Oxford St derailed

More than 40 years after Sydney’s tram service stopped operating, the O’Farrell Government has pledged more than $1.5 billion dollars to put Sydney back on the right track. The State Government’s announcement that light rail will once again run from the CBD to the Eastern Suburbs comes as welcome news to inner city residents. By connecting the new system with the bustling business district, a light rail network will prove popular and financially viable. State Minister for Transport Gladys Berejiklian has pledged that trams will run down George St, rejecting former Premier Nick Greiner’s absurd advice that $2 billion dollars be spent burrowing buses in an underground tunnel. When completed in a decade, the new expanded tram network will allow commuters to travel from Circular Quay to Randwick via light rail.

As visionary as the proposal to return part of the City’s century-old tram network to working order may be, the government’s apparent decision to bypass Oxford St in the initial roll out is short-sighted. There is substantial demand for surface transport along Oxford St. Australia’s busiest bus routes are the 380 and the 333 servicing Bondi Junction and Bondi Beach along Oxford St from Taylor Square east. Taylor Square at Flinders St is also a major interchange for buses running from the CBD to Randwick along Oxford St, making this an obvious route to travel from Circular Quay to Randwick.

From Hyde Park to Bondi Junction, Oxford St is Australia’s second largest retail strip. Not surprisingly, Australia’s largest retail strip is Chapel St in Melbourne, where a still functioning tram network encourages people to easily access the street to shop, dine and wander; tram stops are located in the centre of the road with pedestrians slowing down the traffic flow. In the absence of bus stops and clearways at the kerb’s edge, car parking is opened up so people can park and stroll. Year after year, Melbourne is named one of the world’s most liveable cities with Chapel St consistently performing as Australia’s most successful urban high street.

By comparison Oxford St has become a super highway. Buses barrel down the road at all hours threatening to mow down pedestrians, cyclists and smaller family sized autos on their way. Parking is nonexistent at peak hours. Sandwiched between two Westfields in Bondi Junction and Pitt St, Oxford St’s retailers in Darlinghurst, Paddington and Bondi Junction have struggled to survive. While the mega mall in Bondi Junction offers two free hours of parking in more than 3,000 spaces, retailers on the main street are faced with clearways, parking meters and ever-escalating parking fines. Retail vacancies along the strip have skyrocketed and al fresco dining beside a highway is far from inviting. Oxford St’s daytime economy has plummeted with the strip only busy in Darlinghurst after 10pm when bars attract alcohol fuelled crowds. Oxford St desperately needs a rethink and a tram line would do much to slow down the passing traffic, encouraging people to stop, shop and dine along the street.

But the State Government appears to be bypassing Oxford St altogether. Rather than replace the existing bus network along Oxford St with a world class light rail service, the State Government is proposing to route trams from Central across to Allianz Stadium either along Devonshire or Chalmers or by building an expensive underground tunnel. The dream of reviving the old Bondi tram line appears as distant as ever.

Not surprisingly residents at the Waverley Council end of the old Bondi tram line are eager to see the return of light rail along Australia’s original, iconic tram route. Rail service to Australia’s best known beach ends abruptly at Bondi Junction. The original Bondi tram network ran east across Oxford St and connected with Bondi Rd at the Junction running out to the beach along the route of the current 380 bus line. The system was so efficient in its day that the phrase “shot through like a Bondi tram” became part of the local lexicon.

On September 7 1995, in the third edition of the City Hub I wrote an editorial calling for the return of the Bondi Tram: “’Shot through like a Bondi tram’ is now a faded urban image – like the clear skies of Sydney. Now it’s ‘bogged down on a Bondi bus’ … Anyone who has been to Toronto, Milan or God forbid Melbourne knows that light rail vehicles are easy way to move around the inner city… It is absurd to think that no light rail system runs along Oxford St through the Eastern Suburbs…” Some 17 years later and plans to return light rail to Oxford St appear no closer to being realised. Urban optimists tell me I am wrong to be cynical, arguing that once a tram line is built from Circular Quay to Randwick, it will only be a matter of time before light rail runs along Oxford St from Taylor Square to Bondi Beach once again.

That day can’t come soon enough.