Victor is not Victoria

Rozelle Metro station

The CBD Metro was designed to give residents along Victoria Road a rail line to the CBD. There was no rail line to this area of the city. Originally it was conceived to link up with the Northern Line and take pressure of Stratsfield Station and the Western Line. It was then redirected to link directly to Epping station. The project was abandoned when the cost of the first stage escalated out of control but not before the state government had spent almost half a billion dollars on property acquisitions.

When North Shore rump politicians came to power the CBD metro project was revived and the disgraced public servant Rod Staples was brought back from the dead and put back in charge. Ms Berejiklian redirected the line away from Victoria Road to, you guessed it, Chatswood in her electorate. The tunnels would have to pass under the deepest part of Sydney Harbour. Instead of taking a rail line to a part of the city that had never had a rail service, the metro line would replicate almost exactly the existing Chatswood to Central rail line, with subway stations so deep beneath North Sydney and Wynyard Station that there was lift-only access to the surface, a subway station under Pitt Street, directly adjacent to Town Hall station and a subway station deep under the western end of the Central Country Terminal.

Needless to say, no attempt has been made to cost the project. Baird claims he can fund the project by appealing against an independent assessment of power pricing and selling urban electricity distribution assets.

But where does this leave the commuters using Victoria Road to access jobs in the CBD? Baird's ultimate insult to them is to call his proposed station under North Sydney "Victoria Cross". The residents along Victoria Road have been double-crossed.

One-Stop loop

Schematic from Dec 2012 brochure

The original plans announced in Sydney's Light Rail Future showed buses from the Harbour Bridge being given exclusive access to the Druitt Street U-turn. North Shore buses would stop in York Street at Wynyard park and outside the Queen Victoria Building. Passengers wanting to tranfer to a South Eastern Suburbs tram would not have as far to walk to a stop in George Street at Town Hall.

Bus services from Victoria Road would just pass through to William Street. I mentioned in previous posts that this was not credible (Just passing through 11 September 2013).

Currently, bus routes from Victoria Road travel along George Street to Circular Quay ot to the west, after entering the CBD via the exclusive bus lane to Druitt Street from the Western Distributor. The 501 route makes a bee-line to Railway Square along Harris Street and travels north along George Street to a set-down only stop in front of the Town Hall, physically turning round with an east-bound lane in Market Street between Clarence and York Street. This lane is also used by buses that enter from the Western Distributor at King Street, terminating with a stop outside the Queen Victoria Building.

Market Street bus lane eastbound against the flow.

The Metro buses have supplimented the routes to destinations south of Park Street, travelling south along Elizabeth Street. Between these four routes commuters have had it made, despite not having a rail option.

The very expensive alterations to the kerbs in Market Street being undertaken by the Baird government do not in any way change the two-way operation of Market Street west of York Street - there is nothing to show for the expense.

The north-bound routes along George Street will be obliterated from 4 October but the routes (yellow line) entering the CBD at King Street continue as at present, looping to a stop outside the QVB:

Victoria Road bus routes through the CBD

The fate of commuters that use bus services along Victoria Road that currently travel along George Street to physically turn around at Circular Quay is largely determined by how they voted at the state election and whether the bus route passes a Rail Station. Bus routes (red line) from Parramatta that allow passengers to transfer to a train at West Ryde Station and bus routes from Macquarie University continue to Circular Quay, passing through the mother-of-all pinch points at the Old Supreme Court Building and turning around at the hopelessly-overcrowded Phillip/Young Streets loop - the most congested bus route in New South Wales. Any attempt to force them to use a privately-operated tram service that stops only at train stations would just propel them onto the train system.

Priority access lane to Hyde Park bus stops

The return route to Vicoria Road currently requires a right-hand turn into Druitt Street from George Street but Elizabeth Street carries much heavier north-bound traffic so buses will be diverted east to College Street to make the turn into Park Street, along with buses terminated at the Domain car park forecourt. Buses will have to join the queue of private vehicles from King Street headed to the Eastern Suburbs - no going to the head of the queue after passing through the pinch point.

The bus routes that make it from West Ryde to Circular Quay in competition with the railway are relatively well off, inflicting collateral damage on Eastern Suburbs bus transport. Baird's wrath falls mainly on the inner suburbs.

The Bathurst 500s

Kent Street at Town Hall

Baird defines the "core" CBD as being to the east of Kent Street so buses forcibly terminated on the western side of Kent Street are "removed from the CBD". The green route is for bus services forcibly terminated "outside the CBD". Whenever TfNSW sees a triangle of roads they assert this can be a bus terminus. The green route is deliberately deceptive - TfNSW cannot help itself even at the death knock. Victoria Road bus services are to be terminated by entering the real CBD at Bathurst Street and looping to a bus stop in Kent Street adjacent to the Town Hall office block then exiting via Druitt Street, or is that Market Street? At the going down of the sun, buses will loop round the building in Elizabeth Street, approved when the Manly boys were last in power, that casts shadows over the War Memorial.

Kent Street has been reduced to one lane with one lane for parking and left-hand turns by Sydney City Council, so inner-city dole bludgers can hold naked bike runs through the CBD. The pedestrian crossing to the arcades leading to the concourse under George Street has been obliterated. The one lane in Kent Street must not only handle traffic to the cavenous car parks under the Town Hall office block it will also be the preferred route to the western side of the "Berlin Wall" and Harbour Bridge for vehicular traffic from Broadway. TfNSW has opined that vehicles from City Road would turn into Wattle Street and access the CBD west of George Street by linking onto the Western Distributor at the congested Fig Street entry, but why would drivers do this when they have a path along George Street uninterrupted by bus movements and cross traffic at Rawson Place and Ultimo Road.

