The cars that ate Sydney

OPINION

By Andrew Woodhouse, President, Potts Point and Kings Cross Heritage and Residents

Ferdinand. Verbiest, a Chinese Jesuit missionary, built the first steam-powered “auto-mobile” in 1672: just a toy for the Emperor.

In 1911 there were only 3,978 cars in New South Wales.

After WWII car manufacturing solved two problems: employment in the post-war economy, and improved living standards by providing better mobility to modern suburbs.

Car parks proliferated during the 1950s as did petrol stations, highways, car washes, parking metres, drive-in cinemas and the motor hotel or motel. New homes still retain a driveway with façades dominated by blank double-garage doors for mega-SUVs (banned in some European cities).

We became a car-centric society.

Cars began eating Sydney as freeways increased. Freeways created more traffic as car use expanded to fill the space. Tolls increased: commuters now pay up to $3,000 a year.

Poor, unreliable public transport still offers no alternative to that direct, private, computer-gadgeted, cooled cocoon and status symbol – the car.

Sydney traffic congestion has exploded, as has “road rage” and deaths. 348 people have died so far this year, a complete waste of lives. And an independent firm, Traffic and Planning Consultants, studied Darlinghurst Road in Kings Cross last month. They concluded: “there are 25,500 daily car movements [on average per annum] in Darlinghurst Road … delays are experienced … in the peak periods largely as a result of parking … in this busy area.”

Meanwhile, City of Sydney Council fast tracks DAs without any car spaces, overriding its own site density FSR rules. Developers bleat, saying customers demand them and add value.

In uber-dense Potts Point in May, a two-car space sold for $240,000! ”Lunacy,” said the agent.

Into this mix comes money-motivated City of Sydney Council. It has introduced its oxymoronic “car-sharing” scheme. It gives 700 of locals’ pre-paid on-street parking spaces to commercial operators to operate at their profit. Council’s November 2016 report notes: “Point 84. Administration of the draft Car Sharing Policy is estimated at approximately $150,000 per annum. 85. If adopted, the revised fee for each Authorised Car Share Vehicle Permit will raise approximately $72,000 per annum.” Easy money if you can get it.

In local media on 9th April 2015 Clover Moore correctly stated: “Driving is part of how our city operates.” You betcha.

But council’s scheme reduces parking for tradies, visitors, ferrying Olivia and Jack to and from school sports and delivering Aunt Valerie to hospital.

People need their cars. Not everyone has a pool of ratepayer-funded chauffeured cars like Clover Moore.

Many locals now wake up to find their usual spot gone. No DAs are lodged. I’ve never received one notification.

Go- Get car hire charges car batteries and services vehicles in the street, allowing carcinogenic engine oil to run into drains and thence Sydney Harbour: it’s an environmental hazard and unsustainable. Any legitimate garage would be severely fined by the EPA for this.

And it encourages use of more cars: many residents now say they have two cars per family. Claims by council-paid-for studies the scheme magically takes cars off the street, a nonsense on stilts. It makes more cars more readily available to more people more often. That’s the point of it.

It worsens climate change and increases congestion points confirmed by overseas German studies.

We need less council overdevelopment and better public transport instead.

Nor does Council’s scheme “reduce … competition for parking spaces,” as claimed by Clover Moore in her 2015 letter to residents. It creates parking uncertainty and more competition for spaces by putting more vehicles in the same area with the same number of spots. Many hire cars in our 2011 postcode area just sit there for days, unmoved, unused. Car hirers should use council-owned car parks instead.

And car hirers who’d normally travel by bus, bike or train, especially in the wet, create even more congestion.

Meanwhile, residents who have pre-paid for a parking spot can’t find one: Council sells more spots than are available. Council created this problem by approving too many apartments without car spots in its anti-car quixotic quest.

So why not allow residents to “buy” the spot outside their house on the same terms and rent it out themselves to the public via apps, car share operators or as designated visitor parking that could be shared with adjacent properties?

Too obvious? Or out of sync with council’s abacus myopic mentality?