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A new tram plan for Sydney
NSW Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian announces a light rail network from Circular Quay to Kingsford and Randwick aimed at reducing congestion in the CBD.
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Coming up with any sort of meaningful transport policy in this state will always be a process requiring graft, compromise, insight, intelligence, intrigue, skulduggery, chicanery, and appeals to the best and worst of human ambition and desire.
The O'Farrell government's final transport plan, released on Thursday morning, reflects all that and more. But it also represents a package of policies which, if implemented, could make a meaningful difference to Sydney.
What the light rail will look like near Martin Place.
The fundamental battle in drawing up a transport plan is between those who would like to build and design things to make it easier for people to get around, and those who want to minimise the cost of doing so.
In recent history that battle has been waged between officials in the Transport Department and those in the state's Treasury, and their respective ministers.
But under Barry O'Farrell's government, the influence of Treasury has been super-charged.
Barry O'Farrell .. time for him to build. Photo: Luke Fuda
Infrastructure NSW, the advisory body on steroids, took on Treasury officials as staff. And it took the bean-counter's pragmatism to heart.
Thus it is wary of new train lines, as these are not only expensive to build, but also expensive to run once you have built them. It prefers new roads, as these are cheaper to build, but also much cheaper to run once built. In fact, if you put tolls on them they can start to pay themselves back.
When O'Farrell came to power, Nick Greiner, the former premier and current chairman of Infrastructure NSW, was the only senior person inside government with experience around a cabinet table. And, invited to sit on the cabinet's infrastructure committee, this put him in a powerful position to push his perspective on a green, if not overly environmental, government.
The route the new tram will take.
But Greiner was not pushing his agenda in a vacuum.
Sydney's public transport system had been woefully neglected. In the past century the CityRail system, the backbone of Sydney's morning and afternoon commute, had been upgraded with new lines through the city every three decades or so. But more than 30 years have passed since the last upgrade and the system is demonstrably groaning at the seams.
Infrastructure NSW, influenced by the Treasury perspective, argued against major extensions to the train system. It also argued against any new light rail lines to be used as serious options for public transport.
The area around Chalmers Street will be transformed
It pushed this perspective hard in internal deliberations and, according to some, this fractured the relationship between Greiner and the Transport Minister, Gladys Berejiklian, in a way that was difficult for both.
Berejiklian came to office with a promise to build a train line to Sydney's north-west. She quickly found out that doing so would also require building another train line under the centre of the city.
Berejiklian had also promised to put trams in the city and possibly extend them to the east.
The NSW Government has revelaed a new transport plan.
As O'Farrell said on Thursday: "The voice who most strongly argued for a return of light rail to the transport mix in NSW was Gladys Berejiklian as shadow transport minister."
O'Farrell's final plan can be viewed as an attempt to balance the agendas of Berejiklian and Greiner and the age-old perspectives they represent.
The plan endorses a light rail line through the city and as far east as Randwick and Kingsford. But it endorses a cheaper version of the plan that will travel on the street surface through Surry Hills, and not in an expensive but faster tunnel.
Tram plan ... the view from World Square.
It endorses another train line through the city, but that line will be built only in another decade or so.
And it endorses, finally, the project Greiner says is the most important for the state: the 33-kilometre WestConnex motorway to link western Sydney, the airport and the south-west.
Announcing the policy on Thursday, O'Farrell hit upon a new buzz-word: balance.
"Over the next four years $25 billion will be spent on transport in this city," he said. "Under the balanced announcement we are making today, 56 per cent of that will be spent on public transport and 44 per cent will be spent on roads. That's because we understand the need to do both."
Now O'Farrell has to get on and build it.
Poll: Do you think trams will help ease congestion for commuters?
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