Hills districts buses, that currently use the Lee Street layover, will be also be forcibly terminated by looping from the from the Western Distributor south-bound into Bathurst Street and Kent Street, when they are not are turned around at a U-turn from York to Clarence Streets across Druitt Street. It is not surprising that the systemically deceptive public servants placed in control of TfNSW should seek to conceal the plans for these routes until the last moment before 4 October.

TfNSW believe that commuters dumped in Kent Street will be forced onto cattle cars to make connections with bus services terminated at Wynyard park and Pitt Street but this is extremely unlikely when they are dumped directly adjacent to the entry to Town Hall Station. Until the trams are running, transferring to a City Circle train will be their only option for reaching destinations to the north or south of Park Street or transferring to bus services terminated at Wynyard park or Pitt Street, other than to trapse across town to hopelessly congested Elizabeth Street bus services. If the rail system south of the Harbour has not collapsed by the time the George Street trams start operating they are unlikely to alter their habits. Bus services in George Street, however slow, have prevented overloading of the Wynyard/Central rail link from the earliest days of the rail system.

The redundant tram stop

Town Hall/Queen Victoria Building stop

The tram stop outside the Queen Victoria Building is now barely a tram's length away from the Town Hall stop. I discussed this in a post on 28 January 2015, We are not amused. Now TfNSW has confirmed that the stop is redundant. The only buses not from the Harbour Bridge to stop in York Street outside the QVB will be the buses from Balmain:

Balmain bus routes

These are infrequent services. Understandably, since the route requires a right-hand turn across Market Street. The only passengers who would conceivably catch a tram north would come from these buses. The trams only take passengers back to Wynyard park.

Passengers dumped in York Street outside the QVB would walk from York Street to the Town Hall tram stop to reach destinations south of Park Street or to transfer to bus services forcibly terminated in Pitt Street.

So the George Street trams will have a redundant tram stop at QVB and no stop anywhere near Martin Place. This ludicrous flaw has been self evident from the earliest manifestations of the project.

The incompetence of the public servants placed in control of TfNSW is beyond belief.

Ve vill tell you where to go

For 40 years following the demise of the Askin government Public Transport in Sydney has been based on demand. The frequency of services increased according to the patronage of the buses at that time of day.

The system was flexible. On a hot day for instance more buses would be scheduled for the North Bondi service. This was done manually. A transport officer would be stationed at a stop and more drivers would be rostered on if the queues of passengers were too great. It would not have been very efficient but it kept people happy.

If the frequency of a service is not sufficient to cope with the demand bus drivers, after exhorting passengers to move to the back of the bus, resort to skipping stops. Commuters are late for work and can loose their jobs.

The advent of smartcard ticketing makes data on the ultimate destination of passengers available virtually in real time. Never before has it been as possible to plan services to take Public Transport passengers efficiently to where they are heading. But Transport for NSW has no intention doing this. Commuters are being sent to destinations they have no desire to go to solely to increase the likelyhood that they will transfer to a privately-operated tram service. TfNSW will not announce service schedules or ticketing until in September just before the new routes come into operation. TfNSW are using the frequency of services to satisfy themselves, in their own minds, that they are fulfilling infantile boasts about "removing buses from the CBD". Boasts made when the plans were indeterminate and very different to what has eventuated.

No estimates of the congestion being generated in the bus routes to and through the CBD can be made until the frequencies, arbitarily based on previous loadings, are revealed. But it can be said with certainty that passenger demand will be very different with the new services.

Eeny, meany, miny, moe

Bus routes between Parramatta Road and River

Bus routes north of Parramatta Road leave Parramatta Road at Norton Street in Leichhart and travel to Marion Street roughly parallel to Parramatta Road before plunging north to terminate just south of the Parramatta river at four different places Rozelle, Chiswich, Abbotsford and Mortlake. They currently travel along George Street to physically turn round at Circular Quay. From 4 October the Rozelle route will be terminated at Bronte beach, the Chiswick service (orange line) will be forcibly terminated in Pitt Street west of Belmore Park and the other two will be forcibly terminated at Hunter Street.

Needless to say, commuters will avoid buses with "Belmore Park" up in LED lights on the front like the plague. Buses with Martin Place in LED lights on the front will be in such demand they will be skipping stops before they reach Parramatta Road. Current figures for demand on these services are based on the number of passengers along the exclusive lengths of the routes - once they start sharing bus stops it does not matter where the bus route originated. You catch the first bus with Circular Quay on the front.

It will not take long for commuters to work out which bus services to catch, and only then will it be possible to calculate the congestion in Elizabeth Street northbound.

Odd man out

The question remains: Will the poor buggers in Rodd Point and Chiswich be condemned to be dumped in Pitt Street simply because they had no choice but to catch a bus with Belmore Park on the front?

It looks ominous. Since the introduction of the Opal card passengers have not been able to switch from the 378 service to a  380 Circular Quay service without paying for an additional trip despite the services sharing stops for almost the entire length of Oxford Street. Little did Bronte commuters know that their route was secretly being lined up to be diverted from the efficient Lee Street layover to Rozelle. Their elected parliamentary representative Notley-Smith presumably knew - he was a member of the Round Table - but his tongue was embedded too far up the North Shore rump for him to raise a squeak of protest.

Will the residents of Dykehart roll over and meekly accept what is being thrust upon them? Will they accept the loss of an express morning peak service to the "core CBD". Roll on 4 October 2015.

