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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ธ.ค. 2023
- The latest phase of Sydney's multi-billion dollar WestConnex road project (the Rozelle Interchange) has opened... and seems to be a complete disaster. But how did this project that aimed to improve traffic do the exact opposite?
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Induced Demand Video: • Why building more high...
The New South Wales government's flagship road and highway infrastructure project has been caught up in controversy these past few days as the newly opened (and very expensive) Rozelle Interchange has plunged much of the inner west into a traffic nightmare. But how did this project go so wrong? And would the money spent building this have been better spent on other types of projects like trams, light rails, buses trains, metros, bicycle lanes etc...
The lane extension I mentioned in the video opened overnight and surprise surprise…
“Images from peak hour this morning show little to no difference in congestion, with traffic still moving slowly”
From: www.9news.com.au/national/residents-gather-over-rozelle-interchange-as-new-lane-added/4e3f8b63-8841-403a-a8df-6bd92fad6363
what people are not looking at is the decrease in traffic along the northern corridor (southbound Harbour Tunnel and Eastern Distributor) and the south western corridor (M5 and M12).... as more are using West Connex - myself included because the GPS has it as the fastest route. Before I would avoid Victoria road like THE PLAGUE
Lane opnened overnight and we are already making judgements? Smh
When I studied Civil Engineering in 1982, we were taught about induced demand and studied the M25 around London as an example as well as the benefits that European cities achieved by NOT building urban freeways. 41 years later, Australians are still ignoring what we knew well before 1982.
It’s absolutely insane that people think that you just need to keep building more lanes… and never consider that maybe private car transportation is simply too inefficient to scale up to the level they seem to think is needed.
"Public transport is for losers".
Homer Simpson
@@Expedient_Mensch That attitude is why there is so much traffic. But even building more roads isn't working. Right now...there is no balance between the two.
@@Expedient_Menschit’s for people who have access which are usually people who live closer to the city. The people closer to the city are middle income earners. Go to Fairfield and then compare to Balmain… it’s like night and day
High density is most efficient, but people prefer low density. Personal space, not packed in with 300 other people in an apartment or train.
Most people want bigger spaces/things not smaller. That's why many fantasise about rural living/owning a farm.
More is always preferred once cost and efficiency are out of the picture.
It's absolutely insane that we continue to expand our population at such a rate that new roads have no net effect on traffic flow
$16 billion for a project that reduces traffic considerably less than building a larger Metro system. We need to stop making these expensive mistakes, and prioritise proven solutions.
But apparently, many gammons in cars think they're subsidising cycling and yell at then to get out their way
That’s the coalition for you 😂
That’s democracy for you
But then Transurban won’t make political donations, and we can’t have that….
its not a mistake. Like many out west this interchange is NEEDED for people driving from the WEST to get into the city and can BYPASS the city link and Parramatta Rd. The only ones complaining are rich folks living in these 'inner' suburb.
The more roads you build the more traffic you attract. I knew this could only turn into one very expensive car park with the potential to grid lock all of Sydney. Who got that brown envelope ?
the problem isnt that roads have been built. its because of the bottleneck at anzac bridge forcing 10 lanes to merge into 4 & the poor signage inbound on the iron cove link making people decide to just use victoria road instead of actually taking the tunnel. this is solely poorly designed and if it wasnt there wouldnt be any traffic jams
Liberal party m8
@@logesttWhen you add a lane, a significant chunk of the peak traffic capacity is taken up by vehicles merging and changing lanes. The more lanes you add, the greater the proportion lost.
Traffic flow modelling is blind to this, because it assumes perfect drivers who make optimal lane choices. In reality, the actions of drivers who make even mildly sub optimal lane choices compound into chaos.
cause there's an infinite number of drivers? there isn't
They can't shift from cars, because TransUrban (the owners of the road) is one of Australia's biggest companies by market cap and one of our fastest growing companies internationally; their growth funded by these absurd tolled abominations. TransUrban (Australia's most succesful bridge troll) no doubt has a strong lobby on the decision makers to favour vehicles over public transport.
Exactly. We can't even get the airport rail built in Melbourne because of them easily.
@@Low760 we have to plan more car centric olympics infrastructure in brisbane, thanks to transurban. We aren't allowed any alternative to the airtrain and airportlink toll tunnel thanks to Transurban
shame because brisbane does show great capability of transport planning when allowed to, cross river rail and brisbane "metro" are great developments (obviously metro should've atleast used trams instead of low capacity buses but considering the thinktanks going against any sort of public transport plans I'm glad we're getting something)@@electro_sykes
They're profitable because people want to drive on these roads. They're building something that people need and will pay for.
