performance reliability for customers, and reduce the need for buses to sit if they’re running early.

Some tight schedules currently mean that buses sometimes do not begin their route on time, negatively affecting reliability. Infrequent services make this worse, with “bunching” of buses forcing passengers to wait long periods between bus services. More frequent bus services, which rely on short headways for “turn up and go” services rather than reliance on a timetable, would improve this. This was partly achieved with metrobuses, introduced in 2008 to run at 10 minute frequencies in the peak and 15 minutes in the off-peak, but these are limited in coverage. It will be further improved with rapid and suburban bus services as they are introduced over time (Source: Transport for NSW, Sydney’s Bus Future, p. 6).

A Metrobus on George St in the Sydney CBD. Click to enlarge. (Source: Author)

Verdict: Room for improvement, with plans promising but lacking in detail.

Signal timing

Synchronized stoplights along transit routes can make sure that buses face more green lights than red, but only have a mild impact on operating speeds.

As with traffic light priority, this is theoretically possible but has not been implemented.

Verdict: This has been a missed opportunity.

Express service on freeways

This strategy had the largest impact on speeding up buses for the three agencies that tried it.

Bus lanes along the M2 motorway in Sydney’s North West, along with bus stations in the median and routing most of these buses through the Lane Cove Tunnel through to the Sydney CBD, has easily achieved this goal. However, other motorways have not been designed with bus services in mind, particularly the M7 which provides a North-South connection in Western Sydney. This is the one area where Sydney has taken a step backwards.

Verdict: Excellent achievement with the M2, but few accomplishments since then.

Summary

Overall, Sydney is doing well in improving its bus services. They are accessible, contain bus lanes as well as BRT, often feature prepayment of fares, and have limited stop services with fewer stops to improve speed. For the most part, Sydney has also been moving in the right direction. But in order to improve services further, serious consideration needs to be given to traffic light priority and signal timing, allowing all door boarding once Opal is rolled out, and designing new motorways with bus services in mind.

A Sydney CBD shuttle bus. Click to enlarge. (Source: Author)

Sydney’s bus future

13 rapid bus routes featuring high frequencies all day and with stops as far as 1km apart are to be created in coming years as part of a state government initiative to revamp Sydney’s bus network. These will be supplemented by an additional 20 suburban routes, which retain the traditional 400m stop spacing and often act as feeder services to heavy rail, light rail, or rapid bus routes. Altogether, 1.5m people will live within a 10 minute walk of a bus stop for one of these 33 routes, while 90% of Sydney’s population will remain within 400m of a bus stop.

Proposed rapid and suburban bus routes for Sydney. Click to enlarge. (Source: Sydney Bus Future, pp. 18-19)

Longer stop spacing will allow for faster journeys. For example, the duration of a trip from Ryde to the CBD would drop from 37 minutes to 25-30 minutes. But it would require some passengers to walk further to reach the nearest bus stop, sometimes 400m-600m further.

Frequencies would also be guaranteed between the hours of 6AM and 7PM, with 5-10 minute frequencies in the weekday peak and 10-15 minute frequencies in the weekday off-peak or weekends. Currently, only metrobuses offer this sort of frequency guarantee, and then only run at 20 minute frequencies in the evening and on weekends.

Though most of Sydney is within 400m of public transport (left), only small parts of it are close to frequenct transport all day (right). The new rapid and suburban routes will aim to increase this coverage. Click to englarge. (Source: Sydney Alliance.)

This would therefore represent a significant improvement to Sydney’s all day high frequency network, as measured by areas within 400m of a transport service every 15 minutes every day of the week. This network currently exists for parts of Inner Sydney, but is woefully inadequate for most of Western Sydney.

Click to enlarge

This all makes a rebranding of Sydney’s buses much more likely. Previously, buses were branded based on the operator. Currently all buses are being given the Transport for NSW sky blue bus colours, except for the red metrobuses and green shuttle buses. This new proposal would convert this into a different 3-tiered system, with rapid, suburban, and local buses.

Buses in Sydney used to be branded based on operator, such as STA (top left) or Hillsbus (top right). Today the are being converted to be branded by purpose, such as shuttle bus (bottom left) or metrobus (bottom right). The next move appears to move to a rapid, suburban, local bus structure. Click to enlarge. (Source: Author.)

Bus Rapid Transit is also put forward as a future possibility for 3 corridors: Parramatta Road, Victoria Road, and the Northern Beaches, while the report also suggests a possible extension of the currently under construction light rail line on Anzac Parade South of Kingsford as well as construction of the Western Sydney Light Rail Network proposed by the Parramatta City Council.

The tram vs bus debate

When the Southeast light rail line is completed at the end of this decade there will almost certainly be an increase in patronage along the Anzac Parade to CBD corridor. Whoever is transport minister at the time will point out that the number of bus plus tram passengers in the first few months after opening is higher than the number of bus passenger in the equivalent number of months before opening. They will then say that this is due to trams being faster, more reliable, frequent, and having a higher capacity than buses. The newspaper headlines will declare that this correlation has been caused by trams, and the (wo)man on the street will declare his (or her) support for trams as “much better than buses”. Except it’s not quite true.

Patronage will almost certainly be higher, and it will be caused by better speed/reliability/frequency/capacity. But only the last of those 4 (capacity) is an inherent benefit of light rail. Speed is a function of things like stop spacing, on board vs off board fare payments, and top vehicle speed. Reliability is a function of things like exclusive rights of way and grade separation. Frequency is a function of how many vehicles are available and the demand for transport along that particular corridor. All of these are just as applicable to buses as they are to trams. In other words, you don’t need a $1.6bn upgrade to light rail to achieve them.

(Source: Sydneys Light Rail Future, page 10)

Take the dot points on the bottom half of this table which the government uses to sell the benefits of trams:

1. The first point is frequency. Ironically, frequency is actually hindered by tram’s higher capacity, as one tram is able to carry as many passengers as multiple buses, and so the higher number of buses required to carry the same number of passengers will (all else equal) result in higher frequencies for buses than trams.
2. The second point is reliability. A reliable service can be provided through the use of bus lanes and grade separation at intersections (i.e. a bridge over the intersection or a tunnel underneath it). Both of these are in place in the Northwest T-Way for buses between Parramatta and Rouse Hill.
3. The third point is speed. Both buses and trams are capable of the 80kn/hour top speed along this route. So the actual determinant of average speed is things like widely spaced stops and off vehicle fare payment. The former can be achieved by buses through express or limited stop services, while the latter has been achieved at busy bus stops through the purchase or validation of a bus ticket before entering the bus, and will soon be universal once Opal is introduced. All door boarding can also increase speed through reduced dwell times, but can be done on buses as well as trams.
4. Points four through six could just as easily be implemented on buses
5. The points on improved amenity on the right are all to do with the fact that the light rail vehicles are new. But new buses also share these features, such as low floors, air conditioning, real time information, etc.

All this leaves capacity, which is a real and tangible benefit of light rail over buses. Trams carry more people per vehicle, and as there is only a certain number of vehicles of any type that can run on a particular corridor before that corridor (road or rail) becomes congested and capacity becomes limited, putting trams on a busy corridor can increase its capacity (just as replacing light rail with heavy rail can increase capacity there). Jarrett Walker at Human Transit spoke of this concept as getting causation the wrong way round: high patronage causes the roll-out of trams, rather than the roll-out of trams causing high patronage.

Despite all this, and to undermine the entire argument made so far, the higher capacity of trams does actually allow the government to focus its attention on that particular corridor and implement many of the things mentioned earlier. For example, the new light rail line will have an exclusive right of way for its entire alignment 24/7, something that would not be possible with just buses as they require multiple corridors to achieve the same capacity. For this reason, the move to convert the Anzac Parade bus corridor into a tram corridor will still provide tangible benefits that could not be achieved with buses alone.

Greiner’s resignation a win for public transport advocates

This week’s announced dual resignations of Nick Greiner and Paul Broad, the Chairman and CEO of Infrastructure NSW (iNSW), was the eventual result of a battle of ideas within the NSW Government. On one side was those who supported a large scale expansion of Sydney’s roads network via aggressive use of toll roads, a view shared  by Mr Greiner, Mr Broad, iNSW, and the Daily Telegraph. On the other was those who supported a large scale expansion of Sydney’s public transport capacity with a focus on the rail network, a view supported by Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian, Transport for NSW (TfNSW), and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Nick Greiner, Infrastructure NSW Chairman and former NSW Premier (Source: Infrastructure NSW)

The two government departments each championed their view via separate policy documents. TfNSW published the Transport Masterplan, which called for light rail on George St and a Second Harbour Rail Crossing. iNSW published the State Infrastructure Plan, which called for a CBD Bus Tunnel and extension of the Eastern Suburbs Railway, which rejecting both light rail on George St and the Second Harbour Rail Crossing. TfNSW responded by itself rejecting the Bus Tunnel and not incorporating the extended Eastern Suburbs Line into the final version of its plan. The NSW Government adopted both of the TfNSW proposals, but never of iNSW’s. Given the option, e government sided with TfNSW every single time its department disagreed with iNSW.

Part of the media circus around this revolves around a misunderstanding of the role of iNSW. It is often compared to Infrastructure Australia (IA), which is tasked with evaluating transport projects and determining which will get government funding, a process designed to take the politics out of the decision. But while IA is staffed by former Transport Department bureaucrats and in in charge of distributing funding from the federal government, iNSW is staffed by former Treasury bureaucrats and is in charge of obtaining funding from the private sector.

The role of iNSW is not, and should not be to determine, design, or deliver transport projects. Where it has, it has failed. The CBD Bus Tunnel was discredited and rejected by TfNSW on the basis that it lacked integration, did not provide opportunities for urban renewal, lacked a viable corridor for construction, and cost 4 times as much as the light rail option, amongst other reasons (Source: Sydney’s Light Rail Future, pages 25-26). The WestConnex’s slot idea for Parramatta Road, initially conceived as an innovative way to build the M4 East at a lower cost than a tunnel, turned out to be more expensive than a tunnel and has now been scrapped because iNSW did not do its homework. Even the first project set to be administered by iNSW, the temporary Glebe Island convention centre, will now not happen. It is now clear that iNSW has been ineffective at determining, designing, or delivering transport projects, and should leave this to the experts at TfNSW while it sticks to what it can do – obtain private sector funding for PPP projects.

