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.

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.

Melbourne-based firm .id (informed decisions) have just launched economy.id, an online economic profile to “describe, explore and promote” local economies.

economy.id joins the .id stable of profiles and other web-based programs, including profile.id, atlas.id, forecast.id and housing.id. .id’s main client base is local government, with over 180 councils and regional organisations of councils across Australia using one or more .id product. However the beneficiaries of economy.id and the company’s other products are not just councillors and local government staff, as most councils also make these products available online for local residents, businesses, community organisations and others to use (click here for an overview of .id’s products).

economy.id (which so far can be viewed for Penrith City Council in NSW, the City of Monash in Victoria and the City of Joondalup in WA) has a deceptively simple structure. It sets out to answer questions in two key sections called “our economy”, focused on economic characteristics and performance and “our resources”, which concentrates on profiling the resident workforce as well as the labour force and key local infrastructure.

The questions include, for example, “what is the size of the local economy?”, “how is the local economy performing?” and “what are the local labour force characteristics?”. These questions economy.id attempts to answer through a series of accessible tables, graphs and thematic maps – and whilst the focus is on the local, most tables and graphs provide comparisons to relevant metropolitan and state level benchmarks.

Like the company’s other products, economy.id is hosted on the .id server, but councils and other clients can customise the profile’s appearance, incorporating their logos and linking it to their own websites. This approach is consistent with .id’s other products and the company has largely succeeded in maintaining a similar look and feel.

This belies the complexity involved in putting together a local economic profile, which has required the integration of a wide variety of data, including information from the census, national accounts, and other ABS data sources, DEEWR small area labour markets data and input-output modelling from REMPLAN. The latter is particularly significant for councils, providing accessible input-output modelling at the local level.

All this means that economy.id moves well beyond the parameters of .id’s “flagship” product, profile.id, which is mainly based on census data. Not surprisingly the costs are also higher, with an up-front charge of $35,000 and an annual fee of $7,500, the latter covering hosting the profile, regular updating as new data becomes available and a comprehensive training program. However, as a council staffer pointed out at the NSW launch, economy.id has the potential to deliver significant savings to councils in financial and staff resources.

Until now, councils interested in researching and analysing local economic performance have had to commission either academic researchers or private consultancy firms, usually on a one-off basis. Invariably this approach is very expensive and whilst the results can be and often are of a high standard, this has not always been the case. In addition the data produced has usually been static in nature and difficult to update, with limited community access, especially online.

economy.id succeeds in addressing these issues. It also provides a more consistent and higher standard of economic data available for use within council (ensuring, for example, that all reports to council use the same economic parameters and even the same graphs and tables) and in promoting the local area for investment. This information will also put councils in a much better position when negotiating with state government, federal government and the private sector.

This is not to say that economy.id is perfect. Ideally, some modules such as local infrastructure will be fleshed out with more material in future. In addition, the issues noted in the supporting information regarding data sources and quality need to be considered carefully. Whilst economy.id may not meet everyone’s requirements for local economic analysis but it will go a long way by providing a baseline of the best available and up-to-date economic data in a consistent and accessible format.

Whilst councils need to decide whether this product will meet their local needs (and, as with all web-based products, should always assess the relevant Web 2.0 risk factors discussed here), economy.id has the potential to provide great value for money. It will allow councils and others using economic information to redirect their resources away from basic number-crunching, formatting and presentation to more strategic analysis of the results.

Ultimately it will also provide a great local community resource. Local communities, businesses and organisations may well be the major beneficiaries, especially if enough councils across the country or even within a particular region adopt economy.id as their standard for local economic profiling and make it publicly available through their websites.

Disclaimer: whilst the author has no current relationship with .id, he was once involved in commissioning the company to prepare a regional profile based on the 2006 census.

In my last post I looked at the snapshot of Sydney’s 33 largest employment centres provided by the NSW Transport Data Centre (TDC) in its Employment and Commuting in Sydney’s Centres, 1996 – 2006, based on the Metropolitan Strategy centres hierarchy. The TDC report also discussed employment growth in the period 1996 to 2006, which is the topic of this post (note: the qualifications about the data I mentioned in my previous post also apply to the statistics below).

The report shows 71,350 new jobs were created in Sydney between 2001 and 2006, with 26,600 (37%) of these jobs in centres. There was a growth rate of 4% for both employment centres and the Sydney statistical division (SD) generally. However, employment grew much faster between 1996 and 2001, when it increased in centres grew by 13% and across the Sydney SD by 9%.

As I said earlier, whilst the TDC report is a great metro-wide overview, digging deeper on a regional basis provides another perspective. To do this I restructured the graph in the TDC report showing centres growth in the 1996 to 2001 and 2001 to 2006 periods into two graphs for eastern and Western Sydney (graphs 1 and 2) and a summary table for the period 2001 to 2006 (table 1). This affirms the extent to which growth rates slowed in 2001 to 2006 across both regions, but also reveals that there was considerable variation between eastern and Western Sydney.

