NSW Budget: More roads!

[CommuRider]

Can't believe it

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/winners-and-l ... 1jv5f.html

Road users - $6.3 billion is earmarked for road upgrades and to tackle congestion and blackspot problems

How will upgrading a road tackle congestion?!!!! All roads lead to Rome -erm I mean Sydney. Build more roads! Build more roads! Maybe I should move to within 2kms of my workplace. I can smell traffic from the text.

[Strawburger]

Can't believe it

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/winners-and-l ... 1jv5f.html

Road users - $6.3 billion is earmarked for road upgrades and to tackle congestion and blackspot problems

How will upgrading a road tackle congestion?!!!! All roads lead to Rome -erm I mean Sydney. Build more roads! Build more roads! Maybe I should move to within 2kms of my workplace. I can smell traffic from the text.

That is in fact great for cyclists!

Upgrading a road generally doesn't mean creating a new one. It means improving the existing one to perform at current standards (or even realigning it to be more suitable). This also means adding cycling facilities to these upgraded roads (most don't have existing facilities). This does not mean just painting a line on the road either! Usually it means separated facilities or more safe conditions for the cyclist.

Yes the freshly upgraded road pushes the congestion somewhere else, i'm pretty sure most of the planned upgrades won't be near the Sydney Centre. Most of the money will be to help out the linkages between Brisbane/Sydney/Melbourne & Adelaide. This is also good news for online shoppers. Your next Wiggle box will get here sooner from the terminals! Quite a lot of the parcel hubs aren't in Sydney and when it hits Brisbane or Melbourne, haulage will become quicker as the roads improve. The LBS's will be able to get that new shiny bike in a lot quicker too.

[CommuRider]

Upgrading a road generally doesn't mean creating a new one. It means improving the existing one to perform at current standards (or even realigning it to be more suitable). This also means adding cycling facilities to these upgraded roads (most don't have existing facilities). This does not mean just painting a line on the road either! Usually it means separated facilities or more safe conditions for the cyclist.

I'm glad you see it as half-full. Devil's in the details.

[Xplora]

NSW roads are tragic, and it is awful driving around the place because of the inability of our roads to handle the traffic that is already on them. When you have major arterial roads like James Ruse Drive or Pennant Hills Road bumper to bumper on a Sunday morning, something is wrong. They need to spend the money because the problems need fixing. Putting more people on bikes won't fix these problems if the roads can't handle the traffic outside peak periods right now. Growing population and all that.

Less angry drivers means less stressed riders. They need to spend the money, because our lifestyles depend on it.

[Nate]

Putting more people on bikes won't fix these problems if the roads can't handle the traffic outside peak periods right now. Growing population and all that.

ummm you need to re-think that...
if the population grew & no one used cars - would you need to increase road capacity? no.

Congestion = too many cars for the amount of road.
2 Solutions:
- more roads
- less cars
We cant put in more roads, as we're out of space, so we have to go to less cars.

Cycling saves 10's of millions of $ of congestion every year, thats a fact & cant be argued - its part of the solution.

[sogood]

That is in fact great for cyclists!

+1

At the simplest level, fewer pot holes to trap tyres and safer for road riding.

[sogood]

ummm you need to re-think that...
if the population grew & no one used cars - would you need to increase road capacity? no.

No one used cars?

Given the size of that economy, if so happens suddenly, I wouldn't want to live in NSW any more as there'd be no economy left.

[Wayfarer]

"Widening roads to solve traffic congestion is like loosening your belt to cure obesity,"
-Walter Kulash

[CommuRider]

Gastric band surgery sorely needed.

Lilyfield to Dulwich Hill light rail going ahead BUT no adjacent cycleway?!!!!

[Xplora]

Putting more people on bikes won't fix these problems if the roads can't handle the traffic outside peak periods right now. Growing population and all that.

ummm you need to re-think that...
if the population grew & no one used cars - would you need to increase road capacity? no.

Congestion = too many cars for the amount of road.
2 Solutions:
- more roads
- less cars
We cant put in more roads, as we're out of space, so we have to go to less cars.

Cycling saves 10's of millions of $ of congestion every year, thats a fact & cant be argued - its part of the solution.

Nate, you live in a relatively corksniffing part of town that has a comparatively stable population - the explosion in population in other areas that can't even be called the outskirts of Sydney anymore has meant that there are a lot of roads that are incredibly incapable of dealing with the people that are trying to use them. I mentioned a couple. People are arriving in Sydney in the order of 1000 extra people a week. The current infrastructure can't deal with the people we have, and for many places you need dramatic improvements to make it "barely acceptable". I was pleasantly surprised that Old Northern Road in Castle Hill's CBD has finally been bypassed - we need 100 projects like that to just make the city livable. Go for a drive near Norwest to see what happens when a major road upgrade just isn't enough

I agree that we need to sink 100 million into bikepaths. It's just that I drive as well (about to have the second baby) and I'm sick of Sydney's roads because they SUCK.

[diggler]

More roads just means more cars.

My crazy solution is congestion pricing for cars, but no charge for electric bikes.

