Planning

Recently I was asked to comment for a newspaper article on the plight of the last piggery in the Sydney basin, which is under pressure from urban expansion.

The piggery is located in the corridor for the South West Rail Link currently under construction and close to the proposed Leppington town centre, which will form the centrepiece for the south west growth centre’s planned 100,000 new homes. Not only is it the only piggery left in Sydney, it also has a pathogen-free herd which means that it supplies hospitals with organs for research and use in transplantation.

While the government wants to resume only a portion of the site, the area required is essential to the piggery’s waste management procedures and if it is resumed the piggery will have to close. Unfortunately even if its owners received full compensation it would be unlikely to reopen anywhere near Sydney. As one of the owners observed, few councils would agree to approve an application for a new piggery; “we’re just above, or below, nuclear waste dumps on the scale of developments that governments want. It’s the smell.”

As I pointed out in my response, intensive animal farming has its limits in an increasing urban setting – even if it was there first. This is particularly if the farm is close to a new town centre or other planned high-density development; obviously more people are affected and it is more difficult to either screen the farm area or provide a significant buffer zone, especially if the farming operation involves noise or small.

However, I was also at pains to point out that it was vital to retain agricultural land in the Sydney basin, especially for the city’s food security. As Sinclair, Bunker and Holloway note in their 2003 paper, the Sydney basin (at that time) produced the greatest amount of perishable produce in NSW. They also observed that as land became more valuable because of its potential for conversion to residential use, agricultural uses also became more intensive, especially as farmers relocated from other areas as they were developed.

However, as more and more land is turned into housing lots, farms start to close down. From my observations, the resulting collapse in agriculture can happen surprisingly quickly. Farmers rely upon a range of support services such as transport providers, farming equipment and other specialist suppliers and in some cases packing and distribution facilities. In turn, these suppliers rely on a “critical mass” of farms to provide demand.

As farms cease to operate these support services become unviable and also close down. Without these specialist services in the local area the remaining framers struggle to hang on and in turn also decide to shut up shop, a decision aided by the increasing value of the land in terms of its potential for urban development.

Another point which I raised briefly when I was contacted by the paper but which wasn’t included for space reasons was that the way in which the planning process for the south west and north west growth centres had been rolled out had resulted in these issues not being adequately addressed. The original plans had included “green wedges” which would preserve some high-amenity natural bushland and farming areas within the growth centres.

North West and South West Growth Centres (from Planning NSW website)

However this caused a furore when the plans were released. The problem was that those property owners whose land was directly affected by the new development would be fully compensated whilst those in the “green wedges” would receive no compensation at all. Not surprisingly the latter objected. The government went to water and announced it would acquire all the land including that which was set aside in the plan to be preserved as rural.

To “compensate” for this the government also increased the number of dwellings it was proposing to develop in the growth centres, in part to off-set the additional land acquisition costs involved. As a result the green wedges disappeared overnight.

Without a detailed comparison of the piggery’s location with the original growth centre plans it is impossible to know whether it was located in one of the original green wedges or would have been acquired for development anyway. However this is beside the point; a proper planning and land acquisition process for the growth centres would have at least attempted to identify and protect key aspects of agriculture within an urban setting.

This hasn’t happened and the new state government has announced that it was to expand development at the urban fringe even further. Unfortunately it now looks increasingly likely that food production will fade away on the urban frontier.

The NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell today announced his new ministry, with a few surprises.

Much has been made in the media about the two new MPs, Robyn Parker (Maitland) who is Environment and Heritage Minister and Graham Annesley (Miranda), who takes over Sport and Recreation. Victor Dominello (Ryde) who was in the previous parliament but not the shadow Cabinet has been appointed Minister for Citizenship, Communities and Aboriginal Affairs.

There are however a few other interesting things about the new Ministry, based on the list reproduced below from the Australian:

• Consistent with his election commitment, O’Farrell has brought planning and infrastructure together under one Minister, Brad Hazzard (Wakehurst), who is also Minister Assisting the Premier on Infrastructure NSW (another election promise). However he has also appointed Andrew Stoner (Oxley), the Nationals leader, as Minister for Regional Infrastructure and Services. In effect this means that there are two Ministers with responsibility for infrastructure, as well as by implication the Premier. It will be fascinating to see how this pans out.
• O’Farrell has retained and broadened the regional ministry concept introduced by the previous Labour government back in 1997. The previous government also adopted then gradually abandoned a corresponding regional approach to the delivery of both State-wide initiatives (eg, the State Plan) and metropolitan ones (eg, the Metropolitan Strategy), while retaining the regional minsters, often in name only.
• Under the new government, regional ministries now cover most of the state. Three of these regional ministries (Central Coast, North Coast and Western NSW) are held by MPs with seats in the relevant areas. Two (Hunter and the Illawarra) are held by MLCs, while the sixth (Western Sydney) is held by O’Farrell himself (again an election commitment). The new Government’s embrace of regional ministries and the appointment of Stoner as Minister for Regional Infrastructure  and Services may signal a return to a more regionalised approach to deliver, though what that means within Sydney is yet to be seen.
• While it is an encouraging sign of the region’s significance to the new government that O’Farrell appointed himself as Western Sydney Minister, it is unfortunate that not one of the new faces in the Ministry is from Western Sydney, despite its strong representation in the new government. The Cabinet is overwhelmingly made up of members from the North Shore and rural areas – understandable to some extent, given the nature of the Coalition government and the fact that virtually all the Western Sydney MPs were neophytes, but still disappointing.  O’Farrell should move to redress this imbalance in the appointment of positions such as Parliamentary Secretaries and Committee Chairs and members.
• The appointment of George Souris (Upper Hunter) as Minister for the Arts (as well as Minister for Tourism, Major Events, Hospitality and Racing) was a surprise to some who had expected the addition of the Arts to Robyn Parker’s (Maitland) portfolios of Environment and Heritage. While keeping Arts with Souris’s other responsibilities may be more consistent with the current Departmental structure, linking it to Environment and in particular Heritage would have seemed a more natural fit. Hopefully the Arts portfolio will enjoy a higher profile and more funding under the new Government, irrespective of who has Ministerial responsibility for it.
• The Ministries of Climate Change and Water have disappeared from the new Cabinet. The implications for the corresponding departments are yet to be announced, though one possibility is that responsibility for Water will fall under the Resources portfolio and Climate Change – assuming it has a future as a separate entity – under Environment.

Recently I was involved in a project undertaken by the Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government, studying examples of amalgamations and other forms of council consolidation across Australia and New Zealand. The largest amalgamation we looked had around 320,000 people and the council concerned was among the six or eight largest councils in Australia. This is not the largest recent amalgamation, however; last year’s merger to form Auckland Council has resulted in a council with a population over 1.4 million, making it the largest in Australasia.

However, before the New Zealanders start to look at the record books (and leaving aside for a moment the question of whether amalgamations are a good thing or not), even the Auckland amalgamation is dwarfed by media reports of plans in southern China to create the world’s biggest mega-city with a population of 42 million by amalgamating nine existing municipalities. These include Guangzhou, which already has a population of around 25 million and is currently the world’s second-largest city.

Even in area the new city will be vast, at over 41,400 square kilometres.  This is an area described in the online articles as “twice the size of Wales” – or to put it in Antipodean terms, 60% of the size of Tasmania. This is China’s manufacturing heartland, comprising almost 10% of the Chinese economy.

The proposal seems to be aimed at standardising a range of services such as public transport and health care which are offered at the municipal level in China, making it easier for citizens of each of the existing cities to access services across an area where huge population growth is rendering existing boundaries largely meaningless.  It is also intended to give the region an advantage over competing urban areas around Beijing and Shanghai.

The merger will be supported by around 150 major infrastructure projects which will integrate and expand the existing transport, energy, water and telecommunications systems. These plans include 29 rail lines including an express line to Hong Kong. The total cost is around $196 billion.

Just how these projects will be financed is unclear and perhaps not surprisingly there is little news of any opposition to the amalgamation in the Western media, but at least it is refreshing that council amalgamation is seen in China as a basis for additional investment on a vast scale – and not just an excuse for governments to save money!

Recent news that Brisbane’s Clem Jones* (Clem7) road tunnel which opened only a few months ago is now on the verge of financial collapse has a familiar ring, confirming a pattern of losses in a string of privately-owned toll roads and other infrastructure projects across Australia.

As part of this growing pattern, a key factor has been what turned out to be a huge over-estimation in forecasts of the tunnel’s use. According the Sydney Morning Herald, the projection for the Clem7 was that 91,000 vehicles would be using the tunnel every day by now, with numbers exceeding 100,000 by late next year.