If they are allowed to switch destinations without incurring an additional trip there will be a mass exodus at the first available stop in Haberfield. The longer they delay making the switch the more likely it will be that Martin Place buses are skipping stops.

Whatever is going through the mind of  Baird is largly irrelevent. Voters will have an opportunity to decide what is fair at an election before or shortly after the trams start running.

The outer inner west

Not all buses turn north at Norton Street. The bus routes that continue west along Parramatta Road either turn south along the Hume Highway before heading north to a terminus at Strathfield Station (480, 483) or they continue along Parramatta Road before turning south to a terminus at Burwood Station (461).

However these routes have the same route through the CBD. The buses currently use a bus-only right-hand turn in front of the Town Hall to access a terminus at the Domain car park forecourt from William Street. The traffic signals at the George/Park Streets intersection use loops in the road - if there are no buses waiting to turn the phase is omitted. The intersection works impeccably at all times of the day.

These bus routes do not contribute to congestion in the CBD north of Market Street. The routes are collateral damage. The 461 route will be forced to join the cue of vehicles dog legging from Bathurst Street to William Street; the 480/483 routes will be forcibly terminated in Pitt Street.

So, why are the Hume Highway bus routes being singled out for the full brunt of Baird's wrath? The only apparent reason seems to be that the Hume Highway passes through the electorates of Grayndler and Watson and Parramatta Road passes through Reid, which returned a Liberal member to the House of Representatives.

The Member for Grayndler the Honourable Anthony Albanese is the Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Shadow Minister for Cities. He is unlikely to remain docile in the face of these insults to his electors.

The same question arises: will the lower-class commuters from along the Hume Highway be able transfer to an upper-class bus at any of the many stops they share along Parramatta Road without incurring an extra trip?

Will this be an issue at the next Federal election?

The Off-Broadway review

Broadway bus services after 4 October

When the Castlereagh/Pitt Streets tram loop was inexplicably torn up along with the tram rails in George and Elizabeth Street, bus services from City Road took over the route, operating in reverse direction. The Pitt Street Mall required the city-bound route to be relocated: George Street was less congested than Elizabeth Street and there was more space for buses to lay over at Circular Quay.

From 4 October 2015 Parramatta Road and City Road bus services will be forcibly terminated at Hay Street or Hunter Street. Buses forcibly terminated at Hunter Street will now have to pass through the mother-of-all pinch points in Elizabeth Street northbound. For generations traffic planners had meticulously avoided this.

Regardless of whether buses are forcibly terminated at Hay or Hunter Street every bus from Broadway must inexorably:

• pass through the intersection of Pitt Street and Eddy Avenue, inbound and outbound;
• cross four tram-rails, inbound and outbound;
• cross their out-bound route three times when on the in-bound route and vise versa;
• set out on the return journey immediately after turning round.

October 4, 2015 is the last time in the life of Sydney that a Parramatta Road or City Road bus will run on schedule.

The Dénouement

Shortly before he became a total recluse Chris Lock told the Randwick "businessmen's" breakfast: "The light rail of itself  will take 220 buses out of the CBD".

He was reiterating the phrase that had appeared in the brochure Sydney's light rail future. The claim was chanted again in the EIS and was quoted in countless news stories in the Murdoch and Fairfax press and in radio and TV bulletins.

The Secretary who wrote the Final Secretary's Report  for the Department of Planning and Environment also stated baldly "The proposal would result in 220 fewer peak hour buses into the Sydney CBD".

All attempts to find out what was meant by "take 220 buses out of the CBD" including written requests from PUSH shortly after the Community Forum were thwarted by TfNSW. Chillingly, the consultants SAMSA Consulting commissioned by the Assessors at the Department of Planning & Environment to make an independant Peer Review of Traffic and Transport Assessment were not given any information as to what was meant.

The only bus services taken out of the CBD north of Market Street which is where congestion occurs by the light rail of itself  are the Flinders Street bus services through Kingsford and Randwick, not including the Metro routes. These can be tallied from the time tables and are a lot less than 220 in the peak hour.

SAMSA Consulting took the figures seriously and in Section 3.2.4 queried the claims about the capacity of the system. The derisive response of TfNSW was incomprehensible but they concluded by asserting: "Detailed demand and operational modelling has confirmed that the capacity of the CSELR is appropriate". ALSTOM later demanded that the vehicles be increased in length from 45 metres to 67 metres in order to meet day-one demand.

On 17 July 2015 TfNSW issued a series of media releases the finally revealed the modelling used to produce the outrageous claims they had been chanting for 3 years. The media releases redefined the meaning of CBD: "The core of the CBD is bounded by Bridge Street to the north, Elizabeth Street to the east, Liverpool Street to the south and Clarence Street to the west".

Using this definition of "CBD" buses looping along Bridge Street are "removed from the CBD". Broadway bus services that are forcibly terminated at Campbell Street are "removed from the CBD" while those that are forcibly terminated at Hunter Street are not. The modelling used by TfNSW can remove an arbitrary number of "buses from the CBD" by simply declaring where bus routes will be terminated.

The modelling used to justify and promote the tram project was so infantile, so deceptive, so presumptuous and so destructive to public transport south of the Harbour as to be beyond belief.

We know that SAMSA Consulting and apparently the anonymous Assessors at the Department of Planning and Infrastructure were not informed as to the modelling being used by TfNSW but the question remains as to whether the senior public servants put in control of the Department by Pru Goward were as incompetent and corrupted as the public servants in control of TfNSW.

