Councillor Chris Harris

Hi All

I am now using a new website at http://chrisharrissydney.wordpress.com/.  Please check it out and pass it on to anyone who may be interested.  While this site wont be updating anymore it will remain in place as an archive of my older posts from before 2011.

Cheers 

Chris Harris 

When one thinks of sustainable infrastructure, roads are one of the last things that generally come to mind.  These lifeless, impermeable surfaces are used by greenhouse gas belching vehicles and contribute to heating up our urban environments, making them the enemy of many a dedicated “greenie”.  However roads could be made a lot more sustainable than they are, and given that they cover around one third of the land area in the City of Sydney Local Government Area there is a lot to be gained by making improvements in this field. 

After extensive consultation with urban sustainability expert Michael Mobbs I’ve come up with three key actions to make our roads more sustainable.  I’ll be trying over the coming weeks and months to persuade council to set up a demonstration sustainable road where these schemes are implemented and that, if successful, will serve as a model for the more widespread greening of roads across Sydney and elsewhere. 

The image gives an indication of a range of things that can be done to make our streets more sustainable while details of three key actions in this process are outlined below.  (If you have trouble viewing the image, click here sustainable-road-design.pdf)

Verge plantings

The big problem with roads, aside from the cars that use them, is how unnatural their surfaces are.  The asphalt that roads are made from doesn’t absorb water like soil in bushland does; rather it lets it all run off.  While roads don’t absorb water they do absorb far more heat than most natural surfaces and as a result of these two factors they make a significant contribution to the ‘urban heat island effect’.

The urban heat island effect is the phenomenon whereby cities are up to 7oC warmer than corresponding undeveloped areas.  7 oC can be the difference between a pleasant 25 oC and a scorching 32 oC.  As well as making our cities less pleasant the urban heat island effect results in big increases in power bills and greenhouse gas emissions as a result of greater air-conditioner use and makes a significant contribution to the number of heat related illnesses and deaths suffered every year.

One obvious way to help counter this effect is to make our urban environments more closely resemble their cooler natural counterparts and an easy way to do this is through the use of roadside vegetation.

Vegetation can help to cool an urban environment in many ways.  Firstly, trees provide shade that help people, and highly heat absorbent roads, stay out of direct sunlight.  Secondly, trees contribute to evaporative cooling as a result of water vapour being emitted from leaves.

Finally, vegetation has a much higher level of a property called albedo than roads do.  Albedo is a measure of how much light a surface reflects – the more reflective a surface is the less it warms up in the sun and the more sunlight gets reflected back out into space.

As a result of all these cooling factors vegetation can have a significant mitigating effect on the urban heat island.  Studies have shown that an urban landscape with 30% tree cover can be up to 6 oC cooler than the same area would be without any trees at all [1].

It addition to the various ways in which trees cool our urban environments they also play an important role in absorbing carbon dioxide emissions, providing wildlife habitat and just looking beautiful.  Planting of fruit trees or other plants which produce edible crops can also contribute to the overall health of urban populations by providing a source of fresh food and have a positive environmental impact by reducing the distance that food must travel to reach consumers and the amount of land that must be cleared for agriculture.

The City of Sydney is already well ahead of many world cities in terms of level of tree cover but I will be asking Council to investigate the possibility of planting more trees on median strips on wide streets and other underutilised areas in order to make a contribution to improving the sustainability of our roads.

Lighter coloured road surfaces

Another way to improve the sustainability of roads and help counter the urban heat island effect through the use of higher albedo surfaces is to change the way roads themselves are constructed.  Instead of using black asphalt that makes up most roads (low albedo) the City could use lighter coloured concrete (higher albedo).

As roads cover about one third of the land in the City of Sydney local government area replacing their black asphalt surfaces with lighter coloured concrete (which reflects 30% more heat) could effectively increase the amount of heat reflected by the City by around 10%. 
 
Modelling carried out on Los Angeles, which has a similar climate to Sydney, showed that such an increase in reflected heat could reduce urban temperatures by up to 3 oC [1].  This would make our City a much more pleasant place to be in summer, reduce the incidence of heat related illness and, if used in conjunction with increased vegetation, potentially contribute to a reduction in energy used for air-conditioning of up to 61% [2].

More reflective road surfaces can be beneficial not just in terms of heat but also light.  While the City is currently undergoing a range of trials into saving energy through more efficient street lighting these trials are focusing entirely on the structures that emit the light, the lamps themselves, and not on the areas that receive it.