However, even with a prolonged toll-free period and a current halving of the tolls, less than 28,000 vehicles are now using the tunnel.  As a result the owner, RiverCity, has slashed tunnel’s value by $1.56 billion to only $250 million and is still losing $10 million a month. The Herald article claims the company has just $106 million in cash reserves and needs patronage to double and tolls to return to their normal levels just to meet its interest bills.

The Herald concludes that the forecasts turned out so wrong mainly because they were shaped by the financial models required to fund the project and not vice versa, a problem exacerbated by their apparent reliance on peak-hour demand. As Melbourne Urbanist also points out, this sort of exaggeration is not confined to infrastructure companies – lobby groups and other project promoters are sometimes guilty of the same sin, resulting in a climate of hyperbole in which such exaggerated claims become plausible.

Whatever the cause, investors are going to be understandably more reluctant to go anywhere near private-sector toll-road projects for the foreseeable future. It seems we are at last reaching the end of an era in which toll-roads and motorways were embraced as the answer to all our transport problems.

For a long time they seemed like the ultimate solution. Governments, construction companies and investors combined to give punters what they wanted, or thought they wanted – better roads – and they then got the punters to pay for it through tolls. The toll companies also ran the roads themselves, which was another attraction for governments who didn’t want to put money into boring, unsexy things like railways which they increasingly disliked because of their ongoing costs, unions, public complaints, etc.

Like all get-rich schemes, however, the toll-road bonanza was ultimately good to be true. The music was always going to stop sometime and now it has – leaving the owners of the Clem7 and similar projects holding some very expensive babies.

However, there are a few hopeful conclusions that can be drawn from this mess. First is that there appears to be belated recognition of the need for some rationality and planning to be applied to process of developing major infrastructure proposals. If governments are ultimately going to carry the can – which one way or the other, increasingly seems to be the case – then surely they should exercise more say over what gets built and when, where and how it is built. After all, that’s what they were once elected to do.

One alternative investment approach is the so-called “availability model”, which is being used for Melbourne’s Peninsula Link. Under this arrangement, the Victorian government will make periodic payments to the road’s builder irrespective of volume, thus leaving the government to bear the consequences if the project is a white elephant.

Although at first glance this approach may seem more expensive to governments, it will lessen the incentive for toll-road promoters to exaggerate patronage forecasts or to make the outrageous demands that that accompanied some projects such as Sydney’s M2 that operators be compensated if “competing” public transport projects are constructed to serve the same corridor.

It will also force politicians to be more realistic about some of the hard choices that have to be made about transport funding. For too long the obsession with lower taxes has swept the problem of infrastructure funding under the carpet, which is one of the reasons why toll-roads were seen as such an attractive option. Ultimately, as the Independent Inquiry into Sydney’s public transport (in which I was involved) established, there is no easy way out – extra money will have to be found, from taxes, levies and increased fares – to pay for new infrastructure.

And if governments are going to explicitly shell out the funds for major road infrastructure, either upfront or on an ongoing basis, then from a financing perspective these road proposals lose a lot of their perceived advantages over the proposed rail projects that these same governments have neglected over the years.

Without the hype of exaggerated patronage projections, project costs and anticipated rates of return, both road and rail projects can be considered on a more equitable footing, one that takes into account externalities such as environmental impacts and social outcomes as part of a proper planning process. One result of that should be the realisation that the government abdication of its responsibility to plan and provide public transport in favour of a user-pays toll-road model has grossly distorted transport investment decisions over the past 30 years.

*     Clem Jones (1918-2007) was Lord Mayor of Brisbane, from 1961 to 1975. Although he did much to modernise the city, he also presided over the closure of its tramways in the late 1960s, very much part of an era that saw trams as an impediment to the modernist ethic of the car –based city. There is an obvious irony in a major road project named after him facing financial failure over 40 years later.

In the first four posts in this series I looked at the distribution of Sydney’s forecast population growth across local government areas and in particular the projected increase in the number of councils with populations over 200,000, from two in 2006 to 14 by 2036. I also looked at the characteristics of councils which are forecast to experience above-average population growth rates or above-average increases in population numbers.

I noted that of the “200,000 plus” councils, all but Sydney City Council are in outer-ring suburbs and that nine of the 14 are located in Greater Western Sydney. The GWS region is expected to grow by over a million people or over 58%, significantly higher than the projected metropolitan growth rate of just under 38%, resulting in GWS having over 40% of the total metropolitan area population by 2036.