@@Secretlyanothername Yes, however they can indirectly make their toll roads more attractive by lobbying governments to focus on car infrastructure and less public transport investment.
And there lies the problem with government; They don't understand that 10 doesn't go into 4. 😄
Neither they understand more highways attract more drivers. No more road. Extensive public transport is the key. More metro, more rail, more tram, more bicycle paths. Invest in auto driveless mini bus like the one they tried in Olympic Park years ago. Not more highways.
Honestly it's less about what individual members of a government (or the departments that actually carry out the works) believe and more about how the moving parts of the system enable a few key actors to push certain outcomes.
I'd be willing to bet that most planners and engineers who worked on this project knew full well what disaster it was setting up, but there is little you can do when the requirements are being laid out by a higher authority with self-serving goals in mind.
This isnt the first road built with monetising congestion prioritised over good traffic planning, and unfortunately it probably won't be the last.
Think about the trip home... 4 in to 10... wahoo
These private roads are simply a way for private equity funds to print money. There is no competition. It is a classic monopoly and they have the government in their pocket.
The problem is Australian governments both at federal and state level are just notorious for stuffing up infrastructure projects so even if they had spent this money on public transport, they would have turned that into a goat f**k as well (Sydney light rail) so it was a no win situation either way.
the difference is a rorted train line will always have more capacity than a rorted highway. Melbourne's Suburban Rail Loop is one of the biggest rorts i've seen in transit, but i still support it because it will still provide an unparalleled service and make the city like Tokyo. its still a win, just means that we don't have enough money to build anything else for 20 years.
The light rail's not so bad now. It's a lot quicker than when it's opened and it's constantly packed
@@xymaryai8283 What do you mean SRL is one of the biggest rorts you've seen in transit, what do you find wrong with it? It's a great project!
@@kyletopfer7818 i agree its a great project! i still support it, but the cost and timeframe suck. its obviously carved out for the construction companies to make a lot of profit primarily, and to make a good project second, like Snowy Hydro 2.0. the overreliance on TBMs instead of land acquisition like the many highway projects would have done, the complete seperation of the system from the existing network, there are many indicators of a project that was made for the sake of it, instead of as an urgent need for efficient and effective projects to help solve a problem. with all that said though, i still think it's a great project and anyone trying to cancel it is an idiot. a multi hub city is exactly what we need, we need to build out our important hubs for more transit oriented development, better housing access, less traffic, more transit.
and being able to go see my friends in 15 minutes instead of an hour is absolutely worth it ^°^
Even a slightly botched light rail is a less catastrophic outcome than the Rozelle interchange.
Whelp, that’s what you get for investing in car infrastructure over rail! I love that they never thought this out properly, I hope this stands as a lesson for the rest of Aus!
Absolutely agree. More rail/ public transport investment. Less car infrastructure that just induces demand
Agree. Strangely the metro west which passes underneath Lilyfield won’t get a station. A big gap between Glebe and Five Dock! Dumb dumb dumb.
Aussies need to man up and take care of the corruption.
It has since come to light that the government knew that it was going to be a problem well in advance, and had looked at installing a movable median so that the eastbound side of the ANZAC bridge could be 5 lanes in morning peak (reducing westbound to 3 lanes) and return to 4 lanes each way off peak, but the plan was shelved about a year ago. It would take about 3 years to build this separate upgrade.
Something to be aware of when refering to 'the government' and their role in all of this, is that between a good 80% of this project being constructed, and it's completion and failed implementation, there was a change in government. Given by the time something is actually being built we're long past the planning stage, a lot of these issues were well and truely baked into the project well before the 'current' government had any power over the situation.
Now of course, the incumbant government might have at least delayed the project to fix these issues ahead of time, but that depends on how realiable the planning work done to support the design of the build was. If they are presented with a bunch of planning studies that assure them everything will be fine, there usually isnt any reason to distrust those studies.
Presumably there is a business case somewhere that talks about how great the interchange is and how everything will go smoothly when it opens. It likely even directly address the 10 lanes into 4 issue and provide a very compelling case as to why that is going to be ok. The issue is that the quanative analysis behind those arguments can be manipilated far more then people might initially assume. Most the failed private public partnership toll road projects in Australia were heavily driven by this sort of dodgy forecasting, presenting best case scenarios as if they were a realistic representation of what might happen. A few bad apples being willing to fiddle a little more then necessary with a few variables can make a huge difference.
Essentially, it's entirely possible that despite the good intentions of 90% of those involved, 10% with ulterior motives (typically financial) can derail a lot of best practice planning.
