Head to head does Sydney’s public transport

This week’s topic: That Sydneysiders have the public transport system they deserve

Andrew Woodhouse
I have great expectations, even greater than the STA, an acronym for Systemic Transit Anarchy.

I’m no expert on public transport but, like an ignoramus who knows nothing about art and knows what they like, I use the system so I am an ‘expert’.

And I have a dream, apologies to Rev Martin Luther King Jr. [Editor: dim house lights, up centre spot, quell applause]

Four-score years ago we had simpler cities. Now we we’re sardined into vertical villages with increased urban densities.

My dream is that one day this nation, this city and we the people will rise up against the STA to implement a system, but not based on car use or car abuse with a carbon ‘footprint’ bigger than a yeti’s.

A city is its people

My vision is ‘that every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low’ (Isaiah 40:4) so I’ll traverse hills and dales in solar-powered aircon buses. That on-board bus ticket machines will replace pre-paid tickets so I’ll know if I can use Mesopotamian silver shekels, or that public transport is free. That there shall be truth in timetabling with more intricate bus routes, including the lost 311 loop. That all trains will be graffiti-free.

People, we cannot walk alone. We deserve better. I want pedestrian paths protected from bike Nazis and a matrix of bike lanes that won’t threaten heritage-listed, white magnolia groves in Challis Avenue, Potts Point.

No, we are not satisfied, and no, we will not be ‘until justice rolls down like a waterfall to create a mighty river of swelling discontent’ (Amos 5:24).

I see before me a blank escutcheon. I see a Euro-model of planning with inner Sydney one entirely separate, self-planning, entity.

Let peals of freedom ring out like the heritage ding-dings of Melbourne trams. Let’s have tax-deductible, sociable Segways, electric, emission-free, personal transport  with a 40 km range that’s greener than grass and with a smaller carbon footprint than an ant. Go to www. segwaysoutherncross.com

This is my parable. This is my song to the future. This is my dream.

Peter Whitehead
The word ‘system’ is oxymoronic in the context of Sydney public transport.
If there were a Devil she/he/it would not deserve our ‘system’, compelling evidence though it is that she/he/it happens to exist. Few of today’s Sydneysiders were party to the catastrophic decisions that brought about our current transport predicament.
Nobody deserves prepay buses. And what of hapless out-of-towners and foreign tourists bewildered by the idiosyncrasies of a system that has grown like a deeply conflicted Topsy? Innocent bystanders indeed.

We are aware that Sydney is one of the world’s finest cities, a sprawling beauty blessed by climate and topography. Indeed that sprawl testifies to the efficiency of nineteenth century transport that allowed the spread of suburbs away from working areas. Efficiency, unfortunately, is not the first eff- word to come to mind for our transport today.

One of the world’s most extensive tram networks was neglected until the cost of maintenance was deemed too expensive and a service that peaked in 1945 at 405 million passenger journeys did not survive into the 60s. The buses that took its place have lost money ever since.

Of course all the smarties then knew the automobile was the future and nothing should get in its road. Roll out the freeways! Now, despite widespread evidence that cars are killing us in so many ways our state parliamentarians conspire with toll road constructors to hasten our pedal-to-the-metal drive to perdition.

Sydney transport affords delights aplenty: the ferry to Manly, trains into the Blue Mountains, buses to the Northern Beaches. There is potential for a breathtaking system, the envy of the world.

An intelligent modern government would reduce the carbon footprint of the population. Our leaders seem determined to obliterate that footprint with a self-satisfied butt print of Falstaffian proportions.

Sydneysiders deserve a free service of extensive coordinated networks that eliminates our dependency on costly private vehicles. It’s time to decide what public transport system we want for Sydney and build it so that in twenty years our children will not be shackled by the compromises, corruption and confusions of the past half century.

An invitation to readers
What issues would you like our Head to Head columnists to tackle? Send in a topic that will provoke some serious butting of heads. Please email citynews@alternativemediagroup.com with the subject line: ‘head to Head’