Toll-road lessons from the “Clem7 lemon”

Posted on 21 September, 2010 by Alex

Recent news that Brisbane’s Clem Jones* (Clem7) road tunnel which opened only a few months ago is now on the verge of financial collapse has a familiar ring, confirming a pattern of losses in a string of privately-owned toll roads and other infrastructure projects across Australia.

As part of this growing pattern, a key factor has been what turned out to be a huge over-estimation in forecasts of the tunnel’s use. According the Sydney Morning Herald, the projection for the Clem7 was that 91,000 vehicles would be using the tunnel every day by now, with numbers exceeding 100,000 by late next year.

However, even with a prolonged toll-free period and a current halving of the tolls, less than 28,000 vehicles are now using the tunnel.  As a result the owner, RiverCity, has slashed tunnel’s value by $1.56 billion to only $250 million and is still losing $10 million a month. The Herald article claims the company has just $106 million in cash reserves and needs patronage to double and tolls to return to their normal levels just to meet its interest bills.

The Herald concludes that the forecasts turned out so wrong mainly because they were shaped by the financial models required to fund the project and not vice versa, a problem exacerbated by their apparent reliance on peak-hour demand. As Melbourne Urbanist also points out, this sort of exaggeration is not confined to infrastructure companies – lobby groups and other project promoters are sometimes guilty of the same sin, resulting in a climate of hyperbole in which such exaggerated claims become plausible.

Whatever the cause, investors are going to be understandably more reluctant to go anywhere near private-sector toll-road projects for the foreseeable future. It seems we are at last reaching the end of an era in which toll-roads and motorways were embraced as the answer to all our transport problems.

For a long time they seemed like the ultimate solution. Governments, construction companies and investors combined to give punters what they wanted, or thought they wanted – better roads – and they then got the punters to pay for it through tolls. The toll companies also ran the roads themselves, which was another attraction for governments who didn’t want to put money into boring, unsexy things like railways which they increasingly disliked because of their ongoing costs, unions, public complaints, etc.

Like all get-rich schemes, however, the toll-road bonanza was ultimately good to be true. The music was always going to stop sometime and now it has – leaving the owners of the Clem7 and similar projects holding some very expensive babies.

Motorway_1

However, there are a few hopeful conclusions that can be drawn from this mess. First is that there appears to be belated recognition of the need for some rationality and planning to be applied to process of developing major infrastructure proposals. If governments are ultimately going to carry the can – which one way or the other, increasingly seems to be the case – then surely they should exercise more say over what gets built and when, where and how it is built. After all, that’s what they were once elected to do.

One alternative investment approach is the so-called “availability model”, which is being used for Melbourne’s Peninsula Link. Under this arrangement, the Victorian government will make periodic payments to the road’s builder irrespective of volume, thus leaving the government to bear the consequences if the project is a white elephant.

Although at first glance this approach may seem more expensive to governments, it will lessen the incentive for toll-road promoters to exaggerate patronage forecasts or to make the outrageous demands that that accompanied some projects such as Sydney’s M2 that operators be compensated if “competing” public transport projects are constructed to serve the same corridor.

It will also force politicians to be more realistic about some of the hard choices that have to be made about transport funding. For too long the obsession with lower taxes has swept the problem of infrastructure funding under the carpet, which is one of the reasons why toll-roads were seen as such an attractive option. Ultimately, as the Independent Inquiry into Sydney’s public transport (in which I was involved) established, there is no easy way out – extra money will have to be found, from taxes, levies and increased fares – to pay for new infrastructure.

And if governments are going to explicitly shell out the funds for major road infrastructure, either upfront or on an ongoing basis, then from a financing perspective these road proposals lose a lot of their perceived advantages over the proposed rail projects that these same governments have neglected over the years.

Without the hype of exaggerated patronage projections, project costs and anticipated rates of return, both road and rail projects can be considered on a more equitable footing, one that takes into account externalities such as environmental impacts and social outcomes as part of a proper planning process. One result of that should be the realisation that the government abdication of its responsibility to plan and provide public transport in favour of a user-pays toll-road model has grossly distorted transport investment decisions over the past 30 years.

*     Clem Jones (1918-2007) was Lord Mayor of Brisbane, from 1961 to 1975. Although he did much to modernise the city, he also presided over the closure of its tramways in the late 1960s, very much part of an era that saw trams as an impediment to the modernist ethic of the car –based city. There is an obvious irony in a major road project named after him facing financial failure over 40 years later.