There was a strong correlation between the so-called mega-councils and those which are forecast to experience above-average growth, either in terms of rates of increase or total numbers. This perspective reinforced the pattern of Sydney’s growth as occurring most strongly in an arc running from the Hunter through most of Greater Western Sydney and tapering off into the Illawarra, with smaller concentrations of growth around Sydney city and parts of the inner west.

There are some interesting conclusions to be drawn from this, some of which I’ll look at under the broad headings of demographics, infrastructure and governance:

    DEMOGRAPHICS 

• Managing Sydney’s growth will always be an issue, irrespective of population policy or overall levels of migration. Whatever policies are adopted in the future, Sydney’s pattern of growth is likely to continue to be highly differentiated between high-growth and low-growth areas.
• Under almost any scenario, Greater Western Sydney (GWS) will experience by far the greatest bulk of this anticipated growth, reflecting lifestyle choices, competitive (though not cheap) housing costs and natural increase.

    INFRASTRUCTURE 

• The outer suburban areas likely to experience growth, particularly in GWS, are those which already suffer from marked under-investment in infrastructure, particularly transport and to a lesser extent in health, education and cultural infrastructure.
• If existing and proposed suburbs in these areas are to continue to accommodate rates of growth significantly higher than the metropolitan average,  then they will need comprehensive planning and early investment in infrastructure to avoid both new bottlenecks and compounding the mistakes of the past.
• Just as they are unlikely to reduce significantly overall  rates of growth, changes in population policy are unlikely to affect the demand for new infrastructure to support transport, education, health, employment social and cultural opportunities in these communities.

    GOVERNANCE 

•  Sydney’s forecast growth and the highly differentiated nature of this growth will pose particular challenges for Sydney’s future urban management
• The growth of Sydney’s outer suburbs in particular will pose significant challenges in terms of resource allocation as well as in attempts to provide additional employment in these areas. This growth is also going to continue to put strain on the environment of these areas, particularly those suburbs at the urban-rural interface.
•  There are likely to be further challenges resulting from the complexities of governance in a city with 53 councils estimated to range in population size by 2036 from under 20,000 to over 480,000.
• The 14 potential “mega councils” (those estimated to be over 200,000 in population by 2036) will experience particular problems because of their high growth but are also likely to have greater capacity to deal with some of these issues.
• It is clear that meeting Sydney’s infrastructure demands will have to involve the Federal Government as well as the State Government and councils. It is also likely to require a review of Sydney’s current governance structures.

If you were told that by 2036 the number of councils in Sydney with populations of more than 200,000 would be seven times the number today, you might be forgiven for thinking that these forecasts were based on some fairly strong assumptions about council amalgamations. 

In fact, as somebody pointed out to me recently, if Sydney’s population grows in the way that State Government forecasts suggest, the mega-councils, or at least the reasonably large councils, will come to us without a single boundary change or amalgamation. 

A check of the latest forecasts from the NSW Transport Data Centre (TDC – in the process of becoming the Bureau of Transport Statistics) makes this clear. These assume that the population of the Sydney Greater Metropolitan Area (GMA, which also includes the Hunter and Illawarra) will grow by almost two million people, from 5.21 million to 7.19 million, an increase of around 40%. The TDC has also made forecasts of Local Government Area (LGA) population growth based on the current council boundaries. 

Before I go on I should make all the usual qualifications – population forecasting this far out, especially at the LGA level, is an inexact science, reliant on all sorts of assumptions about factors such as migration and decentralisation policies. Lately some of these factors have come under intense scrutiny as part of the “Big Australia” debate. 

These forecasts are also based on another fundamental presumption – that the current council boundaries will not change at all in the next 25 years. However, it is instructive to run with this and see what happens if the current boundaries are left intact. 

First, a 40% increase in Sydney’s population would mean a similar substantial increase in average council size, from 98,300 to 135,600. Naturally this growth rate will not be uniform across all councils but even if it is, the outcomes in numerical terms are obviously going to be much more noticeable in the larger councils. 

The graph below shows the distribution of councils in 2006 and 2036 in population bands starting with zero to 50,000, 50,000 to 100,000 and so on. Councils with over 200,000 have been grouped together in a single band. The number at the bottom of each column is the number of councils in that band for either 2006 or 2036. 