[wombatK]

Upgrading a road generally doesn't mean creating a new one. It means improving the existing one to perform at current standards (or even realigning it to be more suitable). This also means adding cycling facilities to these upgraded roads (most don't have existing facilities). This does not mean just painting a line on the road either! Usually it means separated facilities or more safe conditions for the cyclist.

So how does the proposed upgrade for the M5 fit with your world-view ?

The proposal is to widen it west of King Georges Rd to Fairford Rd. That will involve consuming the wide shoulder that to date has been a fairly reasonable on-road cycleway. That won't make it safer for cyclists - and will probably see fewer cyclists using it.

It will also do absolutely zero to increasing motoring capacity to the City, Port Botany and the Eastern Suburbs - and the congestion from funnelling 3 lanes into two at King Georges is likely to have an overall detrimental effect. It is very much an exercise in re-arranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic. The ship is going down.

FWIW, there is an "off-road" cycleway along the M5 linear park, which is half respectable between Bexley North and King Georges Rd. It is a pathetic tree-uprooted goat-track from there west to Riverwood. Then it dissappears north towards Bankstown at Salt-Pan Creek - i.e. doesn't make it to Fairford Rd and points west of that. So yes, it doesn't have existing facilities, and it will lose those it presently provides.

I'm not as familiar with the M2, but following the debate here over the expansion, it doesn't read as if there has been any consideration of cyclists needs there either.

The only people who can win from this are politicians, and then only if a fawning media contingent fail to critically examine beyond the spin.

[longshanks]

I think part of the congestion problem could be alleviated by some form of car pooling. I'm sure its easier said than done but i would say 90% of the cars that i see on my morning commute have the driver as the sole occupant.

[CommuRider]

Tried to carpool, didn't work. There are some carpooling websites and I advertised years ago when I was interested and never got a bite.

[Sweeper59]

Instead of continually throwing $$$ at new and upgraded roads to deal with increasing vehicle numbers, there should be more funding for schemes and incentives to reduce our increasing reliance on cars. As a roads and traffic engineer, I earn my money from designing roads, but think we're heading down the wrong path. Continually building more roadways is NOT the answer. All levels of government should be looking at encouraging alternative commuting systems by providing better public transport, better pedestrian and cycling facilities etc, and discouraging private vehicle use by banning cars from major city CBD's, increased parking fees etc.

Governments have also been talking about 'decentralisation' for many years, but do little to encourage it. As someone who relocated from Sydney to NSW north coast 20 years ago, I can't understand why there aren't more people doing the same thing. Sure, living in capital cities has some advantages, but I couldn't go back to commuting in traffic for 10-15 hours a week, and having to put up with traffic congestion whenever you go out.

[martinjs]

The other thing that needs to happen in the cities is the death of the McMansions. Lots on these forums like to compare us to Europe! At this stage that's not feasible as they are on the whole have higher density living. The old 1/4 acre block bit in the outlining and some inner suburbs needs a big rethink! Sell up and sub divide will increase density and decrease travelling distance's therefore make cycling a much more popular option.

Martin

[wombatK]

As a roads and traffic engineer, I earn my money from designing roads, but think we're heading down the wrong path. Continually building more roadways is NOT the answer. All levels of government should be looking at encouraging alternative commuting systems by providing better public transport, better pedestrian and cycling facilities etc, and discouraging private vehicle use by banning cars from major city CBD's, increased parking fees etc.

Governments have also been talking about 'decentralisation' for many years, but do little to encourage it. As someone who relocated from Sydney to NSW north coast 20 years ago, I can't understand why there aren't more people doing the same thing. Sure, living in capital cities has some advantages, but I couldn't go back to commuting in traffic for 10-15 hours a week, and having to put up with traffic congestion whenever you go out.

Decent shared cycle paths still need some civil engineering, as do rail and other public transport options - so hopefully, you won't be thrown on the scrapheap just yet.

Decentralisation doesn't work because creative people need to be near one another

(Richard) Florida's use of census and economic data, presented in works such as The Rise of the Creative Class (2002), Cities and the Creative Class (2004), and The Flight of the Creative Class (2007), as well as Bobos in Paradise by David Brooks (whose "bobos" roughly correspond to Florida's Creative Class), and NEO Power by Ross Honeywill (whose NEOs deliver a more sophisticated level of evidence), has shown that cities which attract and retain creative residents prosper, while those that do not stagnate.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_class

Our former state government was pursuing a broad urban consolidation strategy that wasn't incompatible with this, and I haven't seen any reversal in the new governments direction.

Fortunately, living in a densely populated creative milieu is totally compatible with using cycling as a primary means of transport. My hunch is that cyclists are generally more creative people too.

[Strawburger]

So how does the proposed upgrade for the M5 fit with your world-view ?

The proposal is to widen it west of King Georges Rd to Fairford Rd. That will involve consuming the wide shoulder that to date has been a fairly reasonable on-road cycleway. That won't make it safer for cyclists - and will probably see fewer cyclists using it.

It will also do absolutely zero to increasing motoring capacity to the City, Port Botany and the Eastern Suburbs - and the congestion from funnelling 3 lanes into two at King Georges is likely to have an overall detrimental effect. It is very much an exercise in re-arranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic. The ship is going down.

