The closure of George Street north of Market Street

Park Street at Pitt Street intersection

Right-hand turns into George Street from Park Street have been proscribed from the opening of the Harbour Bridge. Turns into Pitt Street from Park Street were discouraged with a concrete separator. The congestion in George Street north of Market Street was always caused by traffic that resided north of the Harbour. Yet the closure of sections of George Street between Market and King Street was accompanied by TV news reports that the state government was planning to reduce the Cross City Tunnel toll. Someone wants to blame Eastern Suburbs motorists for congestion in bus routes in the CBD and they do not care how much taxpayer's money is spend to propagate this myth.

The Cross City Tunnel did not cost the taxpayer a cent. The builders lost their entire investment when the consortium went insolvent and the company that acquired the assets also fell on hard times and sold out to Transurban for a fire-sale price of $475 million. Transurban has an effective monopoly on toll roads in Sydney now and would like to renegotiate its lucrative contracts. It has made unsolicited and secret proposals to the state government.

Park and Pitt Streets intersection, Capasity Improvement Plan

Now the Baird Government will be introducing a right-turn lane from Park Street into Pitt Street and will build kerb blisters to narrow traffic flows in Park Street and Pitt Street. This turn leads only to Market Street which forces traffic to cross into West CBD. The outlets for this traffic is into Clarence Street and Kent Street that takes traffic to the North Shore. The traffic could reach these streets by continuing to Druitt Street, but the Chosen People of the North Shore are to be given multiple choices.

To reach the underground car parks accessible from Pitt Street vehicles from the North Shore have had to travel on the Western Distributor to Bathurst Street and double back along Pitt Street. In the future North Shore motorists will have the choice of using the Eastern Distributor instead, adding to the woes of bus passengers from the Eastern Suburbs.

Sydney Hilton,  SCC archives

The Sydney Hilton building was approved by City Commissioners in 1967 when the Council had been sacked. There had been controversy because Sydney's grandest hotel was demolished. The developers were forced to reproduce the marble-clad main bar in the basement. The underground car parking was vast. When Bond Corporation demolished the Waltons department store, the hole that was dug was too deep for the limited parking that was then allowed, but with the commissioners there were few restrictions on parking spaces.

The ramps to the first floor reception and the car parks were designed with the assumption that Pitt Street here would remain south-bound as it had been for the whole of the 20th century. When Sydney Council reversed the direction, without explanation, the owners took legal advice on whether they could sue for damages. In the end the Brutalist podium was demolished and replaced with a ground floor reception area.

Entrances to Sydney Hilton car parks
Taxis and set-down vehicles exit to George Street.

ANZ Building car park entrances

When Pitt Street was south-bound between Market and Park Streets entering and leaving car parks and reception areas for vehicles from the Eastern Suburbs and the airport was efficient and straight forward. Traffic exited into Park Street. The pedestianisation of George Street from Bathurst to Market Street turns exiting from Pitt Street into a nightmare. Vehicles will have to cross into West CBD, travel south along the hopelessly congested Sussex Street to Bathurst Street, then cross back into East CBD.

In the central CBD there is a levy for each off-street car park space provided in a building. This is of course passed on to the cost of parking in the CBD and is an equitable way of reducing congestion. The number of  off-street car park spaces in the CBD is a known entity and with mobile phones drivers can confirm if there are spaces near where he needs to go and if they are prepared to pay the price. The number of car park spaces will inevitably be increasing as developers of new buildings have to compete with the existing pool of office rent space.

Every vehicle in the north-south road system in the CBD, apart from North Shore motorists who choose to not use the free Western Distributor, has a reason to be there and is paying a high price. Modelling that assumes that to number of vehicles in the CBD will decrease when public transport passengers are dumped in the middle of nowhere and forced to transfer between services is imbecilic. This was the modelling revealed in the Business Case Summary for the CSELR.

The obliteration of BUS ONLY lanes in the CBD

BUS ONLY lanes in the CBD

Drivers from the Eastern Suburbs and Southern Sydney have been avoiding passing along the bus-carrying north-south roads in the northern CBD since the opening of the Cahill Expressway and the establishment of BUS ONLY lanes between York and Park Streets. Why would anyone travel along Elizabeth Street and make a right turn from Phillip Street into Bridge Street when thay can travel along College Street and Macquarie Street to the Bridge Street ramp onto the Cahill Expressway?