The Only Option for Sydney is to improve Public Transport, but that is going in reverse. I live in Auburn and work in North Sydney, 12 years ago took me around 45 minutes from door to door, now it could take me 1 hour and I am just 25 km away, imagine people who live 35 or 40 km away. No wonder why many people prefer to drive. I'm lucky that I can still work from home 3 days a week but the other 2 days are a nightmare. If Sydney doesn't improve its Public Transport, is slowly becoming the LA of the South Pacific.
1 hour by train from Auburn? That’s good! Quicker than coming from Kingsford or Maroubra being 12 km via public transport.
If you’re driving, get the train. Auburn has a station.
Wow, it's almost as if building more roads in the midlle of the city is not the best way to reduce traffic.
I think if a government is going to create mayor multi lane road projects there is no excuse not to make one of those lanes a dedicated bus lane (and run frequent buses along it). Major bus routes along modern wide roads shouldn’t get stuck in traffic.
The signage was pretty bad, you wouldn’t know the Iron Cove to Anzac was toll free as people would assume the “M4 toll” word applied to both sides.
And in Sydney you have to assume that everything is tolled.
I agree with what you’ve said in the video, especially about public transport being the better option.
You’ve missed out on, as have most media outlets, that the Rozelle Interchange has significantly improved travel times for people in the west getting to the city, by bypassing the City West Link. Which is a win for this historically under invested part of Sydney.
Except it isn't, because we need to slash emissions and this will just solidify more car dependency and over time driving times will return closer to what they were as induced demand takes hold.
How much has the average commute time been affected?
What this is doing is encouraging urban sprawl which is not good
@@JohnFromAccountinghave you sat on the City West link in peak hour before? Literally standstill traffic for minutes on end
The whole Westconnex network is a win. Should have been completed years ago
@@cityplanner3063
Urban Sprawl is required because Nimbyism prevents more density in already established Suburbs
This is a global problem, chocking cities with private cars.
Australians are addicted to their vehicles. They want to pick up the kids after work, go to the shops on the way home and still be in front of the idiot box for the 6pm news. The absolute last thing they want to do is stand on a platform listening to an announcement about delays on the Penrith / Bankstown / Hornsby / Cronulla line (pick one). The Albanese government doomed Sydney. Melbourne and Brisbane the day they decided to bring in 3-400,000 people a year without any further planning. Remember the old decentralisation push ? Neither do they.
More roads NEVER fix a traffic problem. Even here in Tassie it doesn't work.
When will they realise more roads make more traffic, not less? Imagine what amazing expansion to public transport that money could have paid for instead.
Ah. 10 lanes merging into 4. Reminds me of the Mini-Stack in Phoenix, where on the on-ramps to I-10, 2 freeways merge as an on-ramp, and then a lane is removed. After that, there’s a busy service interchange. It’s worse going onto I-10 westbound from the 202 westbound or 51 southbound, as along the have traffic from 24th Street merging directly into the 202, then the 51 merging almost as soon as it merges onto I-10, then I-10 loses a lane and has the 16th Street half-interchange (you can’t access 16th Street from I-10 westbound), then you have the 7th Street interchange, which has 2 exit only lanes. That stretch of I-10 is the first to back up during rush hour.
Reading this is like trying to read calculus or something haha
To all you people who have a crappy job, crappy life with crappy commutes.
Know there is a way to break free!
The interchange has massively reduced travel times for people using the M4 motorway, it has only increased travel times for those in Rozelle. It's no surprise the only media attention people are giving is to the rich people in the inner west who can just take a bus anyway.
Once roads are wide enough (50+ lanes) induced demand won't be able to catch up.
Should have spent that money on improving public transport. Sad to see how bad bus&train services are
Builing an underground interchange is literally something I do in Cities Skylines to hide my traffic congestion, because I’m not a good enough player to know how to make it flow better. I would have expected the level of intelect of the people make these actual real life decisions in a major city to be higher than that...
When the people in charge of making the decisions have a mate who's got a tunnel boring machine every problem seems like it can be solved with very expensive holes in the ground.
More like 12 days ago
If people just drive on the free road, everything would be fine. We need to return the inner city surface streets to the locals, and close lanes. Of course if people insist on driving a single-lane street instead of an underground bypass - can we not point the finger?
There are no free roads. Just some roads are heavily subsidised.
I left Sydney in 2005. It’s a nightmare of a place in terms of traffic and stress. Unfriendly culture. Outside of the harbour, Sydney is ugly.