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Sydney, population growth – and the rise of “mega-councils” (part 5 – conclusions)

Posted on 14 September, 2010 by Alex

In the first four posts in this series I looked at the distribution of Sydney’s forecast population growth across local government areas and in particular the projected increase in the number of councils with populations over 200,000, from two in 2006 to 14 by 2036. I also looked at the characteristics of councils which are forecast to experience above-average population growth rates or above-average increases in population numbers.

I noted that of the “200,000 plus” councils, all but Sydney City Council are in outer-ring suburbs and that nine of the 14 are located in Greater Western Sydney. The GWS region is expected to grow by over a million people or over 58%, significantly higher than the projected metropolitan growth rate of just under 38%, resulting in GWS having over 40% of the total metropolitan area population by 2036.

There was a strong correlation between the so-called mega-councils and those which are forecast to experience above-average growth, either in terms of rates of increase or total numbers. This perspective reinforced the pattern of Sydney’s growth as occurring most strongly in an arc running from the Hunter through most of Greater Western Sydney and tapering off into the Illawarra, with smaller concentrations of growth around Sydney city and parts of the inner west.

There are some interesting conclusions to be drawn from this, some of which I’ll look at under the broad headings of demographics, infrastructure and governance:

    DEMOGRAPHICS 

  • Managing Sydney’s growth will always be an issue, irrespective of population policy or overall levels of migration. Whatever policies are adopted in the future, Sydney’s pattern of growth is likely to continue to be highly differentiated between high-growth and low-growth areas.
  • Under almost any scenario, Greater Western Sydney (GWS) will experience by far the greatest bulk of this anticipated growth, reflecting lifestyle choices, competitive (though not cheap) housing costs and natural increase.

    INFRASTRUCTURE 

  • The outer suburban areas likely to experience growth, particularly in GWS, are those which already suffer from marked under-investment in infrastructure, particularly transport and to a lesser extent in health, education and cultural infrastructure.
  • If existing and proposed suburbs in these areas are to continue to accommodate rates of growth significantly higher than the metropolitan average,  then they will need comprehensive planning and early investment in infrastructure to avoid both new bottlenecks and compounding the mistakes of the past.
  • Just as they are unlikely to reduce significantly overall  rates of growth, changes in population policy are unlikely to affect the demand for new infrastructure to support transport, education, health, employment social and cultural opportunities in these communities.

    GOVERNANCE 

  •  Sydney’s forecast growth and the highly differentiated nature of this growth will pose particular challenges for Sydney’s future urban management
  • The growth of Sydney’s outer suburbs in particular will pose significant challenges in terms of resource allocation as well as in attempts to provide additional employment in these areas. This growth is also going to continue to put strain on the environment of these areas, particularly those suburbs at the urban-rural interface.
  •  There are likely to be further challenges resulting from the complexities of governance in a city with 53 councils estimated to range in population size by 2036 from under 20,000 to over 480,000.
  • The 14 potential “mega councils” (those estimated to be over 200,000 in population by 2036) will experience particular problems because of their high growth but are also likely to have greater capacity to deal with some of these issues.
  • It is clear that meeting Sydney’s infrastructure demands will have to involve the Federal Government as well as the State Government and councils. It is also likely to require a review of Sydney’s current governance structures.
Posted in Governance, Growth, Infrastructure, Local Government, Planning, Population, Statistics, Sydney metro area, Western Sydney | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sydney, population growth – and the rise of “mega-councils” (part 4)

Posted on 13 September, 2010 by Alex

In this post I’ll try to put the “mega-councils” story in the broader context of Sydney’s forecast population growth by looking at population increases growth rates rather than the resulting  size of the councils themselves, though obviously there is a strong link between the two.

According to the NSW Bureau of Transport Statistics  (BTS – formerly the TDC) forecasts, the Sydney Greater Metropolitan Area (GMA) will be 37.8% (the average growth rate per council will be slightly higher, at 39.5%, but for the purposes of this exercise I will stick with the GMA average). There are 16 councils which are forecast to experience growth higher than this average rate.

The average increase in population per council over this period is 37,225 persons and there are 15 councils whose growth in terms of total population will exceed this figure, according to the BTS forecasts (the usual caveats and qualifications as outlined in earlier posts apply). I have decided to bring together these two groups – those with projected higher-than-average growth rates and those with above-average population growth numbers as a highly arbitrary but quite interesting way of identifying “high growth” councils.

SYDNEY'S FORECAST

SYDNEY

As shown in Table 1, seven councils are forecast to experience above-average growth rates but below-average growth in terms of numbers, while six councils are forecast to demonstrate the reverse below-average rates but higher-than-average increases in terms of numbers. Nine councils belong to both groups.

This group of 22 councils (42% of the GMA’s 53 councils) is an interesting bunch. 74% of all of Sydney’s population growth will occur across these councils and the average rate of growth will be 53.8%.

