Double-crossing the red lane

Elizabeth Street bus lanes

If Ridley Scott's account has any historical basis Moses crossed the Red Sea only once. Baird is much more demanding. He is forcing buses and all other vehicles to riffle shuffle as they proceed north past David Jones in Elizabeth Street, then to riffle shuffle back once again as they pass across the King Street intersection. It turns out that this vaste eternal plan was the basis of his claim that he could unlock congestion in the CBD by handing over George Street to privately-owned trams from the south eastern suburbs.

For more than a century it had been recognised that congestion in the pinch point between the Old Supreme Court Building and now the St James Centre was the major problem that a public transport system had to be built around. It led to bus services to the CBD from the Eastern and South Eastern Suburbs being directed to two destinations - Circular Quay and Railway Square - and to the Metro through bus services.

City Centre Capacity Improvement Plan

Baird rejected these fundamental truths, insisting he could improve the flow of buses by changes to the lanes that are paved red. He has now disclosed his plan: to force buses and other vehicles to riffle shuffle at either end of the mother of all pinch points. This would be laughable if Baird was not wrecking public transport south of the Harbour and crippling the City of Sydney for the rest of its existence. This was disclosed in two more glossy brochures: Sydney City Centre bus infrastructure and Sydney City Centre Capacity Improvement Plan.

Baird is consistent in his modus operandi for crippling public transport services south of the Harbour: identify the weakest point then hit it with everything possible. The "capacity improvement plan" proposes that the proscription of parking on both sides of King Street between Castlereagh and Elizabeth Streets be extended for the whole length of King Street - he is throwing as much traffic as physically possible at the mother of all pinch points.

 Currently there is a bus-only extension of the left turn lane into St James Road allowing buses to go to the head of the queue at the Market Street intersection. This has been obliterated and replaced with a bus lane along St James Road. Only buses from the Cahill Expressway could reach this lane entering Macquarie Street at Bridge Street. So not only are buses from the North Shore taking over Castlereagh Street (the Brown Peril schematic reappears yet again in this brochure) they are taking over Elizabeth Street southbound. Whichever route they take southbound the only return route is through the double riffle shuffle.

The Phillip/Young Streets terminus, only remaining place in the CBD where buses from the Eastern Suburbs the southern suburbs and the Inner West can physically turn around is being crippled. The three lanes of traffic being fed into Elizabeth Street southbound from the expanded flows in King Street has to riffle shuffle into two lanes across the Market Street intersection with buses expected to stop in the kerb-side lane, blocking general traffic in this lane, which then has to riffle shuffle back into a single lane between Park and Bathurst Streets. Baird is not content to exacerbate congestion in Elizabeth Street northbound he is applying the same double riffle shuffle to southbound traffic whether it enters Elizabeth Street from Phillip Street or Macquarie Street.

The EIS identified Elizabeth Street north of Park Street as the most congested access route to the northern CBD. Every bus service from the Eastern Suburbs, the South Eastern Suburbs, the southern suburbs and now the Inner West as well will be crippled.

Booz & Company asserted in the EIS that about 50% of bus services from Parramatta Road and City Road would be redirected to the Phillip Street terminus. All attempts to find out which services would continue to Circular Quay have been met with stoney silence. Now that the unbelievably-incompetent plans for Sydney Centre bus infrastructure have been exhibited it is apparent that there is little chance for any bus services from the inner west making it through to Circular Quay.

The EIS for CSELR was completely fraudulent.

According to his transcript of his conversations during 40 days and 40 nights Moses was able to present arguments to his God: "Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people".
And the LORD repented of the evil which he though to do unto his people.

Son of Bruce Almighty will not listen to any arguments.