Graph 1:

Graph 2:

TABLE 1: SYDNEY EMPLOYMENT GROWTH BY REGION SUMMARY, 2001-2006

Source: based on NSW Transport Data Centre data

* Eastern Sydney – all Sydney LGAs outside Greater Western Sydney

** Western Sydney – the 14 LGAs comprising Greater Western Sydney

In both regions and most centres there was strong growth between 1996 and 2001. However in 2001 to 2006 the pattern diverged. In eastern Sydney the CBD grew by over 5% and centres such as Ultimo/Pyrmont, Macquarie Park, Rhodes, Randwick and Sydney Airport also experienced considerable growth. Meanwhile other areas such as Surry Hills/Kings Cross, St Leonards/Crows Nest and South Sydney lost jobs. Overall, centre-based employment grew by only 1.8% and growth was higher outside the centres than within them in eastern Sydney.

The story in Western Sydney was quite different. Employment growth across GWS centres in the period 2001 to 2006 of 12.5% was much stronger than the average in eastern Sydney centres and stronger than employment growth overall in the Sydney SD. It was also stronger than in areas outside the main employment centres.

This growth was also more widely spread across the key centres. Only Wetherill Park showed a significant loss, although Bankstown decreased marginally. Norwest, Eastern Creek, Castle Hill, Olympic Park, Westmead, Huntingwood and Campbelltown experienced much stronger growth. Unlike eastern Sydney where the CBD experienced strong growth, there was only a marginal increase in employment in Sydney’s second CBD, Parramatta.

All this would seem to suggest that strategies to concentrate employment are having more success in Western Sydney. However, there are some major qualifications. The increase in employment in the GWS centres has come off a very low base, with the result that centres-based employment still makes up only 25.3% of all employment in the region and a mere 7.8% of Sydney’s overall employment. Furthermore, much of this growth has occurred in centres such as Norwest and Castle Hill which are very poorly served by public transport (Norwest alone accounted for 37% of the growth in centre-based employment in Western Sydney).

In the next few posts I’ll consider the relationship of employment to population growth and the resulting transport implications.

In December 2008 the NSW Transport Data Centre (TDC) released Employment and Commuting in Sydney’s Centres, 1996 – 2006, which detailed employment and commuting statistics for Sydney’s 33 largest employment centres based on the Metropolitan Strategy centres hierarchy. This came out around the same time as the research conducted by the University of Western Sydney (UWS) Urban Research Centre in developing the Western Sydney employment strategies for WSROC. These studies complement each other and deserve further attention.

The TDC report notes that in 2006 there were 1,923,900 people employed in the Sydney statistical division (SD) in 2006, with 716,500 jobs (37%) located in the 33 centres. Between 2001 and 2006, 71,350 new jobs were created in Sydney, with 26,600 (37%) of these jobs in centres. The report also notes that employment growth was much higher between 1996 and 2001 than in the 2001 to 2006 period. Between 1996 and 2001 employment in centres grew by 13% and across the Sydney SD by 9%, whilst between 2001 and 2006 employment slowed to a growth rate of 4% for both employment centres and the Sydney SD.

Whilst the TDC report provides a great overview, further analysis based on centre locations shows that there are strong regional variations. In this post I will start with a snapshot of employment in 2006. Before we start, a word of warning: the following figures which have been derived from this TDC report should be viewed with some caution. There is a significant degree of undercounting and failure to answer census questions specifically related to employment. For example, we don’t know where around 6% of the Sydney workforce works and another 4% have no fixed location. I have left these “location unknown” workers out of most of the following statistics.

Another complication is that changes between the 2001 and 2006 censuses which make it difficult to compare them. For example, the TDC report notes that 2006 journey to work data uses place of usual residence, while previous in years the place of enumeration was used for home location and trip origin.

In addition, I have used LGA-level data from another TDC journey to work table, which has slightly different employment totals to those in the centres report. Also, whilst the TDC centres are based on those in the Metropolitan Strategy, the data is not directly comparable to the figures in the Metro document. Above all, this material does not take into account the impact of the many changes that have occurred since 2006, including the global financial crisis. All this means that the following analysis should be seen as a guide and no responsibility is taken for its accuracy.

With the warnings out of the way, let’s have a look at the stats. Eastern Sydney obviously has the majority of employment and the majority of centres as defined by the TDC – 20, compared to 13 in Western Sydney. Of the people employed in centres, only 21% work in Greater Western Sydney (GWS) Within eastern Sydney (for these purposes, the area covered by the rest of the councils in the Sydney Statistical Division but outside the GWS region), over 230,000 people are employed in the CBD alone.