The question arises: why Campbell Street?

Don't you just hate it when dénouements give rise to more questions than they answer.

Campbell Street will be the most southerly east to west crossing of the "Berlin Wall" when Rawson Place is closed to vehicular traffic. It leads inexorably to Liverpool Street but movements can take place while trams are crossing Liverpool Street so it will be heavily used for east-west traffic. Druitt Street and Market Street are the only other places where Eastern Suburbs' traffic can cross into the western CBD.

Pitt Street is two-way south of Goulburn Street and TfNSW concedes that it will remain two-way. The reason it must be two-way is dictated by the width of Goulburn Street west of George Street - just two lanes each way. There is no lane for vehicles to turn into George Street. There is no right-hand turn into Elizabeth Street either.

Right-hand turns in Goulburn Street

To reach the southern arterial roads, Elizabeth Street and Botany Road, vehicles must turn into Pitt or Castlereagh Streets and percolate east along Campbell or Hay Street to Elizabeth Street. These roads will carry heavy traffic loadings if the traditional arterial road Rawson Place is closed.

Intersection of Hay and Pitt Streets

In order to physically turn around bus drivers terminated "nearside" must turn across this traffic from a two lane road into a two-lane Campbell Street eastbound and make a further right-hand into Castlereagh Street. Bus drivers terminated at Hunter Street are no much better off, having to turn into Hay Street from Pitt Street. The question remains: Why?

The pedestrianisation of George Street makes the section of Park Street eastbound between Pitt and Castlereagh Streets a bus-only road. The only way a vehicle can reach here is from Pitt Street. This is purely a rat run for motorists trying to avoid crippling congestion in Eddy Avenue and Elizabeth Street south of Park Street. Private vehicles would presumably be proscribed from turning here and forced to join the queue of vehicles dog-legging from Bathust Street to William Street.

Park Street from Pitt to Castlereagh Streets

Buses looping here would not disrupt east-bound buses and would use a right-hand turn into Castlereagh Street used by Metro buses.

Allowing buses forcibly terminated at Hunter Street to turn into Eddy Avenue would give passengers a stop adjacent to Central Electric and solve the problem of turning into Hay Street.

So why is Baird wilfully and unnecessarily inflicting so much inconvenience and damage to the bus commuters of the inner west?

There is only one explanation. Baird's ideological imperative is to destroy the efficacy of the Public Transport system so as to force passengers onto a privately-operated tram consortium.

This was discussed in a post Tripping the Light Rail fantastic 1 March 2014. To get from say Sydney University or anywhere in the inner west to say Dover Heights or anywhere along New South Head Road passengers are expected to catch a bus to Belmore Park, a cattle car to Town Hall, a Walsh Bay bus or an Eastern Suburbs train to Edgecliff Station then transfer to another bus service - an expensive four separate trips.

Media release 17 July 2015

Physically turning round buses not destined to pass through the mother-of-all pinch points in Elizabeth Street at Park Street would take the privately-owned cattle cars out of the equation. Oh no!

Go back from whence you came

SBS, please teach invaders correct English

Rawson Place has been the main arterial between Sydney docks at Darling Harbour and the southern arterial roads from the earliest days of the colony. A post Last Exit from Barangaroo (expurgated version) 17 October 2013 discussed the dire consequences of its closure to vehicular traffic. When the Hungry Mile had been the chief docks for NSW the connection between Sussex Street and George Street at Hay Street was the main exit from the docks. When Hay Street became one-way to install tram rails traffic from Sussex Street continued further south and could reach Rawson Place from Ultimo Road

Ultimo Road disconnection

The EIS maintained the connection of Ultimo Road and George Street south-bound although this was of dubious benefit with the closure of Rawson Place. When the project was in its final throes Parsons Brinckerhoff announced with yet another deliberately deceptive indicative-only figure that there would be no crossing of the tram tracks here - Goulburn Street would be the most southerly point at which traffic from Darling Harbour, Barangaroo and western CBD could access the southern arterial roads. Barangaroo and South Sydney around Green Park are slated to be the major areas for growth of residences and office space in central Sydney so the problems for bus drivers forced to physically turn around by looping into Campbell Street are going to get worse for the rest of the life of the city.

Parsons Brinckerhoff have decreed that the two lanes of traffic are now to be sent north to Bathurst Street before they can cross the tram tracks. The vehicles that travelled south along Sussex Street have been returned from whence they came - Baird has turned back the vehicles! They could have turned into Bathurst Street from Sussex Street and saved themselves a futile trip south.

Sussex into Bathurst Streets

Vehicles turning right from George Street into Bathurst Street require a separate phase to the phases for through traffic and the trams. George Street north of Liverpool Street is just a rat run for traffic wanting to avoid the paralytic congestion at the eastern end of Eddy Avenue.

The Peril from the North is unabashedly brown

 The 343 bus route travels back and forth along Elizabeth Street and Gardeners Road to the ill-fated nine-ways intersection with Anzac Parade. Buses physically turn around in the CBD by looping up Bent Street and down Pitt Street to Castlereagh Street. It shares this turn-around strategy with bus services from Clovelly and north Coogee that do not have sufficient patronage to justify separate bus services to Railway Square and the northern CBD.

Now the North Shore rump politicians have chosen this route as the invasion route to take over Elizabeth Street northbound. The 343 buses will not be turning round at Bridge Street: they will proceed along Bridge Street and Grosvenor Street to Chatswood via the Pacific Highway, Willoughby Road and Victoria Road.