Sydney Councils: projected growth by population bands, 2006-2036

It should be noted a similar number of councils in 2006 and in 2036 in a particular band does not necessarily mean that these are the same councils. Some 2006 councils may have increased in population to the extent that they have moved into a higher band, to be replaced by councils increasing in population from the band below. 

With that qualification in mind, let’s have a look at the estimates. The middle bands, 50,000 to 100,000 and 100,000 to 150,000, remain relatively stable both in terms of the number of councils and population. However the number of councils under 50,000 is halved from 12 to 6, while the number of councils in the 150,000 to 200,000 band decreases from 11 to 6. Both bands will also experience similar proportional declines in total population. 

The story for the 200,000 councils is a marked contrast. In 2006 there were only two (Blacktown and Sutherland), totalling just under half a million. By 2036 there could be 14 such councils with a combined population of over 3.6 million. 

It can be argued that most of the projected 12 additional members of the “200,000 club” were in the 150,000 to 200,000 category in 2006 and that this change is merely one of degree. To an extent this is true, but there are a few interesting exceptions. Campbelltown and Wyong leapfrog from the 100,000 to 150,000 band into this group, but the most spectacular change is that projected for Camden, which is estimated to grow from under 51,000 to nearly 250,000 in this period as a result of the development projected for Sydney’s south-west. 

It also has to be acknowledged that the forecast overall increase in the proportion of Sydney’s population in the largest councils, at around 2%, is relatively incremental. However if the overall population projections prove to be accurate and council boundaries remain unchanged, there could be some interesting challenges and opportunities in having 14 councils of this size collectively responsible for providing local services and infrastructure to over half of Sydney’s population by 2036.

Well, it’s out. The final report of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Independent Public Inquiry into Sydney’s public transport, chaired by Mr Ron Christie, was published by the Herald earlier this week.

The report follows the release of the Preliminary Report in February which I discussed in a previous post. The final report covers the same broad themes as the earlier one and draws similar conclusions, but it also takes into account the submissions received in response to the preliminary report as well as public transport developments since its release.

In addition the Inquiry team, in which I participated, has refined the original report to sharpen its focus, in particular identifying 65 key recommendations. These are available as a stand-alone summary document from the Inquiry website, along with the full report.

Obviously I can’t summarise a document of over 520 pages in a single post (even the summary recommendation report is around 40 pages). I would however like to identify four key points that are emphasised in the final report. 

The first is the fundamental importance of the nexus between public transport governance, planning and funding. We have been all too successful, as the report observes, at preparing transport plans for Sydney, but hopeless at funding or implementing them. 

I used to say that if any of the six or seven public transport plans hatched in the past two decades or so had been implemented Sydney would be better off, but Sydney’s fragmented governance arrangements mean that as time goes on I’m not so sure. The lack of adequate public transport management has meant that these plans have increasingly become a patchwork of government project announcements, irrelevant to the city and community they were meant to serve (the CBD Metro debacle is an obvious example of this). 

Mr Christie’s transmittal letter summarises the basis of this nexus, which informs the rest of the report: 

The Inquiry believes that there is nothing more important or urgent than:

• Genuine reform of the way the planning and management of public transport takes place (”governance”)
• A long-term plan which is developed with real community input and has real certainty, backed by legislation, and
• Guaranteed, dedicated funding for implementing the plan.

Without all three of these legs of what the Inquiry calls the “Iron Triangle”, confidence in the way public transport is handled in Sydney will continue to erode.

The second point is the Inquiry’s comprehensive and innovative research into community attitudes to public transport, demonstrating not only a strong willingness to pay for public transport improvements but also establishing a set of parameters for the amount that the public are prepared to pay for these improvements. As Jarrett Walker (who also participated in the Inquiry) points out here, the Inquiry also succeeded in linking this package of potential funding increases to a systematic set of short-term and long-term improvements. 

As Jarrett notes, any attempts to introduce these increases and taxes in a vacuum would be a political disaster, but carefully linking them to such a package of well-considered improvements would be much more attractive to the general public. 

The third and related point which I think is well demonstrated in the final report is how much improvement can be made to Sydney’s public transport in the short term. The report does not shy away from identifying the major infrastructure projects which Sydney needs to implement and which have been so neglected for the past 30 or 40 years, but it also recognises that much can be done to improve public transport in the next five years before any of these major projects can be completed. 

Many of these improvements, such as improving train frequencies and running times or establishing a “frequent network” of bus services are relatively straightforward and could be achieved with relatively modest funding levels. The importance of these proposals is demonstrated by the fact that they make up nearly half the report’s recommendations. 