This might have been fine, had Mr Greiner considered himself a valued contributor to the NSW Government. But as has been demonstrated, the Premier Barry O’Farrell sided with his Transport Minister over his Infrastructure Tsar every time Ms Berejiklian and Mr Greiner had a disagreement. Disappointed by his inability to convince the NSW Government on issues like those mentioned, as well as things like privatising the state owned poles and wires in order to fund additional infrastructure, it was clear that someone had to go. And that meant that Mr Greiner and Mr Broad’s resignations became an inevitability.

They will be missed by some, such as the Daily Telegraph’s state political editor Andrew Clennell, who believes that “it’s ended in tears” and that “the danger is now, with a cautious poll-driven premier, nothing will get built”. But few tears are likely to be shed by those who have advocated for a greater focus on public transport, rather than on roads.

Improving transport in Western Sydney

One criticism sometimes raised on the O’Farrell government’s transport policies are that all new transport projects are CBD centric. The Northwest Rail Link (NWRL) and Southwest Rail Link (SWRL) will both funnel commuters into the CBD, as will the Southeast and Inner West Light Rail Lines aswell as the Northern Beaches BRT. But what about Western Sydney? The previous Labor government, for all its shortcomings, did build the Y-Link at Harris Park that enabled the Cumberland Line and also constructed the Northwest and Southwest T-Ways, all of which were Parramatta centric rather than CBD centric.

These comments are almost always followed up by calls for the construction of some new transport line in Western Sydney, be it re-routing the NWRL via Parramatta, building the Parramatta to Epping Rail Link, or the creation of a Western Sydney Light Rail network. If resources were unlimited, then construction on all of these would begin tomorrow. But they are not, so it poses the question: given the limited transport budget, what would provide the largest benefit to Western Sydney for the smallest cost?

Current transport infrastructure in Western Sydney that is currently underutilised: the Cumberland Line in red and the bus T-Ways in blue, as well as the proposed Parramatta to Epping Rail Link in purple. Click on image for higher resolution. (Source: Open Street Map.)

A counter-argument to this is that rather than suffering from underinvestment, Western Sydney instead suffers from poor planning. So rather than building new infrastructure  the government should instead first seek to fully utilise existing infrastructure. The Cumberland Line, for example, runs only 5 trains per day. Yet because this line branches out at Granville, about half the trains go South to Liverpool and half go West to Blacktown, there is plenty of spare capacity on it. It would be quite easy to run 2 or even 4 trains an hour in each direction on this line all day. The T-Ways, while currently providing good service with 10-15 minute frequencies all day (and as many as 20 buses during the busiest hour in the AM and PM), could easily scale this up even further. A lack of layover space for buses in Parramatta’s CBD means buses may need to be through-routed past Parramatta and end their route elsewhere, but this would also have the added benefit of providing additional direct links to Parramatta.

The main reason why this does not happen is the political benefit from it is small compared to new construction. “Government to build new rail line to XYZ” makes a great headline, whereas “Government to provide additional frequencies on existing line with spare capacity” does not. Here the O’Farrell government should learn from the Carr Government’s Clearways Program, which sought to increase the capacity of the Cityrail network by targeting bottlenecks and pinch points in the existing network, rather than increasing capacity by building new lines. It did not get the sort of headlines that the NWRL, SWRL, or WestConnex have, but it achieved the sorts of benefits of these new projects at a fraction of the cost.

Robertson outlines transport vision

The NSW Government has ignored Western Sydney and the advice of its independent advisory body, Infrastructure NSW, according to Opposition Leader John Robertson in a speech yesterday to the Rail Future Conference. He also accused the government of mismanaging those projects currently underway, pointing to cost blow-outs, choosing projects with a poor cost-benefit ratio, and lacking either a start or end date for construction.

Today I gave a major speech on Labor’s transport priorities to the Sydney Rail Future Conference 2013. To read my... http://t.co/llYnVCJaWx

— John Robertson (@jrobertsonmp) February 28, 2013

Mr Robertson defended the previous Labor Government’s record on transport, admitting that while he is “the first to admit that the previous Labor Government made its share of mistakes” that it also had its fair share of achievements.

“The South West Rail Link – planned and construction commenced under Labor, leaving the incoming Government with little but a ribbon to cut. The creation of rail clearways – a first step towards untangling Sydney’s spaghetti of lines. Rolling stock renewal through the acquisition of 35 Millennium trains, 55 Oscars and 78 Waratahs. The Inner West Light Rail Line. The Epping-Chatswood Rail Link. Dozens of commuter car parks and easy access upgrades. The $100 million state-of-the-art bus interchange at Parramatta railway station. And an innovative new system of Metrobuses.” – John Robertson, Opposition Leader (28 February 2013)

John Robertson, NSW Opposition Leader (Image: NSW Parliament)

Many of these achievements should not be understated. Clearways sought to improve the existing network rather than just add new lines, leading to higher capacity and greater reliability. The new rolling stock listed represents a renewal of about half of Cityrail’s electric trains over a period of about a decade. Metrobuses, which introduced the concept of through-routing and certainty over all day frequency, are a fantastic addition to the Sydney transport system, and one which should be expanded. Mr Robertson failed to mention other improvements, such as the introduction of myZone – which was a (baby) step towards integrated fares, the construction of T-Ways from Parramatta to Rouse Hill and Liverpool – allowing fast and reliable bus services to and from Parramatta, or the Unsworth Review – which brought planning for bus routes under central control but established an effective way for private companies to operate them. All of these are positive, and should be remembered every time Labor’s failures (which were more than its fair share, as Mr Robertson claims) are raised.

Where Mr Robertson’s speech falls short is in providing a positive vision for transport in Sydney, it is instead a critique of the government’s policy, what he doesn’t stand for rather than what he does.

“Taxpayers are forking out $17 million a year on Infrastructure NSW – only for the Government to ignore its advice.” – John Robertson, Opposition Leader (28 February 2013)

His attack on Infrastructure NSW shows a misunderstanding of the purpose of that body. Mr Robertson compares the ignorance of Infrastructure SWN to Infrastructure Australia, who’s advice is used to fund various infrastructure projects around the country. But Infrastructure NSW is not designed to hand out funding, it is designed to attract funding, primarily from the private sector via Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). That is why its board includes members with expertise in PPPs – such as Chairman Nick Greiner or board member Max Moore-Wilton. When it comes to making policy decision on which transport project to fund, the government instead relies on Transport for NSW, as it should.

“We have a Government stubbornly committed to its flagship project, the North West Rail Link. One that has been approved outside the Infrastructure NSW process…that Mr Greiner says has a low cost-benefit ratio and is being built for political reasons.” – John Robertson, Opposition Leader (28 February 2013)

In his introduction, Mr Robertson presents transport in Sydney as a choice between differerring options. One of these options is between the North West Rail Link (NWRL) and the Parramatta to Epping Rail Link (PERL). He then all but endorses the PERL as a preferred option, while attacking the NWRL for its low cost-benefit ratio. Problematic here is that he relies on Mr Greiner’s judgement, someone who would generally prefer private road projects than public rail ones, and so would most likely also attack the PERL for the same reasons. In fact, this is exactly what Infrastructure Australia Chairman Michael Deegan did when he said that “the Parramatta-Epping rail link…is not on Infrastructure Australia’s priority list” (7 May 2012). Criticising a project for being political in nature, only to put forward an alternative that is just as, if not more political, is not convincing from a policy perspective.

“The problem with the O’Farrell Government’s transport priorities is that they’re completely at odds with Western Sydney’s emerging needs…It has ignored Western Sydney’s exponential population growth, its high car dependency and low residential density…And it has provided no new vision for Western Sydney bus routes and transitways.” – John Robertson, Opposition Leader (28 February 2013)

These words presented the best opportunity for Mr Robertson to attack the government and present a viable alternative. It is very true that the current NSW Government has very little in the way of transport improvements for Western Sydney. But instead of using this as the basis for something transformative, Mr Robertson uses it as a soap box to all but call for the construction of the PERL. Yet this falls right into the narrative of an expensive project that sucks out the capital works budget for the entire region, the very criticism aimed at the government on the NWRL, Second Harbour Crossing, WestConnex, and South East Light Rail. Not only would this project be expensive, but it fails to fit into the dispersed and low density urban form that he himself speaks of.

Frequency transport map for Sydney. The left shows all areas within 400m of public transport, while the right shows the same but only for services with 15 minute frequencies. Click on image for higher resolution. (Source: Sydney Alliance.)

But his words on a new vision on buses is where he really drops the ball. Here he could have easily have made a commitment to raise bus frequencies to 15 minutes or better all day all across Western Sydney. It would help to solve the problem he had just described: “the Sydney Alliance produced maps showing which parts of Sydney are within 400 metres walking distance of public transport…where a service comes at least every 15 minutes across the day…as soon as you start going west from Strathfield, the map looks pretty bleak”. But instead he opted to talk about the PERL, without ever actually committing to it.

This month will be the mid point between the 2011 election and 2015 election. In that time the NSW Labor Party has barely closed the gap in the polls. Mr Robertson’s speech contained some positive vision, but it was drowned out by the negativity. That is not to say that the opposition should not hold the government to account, but if it then fails to present its own vision, an alternative, then it is likely to stay in opposition for quite some time.

Pointing out Labor’s past achievements are a good start. Now how about telling us what you will do in the future, Mr Robertson?

NWRL metro follow-up

Friday’s post on whether the Northwest Rail Link (NWRL) should be a metro generated a large volume of comments, sufficient enough to warrant a new post to present some highlights and respond to the points raised in them. It’s worth reading the original post for some context if you have not already done so.

The NWRL alignment. Click on image for higher resolution. (Source: Transport for NSW.)

Signaling

“People have commented that the dwell time at Town Hall, the most densely used station is rarely more than one minute, loading and unloading takes less and trains wait for their timetable departure – this means that 2 minute headways through the existing City Tunnels are feasible. Halving the existing signal spacing on the North Shore Line and the Bridge would enable trains to run closer together.” – Dudley Horscroft

“If headways could be reduced to 2 minutes with improved signalling I believe that double decker stock will move more people per hour than single deck.” – moonetau

The argument here is that signalling will allow double deck trains to achieve the same frequency that moving to single deck would provide. The problem with that argument is that the same signalling would also improve the frequency of single deck trains, so single deck would still achieve greater frequency and lower headways than double deck. That is why the single deck Paris metro can run 40 trains per hour, while its double deck RER system runs 30 trains per hour.