Invasion routes are brown

This route will be destined to be insanely popular with North Shore commuters headed for destinations south of Park Street as all the other bus services from north of the Harbour will terminate at Wynyard park, Bridge Street or Druitt Place (Druitt Street is to be rebadged). TfNSW believes it can control where commuters transfer between bus routes but this is absurd.

The one way loop across the Cahill Expressway then along Bridge Street and Gosvenor Street is also to be used by buses from suburbs to the west of Middle Harbour accessed via Miller Street. These services currently terminate at Wynyard park. This is where most commuters would want to get off, as the route from Miller Street down the Warringah Freeway to the Harbour Bridge does not pass close to a train station.

Miller Street on-ramp, next stop Bridge Street!

Currently commuters can transfer to a City Circle train service at Wynyard Station or an inner-west or Rozelle bus service from George Street. The new loop will never-ever connect them to the train system south of the Harbour. They have never been consulted, informed or given any choice.

TfNSW possibly believes that commuters can be induced to transfer from the public bus services to a privately-operated tramway but with buses passing along Phillip Street back-to-back throughout the day and most of the night this is a forlorn hope.

The duplicity of Chris Lock

Chris "Grid" Lock

The sacked Deputy Director General of Transport Projects division of TfNSW, Chris Lock, announced to a near-hysterical group of self-proclaimed businessmen at a Randwick businessmen's breakfast shortly after being heckled at a Sydney High School Forum that: "We have moved 60 of those (York Street) buses of a morning. Instead of coming into Wynyard they go over the Cahill Expressway and they come into the city from the Macquarie Street end... Our passengers started making informed choices cos those that wanted to get up to the Macquarie street end of the city started catching those routes. How amazing that passengers are sensible.

"We are going to redesign the bus network. We are going to come to everybody in a Public Exhibition type thing."

EIS figure

It is impossible to comprehend what Chris Lock meant by "a Public Exhibition type thing". It certainly never took place. I pointed out in a post on 7 Feb 2014 "Spot the Difference" the startling differences in the diagrams of the future bus network that appeared in brochures published by TfNSW before and after and in the EIS. None of these showed a bus route along Bridge and Grosvenor Streets.

Commuters using Miller Street bus services will not be given any choice of whether they wish to be deposited on the Macquarie Street end of the city or adjacent to Wynyard Station, informed or otherwise. They have not been consulted and are probably unaware of their fate unless they have accessed the still-deceptive maps of routes through the CBD at mysydney.nsw.gov.au

The scary thing is that Chris Lock was possibly not dishonest, just gormless. He was allowed to conceal his incompetence by a complete lack of disclosure.

The delusion of the Knutters of the Round Table

The names of the Knutters of the Round Table who, we are told, nodded off on the George Street tram lines will not live on in infamy as public transport to and through the CBD goes into terminal decline because all attempts to find out who they were have been thwarted. They are as anonymous as the shooters who quick fired 38 rounds of high-velocity centre-fire ammunition through the imploded doorway of the Lindt Café.

However we do know from the brochure "Sydney's Light Rail Future" that they were misinformed.

The brochure recounts reasons given to the Knutters as to why routes other than George Street were summarily dismissed:

• Pitt Street and Castlereigh Street were too narrow for twin rails
• The gradients of unspecified streets connecting Castlereigh Street to Circular Quay were too steep for trams.

Tram lines in Sydney

The fact that trams had travelled up and down to Circular Quay and the tram sheds at Benelong Point during and after the nineteenth century and that Pitt and Castlereagh Streets had never had more that one tram rail should have raised concerns amongst the Knutters of the Round Tables. However a bus route circling round the Cahill Expressway, Bridge Street and Gosvenor Street, to be used as a terminus for bus services from the North Shore was never disclosed to them. It was not revealed to anyone until the posting of the diagrams of revised bus routes on the mysydney web site.

All previous figures had shown buses from Elizabeth Street north-bound making a right-hand turn from Phillip Street at the Premier's privileged turn to the Cahill Expressway. The post "Spot the Difference" pointed out the implausibility of this. TfNSW has belatedly acknowledged this - the incompetence of the public servants put in control of TfNSW is almost beyond belief.

In the 19th and early 20th Centuries tram services had to extend to Circular Quay as ferries were the only means of reaching destinations from Kirribilli to Cape York. The Harbour Bridge and later the Cahill Expressway changed all that. If buses from the Harbour Bridge are terminated by looping them along the southern side of Bridge Street there is no rational for trams to cross these bus routes. In fact. competently designed tram systems such as Manchester's meticulously avoid tram rails crossing bus routes at transfer stations.

Spring/Bent Street loop

The Pitt/Castlereagh Streets tram route looped around Bent and Spring Streets as well as continuing to Circular Quay. The loop is only very short walk from the southern side of Bridge Street along Gresham or Loftus Streets. Trams operating in a loop can transfer passengers to buses in greater numbers as there is no danger of collisions when reversing from the stop.

Spring Street into Bent Street

There are excellent sight-lines throughout the route and trams operating at sensible speeds for a CBD system could run virtually back to back. No bus route to or through the CBD would be degraded by the tram system. Transport in Sydney would be essentually future proof.

The small plaza in front of Governor Phillip Tower would allow a relaxed radius for the curve into Bligh Street.

If the public servants put in control of Transport for NSW by the North Shore rump politicians had been competent enough or honest enough to inform the Knutters at the Round Tables that bus services from north of the Harbour would be terminated by looping them across the Cahill Expressway and the southern side of Bridge Street there is a possibility that an anonymous little voice may have piped up: "The wicked witches are wearing no clothes at all".