Before 4 October 2015, buses from Victoria Road entered the CBD from a BUS ONLY lane on the Druitt Street on ramp, turned into George Street from a BUS ONLY lane at York Street and returned to Druitt Street from a BUS ONLY right turn lane and had a Bus Lane in Druitt Street. These bus services were largely unaffected by traffic from the Eastern Suburbs.

Now buses from Victoria Road that are forcibly terminated in Bathurst Street have to enter the CBD from the general traffic off-ramp and buses that make it to Circular Quay join the queue of general traffic to turn from and into Park Street. Buses are being forced into the very roads used by motorists to avoid the bus routes, in order to turn back into Park Street. Productively-employed motorists did not create this problem.

Sydney City Centre Bus Infrastructure Report October 2014

The infamous Sydney City Centre Bus Infrastructure Report, October 2014, not only eliminated the Bus Lanes in Druitt Street; the BUS ONLY lanes that have forced general traffic from the North Shore to use the Cahill Expressway to reach the Eastern Suburbs were obliterated. Baird appears to be intent on giving the Chosen People from the North Shore the choice of using York Street and Park Street as an alternative route to the Eastern and Southern Suburbs.

The BUS ONLY lane that allowed buses priority access to the bus stops at Hyde Park in Elizabeth Street south-bound has been obliterated together the  BUSES EXCEPTED signs on the must turn left lane. The signs have been re-painted on the kerb-side lane north of King Street but it is not physically possible now for buses to not turn left.

Cat Lady number four

Marg Prendergast

There was Gladys, then Pru and then Constance. Now a career public servant, Marg Prendergast, has been appointed Coordinator General, whatever that may mean, during the construction phase.

Chris Lock, the "brains" behind the George Street trams is nowhere to be seen. Marg Prendergast is the spokeswoman for a project which she had nothing to do with. She is mindlessly reiterating the same slogans as her predecessors: "We are removing more than 220 dirty, smelly, noisy buses from the CBD/George Street (whatever comes to mind)". This claim has no foundation in reality and has been belatedly revealed to be achieved be redefining the definition of "the CBD". Constance is still making the claim, rapidly, in TV interviews and print media releases. There is no scrutiny or dissention from the jounalists.

Æsop had a fable about a boy who cried wolf but now Sydney-siders have a Cat Lady who cries out for motorists to stop coming to the CBD and for people to take buses that no longer take them to where they want to go, everytime a benign section of George Street is closed to traffic.

The people of Sydney have been forced into an abusive relationship that they cannot walk away from, no matter how far they have to walk between bus stops. They will have to be progressively degraded over the next four years until they lose any sense of what they have lost.

The closure of the section of George Street between Bathurst and Market Streets will make the congestion in bus routes dramatically worse. Then, it is the closure of the arterial roads Chalmers Street and Rawson Place that will make congestion in bus routes intractible.

Chris Lock told the Randwick businessmen's breakfast that: "We will all be looking at it in five years time and saying how on earth did we live without the light rail?" He became a total recluse shortly after and was sacked for incompetence.

The government now accepts that when the trams are running the congestion in bus routes in the CBD will get worse, then progressively worse for the rest of the life of the city, and the media is promulaging the idea that the city will never operate the same and the people of Sydney will have to accept the degradation of their lives.

Necessity knows no law

For a post more than two years ago, How do you solve a problem like Elizabeth? 10 Sept 2013, I observed and photographed the congestion in Elizabeth Street during the morning peak. Transport for NSW had released figures confirming that bus routes in Elizabeth Street were the most congested in the CBD. I will re-blog one of the photos so you can compare it with the situation after 4 October 2015.

Elizabeth Street at Market Street, Sept 2013 

Elizabeth Street at Market Street, Oct 2015 6:53 pm

Elizabeth Street at Market Street, 15 Oct 2015 8:37 am

Glory be! Nothing has changed. Well actually a lot has changed - note the big gaps in the bus priority lane. Something is causing congestion in the priority bus lane further south.

I observed two years ago that the second lane from the kerb is the defacto bus lane as buses that set down passengers at a stop south of the Sheraton on the Park must merge right to get around vehicles queued in the kerbside lane to turn into Market Street. The bus drivers would move forward slowly and wait for a fellow bus driver to take pity on them and let them move in front. I predicted that painting red lines on the second lane would not change the situation one iota.

However TfNSW has made other changes that actually reduce the capacity of Elizabeth Street to carry buses.

The riffle shuttle that doomed a City

When Chris Lock told a Community Forum it Sydney High that Elizabeth Street would be the axis for north-south bus routes in the CBD alarm bells rang.

