Given the current interest in population growth, in the third of my articles I’ll take a look at forecast population growth in Greater Western Sydney councils.

To reiterate, the projections I’m discussing are based on forecasts released by the NSW Government Bureau of Transport Statistics (BTS – formerly the Transport Data Centre) and the usual caveats apply about their reliability or otherwise.

In the last article I discussed the 14 Sydney councils that will have populations over 200,000 in 2036, compared to the two we had in 2006. As I noted, no less than nine of these councils are located in Greater Western Sydney (GWS). However, the story of forecast growth in GWS does not end just with these “mega-councils”.

The table below shows the projected population increases and growth rates across the 14 GWS councils. In total, the BTS forecast predict that the region will grow by over a million people or over 58%, significantly higher than the projected Greater Metropolitan Area (GMA) growth rate of just under 38%. This will result in GWS having over 40% of the total metropolitan area population, compared with 35.5% in 2006.

GWS Councils population forecasts

It should be noted that the GMA includes the Hunter and Illawarra; if these are excluded, Greater Western Sydney would hold about half of Sydney’s population by 2036.

Not surprisingly, the councils with populations over 200,000 each will experience the lion’s share of the region’s growth and in fact the average size of a GWS council would be just over 209,000 by 2036. Five of these councils (Blacktown, Camden, Campbelltown, The Hills and Liverpool) will also experience growth rates above the metropolitan average – in the case of Camden, Liverpool and Blacktown, substantially so.

Of the five councils not expected to grow to over 200,000 by 2036, Auburn, Wollondilly and Hawkesbury will still experience growth rates above the Sydney average. Only Blue Mountains and Holroyd are expected to reach neither 200,000 nor an above-average growth rate, though Holroyd’s forecast growth rate is only just under the metropolitan average.

I’ll discuss the implications of the high rates of growth in Greater Western Sydney and elsewhere in a future post.

Given the current obvious interest in “Big Australia”, big cities and all things to do with population I thought I’d take a further look at the so-called “mega-councils” of Sydney’s future that I identified in my last post.

To reiterate, the projections I’m discussing in these articles are based on forecasts released by the NSW Government Transport Data Centre (TDC – now renamed the Bureau of Transport Statistics) earlier this year and the usual caveats apply about their reliability or otherwise. I should also stress that I’m not taking a position about population issues or the optimum size of councils, but just pointing out some of the more interesting implications of the distribution of Sydney’s growth as forecast by the TDC. 

In the last article I noted that if we accepted the TDC’s projections based on the current boundaries, the number of councils in Sydney with populations over 200,000 would grow from just two in 2006 (Blacktown and Sutherland) to 14 in 2036. OK, so which councils will be over the 200,000 mark by then? 

The following table identifies the councils in this group and their projected growth over the 30 years from 2006 to 2036. Its important to note that the “top 14” in 2036 were not necessarily the largest councils in 2006 and they are not all necessarily the fastest-growth Sydney councils – although their average rate of growth is well above the Sydney average of around 38% and the average forecast numerical increase is almost 50,000 more than the average for Sydney councils. Combined, they will house just over half of Sydney’s population in 2036.

Councils forecast to be over 200,000 in 2036

The other interesting aspect is their location. All but Sydney City Council are in outer-ring – or at least on the outer edge of the middle ring – suburbs. They form a “donut” around the city from Wyong and Lake Macquarie to the north, through Greater Western Sydney (where nine of the 14 are located) to Sutherland and Wollongong to the south. 

In summary, the 14 councils forecast to have over 200,000 people each by 2036 will: 

• Be home to over 1.2 million additional residents, or nearly 62% of Sydney’s overall growth;
• Grow by an average of 50% or over 87,000 people, compared to a city average rate of around 38% and 37,300 per council, with Camden set to grow by a staggering 390%;
• As a result, accommodate over 3.6 million people or over half of the city’s forecast population of just under 7.19 million.
• Have average populations of nearly 260,000 each (almost double the forecast Sydney average of 135,600), though this figure is skewed by the projected size of Liverpool (over 324,000) and Blacktown (over 48,1000)
• With the exception of Sydney city, be located around the city’s middle to outer suburban ring, with nine of the 14 in Greater Western Sydney. 