Smaller tunnels

“Certainly building the tunnels so that double deck trains will not be able to use the NWRL is crazy. It means that in the future someone will have to design future double deck trains to fit into the smaller diameter tunnels! Reports indicate that the reduction will be only 400 mm.” – Dudley Horscroft

Smaller tunnels remains the least defensible part of the NWRL as proposed. Concerns like this are justified.

NWRL decisions are political

“It is easy to criticise the NWRL given many of the decisions have been made for political rather than operational reasons. The desire to separate it from Cityrail is to weaken the role transport unions will have in running it. Rightly or wrongly the current government believes all the problems with Cityrail are down to the staff.” – Jim

“I would include the entire decision to build the line as one being made for political rather than operational reasons.” – Simon

The decision to build the NWRL as an independent line, to be operated privately, does appear to be an ideological one based on the belief that the transport union is at least partly to blame for Cityrail’s high operating costs. Jeff Kennett’s Liberal government in Victoria took such an approach when it eliminated guards from its trains in the 1990s. However, while these decisions were political, they most definitely do have operational impacts, ones which in the Victorian case resulted in an improvement rather than deterioration to the transport system. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

Widening the stairs and/or doors

“There is no reason that stairs should restrict the access to and from the decks – the trains are about 3 metres wide, and half this could be stairs from top deck with the other half stairs from the lower deck.” – Dudley Horscroft

The problem with widening the stairs, is that it doesn’t eliminate the bottleneck, it only shifts it deeper into the train carriage. The space between seats in the saloons upstairs and downstairs is only wide enough for 1 passenger at a time to approach the stairs, so even if the stairs are wide enough to handle 2 passengers, only 1 will reach it at a time. Removing seats can allow more passengers to reach the stairs, but by getting rid of seats you are eliminating the primary advantage of double deck trains over single deck ones – higher seated capacity.

“Introduction of carriages with 3 wide doors per carriage like the MI09 on the Paris RER line A will significantly reduce dwell times.“ – moonetau

Double deck trains on the Parisian RER system do achieve lower dwell times, allowing them to have headways as low as 2 minutes (compared to Cityrail’s 3 minutes). However, it remains a fact that Paris’ single deck metro trains still have lower headways at 85 seconds.

“Moonetau is right re “Current two door per side double deck rolling stock is half of the problem.” Three doors would be better, but inserting an extra door in the middle of a car would be rather difficult to say the least. Better to add an extra wide door at each end of the car where there would be less of a problem, the floor is already at platform height. This would give 32 doors per 4 car set, 30 if it is not possible to fit in an extra door adjacent to the driver’s compartment. Together with improved internal stairs this should markedly reduce dwell time.” – Dudley Horscroft

Similarly as with stairs, widening doors would not decrease dwell times as they are not the bottleneck. Wider doors with single deck trains, however, would see a drop in dwell times.

Global economic arc

“What bothers me about running this line as a metro is that is it connecting the least densely populated suburbs of Sydney with the ‘global arc’.

It is servicing semi-rural suburban areas and ignoring the most densely populated suburbs. That’s what metros should be doing; servicing high density areas and doing so quickly.” – Thought

“The fact that that there may be significant numbers alighting /boarding at global arc stations does not really matter as they will never reach the number of transfers TH and Wynyard (must be nearly 40,000 per hour in the am peak) and will not influence dwell times.” – moonetau

There is much uncertainty about this. Take, for example, the fact that more resident of North West Sydney work in the Global Economic Arc (7.7%) than in the CBD (7.3%), or that places like Macquarie Park are forecast to see a high rate of jobs growth in coming decades. While Northwest Sydney is mostly low density suburbia, the areas around the corridor of the NWRL are not, and will only get more dense once the line is up and running.

It might be that these stations North of the Harbour do not get the sort of passenger turnover that the CBD does. But they will certainly have a similar or higher level of turnover as other inner-city stations on the network. Given single deck metros are more suited to high turnover style patronage, that is why the NWRL would still work as a metro despite it’s long distance.

Non-CBD connections

“How would one from Parramatta or Burwood or Mascot get to Macquarie Park easily? They can’t.

A similar proportion of residents in the Hills work in Parramatta as they do in Sydney for example. Who has encountered the traffic streaming down Windsor and Old Windsor Roads?” – Thought

“We are still basing transport planning on getting in and out of the city when the majority of journeys are across the suburban area. Many people from the Hills area work in Parramatta to Penrith and many people who work in the Hills come from the western suburbs. They are ignored by the city centric planners.” – Jim

These are valid concerns, but have little or nothing to do with the type of line that the NWRL should be. Whether it is single deck or double deck, it still will not serve the sorts of connections listed above.

However, in the defence of the NWRL, traffic on the M2 is much worse than the Old Windsor or Windsor Rd in my experience. So if tackling congestion is the top criteria, then a Hills to Macquarie Park link is more important than a Hills to Parramatta link (which does currently exist in the form of the Northwest T-Way). Additionally, the NWRL appears to have been criticised simultaneously in parts for both not connecting to the CBD (despite connecting North Shore trains set to arrive every 3 minutes in peak hour) and for being CBD centric (despite linking up the Northwest with the Global Economic Arc, which employs more residents of Northwest Sydney than the CBD does).

Light rail and 2nd Harbour Crossing get the go ahead

The government released the final version of its Transport Masterplan earlier today, along with the light rail feasibility study (Sydney’s Light Rail Future), in which it announced its final decision on some key transport projects. The uncertainty stemmed from differing reports handed down by both Transport for NSW (the Transport Masterplan) and Infrastructure NSW (First Things First), which the government had to reconcile. Where both reports agreed, the recommendations were adopted, and where they conflicted, Transport for NSW got the final say every time. As a result, a 2nd Harbour Crossing will be happening, the CBD bus tunnel has been rejected, light rail will be built all the way from Circular Quay to Randwick (rather than a truncated version from Central to Randwick), and a second Sydney Airport at Badgerys Creek was rejected. I think the last one was the wrong call, but it’s more of an issue for the federal government, so it’s not too concerning.

The proposed CBD portion of the light rail line. Click on image for higher resolution. (Source: Sydney Light Rail Futures, page 14.)

The most high profile debate was between light rail on George St or a bus tunnel through the CBD. While I didn’t agree with everything in the Infrastructure NSW Report, one thing I did appreciate about it was how it prioritised the projects with lower cost to the taxpayer, thus ensuring that more of them could be built. It did this through user pays tollways, finding ways to get more out of the existing infrastructure, looking for ways of obtaining the same outcome for a lower cost, etc. It was therefore quite strange to see this report endorsing the bus tunnel option, which cost $2bn, over light rail through the CBD, the George St portion of which cost $500m. The reason for this appears to be that Infrastructure NSW set out with the goal of finding out how to make sure light rail didn’t happen, rather than finding the best way of maximising mobility for the greatest number of people. As a result, it ended up with this bizarre recommendation.

Transport for NSW tears the bus tunnel to shreds:

It would not be feasible to build an underground tunnel between Wynyard and Town Hall due to existing building basements and tunnels. In addition, ventilation, access and safety are significant viability issues.

To provide the necessary bus capacity, the bus tunnel would need to be four lanes wide and provide wide platforms. This is likely to be physically unfeasible and economically unviable.

Infrastructure NSW has estimated it would cost $2 billion to build a tunnel in the CBD. The city component of the CBD and South East Light Rail project is a quarter of the cost – about $500 million – and will deliver significantly greater benefits for Sydney.

Building connections to the Cross City Tunnel and Sydney Harbour Bridge, redeveloping two major train stations and building a new bus tunnel will present a number of untested construction impacts on the CBD. Building new bus stations would have an impact on the operation of Town Hall and Wynyard Stations, affecting the journey of approximately 140,000 passengers every weekday. – Transport for NSW (13 Dec, 2012), Sydney’s Light Rail Future (page 26)

Ultimately the debate within cabinet appeared to boil down to 2 things: cost and disruption. The cost, at $500m, was not insignificant, but much cheaper than the alternative of the bus tunnel, and though doing nothing would have been cheaper, it was probably not seen as a viable option. Cabinet was also concerned about disruption to the CBD right around the next election in 2015, so work will instead begin on the Randwick to Central Station portion, before starting on the George St portion later on.

The currently proposed route for light rail from Circular Quay to Randwick and Kingsford. Click on image for higher resolution. (Source: Sydney’s Light Rail Future, page 15.)

All up, the new light rail line will cost $1.6bn in total to build, and will not open until 2019 or 2020 when the entire line is completed. When it does, it will be accompanied by a restructure of many of the bus routes through the city. The current bus routes is a spaghetti map of confusing and cris-crossing lines through the CBD. This will change, with buses to travel along one of 4 major corridors: 3 North-South corridors (Elizabeth St, Clarence St/York St, and Sussex St) plus one East-West corridor (Park St/Druitt St). This will allow for a simpler network that relies on high frequencies and interchanges by commuters. Integrated fares are an essential reform required to make sure that this works, allowing commuters to pay the same to get from A to B, regardless of how they get there, rather than the current situation where they are penalised financially for the inconvenience of having to make an interchange. Word is that cabinet will make a decision on fares in the new year, and this simple decision could possibly be the most important one that it makes in regards to transport.

Once light rail is operating in the Sydney CBD, buses will be rerouted to one of 4 corridors. This will simplify the existing network, ensuring high frequencies and an easy to understand network for commuters. Click on image for higher resolution. (Source: Sydney’s Light Rail Future, page 17.)

The report also talks about considering further light rail in the longer term (10 to 20 years or further into the future). These include Victoria Rd, Parramatta Rd, an extension South to Maroubra or Malabar from Kingsford along Anzac Parade, an extension to Barangaroo from Circular Quay along Walsh Bay, and Parramatta Council’s Western Sydney light rail. The draft Transport Masterplan suggests the highest priority will go to light rail on Victoria Rd (though it might potentially end up as Bus Rapid Transit), though I’d give the Western Sydney light rail proposal a wild card chance of happening, particularly if it utilises the Carlingford Line to connect Parramatta to Macquarie Park.