These recommendations are also instrumental in relation to the last point from the report that I want to highlight – the importance it places on developing Sydney’s public transport as a coherent, integrated network. This is not just an abstract objective – the Inquiry has given a lot of thought to how the various transport modes should be integrated through reforms of the fares and ticketing structure, improved service frequencies (which reduces waiting times at interchanges), improvements to interchanges themselves and, above all, a complete overhaul of transport governance arrangements. 

I’ll return to other elements of the  final report in future posts, but for now I would just like to thank the fellow members of the Inquiry team and in particular Ron Christie for his leadership and vision. As to “where to from here?” in relation to the report, I think the conclusion of his transmittal letter about what the public and transport stakeholders are seeking says it all: 

They want a public transport plan which will meet their needs both now and in the future, a plan whose components can and will be implemented and a plan which they will be willing to pay for because it will happen and because it will meet their needs. 

And they want our political leaders to listen, act and lead – and above all else, show some real foresight which transcends the electoral cycles.

A lot has happened since the SMH Transport Inquiry released its preliminary report in February. Shortly after its release the State Government announced that it was dumping the CBD and West Metros, aspects of which were criticised in the Inquiry – though the Metro’s demise was probably due to increasingly widespread criticism which predated the Inquiry. This has left a considerable bill of about $500 million for the early stages of constructing the CBD metro and for compensation to contractors and businesses.

The Government has also released the draft Metropolitan Transport Plan and a review of the Metropolitan Strategy for public comment (a process which itself was the subject of some controversy) and indicated that it intends to integrate the two plans in some way. While the Transport Plan proposes some projects which were also advocated in the Inquiry’s preliminary report, it falls well short of the latter’s detailed analysis and ignores many of its proposals for new infrastructure and improved services. The closing date for comment on the Government’s plans has been extended until 28 May.

The Government has also launched MyZone, a partial reform of Sydney’s arcane and complex fare structure, ahead of the introduction of electronic ticketing which is now scheduled to occur in 2012. MyZone reduces the number of train and bus fare bands and introduces a limited zone arrangement, but only a weekly or daily basis. Unfortunately it fails to address one of the key failings of the current fares structure – the transfer penalty public transport users face in Sydney when they change modes (I’ll make further comments on MyZone in a future post).

Meanwhile the Transport Public Inquiry is working to complete the final version of its report which will update the preliminary report and also consider the issues raised in submissions and discussions in response to the release of the preliminary report. The Inquiry, in which I have played a small part, hopes to have this work finished within a few weeks.

In my last post I outlined the governance arrangements outlined in the interim report of the Independent Public Inquiry into Sydney’s public transport which I had a small role in developing. Now I’d like to summarise the Inquiry’s proposals for better public transport in Western Sydney contained in the report’s chapter on long-term development and expansion of the network. 

First, a brief summary of some of the underlying assumptions. The interim report incorporates the basic assumptions of the State Government’s Metropolitan Strategy but with a higher population growth, resulting in a “mid-range” Sydney population of 6 million by 2041. 

Based on this figure, the report outlines two specific scenarios to encourage debate regarding Sydney’s future – a “European” scenario, which is essentially a continuation of the Government’s Metropolitan Strategy, adapted to the higher growth levels but with additional greenfield development in Western Sydney and additional consolidation across most of the city. Employment would be similarly spread across major centres. 

The alternative “East Asian” scenario has the same population targets but focuses on more employment growth in the CBD and inner city, combined with high levels of residential development concentrated along the proposed metro lines radiating from the CBD. This scenario is major departure from the Metropolitan Strategy but is the logical outcome of the government’s current commitment to the development of a metro network. 

For the purposes of developing the scenarios, the Inquiry has assumed similar constraints in both options, based on the community’s willingness to pay and the economy’s capacity to afford public transport infrastructure over the next 30 years. This amounts to a total, in current dollars, of around $36 billion. 

Based on these constraints and a range of other assumptions, a range of infrastructure projects was assumed for each scenario, as summarised in the following table. I have added an indication of which projects are located in or directly benefit Greater Western Sydney. 

Y* counted as a Western Sydney project because it services part of the region

Derived from table 2.10 in the Independent Public Inquiry interim report

The proposed public transport infrastructure to be constructed between 2014 and 2030 is also shown in the following maps of each scenario (source: Independent Public Inquiry interim report chapter 2 - click on each map to show full size):

 Some the project proposals such as the North West and South West Rail Links and the West Metro are common to both scenarios, but most of the other projects fall largely or wholly under either one or the other of the two models.  