It is obvious that a lamp illuminating an area with light coloured surfaces will make the area brighter than the same lamp illuminating an area with dark coloured surfaces.  This means that if the dark asphalt roads and footpaths of the City were replaced with lighter coloured concrete surfaces the same illumination we have now could be achieved with less energy use. 

Studies from the USA have found that this could effectively reduce lighting costs by almost one third as a result of decreases in energy use and maintenance costs [3].  Given that the city currently spends around $5.5 million per year to power and maintain public lighting it is obvious that there are significant economic, as well as environmental, benefits in switching to lighter coloured paving surfaces. 

Rain gardens

As touched on earlier, part of the reason urban environments are generally warmer than natural ones is that the former don’t retain water.  While in a bushland environment most rain is absorbed by soil and taken up by plants in cities the bulk of it just runs off.  In order to combat the urban heat island effect we need to keep as much water as possible where it falls so that it can cool the environment through evaporation and so that vegetation can be grown without using up our valuable drinking water supply.

Preventing runoff also has the secondary benefit of reducing the amount of urban rubbish and pollutants washed into our waterways.

One means of keeping rainwater in the urban environment is through the use of rain gardens.  Rain gardens are like ordinary gardens except that they are planted in gutters to absorb the rainwater that would otherwise run off.  The City has set up a number of these but I feel they are working towards a sub-optimal goal. 

One of the stated aims of the City’s rain gardens is to clean urban stormwater run-off.  However I believe a more practical and achievable goal for the rain gardens should be to stop urban stormwater run-off entirely in all but the biggest storm events.  The rain gardens need to be built in such a way that stormwater is slowed down sufficiently to be entirely absorbed by the soil of the garden.  This doesn’t happen with the current rain gardens and water flowing at high speed washes soil, mulch and gravel into the drain, destroying the garden’s viability and adding potentially more contamination to the harbour than it removes.

If the demonstration sustainable street goes ahead I’ll be seeking to have the design of the rain gardens reviewed so that they can more effectively retain water, helping to cool our streets as well as keep urban contaminants out of our waterways.

Post script:  At the meeting of Council on 6th of December, following the publication of this article, Council CEO Monica Barone presented this memo to Council, calling for a sustainable demonstration street to be set up in Myrtle St, Chippendale.  This motion was passed by Council and I will now very much look forward to seeing how this project pans out over the coming months and years.

References:

[1] Haida Taha (1997)-Urban climates and heat islands: albedo, evapotranspiration and anthropogenic heat.  Energy and Buildings, volume 25, page 99-103.

[2] Arthur Rosenfeld et al (1998)- Cool communities: strategies for heat island mitigation and smog reduction. Energy and Buildings, volume 28, page 51-62.

[3] John Gadja and Martha VanGeem (2001) - A Comparison of Six Environmental Impacts of Portland Cement Concrete and Asphalt Cement Concrete Pavements.

Car sharing programs within the City of Sydney have been highly popular since the first operators started, with Council support, in 2007.  Recently I recieved an email from a Sydney resident who was one of many who found car sharing to be a convinient and sustainable lifestyle choice.  She is moving to Tasmania, where no car sharing programs currently operate, and she asked me to write to the Greens Minister for Sustainable Transport Nick McKim to encourage him to look into the adoption of car share in Tasmania.

Below is some information on car sharing that I sent to Nick McKim. I touched on the history of car sharing in the City of Sydney and highlighted the benefits it could have for communities in Tasmania and elsewhere.

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Car sharing in the City of Sydney  

The first step towards the City of Sydney (CoS) supporting car share programs came in 2004 when I put forward a motion, which was supporteded unanimously, that the City enter into discussions with the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) about the possibility of assigning parking spaces as ‘car share only’.

Discussions with the RTA were long and drawn out and it was not until 2007 that a set of guidelines were produced, based mostly on the City’s submission on the issue.  By this point, the City had resolved to allocate 12 on-street and 10 off-street parking spaces to car share operators.  The precedent set by CoS may make the process of negotiating with traffic management authorities quicker and easier for other Councils in the future.

At the same time as the release of the guidelines Expressions of Interest were called for from car share operators to use these spaces rent free on a trial basis over two years.  The EoI request also invited operators to apply for additional parking spaces for use over the period of the trial.  Three operators submitted EoIs and the City endorsed all three.  Between them, the three companies requested access to 90 car spaces and the City granted this request.