In fact, the CBD accounts for 12% of Sydney’s total employment – this makes up nearly a third of all of Sydney’s centres-based employment and over 20% of eastern Sydney’s jobs. Almost another 30% of eastern Sydney jobs are in other centres, which means that just under half the east’s employment is centre-based (table 1).

TABLE 1: SYDNEY EMPLOYMENT BY LOCATION, 2006 – Eastern Sydney and Western Sydney

Source: based on NSW Transport Data Centre data

*  Eastern Sydney – all Sydney LGAs outside Greater Western Sydney

** Western Sydney – the 14 LGAs comprising Greater Western Sydney

#  Not in centres totals based on TDC LGA employment tables

The story in Western Sydney is very different. Employment is much more dispersed – only just over a quarter of the region’s centre-based jobs are in TDC-defined centres and no one centre dominates. Parramatta, with just over 34,000 jobs, is Western Sydney’s biggest employment centre but accounts for under 6% of the region’s employment, with 19.6% of the region’s jobs located in other centres (table 2 and graph 1).

TABLE 2: SYDNEY EMPLOYMENT BY REGION SUMMARY, 2006

Source: based on NSW Transport Data Centre data

 * Eastern Sydney – all Sydney LGAs outside Greater Western Sydney

** Western Sydney – the 14 LGAs comprising Greater Western Sydney

#  Not in centres totals based on TDC LGA employment tables

Graph 1:

In my next post I’ll look at changes in employment centres from 2001 to 2006.

Recently the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the estimated resident population figures for states, local government areas (LGAs) and statistical local areas (SLAs) as at 30 June 2008 (see ABS publication 3218.0). These figures have major implications for governments, councils and community organisations.

The ABS reported that the NSW population in 2008 was 6.98 million people, an increase of 79,200 people, with a growth rate for 2007-08 of 1.1%. This was higher than the average annual growth rate for the five years to June 2008 (0.9%). Most of this growth occurred in Sydney with the population increasing by 55,000 people (or 1.3%) to 4.4 million people. Sydney now has around 63% of the state’s population.

SLA POPULATION CHANGE, SYDNEY – 2007-08 (source ABS)

The ABS figures indicate that almost all local government areas in Sydney experienced growth and that nine of the ten LGAs with the state’s largest population growth were also in Sydney (see map and Table 1). The top four were all in Greater Western Sydney: Blacktown (5,300), Parramatta (4,000), the Hills (formerly Baulkham Hills – 3,300 people) and Liverpool (3,200). 

The ABS also reports that over half of Sydney’s LGAs experienced a growth rate higher than average NSW rate of 1.1%, with around one in five recording rates of 2.0% or more. The top two were in Greater Western Sydney: Auburn, (3.1%) and Parramatta (2.5%). 

TABLE 1: LGAs WITH LARGEST POPULATION GROWTH, SYDNEY (source ABS)

From a strategic planning perspective, the population growth estimates make interesting reading. Despite the majority of Sydney’s population living in eastern Sydney, a majority of the growth occurred in the three sub-regions that comprise Greater Western Sydney (GWS), which increased by 29,781 compared to eastern Sydney’s 25,266. The top two and fourth sub-regions in terms of total growth were in GWS: West Central (12,227), North West (11,664) and South West (5,890). The third, South (8,097), was in eastern Sydney (see table 2 and graph).

In terms of growth rates, GWS grew by 1.6% compared to eastern Sydney’s 1.0%. At the sub-regional level West Central grew the fastest, at 1.8%.

 TABLE 2: SUB-REGIONAL POPULATION GROWTH, SYDNEY (based on ABS data)

The upshot of this is that population growth has accelerated in Greater Western Sydney over the 12 months to June 2008 with over 54% of Sydney’s growth, compared to just under half of total growth in the five-year period to 2008 (table 3).

Growth rates were particularly low in the Inner North (0.5%) and North East (0.2%) which had a combined growth of less than 2,000 people. All eastern Sydney sub-regions had growth of less than 3,000 people each, with the previously-noted exception of South Sydney which grew by more than 8,000.

 TABLE 3: EASTERN AND WESTERN SYDNEY GROWTH RATES (based on ABS data)

However, a significant proportion of this growth has occurred as urban consolidation in the well-established suburbs of the West Central LGAs, particularly Auburn and Parramatta but also Bankstown, Fairfield and Holroyd which experienced growth of around 2,000 people each. Growth also occurred in the North West sub-region LGAs which have a mixture of established and new release areas, such as Blacktown, Baulkham Hills and Penrith, as well as in Liverpool in the South West.

These results need to be carefully considered by everyone involved in planning and providing infrastructure and services, not to mention those seeking to increase densities in established areas, particularly in eastern Sydney. GWS has done much of the “heavy-lifting” in accommodating Sydney’s growth and if this pattern continues, the point at which Greater Western Sydney surpasses eastern Sydney’s population will occur sooner rather than later.