And the people of Sydney would have lived happily ever after in a prosperous Global City.

The brutal reality is that the people of Sydney never had a chance of averting catastrophe once they gave climate-change deniers who had festered for 30 years in the North Shore rump control of the Treasury benches. Eddie Obeid has a lot to answer for.

The "Brandenburg gateway"

Ms Berejiklian signed a contract within hours of the end of the short exhibition period for the third EIS for the CSELR project, before it had been assessed by Pru Goward's department. No details were released about the contract at the time. I wrote to the newly appointed Leader of the Opposition Luke Foley asking for the Labor Party to call for a Statutory Judicial inquiry into the letting of the contract but party strategists decided against making the tramway an election issue.

The "Brandenburg gateway"

After closer examination of the issues by the new shadow minister for transport Ryan Park, Luke Foley came out strongly against the George Street trams. He said "The government would deliver a Berlin wall down the central spine of Sydney, dividing the city's CBD into east and west". He said "There will be a congestion nightmare permanently".

15 Dec 2014, 8:19 am

Extending Luke Foley's analogy further, the right-hand turn from Druitt Street into Clarence Street would be the Brandenburg Gate.

This was, in fact, one of the issues that I raised in my submission to the original EIS:

"Pedestrianising the section of George Street in front of the Town Hall and forcing all bus services from the Harbour Bridge and Barangaroo to make right-hand turns from the two westbound lanes of Druitt Street into Clarence Street will always be a problem and it can never be alleviated. The car park under York Street was built as part of a deal with City Council and there would be agreements that allow it to exit to Druitt Street. The turn from Druitt Street into Clarence Street is the only effective route into the CBD west of George Street. Plugging Druitt Street to general traffic west of Clarence Street just forces traffic to dog-leg into Market Street. It makes the problems a whole lot worse."

The Assessors at Planning and Infrastructure did not acknowledge that the objections had been raised and did not produce any rebuttal of the arguments. There were many objections that the Assessors did not deign to respond to.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana

It is ironic that Constance was a member of the Joint Select Committee on the Cross City Tunnel set up by resolution of the Legislative Council on 16 Nov 2005. He appears to have forgotten everything that the inquiry determined. I have reproduced part of the Auditoe-General's Report on the project presented to Parliament in May 2006 to remind him of the salient findings.

Cross City Tunnel evolution

 The Cross City Tunnel was intended to reduce the number of vehicles crossing the CBD, presumably to allow public buses to traverse the CBD with less constriction. By the time it went to tender the Tunnel had been extended to exit into the portal of the  Kings Cross Tunnel. The project was put on display in a former hardware shop in William Street that had been aquired by the RTA for the Eastern distributor, adjacent to where the drop shaft for the tunnel drillers would be dug. I wondered why the westbound tunnel did not connect to the overpass giving access to Harris Street but the decision to add another lane to the overpass would have been made before the project went to tender.

The plan to extend the tunnels under the Kings Cross tunnel was submitted by the winning tenderer. I cannot recall if it was ever "exhibited".

The lane that saved Darlinghurst

I went on a bike ride to Brisbane just before the Tunnel opened and had to use the Harbour Bridge because of the construction and did not realise that this was to be permanent. The consortium had built a single lane tunnel from the west-bound tunnel, entrance in Paddington, exiting into Sir John Young Cresent and had a contract that prevented access to the Harbour Tunnel and the Cahill Expressway from Crown Street. Residents in Darlinghurst and Surry Hills were expected to drive south to Cleveland Street and pay the same toll as a motorist who had driven on the motorway from Milperra to access a Harbour crossing.

When the Harbour Bridge was built Park Street and William Street had been widened to carry vehicular traffic from York Street to the northern Eastern Suburbs. When the Cahill Expressway was opened general vehicles were eventually prevented from turning into Park Street from York Street forcing them to use the Expressway. Traffic headed for the Harbour Bridge from New South Head Road turned from a two-lane right-hand turn into Riley Street - there was never any charge for this turn. The cunning business plan was to prevent traffic turning from William Street from accessing the Harbour crossings - they would have to pay a tunnel toll. Darlinghurst and Surry Hills residents were collateral damage.

The turn from Druitt Street into Clarence Street could not be blocked since it provided a vital link to the northern CBD west of George Street. Vehicles wishing to avoid paying a Cross City Tunnel toll to access a Harbour crossing had two alternative routes:

1. Turn right from Park Street into Elizabeth Street, passing through the mother of all pinch-points in Elizabeth Street northbound;
2. Turn right from Druitt Street into Clarence Street - the "Brandenburg gateway" -  the pinch-point for bus services between Railway Square and the Harbour Bridge and Metro bus routes

Congestion at the pinch-points during peak periods would eventually force motorists to pay a toll to make a right-hand turn to the Harbour crossings but by this time the bus services through the CBD would be stuffed. The Cross City Tunnel had been promoted as improving the flow of buses through the CBD but it did the opposite - in the words of the CIA it was counter-productive.

Despite the Auditor-General's report to Parliament and a Joint Select Committee set up by the Upper House it was several years before a lane was built on the eastern side of the tunnel exit, connecting the round-about at the bottom of Crown Street to the Cahill Expressway and Harbour Tunnel. The consortium had filed for insolvency and the the new operators chose not sue for damages.