I’ll explore a few more implications of Sydney’s projected population growth at the council and regional levels in future posts.

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.

On today’s ABC National’s Public Interest (Sunday 2 May), Dr Paul Mees, a well-known Melbourne-based transport expert,  makes one of the most eloquent summaries of the case for a better-planned, better-managed and better-connected public transport system that I have ever heard.

While I don’t agree with everything that Dr Mees has said or published on public transport, this interview canvasses a number of critical public transport issues and on most of these his position is very similar to the conclusions drawn by the Transport Public Inquiry in its preliminary report. The interview, which can be accessed here, is well worth a listen and hopefully the ABC will public the transcript soon.

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.

In late November last year, just before I left for Perth and then Paris, the Sydney Morning Herald published my opinion piece on Sydney’s current transport infrastructure saga.

The title the paper chose was: Three times denied: western Sydney misses out on transport, again - which pretty much summed up my core argument which was how Western Sydney continually misses out on new public transport inftrastructure despite its current and projected population growth. I made the point that whilst it was understandable that some of the schemes proposed by Bradfield for additional suburban railways were never built at the time, the failure to provide public transport to outer urban areas became less and less forgivable as the population expanded well beyond the harbour-focussed city of the 1930s.

I argued that in light of this neglect and the fact that Sydney’s population centre was now located near Ermington, the State Government’s current policy of prioritising inner-city metros and cancelling outer-suburban rail expansion was completely inappropriate. I pointed out that if the CBD metro goes ahead, more than $8 billion will have been allocated in less than two decades for new public transport projects in eastern Sydney ,which is eight times more than the amount allocated to Western Sydney projects.

After I submitted the article for publication (and just before it was actually published), the State Government has announced that construction will commence on the South West Rail Link after all. This does not however diminish the central points of my argument which are that Western Sydney is still not receiving its fair share of resources and that building the rest of the region’s transport infrastructure (for example the North West Rail Link and the Parramatta to Epping Link) should still receive priority over inner-city metros.

I’m pleased that my article, which can be found on the SMH website here, received a mostly-positive response judging from the feedback on the website and the comments made to me personally – and it will be interesting to see what happens after the State Government reviews its transport priorities and metro proposals yet again.

The former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone’s recent City of Sydney CityTalk address contained a strong argument for greater investment in education, infrastructure and sustainable transport to tackle climate change, but he made another  important comment on city management  in the Q&A session afterwards. As a result it did not appear in the published version of his talk and has therefore not received the attention it deserves. 

Livingstone was musing how his position as a popularly elected mayor contributed to his sweeping reforms of planning, public transport and other areas of service delivery in the UK capital. He noted that the extensive powers devolved by the UK government  in setting up the position certainly helped, but another key factor was the way in which the position had been structured. 

He observed that as a member of the British Labour Party he had spent most of his political life making deals “inside the building” as he put it, within the party room and caucus, both inevitable features of the Westminster system and very similar to their counterparts at the state and federal levels in Australia. 

Livingstone pointed out that the reinstated and radically reformed position – in effect the creation of a directly elected executive mayor – had forced him to look “outside the building” for the first time. 

He had been required to negotiate and build alliances directly with organisations and structures that were not necessarily part of the political system, as well as with the wider community, to build support for his policies. Livingstone concluded that this aspect of accountability contributed to making a directly-elected mayor an ideal city manager. 

The initial reaction among many in the audience after his address was admiration for the results Livingstone had achieved mixed with an almost-universal attitude of “obviously it’ll never happen here”. This is due to the remote prospect of any Australian state government creating a directly-elected metropolitan-wide position that could be seen as a competitor. 

However, Livingstone’s perspective is still food for thought. With the partial experience of Brisbane, no major Australian city has a single entity, elected or not, with sole responsibility for city management, in particular around key planning and transport issues. Most of the key decisions are still made not only within state governments, but firmly “inside the building”. 

The apparent success of Livingstone’s London “experiment” should make state governments and councils in Australia look outside their own buildings a bit more, to reassess their perspectives on urban management and consider experimenting with different forms of more direct and accountable metropolitan governance.