George St Light Rail vs CBD Bus Tunnel

When Infrastructure NSW suggested the state government build a rapid bus transit (BRT) tunnel underneath the Sydney CBD, it caught most people following the issue by surprise. The idea, still embryonic, has not been looked at in detail, and lacks any form of substantial feasibility study – unlike the idea of putting light rail along George St which the BRT tunnel is meant to replace. These two projects have now been pitted against each other, with a meeting of cabinet this week expected to determine which one will be funded and built by the government.

But are these two projects mutually exclusive? A recent meeting at the Sydney Town Hall hosted by Lord Mayor Clover Moore suggested that this was an either/or situation. This meeting was almost unanimous in its support for light rail, a view shared by the Sydney Morning Herald, but not Heath Aston, the state political editor of its sister publication the Sun Herald, who decided to back the BRT tunnel.

A map of the proposed George St light rail (green) and the BRT tunnel (red). Click on image for higher resolution. (Source: author.)

The two actually serve different corridors through the CBD: the BRT tunnel will link buses that enter the CBD from the Anzac and Harbour Bridges which run along the Western corridor of York and Clarence Streets, while light rail would replace buses from the Eastern Suburbs that predominantly use the Central and Eastern corridors of George and Elizabeth Streets. (It’s true that the BRT tunnel will also take buses from Broadway, via George St, but this will require them to be re-routed from Circular Quay in the East to Wynyard to the West.) So it can’t be for that reason.

The actual reason appears to have more to do with budgetary constraints. With each project estimated to cost $1bn-$2bn (depending on what assumptions are used), the government is likely to only have the cash to build one of the two, and that is the reason why this is an either/or situation.

And though I have rubbished the current plan for the BRT tunnel as one that “needs to die an unholy death”, it’s a concept that’s not entirely without merit. For example, it would greatly enhance the ability for buses to throughroute, effectively joining 2 bus lines that enter the CBD from opposite ends, halving the number of vehicles required to operate the same number of services and providing passengers with greater cross city connections. It could also provide additional space for bus interchanges, and place them closer to train stations to make multi-modal trips easier. It seems almost a no brainer to use the platforms at Wynyard Station previously used for trams crossing the Harbour Bridge and terminating in the CBD, but converted to handle buses now crossing the Bridge.

Where the BRT tunnel falls short is that Infrastructure NSW has clearly come up with this idea to convince the government to trash George St light rail, rather than because it fits into a bigger picture of transport planning, like the idea that there are multiple North-South transport spines through the CBD.

While the BRT tunnel will primarily ease congestion on the Western spine of Clarence and York (NWRL) and converting long haul M2 buses into feeder buses, followed by a second Harbour crossing to increase capacity. It should come as no surprise that Infrastructure NSW also opposes this second Harbour crossing, but given that the NWRL will be built and therefore make the Harbour crossing the bottleneck on the network, the question over a second Harbour crossing is now when, not if.

Should the BRT tunnel be built instead of light rail, then it will improve transport connections on the Western corridor, but do little for the other corridors. Meanwhile, the tunnel will also use up the metro Pitt corridor, one of two corridors through the CBD which has been preserved for a future heavy rail line, severely limiting any future expansion of Sydney’s rail network. In addition, it will also shut down Town Hall and/or Wynyard Stations while the tunnel is being built. Ironically, Infrastructure NSW seems to show great concern at the disruption that shutting down George St (one of many streets through the CBD) would cause to motor vehicle traffic, yet has few qualms with doing the same to the 2 busiest stations in the Cityrail network (or to avoid a second Harbour crossing).

Light rail is by no means perfect. It will probably be slower than many predict (albeit faster than the slow crawl of buses we currently have at peak hour). But it is the option that has been studied, and it is the option that the transport department believes best fits into the big picture of its citywide transport plan. That is why cabinet should support the light rail option, and commit the BRT tunnel idea to Transport for NSW for further feasibility study.

Which is the best alignment for the North West Rail Link?

Three different alignments have been proposed for the Northwest Rail Link (NWRL) over the years: via Strathfield, via Chatswood, and via Parramatta.

The Options

The first (via Strathfield) involved the line from Castle Hill linking up with the Northern Line around Cheltenham on the surface, allowing trains to travel into the CBD either via Strathfield or Chatswood. This was abandoned due to the requirement that the line be quadruplicating between Epping and Cheltenham in order to prevent that portion of dual track from becoming a bottleneck. Local opposition and a cost so high that tunnelling was a cheaper option led to this alignment being abandoned in favour of the second option.

NWRL via Strathfield: The alignment goes from Castle Hill to Cheltenham and then Epping via a surface route, allowing it to get to the CBD via both Strathfield and Chatswood. Click on image for higher resolution. (Source: Wikipedia.)

The second (via Chatswood) is the currently planned alignment. It involves connecting the rail tunnels directly to the underground station at Epping, which means all NWRL trains must continue on to Chatswood and cannot divert to Strathfield. This reduces flexibility, but Cityrail’s Clearways program of sectorising the rail network into independent lines meant that flexibility wasn’t something Cityrail was looking for anyway.

NWRL via Chatswood: The alignment goes from Castle Hill to Epping via an underground tunnel, continuing to Chatswood via Macquarie Park. Click on image for higher resolution. (Source: Transport for NSW.)

The third (via Parramatta) was floated by Parramatta Council as a way of getting the Parramatta to Epping Rail Link (PERL) built. It involved building the NWRL through to Castle Hill, then sending it South to Parramatta, before going to Epping and continuing through to Chatswood and then St Leonards (avoiding the need for an expensive Second Harbour Crossing). Passengers heading into the CBD could change at Parramatta for express services. However, it also meant a longer trip for anyone heading to Macquarie Park or the North Shore.

NWRL via Parramatta: The alignment goes from Castle Hill to Parramatta and then Epping. The dotted line shows the via Strathfield alignment. Click on image for higher resolution. (Source: Channel Ten News.)

All three options see capacity constraints for CBD trips: with the Western, Northern, and North Shore Lines all highly congested and near capacity.

Where do people from The Hills want to go?

The locations that Hills residents desire to travel to is ultimately what should determine which of the 3 options should be taken. For the purpose of determining this, work commutes will be taken into account (as data is most easily available for these, though the most recent data I was able to obtain was from 2001). I’ll be using Bus Contract Region 4 (see map below) as a proxy for The Hills, however this also includes areas further South such as Westmead, Northmead, Carlingford, etc. Calculations are included at the end.

Bus contract regions map. (Source: Transport for NSW)

Most Hills residents (57% [1]) work outside of large centres. The widespread nature of where their work is located means that public transport is unlikely to compete with the private vehicle for their work commutes. Nor should it, as these are the sorts of trips which require the flexibility of a car, rather than the capacity of public transport. The remaining 43% work in large centres [A], primarily in Parramatta/Westmead – 9.9% [A], the Global Economic Arc (Macquarie Park, Chatswood, St Leonards/Crows Nest, and North Sydney) – 7.7% [B], the Sydney CBD – 7.3% [1], Castle Hill – 4.7% [A], and various other centres – 12.6% [1]. These are respectively shown in green, blue, yellow, grey, and brown in the chart below.

Note: The above diagram shows North Sydney as having a 42% jobs share. That is a typo. It should read 2.3%

Given the southern half of Region 4 includes suburbs between Parramatta and The Hills, which are likely to over represent the number of people who work in Parramatta/Westmead, the proportion of Hills residents who work in Parramatta/Westmead is likely to be less than 9.9%. That would make each of the 3 major employment zones (Parramatta/Westmead, the Global Economic Arc, and the Sydney CBD) are roughly equal in size, with Castle Hill close behind them.

How the different alignments stack up

All three options have the same alignment up to Castle Hill, at which point they begin to diverge. So it is the other 3 employment zones which differentiate the alignments.

The via Parramatta alignment is the only one that provides access to Parramatta/Westmead (the latter via a change of train at Parramatta). It also provides access to both the CBD (with a change of train at Parramatta) and the Global Economic Arc (by continuing on via the Parramatta to Epping Line). However, the former is capacity constrained and the latter would be delayed by having to travel to Parramatta before continuing to Epping.

The via Strathfield alignment gives no access to Parramatta/Westmead. By allowing some trains to go to the CBD via Strathfield and some via Chatswood, capacity constraints are limited. However, it also limits access to the Global Economic Arc. Eventually, construction of a Second Harbour Crossing can allow all trains to travel via Chatswood, providing good access to both the CBD and Global Economic Arc.

The via Chatswood alignment gives no access to Parramatta/Westmead. It gives the best access to the Global Economic Arc, initially with direct trains to Macquarie Park and Chatswood, but easily extended to St Leonards by quadruplicating the track between Chatswood and St Leonards. Eventually, construction of a Second Harbour Crossing can allow all trains to travel directly to the CBD, providing good access to both the CBD as well as the Global Economic Arc.

The via Parramatta option provides benefits if a Second Harbour Crossing does not happen, and is partly designed to defer the need for one. It also highlights why the government has committed to a Second Harbour Crossing – it unlocks much of the potential of the NWRL. This makes the via Parramatta option a viable one, but also one that suffers from short sighted vision, as a Second Harbour Crossing will eventually be needed, but will be less useful if there is no NWRL for it to connect to.

The via Strathfield and via Chatswood options seem roughly neck and neck, especially considering either can be upgraded with a Second Harbour Crossing to run trains directly to the CBD via Chatswood, providing good connections to both the Global Economic Arc and CBD. But there are 2 things that make the via Chatswood option superior. First, it avoids the problems of building the surface route between Epping and Cheltenham to avoid capacity constraints on that portion of track – including high cost of land acquisition, delays due to the need to start planning again from scratch on that portion of the line, and strong local opposition. Second, it goes against the concept of sectorisation, mixing different trains on the same lines – in particular this would prevent an effective private sector operation of the new line and the associated cost benefits that could come from it.

Conclusion

Each alignment has advantages and disadvantages, and there is no clear superior option. However, the NWRL via Chatswood alignment does appear to have a slight edge over the other options, on the assumption that a Second Harbour Crossing is built right after the NWRL is completed (as is current government policy).

