Councillor Chris Harris

Sydney’s CBD has been sentenced to a future of congestion, noise, pollution and economic disadvantage by a Transport Plan recently released by the State Government

Like the State Plan it is a plan to deceive, using selective arguments and pages of spin to gloss over its defects.

Key to the plan is its rejection of light rail in favour of more buses, argued in a one-page pro-bus rationale which ignores both international trends and local experts who have made a strong case for light rail based on detailed research.

This will cost Sydney dearly in many ways, both economically and in terms of amenity. Here are just some of the compelling arguments in favour of light rail the state plan has ignored:

The CBD already suffers 7,400 buses per day and growth estimates predict this will increase to 9,400 by 2021.

One light rail set can replace three buses. Do the math! With a single driver, light rail has lower operating costs even while offering the convenience and efficiency of a conductor.

Sydney’s bus system is at capacity yet still carries fewer than half the passengers our trams carried in the 1940s.

Trams, although wider than buses, actually take up less road space because they travel on rails and do not meander between traffic lanes. Such predictability also makes trams much safer for pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers.

Their higher capacity would reduce or eliminate that bane of inner city bus travellers - standing helplessly at a stop while bus after bus roars past, full.

Buses are also subject to ‘bunching’ whereby buses on the same route catch each other so passengers suffer a feast-or-famine effect and waiting times can double from say ten to twenty minutes.

On the other hand, fewer trams travelling on their defined routes are far easier to regulate.

Buses cause much of the congestion they suffer from. Already in the CBD peaks, long lines of buses queue up nose to tail along George Street, with space for layovers at a premium.

Buses are far noisier than trams especially as they hurry to make up lost time, roaring along often only a metre or so from pedestrians. Read the rest of this entry »

Even as Premier Morris Iemma struts the media stage spruiking his government’s newly greened image, a careful reading of our new State Plan shows it to be little more than a well-spun apology for roads and the coal industry. If you care about mitigating climate change, it is a disaster.

And yet, encouragingly, the plan targets a 60% reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2050. What could be wrong with that?

Unfortunately they are just empty words.

For a start, look at the transport strategy.

It aims to ‘curb growth in transport emissions while maximising transport choice’. In other words, this government is planning to INCREASE transport emissions, which already make up 14% of existing emissions.

‘Maximising transport choice’ translates to upgrading roads at the expense of rail, condemning NSW to a truck and car-based transport future.

The Draft Plan had prioritised an increase in the proportion of freight moved by rail compared to road. This priority has been dropped in the final version which curiously offers a few rather puzzling excuses — that regional areas had shown ‘confusion’ about this during consultation, and it was mainly the web-based responses that favoured it. Huh?

Instead, the plan offers almost laughable solutions like encouraging businesses to transport their road freight out of peak hours to relieve congestion. ‘Sorry about that delivery you need, madam, but Mr Iemma wants us to leave it in the warehouse until 10am.’ As if!

The Greens would have liked to see a transport priority framed more like this: ’significantly reduce transport emissions through moving more freight by rail and providing effective public transport and cycling options to as many people as possible.’

The plan does not even mention cycling, although there is a feelgood picture of a cyclist in the chapter on health and obesity.

On public transport, the plan targets a woeful three percent shift from cars to PT in ten years’ time. Compare this to Strasbourg which has achieved a 56 percent shift in the past ten years!

These figures reveal the truth behind the state’s much-vaunted rail system upgrades — welcome as they are, they amount to little more than a catch-up following decades of neglect. Read the rest of this entry »

Greens MP Lee Rhiannon has called on journalist Anita Quigley to retract her comments about her ‘desire to swerve towards’ cyclists’ reported in today’s Daily Telegraph.Quigley in her Daily Telegraph column writes “all cyclists in the city are irritating and I find bring on an overwhelming desire to swerve towards.”

“This is highly irresponsible journalism. Cyclists are regularly injured and too many are killed because some car drivers engage in dangerous driving when they see a cyclist,” Ms Rhiannon said.

“If the same comments about swerving towards children or a pregnant woman were made there would be outrage. Ms Quigley’s comments would leave readers thinking that cyclists are fair game.

“Her comments about swerving towards cyclists effectively incites road rage against cyclists.

“Cyclists have a legal right to use our roads. Ms Quigley is effectively encouraging people to break the law.

“These comments show the need for driver education programs. The government has a responsibility to change community attitudes. But unfortunately there was nothing for cyclists in the government’s Urban Transport Plan released last week.

“The number of cyclists using city streets is on the increase because of rising fuel prices, traffic congestion and concern about climate change.

It is disappointing that the Daily Telegraph has not extended their new found climate change concern to backing more cycle paths in the city, suburbs and regional areas,” Ms Rhiannon said.

Picture: Lee Rhiannon with yesterday’s critical mass annual harbour bridge ride.

Editor’s note: The Telegraph also published the mobile number of one of the critical mass organisers — without permission. SMS messages have been running approximately 2:1 against critical mass.

The Greens provide state election voters with the opportunity to support a party that thinks long term. We have a comprehensive set of policies that contain solutions to the critical issues of global warming, Howard’s industrial relations regime and the growing inequity in our society.

In past elections we have seen a number of Greens policies misrepresented.

Now the NSW Treasurer, Michael Costa, has gone one illogical step further, accusing the Greens of hiding their policies. The party’s policies are available on the Greens NSW website - here - but the Treasurer continues with his lie. This baseless allegation is a reminder that the major parties see the Greens as a threat and they will therefore distort and misrepresent our policies and activities.

About 200 angry people from resident action groups all over Sydney marched yesterday from Hyde Park to Parliament House to chants of ‘Sartor out’.

The common theme amongst the groups was Minister for Planning Frank Sartor’s takeover of so many planning decisions and the injustices being wrought on communities as a result.

A variety of banners highlighted everything from plans for the Eveleigh Rail Yards to the manipulation of zonings by developers that have caused hardship to landowners through lack of proper compensation.

But Liberal speakers’ rhetoric about Labor deals with developers rang hollow when Greens MLC Sylvia Hale took the stand and pointed out that both Labor and Liberal were up to their necks in big business election money. Only the Greens offered any alternative to the culture of pandering to big business at the expense of communities.

Sylvia’s comments highlighted the importance of putting Green watchdogs in both houses of the NSW parliament in 2007.