In the above table the cost of the Western Metro has been included as a Western Sydney project in both scenarios because it services parts of the Parramatta, Auburn and Holroyd Council areas, even though the bulk of the route would be outside Western Sydney. With this qualification in mind, the European scenario assumes a much higher level of expenditure in Greater Western Sydney, reflecting the population and employment distributions which are both more dispersed than in the East Asian scenario.

Not only does the European scenario require more rail infrastructure in Western Sydney, but also greater investment in the region in light rail, busways and even motorways. If the Western Metro is discounted the difference between the two scenarios is even greater – $17.5 billion for Western Sydney projects in the European scenario as opposed to only $7.25 billion under the East Asian model. 

While the Inquiry notes that both scenarios would provide significant benefits in terms accommodating Sydney’s population growth and job shifts as well as the forecast increase in public transport trips, the importance of providing some degree of equity for the residents of Western Sydney was an important factor in the decision to favour the European scenario. To quote the interim report: 

The main difference between the scenarios would lie in their relative provisions for western and eastern Sydney and the equity of access provided. In this respect the “European” scenario would be superior. 

Because the “European” scenario’s proposed projects include an extra heavy rail crossing of the harbour, they would cater better for potential high-speed rail services from north of Sydney in the future. 

Similarly, because the “European” scenario’s proposed projects include an extension of the North West Rail line to link with the Richmond line, they would provide better access to the Richmond air force base if this were developed as an “overflow” airport for Sydney.

It is important to reiterate that these scenarios are presented for discussion only and neither necessarily reflects current government policy; for example, while the South West Rail Link has recently been re-announced by the State Government, the future of the North West link is still in limbo. What is implicit in the interim report is the real danger that if the government does proceed with prioritising the construction of an expensive metro network, no further infrastructure is likely to be provided in Western Sydney beyond the South West Rail Link and the Western Metro for many decades to come – if ever. 

Further, the considered approach to funding these improvements adopted in the report also means that their construction would have to be staged over a 30-year period, though even this rate of construction would be a considerable improvement over what has been done to date. In the short term, much would depend on the roll-out of the “Frequent Rapid” and “Frequent Local” bus services proposed as part of the Inquiry’s “Frequent Network” initiative which I will discuss in a further post.

It’s finally out – the interim report of the Independent Public Inquiry into Sydney’s public transport. 

The Inquiry’s report was prepared under the guidance of Mr Ron Christie, former NSW Coordinator General for Rail and former head of the RTA, who famously got the trains (and buses) to run on time during the 2000 Olympics. The inquiry was established and resourced by the Sydney Morning Herald, but was conducted on a completely independent basis. 

I felt honoured to be part of a team of transport advisers and planners who spent four months working with Mr Christie to develop the report, based on nearly 500 public submissions, meetings with key experts, detailed research into community attitudes and financial options, team members’ professional experience and expertise and, not surprisingly, robust debate within the team itself. 

I assisted in developing the governance section of the report. I also contributed to the overall debate, especially in raising social equity issues and the importance of looking at public transport provision in outer suburban areas, but the report is really a collaborative team effort. 

The result is a document which is far more comprehensive than any other transport planning initiative for Sydney I’ve seen in over a decade and which is also much more evidence-based than most transport plans. The report has six sections, starting off with what Sydneysiders actually said to the Inquiry about their own priorities for fixing the transport system, and perhaps more importantly the outcomes of an independent survey which clearly demonstrated their desire for change and willingness to pay for these improvements. 

Based on these responses, the rest of the 450-page report is divided into chapters on the long-term development of the transport network, fixing fares, short-term improvements, funding and finance and the chapter I contributed to, “Getting it done”. The recommendations based on these chapters are divided into nine, almost self-explanatory key themes, as follows: 

1. We have tried the ‘do nothing’ option for public transport. It has failed

2. We need a complete public transport network plan—and an agency that can deliver it

3. The three-legged stool: urban form, pricing and transport

4. Public transport, not just roads

5. A single, seamless public transport network

6. Cost-effectiveness

7. Short-term urgency and continuous improvement

8. Long-term commitment, now

9. Leadership and transparency for hard choices

I won’t try to summarise the report, because that has been done within the report itself as well as by the Sydney Morning Herald and by Mr Jarrett Walker, one of the team members. I would like however to talk about the two areas I was most involved in – governance, and the identification of transport priorities in Western Sydney. 