 In future posts I will look at rural growth patterns as well as the implications of these figures in the context of changes in employment patterns and infrastructure provision.

Alex Gooding

If you want further analysis of current ABS demographic and other data and its implications for strategic planning, please contact the author at info@goodingdavies.com.au.

My last post discussed how NSW had fared relative to the other states in attracting transport infrastructure funding, particularly for public transport, in this week’s federal budget – which, in summary, was not very well.

 It’s useful to look at the five public transport projects which did receive substantial funding to see what characteristics they have in common. First cab off the rank and the project to receive by far the biggest allocation was the Regional Rail Express, which will provide a 40 kilometre link from West Werribee on the Geelong line to Southern Cross Station in Melbourne, joining the Baccus Marsh line near Ravenhall.

According the Federal Government, it will segregate V/Line regional rail services from metropolitan rail services allowing regional trains from Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo avoid being delayed by suburban trains. It will also provide additional capacity for suburban services from Werribee, Sunbury and Craigeburn in the western growth corridor, delivering capacity for an extra 9,000 passengers in peak hour. 

The next largest public transport project is the 13 kilometre first stage of a light rail system on the Gold Coast, running from the Gold Coast campus of Griffith University to Broadbeach via Southport, which will receive $365 million. Further investment will be provided by State and Local Governments and the private sector with the line ultimately linking to the heavy rail network at Helensvale in the north and extending south to Coolangatta. The Federal Government comments that when completed this project will remove up to 40,000 cars from the road network. 

The next two largest projects are both located in Adelaide. The 42 km Gawler line to the city’s north will receive $294 million for resleepering and electrification to improve services, whilst the Noarlunga line receives $291 million for a 5.5 kilometre extension south to Seaford. Both projects complement SA Government plans to modernise Adelaide’s rail network. The final “big five” project is a $236 million investment to sink the central city section of the Perth to Freemantle rail line, releasing 50,000 sq metres of land for urban redevelopment.

There is quite a step down to the final four projects worth under $100 million each. One of these involves direct capital works – the O-bahn track extension in Adelaide, which receives $61 million for a 4.5 km link from the existing terminus to the CBD. The other three involve preconstruction works or feasibility studies for inner-city rail proposals, with the Sydney West Metro receiving $91 million, the East-West Rail Tunnel $40 million and the Brisbane Inner City Rail feasibility study $20 million.

A few things become clear from this analysis. First, the Federal Government appears to have prioritised well thought out projects providing extensions or improvements to existing heavy rail services that link to outer suburban growth areas, such the western growth corridor in Melbourne and the southern and northern suburbs in Adelaide. It is also prepared to invest substantially in new projects in outer suburban areas such as the Gold Coast light rail. 

Second, where it has funded these projects it has done so substantially and obviously with a view that they will be delivered comparatively quickly. The top five projects received enough funding to complete major stages of work and to be in operation within five or six years. 

Third, the Federal Government does not seem inclined to throw large sums of money at the inner city metro and other rail projects put forward by the various State Governments, especially if they are not shovel ready. The only inner city project to receive substantial funding was the undergrounding of the east-west rail line in Perth – and it can be argued that the (former) WA Government had already wisely invested some of the proceeds of the (former) mining boom in building two complete new rail lines to outer suburban areas in the north and south of the city. 

This caution reflects the view put by IA in its Report to the Council of Australian Governments in December 2008 regarding metro and other “new technology” transport proposals. This is worth quoting in full:

The strategic policy choice facing Australian governments is whether, and under what circumstances, new urban rail systems should adopt such technologies. However, a move towards these technologies raises many issues. To avoid a repetition of the rail gauge problem from the nineteenth century, decisions on these matters need to be made with national input and intergovernmental collaboration. The network that exists today represents more than 40 years of consistent long term planning and investment. An equivalent national commitment to such planning and investment is required in Australia if new technologies are to be applied to the public transport sector.

However, even if a decision is taken to make such a strategic shift, the existing rail networks will be a fundamental part of Australia’s urban transport networks for decades to come. Sensible investment in the capacity of those systems and in life-cycle replacement of assets will continue to be required.

In seeking Federal funding, NSW chose to put all its public transport eggs in two very big baskets– the CBD Metro and the Sydney West Metro – and received only $91 million towards preconstruction works for the latter. Clearly, neither project was assessed as being ready enough to meet IA’s criteria, nor indeed do they reflect the Federal Government’s predisposition (no doubt influenced by the IA perspective quoted above) to fund projects in outer urban areas mostly based on the “old technologies”.

The irony is that NSW did have three shovel-ready projects that met IA’s criteria but did not put them forward. I’ll consider these and some of Sydney’s strategic transport planning issues in my next post.