The Dec 2012 brochure distributed at the meeting listed: "Key features of redesigning the bus network in the City Centre

• "Elizabeth Street will be the main north-south bus route, featuring dedicated bus lanes and stopping lanes..."

The narrowing of Elizabeth Street at the Old Supreme Court Building had been the main problem for transport in the CBD for two centuries and had occupied the greatest minds of the 19th and 20th Centuries. When a doddery old fart insists that 200 years of history are wrong and he is a genius who will redesign the bus network he is almost certainly delusional.

Elizabeth Street reborn

It would be another two years however before the plans for the redesign of bus routes would be open to scrutiny. They were so preposterous they bring into question the sanity of the public servants put in control of Transport for NSW.

The post on the plans, Double-crossing the red lane 4 December 2014, is the most scathing post that has appeared in this blog.

The most bizarre feature was the location of a "bus lane" in the central lane of the two north-bound lanes past the Old Supreme Court building. This would have required buses and general traffic to riffle shuffle at either end of the pinchpoint. It never happened - an anonymous little voice must have piped up: 'This is crazy".

Of far greater concern was the elimination of a set-down-only stop outside David Jones and the introduction of a stop further north of Park Street, at the southern side of the Sheraton on the Park.

Two years ago only a few bus services from around the very-inner suburbs used the stop Elizabeth Street after Park. With good reason; bus drivers knew that buses would be trapped behind vehicles and taxis queued to turn into Market Street. The high frequency services from Oxford Street, Flinders Street and the southern Sydney suburbs avoided this stop, using the set-down stop outside David Jones. These buses would pull out into the second lane after setting down and picking up passengers at the stop just south of the intersection with Bathurst Street and remain in the lane until the stop at David Jones, then proceed through the pinch-point. The second lane was a de facto bus lane in the morning peak. In the evening buses would also use the central lane if they had no passengers to set down at David Jones.

Car traps string of buses, 15 Oct 8:47 am

From 4 October 2015 just about every bus service in Sydney that is not forcibly terminated "outside the CBD" is being forced to use the stop Sheraton on the Park where they will be trapped behind vehicles queutng to turn left.

The photo above is but one example that I observed. There were three buses bumper to bumber that were unable to move until the car moved, supposedly into the left turn lane. I scanned a video but don't know how to post it. Meanwhile traffic was moving freely in the general-vehicle lane.

Priority Bus Lanes in the inner city

Bus lanes in the inner city were easy to understand. The lanes were generally the kerbside lane and they petered out before coming to a corner where left-hand turns were permitted. Signs beside the road specified the hours of the day when the lanes were in operation. In deference to local businesses and traders some portions of the lane were available for parking when the lanes were not in operation.

I queried the effectiveness of Bus Priority Lanes in my submission to the EIS for the Eastern Distributor so they have been around for three decades or more. The latest report from the Office of State Revenue for State Debt Recovery, August 2015, lists the statistics for the year 2013 - 2014. As you can see the revenue collected from bus lane monitors was between $zero and $zinch. This is in spite of the fines being currently $311.

It has been revealed recently that State Revenue does not pursue motorists who present an international drivers licence and fail to pay a fine. Despite this the revenue collected from fines last year was more than double the revenue collected during the final year of the previous state government.

So people with international drivers licences would have to be added to the list of those permitted to travel in Bus Lanes:

• Taxis;
• Hire cars (but not rental cars);
• Motorcycles and bicycles;
• Emergency vehicles.

"General traffic is also permitted to travel in bus lanes for up to 100 metres in order to:

• Turn left or right into or out of a street;
• Enter or leave a property adjacent to a bus lane;
• Pass another vehicle that has stopped to turn right or to avoid an obstruction."

The animals went in two by two, hurrah! hurrah!

Elizabeth Street north of King Street

The bus lanes shown in the document Sydney City Centre Bus Infrastructure Submissions Report, October 2014, bear little relationship with what was unveiled just before 4 October 2015 so I have included photographs of the actual lane markings.

Elizabeth Street pinch point demarcate

Elizabeth St north of Market

Motorists would have difficulty in judging 100 metres so I have measured 100 metres in the Google Earth snap-shot above. It turns out that the mother-of-all pinch points is around 100 metres long. 100 metres from the intersection with King Street is the southern-most side of the loading bays for the David Jones store and is the stop line for south-bound traffic in Elizabeth Street.