 Not surprisingly, all 12 “200,000 plus” Councils I identified in previous posts that are forecast to be added by 2036 are members of this group as well. One of the two existing 200,000 plus councils, Blacktown, will also grow strongly, leaving only one council, Sutherland, which is currently over 200,000 but not on this list as it will grow comparatively slowly over the next 25 years.

Greater Western Sydney (GWS) tends to dominate this list. Table 2 summarises regional figures for these councils (don’t forget the numbers refer to the “high growth” councils in each region, not the total numbers of councils, anticipated total population increases or forecast regional rates of growth).

SYDNEY'S FORECAST

SYDNEY

Twelve of the GWS region’s 14 councils are in this group and these councils account for over 70% the high-growth council increase, 52% of the total GMA increase and 95.4% of GWS growth. All these figures are substantially higher than those in the remaining 10 high-growth councils, which are spread across four other regions.

In summary, the picture of Sydney’s future growth is of an arc, or crescent, starting in the north with Hunter councils such as Cessnock, Lake Macquarie, Maitland and Port Stephens, moving down through Wyong to a thick band around the Western edge of Sydney containing almost all the Greater Western Sydney councils and tapering off into Wollongong and Shoalhaven in the Illawarra.

Meanwhile other, smaller clusters of strong growth will occur in Sydney City (which will increase substantially both in numbers and rate of growth) and around Burwood and Strathfield (which will show strong growth rates but off a small population base).

What is equally significant are the councils not shown in these tables, the other 31 that are forecast to experience below-average growth rates and comparatively lower increases in total populations. For example, there are no councils from Sydney’s north and south, none from the eastern suburbs and only two comparatively small councils in the inner west.

I’ll discuss some of the overall implications of the BTC population forecasts in a future post.

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Sydney, population growth – and the rise of “mega-councils” (part 3 – Greater Western Sydney)

Posted on 29 July, 2010 by Alex

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

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.

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Sydney, population growth – and the rise of “mega-councils” (part 2)

Posted on 21 July, 2010 by Alex

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

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.

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Sydney, population growth – and the rise of “mega-councils”

Posted on 20 July, 2010 by Alex

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

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.

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Sydney transport inquiry – final report released

Posted on 5 June, 2010 by Alex

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.

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Paul Mees puts the case for better-connected public transport

Posted on 2 May, 2010 by Alex

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.

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Transport Public Inquiry final report nears completion

Posted on 2 May, 2010 by Alex

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.

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Western Sydney a winner in Transport Inquiry interim report

Posted on 16 February, 2010 by Alex

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. 

Type of infrastructure

Project

Western Sydney project?

“European” scenario (2008/9 $)

“East Asian” scenario
(2008/9 $)

Metros

CBD Metro, Central to Rozelle

 

 

$5.3 bn

 

West Metro, Westmead to Central (under European scenario, incl. Central to Barangaroo extension)

Y*

$10.1 bn

$8.0 bn

 

North East Metro, incl. new Harbour crossing, Martin Pl. to Dee Why

 

 

$9.0 bn

 

South East Metro, Martin Pl. to Maroubra Jcn

 

 

$3.0 bn

 

Rozelle–Macquarie Metro

 

 

$4.0 bn

Heavy rail

North West Rail Link, Epping to Rouse Hill

Y

$3.7 bn

$3.7 bn

 

NW Rail Link, Rouse Hill to Richmond Line extension

Y

$ 0.4 bn

 

 

South West Rail Link, Glenfield to Leppington

Y

$1.3 bn

$1.3 bn

 

SW Rail Link extension, Leppington to Bringelly

Y

$0.3 bn

 

 

Parramatta–Epping line

Y

$2.0 bn

 

 

New cross-CBD/Harbour line, Central to Chatswood (costs based on rec. route investigation option )

 

$3.4 bn

 

 

New Bankstown–Liverpool line

Y

$2.0 bn

 

 

New South East line, Central to Maroubra Jcn

 

$3.0 bn

 

Light rail/ferry

Light rail/ferry projects (inner suburbs)

 

$3.0 bn

$0.75 bn

 

Light rail projects (outer suburbs)

Y

$0.6 bn

$0.15 bn

Busways/bus priority works

Busways and “Bus First” road projects (inner and middle suburbs)

 

$1.2 bn

$0.6 bn

 

Busways and “Bus First” road projects (outer suburbs)

Y

$2.1 bn

$0.65 bn

Motorways

W. Sydney motorways

Y

$2.7 bn

 
Total  

 

$35.9 bn

$36.4 bn
Western Sydney Total  

 

$28.6 bn

$15.25 bn

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.

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