The car share companies currently operating with the endorsement of CoS are:

GoGet - www.goget.com.au
Flexicar – www.flexicar.com.au
CharterDrive – www.charterdrive.com.au

The trial was a great success, as shown in this report to Council. By the time the City reported back on the results in October 2010 there were now 190 spaces allocated to car share vehicles throughout the City.  Over 4000 individuals and over 500 businesses in the CoS Local Government Area were members of a car sharing program.  By conservative estimates 550 cars had been taken off the roads.  Around 180 new members are signing up to the program each month.  The City’s draft policy on car sharing is now on display here for public comment. 

The existence of an effective car sharing program has a range of benefits including:

Environmental benefits

Car share vehicles are generally newer and better maintained than private vehicles.  A North American study compared the cars used by members of car share programs with cars those users had previously owned and found that on average the car share vehicles were over 4 km/L more efficient than the old private ones. 

Sponsorship of the program means that additional environmental standards can be mandated – in its draft car sharing policy CoS requires all car share vehicles that occupy City owned parking spaces be of at least a 4-star rating according to the Australian Green Vehicle Guide. 

Government support for a car share scheme also allows the government to encourage other innovative technologies - the City has recently installed Australia’s first public electric car charging station, powered by 100% green power, in response to an electric vehicle being added to the fleet of one of the car share operators.  The City has plans to install sufficient photovoltaic energy generation capacity to provide genuine renewable electricity to an expanded fleet of electric vehicles in the future.

Not owning a car makes people think before driving – they only drive when a car is absolutely necessary and look for alternative options at other times, e.g they are more likely to walk for incidental trips like shopping than people who privately own cars.  Membership of a car sharing scheme does not compete with public transport use as private car ownership does – people who own a car will often use the car in preference to paying for public transport in order to ‘get their money’s worth’ or because of the increased convenience.

Lower demand for cars also means less energy and resources consumed in car production – on average the manufacturing of a car produces the same amount of emissions as driving the car over the course of its lifetime.

It has been estimated that each share car removes 8-13 privately owned vehicles from the roads, depending on level of use.  As well as the obvious benefits, less cars on the road improves traffic flow, meaning that cars on the road are running for less time and traffic is less stop start and therefore cars are able to run more efficiently. 

Social benefits

The more people who use car share programs rather than owning their own car the less space needs to be taken up for roads and parking spots.  This leads to more land being available for community purposes, such as bike paths or light rail lines.
 
Membership of a car share program allows people who choose to use sustainable forms of transport the peace of mind of knowing that they have access to a car for situations where there is no other option.

CoS draft policy requires that cars be available for 95% of bookings made at least 2 hours in advance, meaning that the level of convenience is high.  The bigger a car share program gets the more convenient it becomes.

Economic benefits

For people who use cars only occasionally (drive less than 7000 km per year), membership of a car share program is cheaper than car ownership.

The same applies to businesses.  Businesses that require the use of a car only occasionally may also be more inclined to establish themselves in areas with low levels of parking if they can join a car share program.  This could potentially reinvigorate certain areas that are having trouble attracting businesses due to lack of parking.

North American studies have shown that membership of a car share program often prevents households from buying a second car.

Some Universities in the USA run car share programs for their students.  Allowing student organisations to take out co-op memberships of car share programs usable by students provides cars for people on low incomes who use them only very rarely, e.g. for moving house.

Lord Mayor Clover Moore has continued her obfuscation over Barangaroo despite finally resigning from the board of the Barangaroo Delivery Authority (BDA) after sustained pressure from the community and the Greens.  At an extroadinary Council meeting on the 24th of September she blocked my attempt to reintroduce a motion for the City to fund legal action against the BDA (for information on my first attempt to introduce this motion see this previous post). 

I had hoped that being freed from the conflicted position, in which being a Board member placed her, may have made her more interested in standing up for the community.  But alas it seems her first priority is still to the BDA, unless of course she is just refusing to change her vote in order to save face.

Sadly, it is not just Clover and the more compliant members of her ‘independent’ team that are hell bent on protecting Barangaroo from proper legal scrutinty.  Labor Councillor Meredith Burgmann also voted to support the Lord Mayor on this issue and seems to be siding with Clover more and more frequently these days.  Her support has not gone unrewarded however.  Below is a media release I recently put out on this issue.

