Sydney to get 20-year transport plan

Date: 4/10/2012

The government in (NSW) New South Wales, Australia is to develop a 20-year plan designed to rebuild the transport infrastructure in the city.

It was a pledge set out by the government when it was elected and is not expected to be finished until November next year.

This is because the focus is on making sure that the plan is right and takes all aspects of transport into consideration, as opposed to ensuring that it is done quickly.

Part of the process will be consulting with the public in community forums so that the proposals take everyone with a vested interest's opinion into consideration.

Any new plans will have to take those being drawn up by Infrastructure NSW into consideration, as well as the seven options being mooted with regard to the rail system.

Gladys Berejiklian, Transport Minister, said: "The NSW long-term transport master plan will provide clear and detailed information about what needs to happen over the next 20 years and build on the government's existing short-term commitments, allowing the people of NSW to hold us to account and track our progress."

The timetable set out for the plan to be drawn up is for a discussion paper to be released in February, followed by a draft plan in June and the final proposals in November next year.

Throughout the process forums will be held across the ten regional areas which make up the zone, which includes Sydney.

The plans were announced alongside a report put together by the state's auditor-general which shows the extent of traffic problems in New South Wales.

It found that seven arterial roads in Sydney have travel speeds of 29 kilometres per hour at peak times during the morning.

John Lee, Chief Executive of the Tourism and Transport Forum, suggested that when the final plan had been agreed upon it should be reinforced with legislation.

He also went onto say that getting the plan right was more important than getting it done quickly, so that no further issues are presented in the future which could have been avoided.

Posted by Nick Anderson

International Transport News and Sustainable Transport News