However, this does not increase capacity on between the Hills to Parramatta, so improvements here should also be considered, particularly on the key Windsor Rd and Old Windsor Rd corridors. The former has a proposal for light rail linking Parramatta to Castle Hill currently undergoing a feasibility study, while the latter already has a T-Way where increased bus frequencies would easily achieve improved mobility.

Sources

[1]: Contract Region 4 (page 15)

[2]: Contract Region 7 (page 6)

[3]: Employment and Commuting in Sydney’s Centres, 1996 – 2006 (page 8)

Calculations

[A]: “Of the workforce living in Region 4 approximately 43% work in major centres. Of those employed in centres, most were employed in…the centres of Parramatta (16%), Castle Hill (11%) and Westmead (7%)” [1]

Castle Hill: 11% x 43% = 4.7%

Parramatta: 16% x 43% = 6.9%

Westmead: 7% x 43% = 3.0%

Parramatta/Westmead: 6.9% + 3.0% = 9.9%

[B] 13.2% of Region 4 workers are employed in Region 7, which includes all 4 centres of the Global Economic Arc [1]

Region 7 employs 206,500 workers in total [2]

Each of the centres in the Global Economic Arc employ the following number of workers: Macquarie Park (26,814), Chatswood (19,842), St Leonards/Crows Nest (36,514), North Sydney (36,597) [3]

Macquarie Park: 13.2% x ( 26,814 / 206,500 ) = 1.7%

Chatswood: 13.2% x (19,842 / 206,500 ) = 1.3%

St Leonards/Crows Nest: 13.2% x (36,514 / 206,500 ) = 2.3%

North Sydney: 13.2% x (36,597 / 206,500 ) = 2.3%

Global Economic Arc = 1.7% + 1.3% + 2.3% + 2.3% = 7.7%

Problems with the M4 East and Strathfield Metro

When I discussed the main problems I had with Infrastructure NSW’s First Things First report, I mentioned that there were a few other issues I had with it which I had left out for the purposes of brevity. Those two were the potential for high density development along the Parramatta Road corridor and the problems caused by trying to retrofit the Harbour Crossing into a single deck metro system.

The cut and cover slot construction method proposed for the M4 East benefits from having much lower costs than a tunnel. The concept art for this shows an increase in housing density along a rejuvenated Parramatta Road (below). Suggestions for increasing housing density along Parramatta Road have been talked about for decades, and the corridor has been spoken of as being able to house some 100,000 residents. But high density needs good quality public transport to work (a motorway is not enough), just as good quality public transport needs high density to work. And what this proposal seems to be lacking is improved public transport, either Bus Rapid Transit or Light Rail, perhaps even an underground or aboveground metro, to carry large quantities of people along the corridor.

An artists impression of the M4 East portion of West Connex. Click on image for higher resolution. (Source: First Things First, page 89.)

The Urban Taskforce is one group pushing for higher densities along Parramatta Road and its CEO, Chris Johnson, voiced his concerns for just this reason. This means one of two things: the opportunity for high density, walkable, sustainable housing will be squandered, or provision must be made for some kind of mass transit system to be built concurrently with the M4 East.

Infrastructure NSW’s insistence that a Second Harbour Crossing it too expensive and should be deferred until it is really needed also has its problems. One would be that the CBD rail lines could be shut down for months and access remain restricted for years as the existing Harbour Crossing is converted to single deck metro capability and then connected to lines that enter the CBD from the South. Such a conversion and link would also occur with a Second Harbour Crossing, but this would involve a new line built through the CBD which ensures that any lost capacity is made up by new capacity through this new line.

What the Infrastructure NSW report does not seem to appreciate is the complicated system of connections between different lines. Connecting trains on one line to another can often result in the use of flat junctions, which delay trains on other lines. Think of it like an intersection with traffic lights, if there is a green light for one road then there must be a red light for the other road. This is why there is a system of dives and flyovers on the rail lines between Redfern and Central, to allow trains to move from one line to another without disrupting trains on those other lines. But these connections are limited in what they can do, and to build in new ones to link up the lines the way Infrastructure NSW wants would result in the shut down mentioned earlier.

Taking the massive disruptions into account, along with the cost of retrofitting the existing crossing, and the lack of long term capacity improvements that it brings, you have to start to wonder if not building a Second Harbour Crossing really is as unaffordable as Infrastructure NSW makes it out to be.

Infrastructure NSW Report (part 2): The bad

There were a lot of things in Infrastructure NSW’s First Things First report that I didn’t like. Whereas the Transport for NSW Transport Master Plan tried to look at each transport corridor objectively, considered how it fit into the bigger picture, and then suggested the best possible solution for it, Infrastructure NSW almost seemed like it just wanted to build more roads and approached each transport corridor with that vision in every case.

CBD Bus Rapid Transit Tunnel

This idea needs to die an unholy death. I almost hate that I need to explain why this is such a bad idea, but here goes.

A very early proposed map for the CBD BRT would see a tunnel between Wynyard and Town Hall, removing many buses from the surface streets. Click on image for higher resolution. (Source: First Things First, Infrastructure NSW, page 99.)

The idea behind the underground bus tunnel is that light rail on George Street between Central and Circular Quay is flawed, and that a better option would be to link up buses that normally travel through the city and send them under the CBD instead. Light rail, the report argues on pages 97 and 98, would be incompatible with a pedestrian boulevard on George Street, and the presence of large numbers of pedestrians on the relatively narrow stretch of road would require light rail to run at slow speeds. Light rail would also require people to interchange from buses to light rail to travel through the city, and make trips that originate and end outside the city but are on buses that travel through the city require 2 interchanges (one at each end of the city). The report also argues that the bus tunnel would have a maximum capacity of 20,000 passengers per hour, compared to only 9,000 for light rail.

While the report generally does a good job of prioritising projects based on cost, this is the one exception where it has opted for a $2bn bus tunnel, rather than a $1bn surface light rail. To put that into perspective, for $2bn you could build light rail along George Street, extend the Northwest Rail Link to St Leonards to reduce interchanging problems at Chatswood Station, and build the Northern Beaches BRT through to Mona Vale.

This plan also eliminates one major benefit that buses currently have, which is frequent bus stops that connect passengers with the streetscape. Instead, they will be required to get off at one of two super interchanges, then struggle to find a way to their ultimate destination.

The last point appears to be the most dubious, the figures just look fudged. Brisbane’s extensive busways network (one of the largest BRT networks in the world) and underground CBD bus stations are cited almost as inspiration for this bus tunnel, yet the peak load for Brisbane is 9,000 passengers per hour (source: Harkness, 2003, page 4). Meanwhile, Melbourne’s tram network (one of the largest light rail networks in the world) sees 1 tram per minute travel along Swanston St during the peak hour (source: City of Melbourne, 2009, page 19), which at 300 passengers per tram (the same figure used in the report) gives 18,000 passengers per hour. That’s twice the capacity of BRT. In practice, the gap in the realistic capacity of BRT vs light rail is likely to be narrower, but the idea that BRT has a higher passenger carrying capacity than light rail in practice is fanciful.

Now in theory, buses have an hourly capacity of close to 100,000 passengers, assuming one full bus every 3 seconds. This works on a freeway with no traffic impediments, but runs into trouble as soon as you start to need enormous amounts of kerbside space for passengers to get on and off the bus. This problem currently exists, particularly along York Street in the morning, where 600 buses enter the CBD via the Harbour Bridge each morning peak. The lack of kerbside space dedicated to bus stops (it’s about 200m at Wynyard and Town Hall) means you get a conga line of buses waiting for their turn to turn into the kerb and open their doors. That is the biggest capacity contraint at the moment, and is one reason why the government is trialling double decker buses (which have longer dwell times, but use up less kerbside space than the longer bendy buses). Yet somehow the bus tunnel plan would handle this better with 2 platforms, each 55m in length at each of Town Hall and Wynyard. In other words, it would halve the kerbside space available at the moment. This will not end well.

The one good part of this proposal is the overhaul of Town Hall and Wynyard Stations that it also recommends. This part of the proposal should definitely happen, whatever ends up happening to the rest of it.

Roads, Roads, Roads

The report provides a lot of statistics about transport use, and then uses these to support its conclusion that more roads are the answer. But we all know the old saying: “lies, damned lies, and statistics”. Here is an example of 2 statistics that paint starkly different pictures

1. 93% of all motorised transport each day is on roads.
2. 81% of all CBD journeys to work each day are made on modes other than cars.

The first makes it look like everyone drives everywhere. But motorised trips excludes active modes of transport like cycling (2% of trips) and walking (18% of trips), while also counting bus trips (6% of total) as road trips. The second, on the other hand, looks only at peak hour into the very dense core of the city, the part of Sydney with the best public transport links at the time of day when they are most plentiful.

A better question would be, what is the problem we have with transport? The top two answers to that would be:

1. there is too much congestion, which is slowing down my journeys, and
2. there is no public transport (or it is infrequent) to where I need to go so it is easier to drive

The first occurs mainly during the peaks, and mainly heading into dense activity centres. In these cases, the best way to reduce congestion, is to get more people out of cars and into high capacity transport. This is where public transport shines – predictable, twice daily large scale migrations of people to and from dense activity centres. You would need 10 lanes of road traffic for every track of rail to move the same number of people, so it just doesn’t make sense to make more roads the answer to this problem.

The second occurs mainly during the off peak and for journey that start and end in low density suburban areas. Both of these tend to occur in areas and road corridors that have spare capacity, so not only is congestion less of an issue, but additional road capacity is not needed.

Unfortunately, the Infrastructure NSW report does not make this nuanced differentiation, and instead lumps it all together, sees that there is congestion in the peak to dense activity centres on one hand and that car trips dominate travel in the off peak and to non-activity centre locations, then suggests that the answer is more roads. But in reality, in many cases, more roads are not the answer.

The pro roads agenda can be seen best when any mention of public transport is almost immediately assumed to be buses. The report sees little to no role for rail to play in Sydney’s transport future. This should not be a road vs rail debate, each mode has its place and people who constantly argue for a metro or light rail even where a road based transport solution is a better fit are as much of a problem as those who advocate for roads.