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City of Sydney Greens Councillor Chris Harris says that Lord Mayor Clover Moore is in bed with the NSW Labor party and is seeking to expand upon that alliance here at the City of Sydney to make up for her inability to dictate the actions of her own team.  The situation came to a head at a recent Council meeting when elections for a new Deputy Lord Mayor were held.

Cr Harris  “Since the last Council election, when six out of ten Councillors were elected from the Clover Moore ‘Independent’ team, Clover has become increasingly used to getting everything her own way.  This extends to who gets elected as Deputy Lord Mayor each year.  Up until now it’s always been the person ordained by Clover to fill the role. However the team is split over Moore’s cooperation with state Labor in the gross overdevelopment at Barangaroo”

At the meeting Moore’s chosen Deputy candidate Cr Tornai was rolled by a member of her own team, Marcelle Hoff, who was supported by Greens Councillors Chris Harris & Irene Doutney, the Liberal Councillor and Clover Moore Party Councillor John McInerney.  Labor Councillor Meredith Burgmann sided with Moore and the rump of her team, leaving the vote tied. A draw from the hat secured the Deputy Lord Mayor position for Cr Hoff.

Clr Harris: “The Lord Mayor was relying on the vote of the Labor Cr Burgmann to shore up support for her candidate and I wondered what the pay-off would be. We didn’t have to wait long to find out – the day after the meeting Cr Hoff was sacked from the Board of the Sydney Festival and she was replaced by Cr Burgmann. I am tingling with anticipation about what further goodies will be offered to the Labor councillor to secure her ongoing support.

“The new Clover Moore/Labor alliance previously saw the Lord Mayor appointed to the board of the Barangaroo Delivery Authority by Premier Kristina Kennealy and now she has gained the support of the Labor Councillor to give her the majority in crucial votes at the City of Sydney Council.

“In the past few months, Clr Burgmann has sided with The Lord Mayor and the more faithful members of her team to support the interests of state Labor and Lend Lease over those of the public in relation to Barangaroo, including in a recent decision to block funding to the Environmental Defenders Office for legal action over the project.  Presumably Cr Burgmann is just following instructions but it’s less clear what Clover’s motivation is in supporting a terminal Labor government” said Cr Harris.

Post Script - following the media coverage surrounding this issue, Cr Burgmann has declined to accept the position on the Sydney Festival board, perhaps not keen to draw attention to her alliance with Clover. 

A long battle has finally ended in a victory for the Greens and the Rushcutters Bay community with the contract for the management of the local tennis courts being awarded to Rory Miles, the much loved operator of the site who has done a fantastic job of managing the courts for the last 27 years.  

Earlier this year it didn’t look like this story would have such a happy ending.  Lord Mayor Clover Moore and her party of “independents” vigorously supported a recommendation by Council staff that all Council owned tennis facilities be placed in the hands of a single operator, tossing Mr Miles out of his job.  See this post, which I made on the issue at that time, for more information. 

The Greens Councillors opposed this recommendation on the grounds that the tender process leading up to it was flawed in a number of ways.  It didn’t properly account for the contributions existing operators had made to the community, which in the case of Mr Miles included extensive free tuition and court time provided to local disadvantaged kids.  It also ignored the fact that he had been provided with a $100 000 per annum grant from the charity Franks Family to further this work with disadvantaged and indigenous children.

Additionally it was inconsistent in its treatment of the various tenderers.  One was excluded for emailing Councillors about their application as this was considered ‘lobbying’, however a second tenderer was excused after undertaking a similar action and went on to become the recommended winning tenderer.  When I tabled legal advice stating that this inconsistency was unacceptable Clover Moore scrambled to suspend the tender process and ultimately deemed it necessary to be restarted.

The new tender process was carried out in a far more rigorous and equitable manner.  Once the contribution to the community of each of the operators was properly accounted for it became clear that Mr Miles was the operator best placed to carry on the management of the Rushcutters Bay courts.

The level of community support behind this operator was phenomenal and I’m very pleased to see we’ve finally had a positive outcome.  Rory Miles has gone through hell over this issue and been forced to spend around $55 000 negotiating his way through Clover Moore’s attempts to get rid of him.  I’m sure that he and the tennis players of Rushcutters Bay will be most relieved that he’s now able to go back to doing what he does best, teaching tennis and operating a much loved social tennis club.