The governance section, “Getting it done”, was described by Mr Christie at the launch as being possibly the most important chapter in the interim report. To quote from the report: 

No matter how visionary a transport plan may be, it will succeed only if it is supported by a strong management structure committed to its long-term implementation.

This management structure, or “governance” system, must be:

• Able to secure the resources required to deliver the infrastructure underpinning the plan
• Strong enough to maintain a commitment to the plan in the face of short-­term political considerations
• Able to manage the whole public transport system cohesively and with authority
• Able to obtain enough funding to deliver a high level of services, and
• Be prepared to champion public transport and other sustainable modes in the face of competing priorities and interests, such as the demands of private vehicles.

If the governance system is inadequate the public transport plan is most unlikely to be delivered. Critical infrastructure will not be built, services will be poorly integrated and the level of service provision will remain patchy and unreliable.

The governance section outlines the fragmented nature of Sydney’s current transport management. It compares this state of affairs to overseas and interstate experience, especially systems that operate successfully in places such as Perth, London, Singapore, Vancouver and Zurich. It also summarises proposals regarding governance expressed in many of the submissions received by the inquiry. 

The overwhelming conclusion is that to have any success in overcoming its current “silo” based management and ad hoc planning, Sydney must adopt a single new authority to plan, develop and manage all public transport in Sydney. This authority must be responsible for most activities relating to public transport provision, including: 

•  long-term public transport planning
• defining public transport fare structures and fare setting
• implementing integrated fares and ticketing
• specifying routes, timetables and minimum acceptable performance standards for transport operators
• contracting for the provision of these services
• providing network information
• marketing and promotion of public transport services

The governance chapter also discusses the options for creating such an authority, including reforming the current structure or creating a new tier of governance (similar to the Mayor for London and the Portland Metro Council). It recommends a third option – the creation of an independent public transport coordination authority, called Transport for Sydney (TfS).

This body would undertake all the functions outlined above. The TfS would be managed by an independent Board with members from the State, Federal and local government and persons with experience in the transport sector, business, marketing and transport advocacy. A small secretariat, answerable to the Board, would manage Sydney’s transport through the following sections: 

• Plan Process, responsible for developing and reviewing the Public Transport Network Plan for Sydney and conducting public consultations.
• Infrastructure Development, responsible for the purchase (on a contestable basis) and project management of the design, construction and delivery of public transport infrastructure, plus the specification and setting of standards for all new rolling stock.
• Operations, the core of TfS, which would be responsible for the development and sale of integrated journeys to the community and the coordinated purchase of these improved and expanded public transport services, on a contestable basis, from transport operators.
• Budget and Government, responsible for financial management, funding negotiations and TfS’s relationships with State, Commonwealth and local governments in support of the Public Transport Network Plan.

Transport for Sydney governance model (click to see full size) from the Independent Public Inquiry interim report

The report goes on to discuss the relationships the proposed authority should have with state government agencies, the federal government and councils, as well as the role of an independent customer advocate and of consultation in the plan development process.

The Inquiry has proposed that the new authority prepare an initial plan for public comment and that subsequently drafts of the plan should be released nine months before every state election, thus providing additional scrutiny of the plan and the responses of the parties and politicians in the run-up to the election. As the report states: 

This four-yearly revision process, tied to the four-yearly electoral cycle, would present a major opportunity for the public, the government, the opposition political parties and individual electoral candidates to shape the policies and priorities of the transport authority.

The plan would then be finalised and adopted within 12 months of the election and would be protected by legislation against political interference outside of the plan adoption process outlined above.

The governance model proposed in the Inquiry’s interim report represents a clear break with the Sydney’s current complex and largely dysfunctional management processes. The primary intention is to greatly improve the planning and delivery of public transport in Sydney. In doing so, the model would remove many of the detailed aspects of transport administration from political control and interference, limiting the role of politicians to setting the broad directions of transport policy through the adoption of the four-year plan.

It is likely that this aspect of the proposed changes will meet the greatest political resistance, though, ironically, politicians stand to gain from being able to put day-to-day operational problems at arms length. Whether any or, ideally, all of the major parties have the courage to adopt the Transport for Sydney model remains to be seen.

In my next post I will look at Inquiry’s proposals for better public transport in Western Sydney.