No Second Harbour Crossing

Had the O’Farrell Government not made the Northwest Rail Link (NWRL) its signature infrastructure project, then this report would probably have told the government not to build it. In fact, the NWRL barely even rated a mention in the report, potentially because it was originally only mentioned in the context that it should not go ahead, and when you got rid of all of that then there was nothing left to say. But what the report was able to say was that a Second Harbour Crossing is not needed, and won’t be needed for a number of decades. This puts is directly at odds with the Transport Minister Galdys Berejiklian and Transport for NSW, which argue that a Second Harbour Crossing should be the next project to commence once the NWRL is complete.

The report points to the cost of a Second Harbour Crossing, which is estimated at $10bn, and argues that improved efficiency can increase the capacity of the existing crossing sufficiently to warrant deferring a second one. Strangely, it cites the large number of buses crossing the Habour Bridge (so many that more passengers cross the bridge by bus than do by train) as a success for buses, when the same fact could be used to argue that the rail bridge crossing is currently capacity constrained and that lack of capacity is flowing over onto buses, which have now also reached saturation point (as discussed earlier).

This is a more complicated issue that it initially seems. For example, about half of the passengers who will use the NWRL are expected to travel to a destination North of the Harbour (i.e. North Sydney, St Leonards, Chatswood, Macquarie Park, Norwest). This does lessen the apparent need for a Second Harbour Crossing, and is why the government is able to build the NWRL first and the Second Harbour Crossing second, rather than the other way around. At the same time, that still leaves half of the passengers staying on through to the city. A Second harbour Crossing also has the benefit of increasing capacity into the CBD not just from the North, but from the South.

A new rail line has been built through the CBD roughly every 25 years: the Harbour Bridge (1932), Circular Quay (1956), the Eastern Suburbs Line (1979). It’s now been 33 years since the last expansion of CBD heavy rail capacity, and probably another 2 decades before another one can be built.

Postscript: It’s getting late and this post is getting quite long. There are other areas that probably deserve mention, but they are not as important, so in the interest of not turning this into a novel and I’m going to leave it here for now.

Transport Master Plan (part 4): Buses and light rail

The Transport Master Plan has highlighted a number of corridors in which it will consider either better bus connections or light rail, and in light of that it is logical to look at both as part of a larger package.

While it is the role of the heavy rail network to do the heavy lifting in Sydney’s transport network (about half of all people in Sydney live within 2km of a train station), it is designed primarily as a radial network to get people to and from the CBD. So buses and light rail serve to connect people to transport interchanges (often, but not always, a train station) as well as to provide cross city links that do not start or end in the CBD. To do this, the bus network will be redesigned (page 136), from a radial network with the CBD at the centre, to a grid network based on high frequency and transfers (for an explanation on the benefits of a network based on transfer, click on the link to Jarrett Walker’s transport blog). While this is an improvement, it does not appear to be followed with integrated fares. In other words, it should cost the same to get from A to B, regardless of what mode of transport you choose and how many transfers you make, and it does not appear that this will be the case. Instead, you will be charged extra for being inconvenienced by a forced transfer.

A hypothetical “grid” network for the Inner City bus network. Click on image for higher resolution. (Source: Herald Independent Transport Inquiry, page 315.)

The other major network wide change related to buses in the Sydney CBD. Currently most buses operate on far side terminations, travelling into and through the CBD before terminating on the other end. This is an incredibly wasteful use of CBD road space, as it requires 2 buses to use the same road: one the is dropping passengers off and a second that is picking them up. To ensure a more efficient, and therefore faster trip, buses will either through route through the CBD or begin near side terminations (page 135). Metrobuses currently do through routing, passing through the CBD and then continuing out the other end, in effect halving the number of buses required to travel through the CBD and having the added benefit of providing a cross city connection for passengers starting and ending their journey outside of the CBD. Near side terminations will involve buses terminating at an interchange either outside the CBD or on the edge of the CBD where passengers will be change to a frequent (and also faster, due to less bus congestion) vehicle that will take them to their final destination within the CBD. That vehicle could be another bus, a light rail vehicle or a train, depending on specific circumstances.

As for specific projects, the Master Plan list out a number of corridors, which are listed below in rough order of priority. In the short term, improvements will be made to existing bus services, with a longer term view to putting in place Bus Rapid Transit or Light Rail.

Northern Beaches Bus Rapid Transit

An options paper has already been released in regards to the Northern Beaches, and here it has been decided to go with BRT, rather than light rail. What hasn’t yet been decided is what sort of upgrades are to be made. All options require an upgrade of the Spit and Narabeen Bridges to 6 lanes, and include:

1. Making bus lanes 24 hours. Cost: $336m
2. Segregated BRT on the kerb. Cost: $488m
3. Segregated BRT on the median. Cost: $572m
4. Segregated BRT on the median, but with buses terminating at North Sydney rather than in Sydney CBD. Cost: $552m
5. Segregated BRT on the median, with a tunnel under Military Road connecting the Spit Junction with the Waringah Freeway. Cost: $1.2bn

The Treasurer, Mike Baird, who’s Pittwater electorate is located in the Northern Beaches, has said that he prefers the tunnel option.

The East-West link between Dee Why and Chatswood would upgrade the bus lanes to 24 hours and cost $77m.

Transport for NSW has shortlisted 6 options for building BRT for the Northern Beaches. The currently predicted alignment is shown on this map. Click on image for higher resolution. (Source: Transport Master Plan, page 153.)

Victoria Road Bus Rapid Transit or Light Rail

Further investigation will be made into whether BRT or light rail can be used on the Victoria Road corridor between Parramatta and the CBD. (See: Transport Master Plan, pages 151 and 185.)

Light Rail in the CBD and out to UNSW/Randwick

The government’s light rail feasibility study, which is completed, has not yet been released to the public, but details of it were included in the Transport Master Plan. It suggests a new line will be a North-South line linking Circular Quay in the North to the University of NSW/Prince of Wales Hospital in the South. Options for an alignment via Oxford Street have been rejected, probably in part because this would prevent the line from connecting Central Station to Circular Quay. Light rail to Barangaroo via The Rocks and out to the University of Sydney are of lower priority. Once it is operational, bus lines that previously went into the city would be re-routed to operate as feeder services for light rail.

What has not yet been determined is whether the line will run along the surface along Devonshire Street, or if it will be built in a tunnel underneath it. The tunnel option has been rumoured to cost $100m. A tunnel would allow a faster and more reliable trip. The speed is a key factor, as it also reduced the need for additional rolling stock and staff required, thus reducing operating costs, while the increased patronage will boost fares received. The lower costs and higher revenues would, in theory, repay the additional cost of the tunnel option over time.

The option is also left open to link the Anzac Parade and Alison Road alignments via High Street along UNSW. However, given the steep gradient of High Street, I’m not sure trams would be able to operate along that alignment.

A new light rail line is expected to run between Circular Quay, down George Street to Central, along Devonshire St to the SGC and Randwick Racecourse before going South on Anzac Parade to UNSW or East along Alison Road to the Prince of Wales Hospital. Click on image for higher resolution. (Source: Transport Master Plan, page 155.)

Longer term Bus Rapid Transit corridors: M2 and Windsor Road

Over the longer term, BRT will also be considered for the M2 between Seven Hills and Macquarie Park, as well as Windsor Road between Parramatta and Castle Hill. (See: Transport Master Plan, page 185.)

Parramatta Light Rail

The Parramatta City Council has been pushing for a light rail network centred around Parramatta, in part to compensate for the lack of a Parramatta to Epping Rail Link. The Transport Master Plan acknowledges this proposal, suggesting that it will consider the recommendations of any feasibility study that the Council is able to commission. (See: Transport Master Plan, page 189.)

Transport Master Plan (part 1): 6 solutions for 6 problems

The NSW Transport Master Plan was released yesterday, and at 370 pages it is a very long document. It’s going to take me a little while to get through it, so I’m going to periodically post bits and pieces of it over the coming days as I digest it. So today it’s just a quick overview and links to some media reports. Make sure to come back later for more, or follow me on Twitter.

Problems and solutions

The Master Plan works by identifying which transport corridors are going to see high levels of congestion by 2031, assuming nothing is done today. These are the problems. It then considers what mode of transport provides the best way of relieving that congestion. This is the solution. It also takes a big picture view of the transport network as a unified network, and sees what improvements can be made to help it run more smoothly as a whole system, rather than just lots of little transport routes operating independently of each other.

Identifying the problems first, then seeing which are the most suitable solutions to them is the right approach. I wrote earlier about how enthusiasm for a particular type of mode or technology can result in these two steps becoming inverted, and this is an example of where that is not being done.

What are the problems?

Six transport corridors are projected to have high constraints if nothing is done between now and 2031;

1. Rouse Hill to Macquarie Park
2. Northern Beaches to CBD
3. Parramatta to CBD via Victoria Road
4. Parramatta to CBD via Parramatta Road
5. Liverpool to Airport
6. Airport to CBD

These 6 corridors are seen in dark blue in the map below:

Sydney’s major transport corridors. Those in dark blue are expected to experience the highest levels of congestion by 2031 if nothing is done about it. Click on image for higher resolution. (Source: Draft Transport Master Plan, page 84)

What are the solutions?

In order to alleviate congestion along these corridors, a number of actions have been recommended. These have been placed into short term (0-5 years), medium term (5-10 years) and long term (10-20 years) periods. Most of these actions involve the construction of new transport links, rail, bus and road. In the case of the road projects, their priority will be determined by Infrastructure NSW’s report, to be handed down next month. I will discuss these in more detail in a later post.

Much media criticism has been based on a lack of a timetable and costing/funding that accompanied this report, and while the latter is certainly true, a rough timetable has been provided through the breaking down of proposed infrastructure projects into short, medium and long term.

The 6 most constrained corridors, and what Transport for NSW recommends be done to deal with it. Click on image for higher resolution. (Source: Draft Transport Master Plan, page 148)

These are not the only planned projects. The Master Plan also includes potential upgrades, enhancements and extensions of a number of other transport corridors. Below is a map of the existing major transport corridors, those new transport corridors that have been committed to, and other potential new transport corridors or upgrades to existing ones.

Current and proposed major transport corridors in Sydney. Click on image for higher resolution. (Source: Draft Transport Master Plan, page 93)

What happens next?