This is the point at which general traffic is permitted to swerve into the bus lane so the vehicles can queue in both lanes at the King Street traffic lights. North-bound buses are obstructed further south by taxis turning two by two into Market Street and by congestion at the Sheraton on the Park bus stop so general traffic should have little difficulty in filling the two lanes.

Vehicles that do move into the bus lane must remember to make a bee-line to the No Stopping kerbside lane on the northern side of King Street to avoid being pinged by the Boys in Fluoro - they are beyond the ken of the bus lane cameras. Vehicles can continue along the kerb-side lane until they reach an obstruction, e.g. a bus stopped at the Martin Place bus stop, then, of necessity, they can swerve back into the bus lane, which peters out at Martin Place.

It is not just inner-city dole bludgers using the CBD as an adventure park that can travel in bus lanes, slowing buses to the speed of the most timorous of their ilk; people who work for a living and make a positive contribution to the economy can also take advantage of bus lanes.

There will be a further post on the Elizabeth Street bus lanes and bus-lane monitors.

A fraudulent bus-route plan nested within a fraudulent EIS

The Sydney Harbour Tunnel added four traffic lanes to the Harbour crossings but the train rails across the Harbour Bridge, one each way, have remained the same. The original Bradfield plans were for the Bridge to be symmetrical with train rails on each side but the eastern lines were adapted to carry trams that terminated in a tunnel to Wynyard station. When the trams were scrapped the lanes were converted to general traffic. There are no lack of lanes for buses to cross the Harbour Bridge; the problem is just getting them into the CBD. This prompted Greiner's Infrastructure NSW to propose a bus tunnel.

Grosvenor Street at York Street

York Street barrier PM mode

The December 2012 brochure heaped scorn on Infrastructure NSW's proposal but it is only after Ms Berejiklian signed a contract in the dead of night and construction has commenced that the alternative has been revealed; it is so preposterous as to be beyond belief.

The only method proposed by TfNSW for reducing the congestion in York Streer that had Chris Lock quivering with indignation at the self-proclaimed Businessmen's Breakfast in Randwick, apart from looping buses to a stop in Bathurst Street, is to loop buses clockwise across the Cahill Expressway, dump passengers in the middle of Bridge Street and return the buses immediately to the Harbour Bridge via Grosvenor Street.

This is far from helpful as the buses must cross the incoming lanes into York Street; a movement so damaging to the ingress of buses into York Street in the AM peak that it has been blocked by movable barriers for æons. One shudders to think what is going on at this intersection post 4 October 2015.

Let us prey

The Brown Peril

It isn't just the bus services along Miller Street that TfNSW are directing at the physical barriers at the intersection of York and Grosvenor Streets. The long term goal of TfNSW is to funnel buses from the North Shore into Castlereagh Street. This has been revealed in figures in the EIS and subsequent brochures as discussed in the post Spot the Difference 2 Feb 2014.

The only route back to the North Shore is through the mother-of-all pinch points in Elizabeth Street north-bound then bound for the Grosvenor/York Streets intersection. The only service TfNSW has been game to direct south from the Harbour Bridge for the present is an extension to Chatswood of the doomed 343 service along Gardeners Road to the Nine-ways intersection. This travels along Elizabeth Street southbound.

The routes from the North Shore to Castlereagh Street have been completely concealed. Baird is unwilling to reveal the ferocity of the planned assault of the North Shore politicians on the residents of Malcolm Turnbull's electorate.

It should be pointed out that Eastern Suburbs residents are just collateral damage as far as North Shore politicians are concerned. Elizabeth Street has provided access to the CBD for these suburbs from the foundation of the colony.

North Shore politicians have regarded the people living outside the North Shore as prey; only fit to provide funding for infrastructure projects that benefit only the North Shore. The bucket-list of projects for the North Shore keeps growing: the NorthShoreconnex road tunnels; the Chatswood to Sydenham rail tunnel; the Northern Beaches busway, requiring the duplicating of the Spit Bridge, and a helicopter pad at that Man O'War Steps so Bronwyn Bishop can travel to the opera in the style to which she is entitled.

Australia is a poor country. We cannot afford the escalating demands of the North Shore politicians.

Constance is appealing for patience while teething problems are worked out but Baird is yet to reveal his fangs. The people of Sydney will have to face these teething problems for the rest of the life of the City.

Chris Lock told the Randwick Breakfast: "Don't see this as simply a silver bullet". Unfortunately only a silver bullet (or a bus) can stop a North Shore politician.

