Not another transport plan

While the NSW government has almost moved to a point somewhere beyond ridicule, they are not alone in the constant reissuing of transport plans and changing policies. Attending conferences of transport professionals in recent years, one would constantly hear the refrain that the city in question needed a comprehensive integrated plan. The actual problem has not been a lack of plans, but an inability to choose the right elements of plans and to actually deliver them.

There is a tendency to include large sexy projects to capture the imagination of the media and the public. Metros certainly fit that bill, and have been floated in cities other than Sydney. There is a metro in the 2008 Victorian Transport Plan, but, thus far, it is considered long-term, attracting nothing other than study at the moment. Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, last November raised the concept of a metro for Brisbane saying that “the time to talk about it is now”.

There is not much harm in studying and talking, but even that is a distraction from the practical requirements of getting the public transport basics, such as maintenance of existing rolling stock and infrastructure, right. Hopefully, the scrapping of the Sydney Metro will make the Victorian and Queensland Governments have second thoughts about pursuing them for their capital cities.

So next time you hear about a “visionary” transport plan it is probably best not to get too excited. The big projects will probably never happen but, before they are scrapped, they will probably eat up lots of resources and divert attention from the real problems.

What transport plans actually need, first and foremost, is the right structural model. Thus, a decent transport plan for NSW would propose privatisation of ferries, trains and buses. Beyond that, it needs practical capital projects which provide more capacity where it is most needed in the transport network. And most of all it needs the political resolve to choose the right plan and to stay the course to actually implement it.