The next major cab off the rank is the Infrastructure NSW report, due next month. It will recommend which projects should go ahead (the road projects in particular) and how they are to be funded. Infrastructure NSW and Transport for NSW have competing views on what Sydney should be building: the former believes it should be roads while the latter thinks it should be rail. How this pans out will be interesting to watch.

Media reports

There’s lots floating around in the media. Below is a selection. The Telegraph, Channel Seven and Channel Nine reports are all quite pro-road, in some cases almost ignoring the role that public transport plays. Channel Ten was the only television report to actually speak to an expert who wasn’t a lobbyist or politician and, along with the Herald articles, is probably the best place to go for more details. The 2GB piece is an interview with the Telegraph State Political Editor, Andrew Clennell, which is also worth listening to, if heavily opinionated.

Print media reports

Transport plan to ease six of the worst, Sydney Morning Herald

Transport plan long on hope, light on detail, Sydney Morning Herald

O’Farrell plans a way out of paying for a solution, Sydney Morning Herald

All roads lead to more frustration, Daily Telegraph

Too many concepts amount to no idea, Daily Telegraph

O’Farrell’s action plan takes us nowhere fast, Daily Telegraph

Greiner tells powers that be not to sit on their assets, Daily Telegraph

Radio media reports

Congested Sydney gets transport master plan, ABC Radio National

Fixing Sydney’s transport system, 2UE

State announces grand plan for public transport, 2GB

Television media reports

Metro and Harbour Crossing (part 3): Unanswered Questions

The announcement of a stand alone Northwest Rail Link, followed up with a Second Harbour Crossing, has been criticised as a broken promise by the O’Farrell Government. What has received less attention is the unanswered questions that this announcement leaves. It’s important to remember that the main reason why Infrastructure Australia refused to back funding for the NWRL was a number of unanswered questions in the submission by the NSW government.

• Will the NWRL use driverless trains?

This question was raised earlier and hosed down by Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian, who said she planned for trains on the NWRL “to have drivers”. But given the recent back flips this question deserves to be asked again, particularly considering the NSW Auditor General recently found drivers spend only one third of their time actually driving trains. Perhaps the government only intends to introduce ATO (Automatic Train Operation) and ATP (Automatic Train Protection), then running trains on “auto-pilot” but with a staffed train so that someone can take over if need be (as is the case on all commercial airlines these day). This could allow one person to act as driver and guard, as is the case in London or Singapore (which have automatically operated trains, but maintain someone on board to open/close doors and take over for manual operation if needed).

• Will the NWRL tunnels be big enough for double deck trains, or only big enough for single deck trains?

Smaller tunnels would probably end up being cheaper, but would also further isolate the new metro portion of the network by preventing double deck trains from using it.

• What happened to the Parramatta to Epping Rail Link?

Previous reports suggested that this had been deferred to 2036, but would still eventually be built. This new announcement makes no mention of the PERL. Perhaps it has been abandoned altogether due to the high price of a Second Harbour Crossing (costed at $10bn by industry experts). If it has, then will there be an alternative transport connection built to connect Parramatta to Macquarie Park (such as light rail or bus rapid transit).

• Why isn’t the Inner West Line being included in the future metro network South of the Harbour?

Previous incarnations of this plan (here and here) did include the Inner West Line as a metro line. The high density housing along this line, along with stations spaced quite close to each other and the potential to separate this line from the rest of the network made it a good candidate for conversion to metro.

• How will the Northern Line operate?

It is clear that trains will no longer go from Hornsby to the City via Macquarie Park anymore, and there have also been reports that Northern Line trains will go to Sydney Terminal at Central Station rather than going through the City and then across the Harbour. But the Northern Line is mostly dual track, meaning express trains have trouble overtaking slower local trains that stop all stations. This makes it difficult to increase services on the Northern Line. Yet increasing capacity on this line would alleviate much of the pressure from passengers on the NWRL, who would then have the option of changing either at Epping or Chatswood for CBD journeys.

• Will there be a reduction in M2 buses before a Second Harbour Crossing is built?

The government had previously planned for a 66% reduction in M2 buses from the Northwest into the CBD once the NWRL opened, but that was when the NWRL would connect directly into the CBD itself. This seems to boil down to a question of where to put the congestion: trains from the North Shore into the City (which are at 110% of capacity) or buses from the M2 in the Sydney CBD (which is currently overflowing with buses coming across the Harbour Bridge).

• Will the Richmond Line be attached to the Cumberland Line?

This has also been raised in the media as a possibility, yet speculation was not confirmed nor denied in the government’s recent announcement. Will trains from Richmond now run South towards Liverpool rather than East into the City?

• Will quadruplication of track between St Leonards and Chatswood be fast tracked?

Of the proposed link between Chatswood and the CBD, this portion is the quickest, cheapest and easiest to complete given that it is short, above ground and requires little or no land acquisitions. It also connects directly to the terminus of the proposed metro line, extending it to St Leonards, which should also go some way to reducing the strain on capacity that will be caused on city bound North Shore Line trains.

Unanswered questions remain for the Transport Minister. (Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

None of this takes into account the Second Harbour Crossing. Ms Berejiklian has refused to discuss details on that, saying that not enough work has been done on it to comment on the timetable or cost. Yet one thing that does seem to be clear is that this crossing will be under the Harbour, and thus result in a very expensive crossing. So there is one more question that must be asked:

• Will all options for a Second Harbour Crossing be explored?

New track could be hung underneath the Bridge. Alternatively, the Easternmost lanes on the Bridge could be converted to rail, as they were when the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened, and a new road tunnel built under the Harbour (more cheaply than a rail one) to maintain roadspace for private vehicles. A new underground rail tunnel is surely not the only option, although it probably is the most expensive one and therefore most likely to either be cancelled/deferred or to suck the oxygen out for many other infrastructure projects.

My submission to the draft Transport Master Plan

Submissions to the Transport Masterplan were due by midnight tonight.I’ve included my submission to it below. The questions are in bold, with my responses in after that. I got in with an hour to spare. It’s quite long, so if you just want the highlights, read my responses to the second and last questions.

TRANSPORT OBJECTIVES : Are the objectives for future planning for transport in NSW appropriate and comprehensive?

Overall the discussion paper is quite comprehensive, and I’m generally quite happy with the direction that it lays out for transport in NSW.

TRANSPORT OBJECTIVES : Do you have any other objectives to suggest for both public transport and roads?

A number of issues were not raised in the discussion paper (or I could not find them):

1. Congestion charging and uniform tolling. Currently there are countless different tolling systems throughout Sydney, ranging from free to distance based to flat fee to time of day. There is a significant potential to set tolling in such a way as to provide funding for additional transport spending AND as a form of congestion charging to discourage private car use during peak hour.

2. Car share. This has taken off in the inner city parts of Sydney, with some limited expansion into the North Shore and Parramatta. Though it is supported at the local council level, there is huge scope for car share policy to be expanded to the city-wide level in order to encourage take up, and thus discourage car ownership/use.

3. Bike share. As a “last mile” strategy, bike share can greatly expand the catchment area of public transport by allowing commuters to ride a bike after alighting from their public transport vehicle. This is a much better option than encouraging commuters to take their own bike on buses/trains, as this uses up valuable space onboard the vehicles. Helmet laws should be considered, and if any rollout is ever done then it should be done at a large scale. Small scale bike share schemes have been shown to fail due to insufficient coverage (e.g. Melbourne) whereas successful schemes invested in a substantial and wide fleet of bikes (e.g. Paris and London).

SYDNEY TRANSPORT : In solving the transport problems in Sydney, what transport mode should be the first priority for new investment, bearing in mind the need for a socially equitable and environmentally sustainable transport sector?

Transport modes are a transport solution to a transport problem. To pick a mode first is putting the cart before the horse, as it seeks to pick a solution and then go looking for a problem. Ideally we should be highlighting the problems and then selecting the most appropriate solution (and hence transport mode), which will be different depending on the exact problem. In some cases, the solution may be buses, in some cases it may be rail, in some cases it may be a re-organisation or upgrade of existing services.

But the key thing is to work out the problem first, and find a solution second.

SYDNEY TRANSPORT : What do you consider to be the main priorities for investment in Sydney’s transport infrastructure?

Public transport should be a priority. In the last 2 decades, many public transport projects have been deferred or cancelled. Meanwhile, every single new freeway that has been proposed has also been built. Freeways need to go to the bottom of the pile for the next 20 years in order to being public transport infrastructure back to square one.

SYDNEY TRANSPORT : How can the road network be better utilised and enhanced?

Get people out of cars and into public transport or out of the peak and into the off-peak. There is enough existing road capacity out there to transport Sydney’s population without having to build more roads.

There are many roads that are currently used for travelling through, rather than used for arriving at a final destination. For example, many people drive through the CBD without actually stopping there. This sort of traffic belongs on a freeway of some sort. Perversely, there is a freeway that people could take (the Cross City Tunnel), yet people choose not to use it because there is a toll. A logical solution would have been to toll the surface roads via a congestion charge, which would then fund a free CCT journey.

SYDNEY TRANSPORT : What are your priorities for public transport services in terms of frequency, reliability, cleanliness and safety?

Frequency is freedom. I love turn up and go public transport that is frequent enough that I don’t need a timetable. Depending on the context, this may mean 5, 7, 10, 15 or even 20 minute frequencies.

SYDNEY TRANSPORT : What criteria should determine whether light rail or bus transport should be preferred?

Light rail has a few benefits over buses, such as higher capacity, more popular appeal, faster acceleration/deceleration, less noise, certainty, etc. However, many of the benefits normally attributed to light rail, such as exclusive rights of way of better stops/stations, are actually also available to buses and are not technology based. Such things should not be considered when deciding between the two technologies.

SYDNEY TRANSPORT : What are the current barriers to using multiple transport modes to complete a journey? How can the barriers be addressed?

Integrated fares exist with myMulti tickets, but they are limited to weekly tickets and are CBD centric (a daily ticket also exists, but is far too expensive for all but a few users). Additional myMulti tickets should be available, such that Zones 1, 2, 3, 1+2, 2+3 or 1+2+3 are available, for users in outer suburbs who do not commute into the CBD.

Fares should cost the same to get from A to B, regardless of the number of vehicles used to do so. Currently, using 2 vehicles costs more, despite the fact that this is an inconvenience, not a premium service as the cost would suggest.