Many unhappy returns
The traffic lanes in William Street were reduced in a further attempt to force vehicles to pay the Cross City Tunnel toll. Traffic returning from the Harbour crossings exited into William Street as before but the lanes east of Palmer Street had also been reduced. When I returned from Brisbane, traffic trying to exit to William Street had banked back to west of the Art Gallery. I had ridden all day from Grafton and my legs had started to seize up - inching up the hill to William Street then up to Darlinghurst Road to cross the tunnel was not pleasant. To reach destinations in Surry Hills you have to back track along the bus routes in Oxford Street to turn left into the the grid. Traffic planners really have it in for Eastern Suburbs bus sevices.

Screw the blue electorates

In a post on 11 Feb 2014 "Curiouser and Nastier" I attempted to deduce which bus services would be redirected to terminate in Walsh Bay. Buses from New South Head Road have for more than a century made a right-hand turn into Elizabeth Street and proceeded to Circular Quay giving access to Martin Place office buildings. The lane from Crown Street to the Harbour crossings has minimised the number of private vehicles making this turn.

Now Baird has confirmed that buses from William Street will be prevented from turning into Elizabeth Street from Park Street and forced to turn into the "Brandenburg Gateway", the most congested pinch-point in the CBD. Not all New South Head Road bus services will make it that far, some will be terminated above Edgecliffe Station.

There is no rational reason for doing any of this to the commuters of the northern Eastern Suburbs. Trams and buses from the Eastern Suburbs have been operating from Circular Quay since the beginings of European settlement in Australia. It is obvious that the only justification for diverting Eastern Suburbs buses from Elizabeth Street is to allow North Shore bus routes to take over the pinch-point in Elizabeth Street northbound at the Old Supreme Court Building.

North Shore rump politicians know that voters from these electorates will vote Liberal no matter what they do to them.

The Riddle of Coogee

What do you get when you vote for an arse-hole licker?

Notley-Smith retained the seat of Coogee for the Liberal party in the state election with the electorate in blissful ignorance of what was planned for their public bus services. I had issued a post before the election warning of what could be deduced from the EIS for Sydney City Centre Bus Infrastructure (Missing in inaction, 16/11/2014). Without any confirmation about the state government's planned bus routes it was not possible for the issue to gain traction in the election campaign. Now everything written in the post has been confirmed.

Elizabeth Street intersection with Hay Street

North Shore politicians have made Bronte the terminus for one of the Paramatta Road bus services. The rebadging of the 378 service to 440 has been used to inexplicably change the route.

The right-hand turn from Elizabeth Street into Hay Street exists solely to give taxis and private vehicles access to the taxi ranks and short-term parking to the west of Central intercity terminal. Unfortunately it also opens up a rat-run to Pitt Street. The right-turn lane is in one of the narrowest sections of Elizabeth Street where arterial traffic branches into Wentworth Avenue - the bus priority lane is discontinued through this section. Buses have never used this right turn in the history of Sydney.

The colonnade was built as an integral part of Central Station, opened in 1902, so that tram movements did not disrupt arterial traffic movements between the Eastern Suburbs and Parramatta Road. For more than 100 years buses have turned from Elizabeth Street into Eddy Avenue to avoid conflicts with tram services and bus services in Castlereagh Street. There is only one conceivable reason for stopping buses from turning here and forcing them to turn into Hay Street. This is in order to obliterate the bus stops adjacent to the entry to Central Electric station, and this is insane.

The bus stops ouside Central Station are among the most heavily used bus stops in Sydney and are crucial to the operation of the public transport system south of the Harbour. The 378 bus services halve the number of buses in Oxford Street that have to pass through the pinch point in Elizabeth Street north-bound. If the passengers who pour out of buses at Eddy Avenue were forced onto the Eastern Suburbs railway they would add the congestion in the elevators and barriers of Town Hall Station.

The 378 buses are the only way of reaching the rail lines for people in Woolahra, Paddington and Darlinghurst - they are the ones to lose the most. Passengers from Bronte can transfer to rail lines at Bondi Junction, at the expense of starting another trip. Once they are on the railway thay can change lines as often as thay like for one trip.

440 route map

378 buses terminate at the spacious layover at Lee Street allowing them to maintain schedules closely. Whatever layovers are available at Roselle, by the time the 440 buses reach Railway Square there will be little semblance to a timetable. There are layovers at Bronte beach but it will be difficult to maintain schedules over long routes facing chronic congestion in Pitt Street.

The bus stop in Hay Street has been obliterated so when the trams are operating passengers will be set down in Rawson Place adjacent to the out-bound tram platform instead of being set down in front of Central Station. This is the last place commuters from Bronte and Woolahra would want to be set down. Anyone wanting to go to Randwick, Prince of Wales Hospital, UNSW or Maroubra Junction would have transfered to a direct bus service from Bondi Junction. Anyone with destinations in the northern CBD would catch a 380 bus.

There is no rhyme or reason for linking Bronte bus services to a tortuous bus route to Roselle or for obliterating the crucial set-down stop in Eddy Avenue. Commuters heading for destinations other than Roselle will have to survive passing through the pincer-movement of death to tranfer to a bus to another destination in the Inner West.

Residents in Surry Hills, Darlinghurst, Paddington, Woolahra, Bondi Junction or Bronte were not consulted or even informed of the dire changes to their public bus services that North Shore rump politicians intended to inflict on them. But Notley-Smith was in on it from day one.

The Member for Maroubra Michael Daley has been vocal in his criticisms of the government. He has said it was outrageous that light rail was being built without detail on long-term bus changes. He said that Mike Baird was "treating people like mugs" for not being transparent about the bus plan.