"Such a little thing"

Chris (Grid) Lock expounds

Chris Lock occupies a unique place in the annals of the Australian public services: he is the first senior public servant to be stood down for incompetence. In true "Utopia" style his post Deputy Director General Projects Division Transport for NSW was obliterated. He had been in the public service for 10 years so he will be on a massive taxpayer-funded pension.

Everything at TfNSW was deferred to the Acting Secretary Tim Reardon whose post has since been made the permanent.

Chris Lock told a self-proclaimed businessmen's Breakfast in Randwick in April 2013: "There's a queue of buses coming over the Harbour Bridge all trying to get into York Street around Wynyard and they back up and the queue sometimes starts on the northern side. So what have we done? A little thing.

"We have moved 60 of those buses in the morning: instead of coming into Wynyard they go over the Cahill Expressway and they come into the City from the  Macquarie Street end. It is such a little thing."

He was reiterating a claim made in the December 2012 brochure. In fact it never took place. The bus stop on the southern side of Bridge Street where Miller Street bus services will dump their passengers remained derelict until 4 October 2015. The staff at the TfNSW information booths did not have a clue as to what Chris Lock was talking about. A decision had been made to not show their hand until the last possible time. Chris Lock was complicit in this decision and became a total recluse - he had too much to hide.

A devastating thing

TfNSW were not disclosing things with much more devastating consequences. A post The Hills hoist with their own petard 26 November 2014 discussed this issue.

For 83 years the George Street buses have protected the Bradfield rail lines under the CBD from overloading. The most overloaded station in the City Circle has long been Town Hall Station which has consequences for the entire rail system south of the Harbour. The City Circle is in fact an horseshoe with Illawarra/Airport line services transmogrifying into western line services as they pass around. Passengers that get on to travel one or two stops deny places for the commuters that rely on the rail network to access the CBD. This affects the efficacy of train services throughout the entire rail system.

When TfNSW terminated Northern Beaches bus services at Wynyard in November 2014 and then terminated Hills buses at Bathurst Street or Druitt Street at the end of January 2015 the effects on the rail system were muted. Commuters could transfer to Parramatta Road and City Road bus services in George Street.

Kent Street at Town Hall

Bathurst St bus stop

Buses from the Harbour Bridge that dump their passengers at the bus stop in the lower part of Bathurst Street west of Sussex Street (yellow line) and the Miller Street buses that dump their passengers in the middle of Bridge Street (brown line) are the only buses that will ever be removed from York Street and Clarence Street. Commuters dumped in Bathurst Street have nowhere to go but up the hill to the entry plaza of Town Hall Station where they will flood onto the overcrowded escalators of the station to go one stop to Central in order to access the Parramatta Road and City Road bus services that have been removed from George Street.

Turning back the Hillsbillies

Kent St north of Druitt stop

Buses that dump their passengers in Bathurst Street pass over "Napoleon Plaza" at a great height on the Western Distributor. They are then forced to turn immediately into Kent Street and make their way back to whence they came, Napoleon Plaza, before exiting back onto the Bradfield Highway. This is just plain loopy.

Whether the Hills buses are terminated at Bathurst Street or Druitt Street the buses will never be able to maintain a schedule after 4 October 2015. The first bus stop after Bathurst Street is some distance north of Druitt Street. None of the bus stops in Kent Street have timetables, just numbers to call-stations or web sites to call on your mobile phone; a wise decision.

When a bus enters the chain of freeways, road tunnels and toll roads starting from the Bradfield Highway there is no getting off until the stop at Bathurst Street. The entry point for express services could be the M2 motorway. Hillsbus passengers will have to make their decision to jump buses early in the journey.

Western Distributor over Westpac Plaza/Napoleon Plaza

The Opal card is allowing free transfers between bus services within an hour of taping off a service but you need to make your move at the earliest possible stop. If you delay transferring, the bus services to your prized destination will be packed to the rafters and skipping stops.

Bathurst Street is the last place anyone would want to be dumped. Even if you are heading for a destination south of Park Street, the terminus in York Street at the Queen Victoria Building is closer to Town Hall Station than the stop in Bathurst Street, and you have a much better chance of getting on a City Circle train by transfering at Wynyard Station.

Doing a U-turn into Clarence Street

The congestion from buses doing a U-turn from York into Clarence Street is paralytic as predicted but this is of no concern when you have gotten off the bus; just remenber to board the bus in Clarence Street for the return journey. This congestion is occuring before the penny drops for commuters on how to survive in a city that has entered a death spiral. This congestion will be getting progressively worse for the future life of the city.