Resolving this can take either the form of point to point fares (which can be done once Opal is rolled out) or simple zonal fares (as myMulti tickets operate). Either is fine, but whichever option is taken the fare system should be built up from the ground up to be simple. Grandfathering the existing fare structure would complicate things unnecessarily.

SYDNEY TRANSPORT : How can the transport requirements of Sydney Airport and Port Botany be best addressed?

A second airport should be built at Badgerys Creek, where the joint NSW-Federal study into a second airport recommended it be built, in order to relieve the pressure on Kingsford Smith Airport and to provide jobs to Western Sydney, where the majority of the population growth will occur.

SYDNEY TRANSPORT : If there are to be more greenfield land release areas in Sydney, should there be a focus on developing public transport options as part of strategic land use planning for Metropolitan Sydney? How should this policy be given effect?

Future developments should be designed more like Rouse Hill, which has a dense town centre at its core which acts as a transport hub/interchange, rather than Kellyville, which is streets upon streets of houses and little else, forcing residents into their cars as the only transport option. Such a strategy, along with reservations for future rail corridors, allows for buses to serve these new areas until sufficient population/funding is available to extend heavy rail into the area.

Good planning for public transport also increases land value, and accessing some of the increase in the value of the land can help to fund this new transport infrastructure through, for example, additional levies on developers of these greenfield sites.

REGIONAL TRANSPORT : What are the key transport objectives for your region?

Rail lines have been poorly maintained and trains today run no faster than they did for most of the past century. There is little reason why trains in non-urban areas should not be able to go at 160km/hr (the maximum speed of an XPT train). Such an improvement could make living in Wollongong or Newcastle and commuting into Sydney a viable option, or getting a train between Sydney and Canberra competitive with air travel.

FUNDING : How much would people be prepared to pay for further investment in the transport system and what would be the expectation flowing from these investments?

I can’t put a number on this, or speak for the entire population of NSW. But there does seem to be an increased appetite for government spending on critical infrastructure, such as transport infrastructure, given the infrastructure deficit that has built up over recent years and the cost pressures that it has caused.

FUNDING : Given the limitations on funds available for future transport investment, what mechanisms should be employed to manage demand?

Congestion charging could help to manage private vehicle flows to limit congestion.

Also, encouraging employment in centres outside of the CBD, to make use of existing capacity on public transport from vehicles going in the counter flow direction during peak hour could allow unused capacity to be used, rather than having to invest in increasing existing capacity.

FUNDING : Should new revenues or charges be explored to deliver the transport infrastructure needs within a realistic timeframe?

Absolutely. Now is not the time to be ruling things out.

FUNDING : If further road user pricing were to be introduced, how should this operate? For example, by distance travelled? By vehicle type? Or should it be area based?

Distance travelled is a much more effective method of tolling, now that the technology exists to do it that way. Time of day tolling (congestion charging) should also be considered, as a way to discourage peak hour traffic and also to fund additional transport infrastructure.

OTHER COMMENTS : Are there any other comments about the NSW Long Term Transport Master Plan Discussion Paper that you have?

The federal government is currently offering $2.1 billion in funding for public transport. Unfortunately, due to the political constraints of neither the state nor federal governments wanting to break a political promise, this $2.1 billion is not currently available. At a time when so much infrastructure needs to be built, losing this funding should not be considered an option.

It is therefore imperative that the NSW government do what it can to negotiate a compromise solution to this problem. This could involve offering to build some sort of high capacity transport link between Parramatta and Macquarie Park, which could be done at a fraction of the cost of the Parramatta to Epping Rail Link and thus allow the construction of the Northwest Rail Link (which is the current government’s priority). A number of proposals to do this (through BRT, light rail, etc) are currently on the table, and ultimately I care less about the option taken as I do about a compromise being struck.

But the worst outcome would be for both governments to stick to their guns, because then we all lose out.

No progress on Parramatta to Epping Rail Link funding

The Australian newspaper claimed recently that the NSW and Commonwealth governments are “no closer to resolving their differences on the Epping-Parramatta rail link [PERL] than on state election night, a year ago”. The Commonwealth government pledged at its last election to provide $2.1 billion of funding for the PERL, while the NSW government pledged at its last election to prioritise the Northwest Rail Link (NWRL) over the PERL and wants that $2.1 billion to be provided for the NWRL instead.

The article quotes Commonwealth Infrastructure and Transport Minister Anthony Albanese as saying that:

“It’s extraordinary that the NSW government have had this funding on the table and yet haven’t responded to correspondence. The NSW government is the only state government that seems incapable of basic dealings between governments. I don’t have this problem with anyone else” – Anthony Albanese (23 March 2012)

Responding to this, NSW Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian says that her government has:

“told him repeatedly — in departmental correspondence and submissions — that our priority rail projects are the northwest rail link and the southwest rail link. The only political paralysis comes from the federal government” – Gladys Berejiklian (23 March 2012)

This suggests that either resolving this issue is not an immediate priority for the two governments or that neither is willing to budge from their existing position. If it is the former, then there remains hope that a compromise solution will eventually be reached (perhaps Ms Berejiklian is waiting for the next federal election in the hope that a new Abbott led Liberal government will be easier to negotiate with, or that the threat of loss for the federal Labor Party will give her an edge in negotiations). However, if it is the latter then this can only lead to a lose-lose situation where nothing happens and the infrastructure deficit in NSW is added to.

The Parramatta to Epping Rail Link, as part of the greater Parramatta to Chatswood Rail Link. The Eastern portion between Epping and Chatswood was finally constructed in 2009, leaving the Western postion unbuilt. (Source: Historical NSW Railway Timetables)

Given that both the NSW and Commonwealth governments went to their last elections promising to build the PERL and NWRL respectively, I can understand the problem arising from neither government wanting to break its promise. But a compromise solution is really the only way to break the deadlock, and the only way to arrive at this is through negotiations and by considering other, innovative, solutions to Sydney’s transport problems. I’ve previously written about how light rail or bus transit ways have been suggested as a way to create a short term connection between Parramatta and Epping/Macquarie, which would provide a stop gap for the missing link until the PERL is constructed to provide a solid long term solution. The form of transport solution should not be the focus, instead the focus should be on getting a more efficient transport connection to build capacity, one that can be build in the near future and within a certain budget.

In December of 2011, I sent letters to (1) Anthony Albanese, (2) Gladys Berejiklian, (3) Parramatta City Council and my local MP (4) Bruce Notley-Smith, on the issue of arriving at a compromise solution to the PERL funding problem, suggesting the bus transit way as a possible compromise solution. The responses I received were as follows:

1. Office of Anthony Albanese, Minister for Infrastructure and Transport (Commonwealth)

Cristina Mojica, Acting General Manager for Rail and Intermodal, wrote that the Australian government has provided funding of “$12.2 billion to 2013-14 on road and rail project [sic]…also committed and additional $2.1 billion from 2014-15 to construct the Parramatta to Epping Rail Link”.  She then argues that “public transport is primarily a responsibility for the New South Wales Government” and that my letter has been forwarded to the NSW transport minister’s office for consideration.

It does appear like quite a cop out that the Commonwealth Department of Infrastructure can on one hand boast about how much infrastructure funding they have provided and where they have directed it to, then defend its decision to fund certain projects but not others by pointing out that these decisions should be made at the state level. The very decisions that it is insisting on making itself in choosing to fund the PERL over the NWRL.

2. Office of Gladys Berejiklian, Minister for Transport (NSW)

Kate Foy, General Manager for Customer Service, indicated that my letter had been forwarded to Transport for NSW for advice on the matter. I have yet to receive a follow up response.

3. Parramatta City Council

David Gray, Manager for Transport Planning, writes that the council is aware of the bus transit way proposal, and that though there were “possible advantages”, that there were also “disadvantages of T-Ways including the congestion created with the large number of terminating buses in Parramatta city centre and the lack of suitable layover space”. For this reason, the council is seeking funding for a light rail feasibility study. While I was disappointed to hear that they were not putting more options on the table, this was the only response I received that understood that a compromise solution was the only way to progress in this situation.

4. Office of Bruce Notley-Smith, Member for Coogee (NSW)

I have yet to receive a response.

Corridors for Northwest Rail Link extension to be preserved

The state government has announced its intention to preserve a corridor for a future extension of the Northwest Rail Link (NWRL), currently slated for completion in 2019. This would allow the government to build a transport line along this corridor at some point in the future without having to resort to expensive property acquisition or underground construction (as is the case with the $8 billion NWRL – its high price tag being one of the major challenges in its construction). Land would still need to be acquired at a future date, but it would be land that is zoned for future public infrastructure, and therefore much more affordable. Examples of recent transport infrastructure built on preserved corridors include the M2 and M7, whose corridors were set aside in 1944, about half a century prior to their completion.

A detailed discussion paper is available, which outlines the background and goes into some detail, however I found the 4 page newsletter to be far more useful and to the point (while also including some points omitted in the discussion paper).

Two options exist for linking the NWRL to the Richmond Line. One goes North West to Riverstone, the other continues west through Schofields and towards Marsden Park. (Source: Transport for NSW)

There are currently 2 options being considered. One goes West, crossing the new Schofields Station and continuing on to Marsden Park, with potential future extension to the Western Line at Mount Druitt or Penrith. The other goes North West, connecting up with the Richmond Line at Riverston Station, then continuing North to Richmond. Both options extend the reach of the NWRL into the Northwest Growth Sector, which is expected to see 200,000 new residents in the coming 25 years or so.

Potential future extensions were already planned when the final route for the NWRL was finalised, as can be seen here. (Source: Transport for NSW)

Both options would link the NWRL to the Richmond Line. However, it should be noted that this link may not necessarily be a heavy rail link, and could instead be light rail or bus rapid transit (i.e. a T-Way). This is a good idea, as it would be silly to rule out any options now, given that any construction of transport infrastructure on such a corridor would probably be 50 years away and it would be impossible to predict the what the best option would be now.

Submissions on a preferred corridor can be made to Transport for NSW until 18 May 2012 at www.northwestoptions.com.au or by attending the public information session at Rouse Hill Town Centre on Saturday 31 March between 10AM and 2PM at the Vinegar Hill Memorial Community Centre, Level 1 (opposite the library).