Sydney City Access Strategy – what it means for our transport

The State Government recently announced its latest plan on how commuters will enter, exit and move in and around Sydney’s CBD, taking into account buses, trams, trains, cars, bikes and pedestrians.

Reportedly the plan is the first time the city is prioritising different modes of transport, taking into account that cars only move 35 per cent of people while 92 per cent of trips are made on foot.

So what does it mean for us?

Well, this is what is outlined in the plan:

An improved bus system in the city centre to reduce congestion 

The city centre bus network will be redesigned to establish an easy to understand, all-day network of reliable, high frequency bus routes.

The redesign will help to address congestion and capacity constraints in the short term but also responds to the future role of light rail and the integration of bus and light rail services. 

Some of the key changes that will benefit customers include: 

• Turning movements will be substantially reduced at the Elizabeth Street and Park Street intersection. This will help simplify bus movements through the city centre. 
• Existing Metrobus routes will be configured to operate more efficiently through the city centre and better serve customer demand. 
• Sydney Harbour Bridge services to Railway Square will operate via the Cahill Expressway, Bridge Street, Castlereagh Street southbound and Elizabeth Street northbound. 
• The remaining bus routes that enter the city centre via the Sydney Harbour Bridge will use York and Clarence Streets and either terminate at Wynyard or QVB (Town Hall). 
• New bus routes will run to Barangaroo and Walsh Bay via the city centre and midtown interchange precinct. 
• Approximately every second bus service on key Inner West bus routes entering the city centre via Broadway will only operate to Central. This will reduce the number of buses unnecessarily entering the city centre. The remaining services will continue to the northern end of the city centre via Elizabeth Street northbound and Castlereagh Street southbound. 
• All bus routes that service the South-Eastern suburbs will only use Elizabeth Street en-route to and from Circular Quay. 
• Several routes will be connected to operate as through-routed services to reduce the overlap of bus services on city centre streets and the need for bus lay-over in the city centre. 
• Victoria Road bus routes that currently use George Street and terminate at Circular Quay will either continue through the city centre via Druitt Street and Park Street to lay-over outside the city centre or terminate at Wynyard. 

 The key benefits of these changes are: 

• Turns at critical intersections are minimised within the city centre, improving intersection performance for all users. This change will bring specific improvements for articulated (or “bendy”) buses which currently cause delays at certain intersections due to their length. 
• Trials of double deck buses are currently underway to assess potential benefits across the transport network. 
• Concentrating more buses on fewer streets, reducing impacts on other road users and making the bus system easier to understand. 
• Major bus stops located within key interchange precincts at Town Hall, Wynyard, Central and Circular Quay, and also at Martin Place and Museum. These interchange precincts will connect different transport modes such as rail, light rail, ferry and bus. 
• Key interchange precincts providing increased comfort, for all customers through improvements such as de-cluttering walkways, providing new shelters, better signage and the provision of real time information. 
• Other bus stops outside the interchange precincts rationalised to improve bus travel speeds and improve customer understanding of the network. 
• Priority bus corridors developed with enhanced bus lanes and dedicated stopping bays. They will improve travel time and reliability along Elizabeth Street/ Castlereagh Street, Park Street / Druitt Street and Clarence Street / York Street.

So what are your thoughts?