Update on Napoleon Street pedestrian bridge

Taxpayer-funded Sussex Street overpass

Westpac Plaza under the Westpac building in Kent Street, the exit for the original Kent Street pedestrian tunnel, has been connected to the Lendlease Napoleon Street overpass. The taxpayer-funded overpass across Sussex Street appears to be complete but has not been opened to the public. The Kent Street pedestrian tunnel is just a deep excavation.

The Oyster Card and Victoria Road

As was discussed in the post on 25 February 2014 The world is your Oyster Card Sydney was on the brink of becoming a future-proof world city when the previous state government selected the Pearl Consortium as the preferred tenderer for a smart card public transport ticketing. The Oyster card allowed commuters to change destinations freely at shared bus stops regardless of what destination was on the front of the bus that passed through their pick-up stop. Unlike the Broadway bus services there would be no need to introduce a financial incentive to change destinations for the Victoria Road bus services.

The Oyster Card was not the only thing gifted to the incoming government. When the Rozelle to CBD Metro was abandoned because of the escalating cost Premier Keneally announced a transport plan for Sydney which included relief rail tracks for the western line and a tramway to Barangaroo from tracks past Paddies Market. Barangaroo would also be connected to Wynyard station via the tunnel under Kent Street. Wynyard station was physically located under York Street with the main exits to the bus stops at Wynyard park but there were exits to the west to Clarence Street and under Kent Street.

In December 2010 cabinet agreed to spend $286 million on the pedestrian link from Wynyard station to Barangaroo via an overpass over Sussex Street. Lend Lease was not required to provide funding although its office towers would be the main beneficiaries of the project.

Lend Lease subsequently agreed to build a further overpass at Napoleon Street and the O'Farrell government decided to build a wider tunnel under Kent Street. Lend Lease has completed construction of the overpass and its office towers appear to be ready for letting but, five years on, the Clarence Street portal to Wynyard station is a construction site and the Kent Street pedestrian tunnel is a "deep excavation".

Napoleon Street bridge open to the public

Clarence Street portal 

The fourth destination

The relevence of the Kent Street pedestrian tunnel to resolving congestion in bus routes in the CBD is that it opens up a fourth destination for bus services from Parramatta Road, City Road and Victoria Road. Currently (before 4 October 2015), all these bus services have used George Street north-bound to reach Circular Quay where they can physically turn round.

Deep excavation, western side of Kent St.

The Kent Street pedestrian tunnel delivers large volumes of passengers to potential bus stops on the western side of Kent Street at "Napoleon Place". Buses from Victoria Road would enter the CBD from the Western Distributor at the Bathurst Street off-ramp and travel along Kent Street before turning down Napoleon Road to turn into Sussex Street/Hickson Road ending at a terminus at Walsh Bay. The outbound route would be back along Hickson Road/Sussex Street to the on-ramp at Market Street; a fast and efficient route.

Argyle Park bus terminus

Buses from Parramatta Road and City Road would access the Kent Street bus stops from Liverpool Street, avoiding the recently created (against my fervent objections) pinch point at the George Street cinemas and the congested turns from Druitt Street. They would continue along Kent Street to the existing bus layover at Argyle Park.

The out-bound journey would be to George Street via the convict-dug Argyle Cut then south along George Street or Castlereagh Street. Bus services from City Road would mainly use Castlereagh Street, sharing bus stops with the buses that remained on George Street northbound.

When Pitt Street was closed by the Pitt Street Mall George Street north-bound was made to carry buses from City Road and Victoria Road as well as the traditional bus services from Parramatta Road. This predictably enough has led to congestion in bus lanes in George Street north of Market Street.

The only way to releave this congestion is to divert some of the buses to alternative routes. George Street has been the main axis for bus routes to the west of the CBD from the foundation of the colony and must remain so.

The brochure Sydney's light rail future blithely opined that "Elizabeth Street will be the main north-south bus route" and this was chanted by Chris Lock at public meetings before he became a total recluse. In fact the pinch point at the Old Supreme Court Building has benn recognised as the major congestion problem for CBD transport for more than 200 years and the greatest minds of the 19th and 20th centuries have sought to minimise the congestion. The assertion that traffic flow can be increased by painting red lines between traffic lanes and that buses from all the routes that use George Street, as well as routes from the Harbour Bridge, can be diverted into Elizabeth Street northbound is so preposterous it brings into question the sanity of the public servants involved.

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.