Transport Corridors– Why not consider all the options 10 April 2017 – AITPM News

Fairfax media has just reported that the NSW State Government has said that planning for a transport corridor in Sydney’s southern suburbs must not consider public transport.
This ties in with a story we did last week about the Corridor inquires in Sydney in the early 80s. A number of people have sent in comments that raise concerns about the whole approach not just a passion for a specific mode of transport.
One well respected transport planner and manager who was involved in the inquiries said “What a mess – a fiasco of political interference”. A major problem he felt was that the then government wrote the terms of reference which specifically excluded looking at all the options.
The enquiries did challenge authorities on their assumptions and evaluation techniques which is accepted as a valuable exercise.
But one of our colleagues said “The enquiry stopped an outdated highway plan from being built, but stopped it so dead that “good” road planning was delayed too long”
The political climate at the time was riding on an “anti-freeway” sentiment but such an approach is over restrictive if it squashes conversation on the needs of a city and the roel that other modes of transport can reasonably fullfil.
In a paper at the 1984 ARRB conference (which for completeness I note that I wrote) titled “Sydney’s corridor inquiries – clarifying or clouding the issues?” it was concluded that the issues raised and the value to the planning process of the inquiries had a limited impact because of “oversimplification of the transport tasks and the unusual perceptions which led to predominantly ‘no build’ recommendations”.