"The State Government is spending $2.3 billion on a project that's going to have huge changes to the bus network and we are not being told what those changes are", he said.

But there has not been a word from the Member for Coogee - no word of criticism or requests for more information or an explanation of decisions that do not make any sense. His tongue is embedded too far up the North Shore rump for him to have any concern for his constituents in Bronte.

answer: You get treated with contempt.

Under Constance attack

The infamous Parsons Brinckerhoff was commissioned by the Ministry of Transport, Sydney City Council and Landcom to prepare a Transport Management and Accessibility Plan (TMAP) for the Green Square development area. The report was published in November 2008. The illustration above is typical of the crude scrawlings on UBD road maps that abound in the report.

The situation degenerated into farce when the City of Sydney commissioned a report for the Council of Capital City Lord Mayors. The report from the Allen Consulting Group, dated 2 July 2013, calculated the enormous benefits to the national economy that would accrue from Clover Moore's pet projects: light rail from the CBD to Mascot airport, pedestrianisation of George Street and bicycle paths along CBD roads. The light rail was described only as passing along Crown Street and Baptist Street, then parallel to South Dowling Street, somehow.

The nutters at CoS appear to have assumed the tram rails would have passed down Foveaux Street, the green and dotted-red line on the PB map, but it is far too steep. Clover Moore takes down reports when they are shown to be ridiculous but this report was for CCCLM.

The route along Crown Street has been rendered impossible by the Devonshire Street tram rails - the only entry to the Surry Hills ghetto from the east is from Crown Street.
An alternative route along Riley Street, Malborough then Young Street is blocked by the Surry Hills tram stop. Marlborough Street is also the only exit from the ghetto to the east.

Artists impression of tram rail crossing South Dowling Street

The drawings of the tram rails crossing South Dowling Street released by the State Government would rule out tram rails along South Dowling Street - a driver would have no chance of seeing a tram emerging from the tunnel portal. This leaves only one possible route for trams to branch south towards Green Square and the rest of south Sydney: Bourke Street is doomed.

Devonshire Street at Bourke

The State Government has vehemently opposed a tram service to the south but now Constance is asking the demented Clover Moore for her support for an undisclosed route.

The reasons why the state government opposed a branch to the south are understandable. A branch in the critical section in Surry Hills would mean that only one in three, or less, trams would reach the terminuses at Randwick and Kingsford. The extra wait for trams at the terminuses would make interchanges to and from buses even more unpopular.

Shuttle services between Moore Park and Central Station, if these were ever viable, would be fraught with even more peril by the need to maintain head ways with trams from the south entering the rail section at random intervals. Patrons at events in Moore Park and Royal Randwick would have an even longer wait to clear the grounds.

The other problem is the short radius of the curve needed for trams to branch south from the Devonshire Street rails. This can be seen in the alignment diagrams inadvertently released by CoS. The EIS contained spurious calculations purporting to show that trams could be given priority signalling when crossing South Dowling Street and by inference Bourke and Crown Streets. The trams are expected to be travelling at top speed here. A tight curve would throw these expectations into disarray.

The question remains

If tram rails cannot branch south from the Devonshire rails the old question remains: How do tram rails in Bourke Street connect with the CBD?

• Foveaux and Albion Streets are too steep for tram rails.
• Campbell Street is blocked from connecting to the George Street rails by the Chinatown stop. Campbell Street is to be used to turn round buses forcibly terminated in Pitt Street. There would be no connection to Central Station and Railway Square.
• Bourke Street is too steep for trams north of Oxford Street.
• The unlamented Chris Lock insisted that trams in Oxford Street would have to double back along Wentworth and Elizabeth Street to reach a sine qua non tram stop in Chalmers Street. Liverpool Street is the only connection for vehicular traffic from the Eastern and South-Eastern Suburbs with Darling Harbour and Barangaroo.

What is Constance on about?

Constance has been placed in a hole by his leadership-rival Gladys. It is a real cat fight. His response is to try to dig himself out by digging the hole deeper. The only possible outcome is for Public Transport south of the Harbour to cave in on him. Gladys eventually produced a vague map of the route and shrieked at  a public forum: "No change is possible". Constance has not given any information about his planned route and is treating it as just a matter between him and Clover Moore.

Constance craving

The dilemma he faces was obvious from the beginning and was the reason for me becoming involved in the quest to save Sydney from this catastrophy. Chalmers Street is not only the main arterial road for traffic between and South Sydney and Botany and the Eastern Suburbs, it is the only route for buses to enter the CBD from these areas. As pointed out in previous posts, it performs these functions with minimal distruption. The earliest artist's impressions were unclear as to how many lanes would be available for these functions and Berejiklian refused to answer Questions on Notice.

The EIS was deliberately fraudulent: descriptions by the consultants were contradictory, leading me to confront Pizza Boy Jeff Goodling, to no effect. The government went on to produce a modified EIS that was never exhibited. Buses from South Sydney and Botany would be trapped in a bus bay by vehicles turning into the one lane into Eddy Avenue or proceeding along Elizabeth Street. It was never revealed how the buses would physically turn around when they eventually made it through the intersection that was predicted to have the worst possible Level of Service. Bus services from Botany, South Sydney and Cloveley will be stuffed by the trams, unequivocally. This is the dilemma that the citizens of Sydney have to face.

Constance is thrashing about in the hope that the nutters at City of Sydney can provide him with an answer to the problems created by Ms Berejiklian. There is however no feasible solution to the problems - nothing will come of it. Constance's political career is in its death throws.