Light rail plan to reclaim Sydney from the choke- hold of traffic
WMDs ‘‘ i s not the picture that emerges from an examination of all the assessments provided to the committee by Australia’s two analytical agencies’’.
Earlier, Howard’s justification for the war had also been challenged by others involved in assessing Iraq’s WMD capabilities.
Rod Barton, a former United Nations weapons inspector and former director at the Defence Intelligence Organisation, told ABC radio he did not understand Howard’s contention that he had been given ‘‘ a very strong intelligence assessment’’ that Iraq had a WMD stockpile.
‘‘ I’m not going to call him a liar but I don’t know why he said that.’’
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie — at the time of the invasion working with the Office of National Assessments, the key intelligence adviser for Australian Prime Ministers — said the war had been ‘‘ unethical, unnecessary and illegal’’. Stand on the foreshore at Circular Quay, look out across the glistening expanse of water and marvel at the view. To the left is Sydney’s harbour bridge, on the right its iconic Opera House.
It’s easy to understand why hordes of camera and smartphone- toting tourists flock here every day to capture for posterity a man- made wonder that has few equals.
But cast your gaze in the opposite direction, and there’s a contrasting attack on the senses.
Cars, vans, trucks and buses vie for supremacy on George St — the busiest street in Australia’s biggest city. Thousands of pedestrians snake past one another and often wait several minutes to cross at clogged junctions.
‘‘ They don’t show you this road on the tourist websites,’’ says Erik Christensen, a Danish tourist negotiating rush- hour traffic a few minutes walk from the harbour. ‘‘ I’m not sure what I thought the city would be like, but it wasn’t this.’’
After years of political paralysis, that may finally be about to change.
A A$ 1.6 billion ($ 1.95 billion) light rail plan that will free up the spine of the central business district from traf- fic is a godsend for pedestrians, who account for more than 90 per cent of total journeys.
For many exasperated Sydneysiders, it’s also the first tangible sign of genuine political commitment to untangle the sprawling city’s choked, disconnected and ageing transport system.
The proposal to turn much of Sydney’s best- known thoroughfare into a tree- lined pedestrian boulevard is a trip back to the future.
Bureaucrats are planning like it’s 1899; the year electric trams first trundled from the harbour up to the Town Hall, part of a network that at its peak carried one million passengers each day. It was second only in size to London. Then Sydney fell head over heels for the car and ripped out all but a few of the tram lines.
In recent years major cities worldwide have re- embraced rail in a bid to reduce ever- increasing congestion. Commuters in Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne have already witnessed significant change.
But the nation’s most populous city has struggled to shake an addiction to new toll roads that have done little to prevent peak- time traffic slowing to a crawl.
This week an international report reinforced what Sydney motorists already knew — that their city was one of the most congested in the western world.
NSW Auditor- General Peter Achterstraat has likened the morning commute to going 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali, costing the state billions in lost productivity.
Undeterred, the current Coalition Government wants to build another monster 33km toll motorway that will link existing highways and cut across densely populated suburbs close to the CBD.
‘‘ It’s a dog of an idea,’’ says urban transport expert Peter Newman, a former NSW Sustainability Commissioner. ‘‘ Why spend A$ 18 billion on a road at a time when car use in
Exasperated Sydneysiders may finally see a solution to the chronic traffic jams that strangle the central city. Sydney i s going down and public transport is going bananas?
‘‘ There is a cultural shift taking place that makes rail travel all the more important. Younger people in particular value technology over driving a car, and they’re going on trains and buses where they can use their mobile phones and iPads. That also makes them more productive, and the city more competitive.’’
Newman blames the roads obsession on former Liberal Premier Nick Greiner who, as the head of Infrastructure NSW, drew up the latest motorway plan.
‘‘ This idea comes from a body that’s much more susceptible to the road lobby and from a man who built the first big roads in Sydney and is still stuck in that old fashioned mindset,’’ he says.
Greiner, though, hasn’t got it all his own way. He failed to persuade current Liberal Premier Barry O’Farrell that the best solution to crippling city centre congestion was to build a bus tunnel under the CBD.
Resisting pressure from colleagues opposed to banning cars and other vehicles from George St, the Premier backed the A$ 2.2 billion 12km light rail project championed by Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian.
And that’s prompted an unlikely alliance with progressive City of Sydney Mayor Clover Moore, who has waged a pitched battle with the Government and powerful roads lobby over a multi- million dollar network of dedicated CBD cycle lanes.
Her council has pledged A$ 220 million towards the light rail construction. The only real sticking point is over how much of George St should be pedestrianised. The Government and council disagree by a few hundred metres.
Like a A$ 9 billion rail link for Sydney’s northwestern outskirts, the new light rail line i s unlikely to be operational until 2019 at the earliest. It will run from Circular Quay through the city centre and out to Randwick in the eastern suburbs.
The Government says the 300- passenger trams, running every two minutes, will reduce the number of buses that choke the CBD during the morning peak — currently around 1500 — by almost a third.
For the Mayor, light rail is a vital part of a mission to reclaim the city from cars for the people, creating more liveable and tourist- friendly areas filled with late- opening shops, cafes, bars and restaurants.
‘‘ The light rail will be a transformative project for the biggest city in Australia,’’ adds Peter Newman. ‘‘ It will allow people to easily get around, and in a bit of style. And it’ll make Sydney one of the great global cities to walk around.’’