I was the road designer of that particular project (M5 West) so i'm glad you brought that one up! I did also work on the F5 widening (currently being constructed further south). The road widening will not consume all of the wide shoulder that is there currently. The wide shoulder was built with the widening in mind, not for luxurious bicycle travel unfortunately. I thought the shoulder is closed in that section anyway but i must be wrong. The first part from KGR to Salt Pan Creek will be using the existing pavement and will be resurfaced and linemarked for 2/3 lanes each way. From Salt Pan Creek to Moorebank Ave the additional lane will go inside the median (filling in the grassed area) to create an extra lane. From Hume Hwy to Camden Valley Way there will also be an additional lane added in the median. There was talk of an additional lane put on the outside as well but that may cost too much to do. There is also talk of attaching a dedicated bike bridge onto the Georges River bridge. Currently there is a squeeze through that area for bikes so a solution has to be found.

So what happens to all that traffic? Well traffic counts point out that most of the movements aren't toward/from the city. The extra lanes will accommodate the extra traffic the M7/Camden Valley Way brings in to the network and the additional local traffic using it. As Xplora brings up, the population explosion in this area has choked up the M5, with the extra lanes this should deal with the local traffic better in the areas where they jump on and off the M5.

The M5 East project would take care of the haulage from Port Botany and the eastern suburbs traffic. Unfortunately this section is quite expensive and is operated by (formally known as) the RTA. There are concepts in place to create additional tunnels for the M5 East but the government keeps putting it on the back burner. There is no way an extra lane can be squeezed in the current road boundary so the only option would be tunnels.

As for my world view - we need roads to haul, we need more public transport and better facilities locally so people get out of cars.

Hope that clears things up a bit.

[Strawburger]

Instead of continually throwing $$$ at new and upgraded roads to deal with increasing vehicle numbers, there should be more funding for schemes and incentives to reduce our increasing reliance on cars. As a roads and traffic engineer, I earn my money from designing roads, but think we're heading down the wrong path. Continually building more roadways is NOT the answer. All levels of government should be looking at encouraging alternative commuting systems by providing better public transport, better pedestrian and cycling facilities etc, and discouraging private vehicle use by banning cars from major city CBD's, increased parking fees etc.

Absolutely. We must start getting away from the "car is king" era.

[Myddraal]

There are plenty of places outside Sydney which desperately need genuine work not just increased capacity; Pacific Hwy anyone? Sydney is a tiny part of NSW, and really the only part which suffers MAJOR congestion. I need to live in Sydney (although as soon as my course is done I 'm gone) and obviously the majority of people who live here do, but it seems everyone who's immigrated to Australia in the last 60 years has never left the city. If we could just encourage people to get out of the place instead of stopping at the ports it'd go a long way to relieving the strain on all of Sydney's infrastructure. The last thing we need is to increase the population density.

I know people who have genuinely never been further than Penrith - if that - and consider a city of 20,000 people tiny. The whole point of living here is to make a stack of money, then rack off and live a comfortable life somewhere else. I don't understand why any one would stay here if they had a choice.

[Strawburger]

There are plenty of places outside Sydney which desperately need genuine work not just increased capacity; Pacific Hwy anyone? .

It's a big job! It was Government funding and is slowly getting there.

Pac Highway Upgrades

[ShanDog]

Can't believe it

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/winners-and-l ... 1jv5f.html

Road users - $6.3 billion is earmarked for road upgrades and to tackle congestion and blackspot problems

How will upgrading a road tackle congestion?!!!! All roads lead to Rome -erm I mean Sydney. Build more roads! Build more roads! Maybe I should move to within 2kms of my workplace. I can smell traffic from the text.

I did that! I can't tell you how great it feels to sit at home until 15 minutes before work watching how terrible the traffic report is.

[CommuRider]

Can't believe it

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/winners-and-l ... 1jv5f.html

Road users - $6.3 billion is earmarked for road upgrades and to tackle congestion and blackspot problems

How will upgrading a road tackle congestion?!!!! All roads lead to Rome -erm I mean Sydney. Build more roads! Build more roads! Maybe I should move to within 2kms of my workplace. I can smell traffic from the text.

I did that! I can't tell you how great it feels to sit at home until 15 minutes before work watching how terrible the traffic report is.

Improvement for me since I've taken up cycling. Don't have to deal with the M4 much these days. However the "build more road" mentality will just increase the CO2, the impatience of drivers, the fact that cars are part of the problem in the CBD.

[sogood]

An extensive subway network is what we need to satisfy people movement demands in this mega city. But the government is broke and no one wants a subway line next or underneath them, so forget about that one.

[martinjs]

An extensive subway network is what we need to satisfy people movement demands in this mega city. But the government is broke and no one wants a subway line next or underneath them, so forget about that one.

Sorry, can't call Sydney a Mega City, you have to have a population of more than 10million to do that!
Let's hope Aussie cities don't get that big, apparently Melbourne is growing faster then Sydney and will pass it by the end of the decade.

Martin