If moving 90 meters regularly took 10 minutes I would stop travelling by car.
Is it really a traffic problem or a lets be fixated on 5 days a week 9 to 5 problem. Take trading hours from 10am until 10pm take retial workers out of the rush and allow people to hang around in their work local area after work and shop and eat. Our cities are dead after 7pm unlike in Asia where people are out shopping and eating until 10pm.
The Anzac bridge was already packed, and all this new interchange does is funnel even more traffic onto an already congested road. Also the interchange was purposely designed to trick people into accidently taking a wrong turn and then having to go through the toll. Hence their was no toll grace peroid. The problem won't go away until the western harbour tunnel is at least built & even then, it will just funnel more traffic to the complex Warringah Freeway in North Sydney which already handles traffic from the harbour bridge and existing harbour tunnel. And there you go. That's the exact classic example of induced demand
The exact same thing is going to happen with Melbourne's (Dan's) North-East Link. There is plenty of talk about Eastern Freeway upgrades, but no mention of the tunnel that restricts traffic to 3 lanes further east. Australia is literally 20 years behind the test of the world with regards to understanding how to move people around, even behind the U.S. at this stage, which is pretty sad.
In what way is Aus behind the US, that's an insane comment. Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne and Sydney are all building massive rail projects that will expand their rail network reach, effectivity and capacity enormously - whilst even the cities with large public transport networks on the East Coast (Washington, New York/New Jersey, Boston, Philadelphia) can't even work out how to operate through running on their rail networks and have awful frequency, and San Francisco/Bay Area are going backwards. The rest are stuck in light rail mode, and all have already built their massive freeway projects.
So the tunnel is worse than driving through the current pathway from Eastern to M80?
20 years behind? We started thinking about the Suburban Rail Loop a couple of years ago, that might go some of the way of replacing the inner and outer loops that were decommissioned 100 years ago, to be built by 2050 -- 100 years behind everyone else who built resilient networks before their systems became utterly crippled. Except that the likes of Grattan Institute (meant to be a forward thinking progressive think-tank) are now campaigning strongly against it, advocating for guess what... more lanes instead.
This world is so fucking stupid.
The entire tunnel will be tolled so I suspect that will limit demand.
I keep seeing your comments here and they’re all about Dan when he hasn’t been Premier for months now and the systems are not that similar beyond the fact they’re major road projects. I’m not one for building new major road projects but let’s be honest here.
Biggest waste of taxpayer money in a long time.
The clips of cars driving on the wrong side of the road in this video keep making me do a double take hahaha
The person that signed off for the Rozelle interchange road plans needs to be sacked.
They probably got a $3m package when they left.
I suppose Victoria Rd wasn't a high priority for this interchange. The main purpose of this interchange wont be fulfilled until the West Harbour Tunnel and Sydney Gateway are completed. Will it work, will it just become clogged with traffic, will it just move the traffic problems elsewhere? At least they are going ahead with the Metro to Parramatta, with a new station and residential development likely to replace Rosehill Racecourse. This has been proposed by the Australian Turf Club, and isn't something being imposed on them (apparently).
Total Waste of Tax Payers Money ( Some one or Many people have been given Paper bags full of Cash under table Payments to Allow this to be Built )
Smarter to Have Invested In More and Better Public Transport Systems
Couldn't find stock footage of Australia? Left hand drive cars, US roadworks, US freeways, Scotiabank Arena (Canada).. You make out our traffic is as bad as the US.. we'll take your opinion with a grain of salt mate 👍
Ay, thought another Sydney must have cropped up 😅 dead set though that intersection is an absolute POS.
We have a great mass transit network.. Trains, Ferrys, Light Rail, Buses in addition to the freeways & tolls. A quicker journey is absolutely possible without sitting in a carpark
@@showerbeersngravytearspretty happy with the infrastructure we've got looking at the alternative 😅
The problem is the toll. Get rid of the toll and the issue will go away. Most of the problem is because of people are trying to avoid tolls. Also new public transport will help as well.
the interchange was purposely designed to trick people into accidently taking a wrong turn and then having to go through the toll. Hence their was no toll grace period.
Tolls are fundamentally good for roads that offer fast and more most convenient routes in city urban environments. It incentivises people to take other modes like public transport. However, how it’s done in Sydney I have some issues with. 1. Being that most of it’s privatised and 2. that there needs to be good other public transport options otherwise it disproportionately taxes poorer people commuting into work from the regions.
Complete opposite. Removing tolls will destroy what capacity is left on Sydney’s roads
@@gregessex1851tolls increase surface traffic.
On the plus side, induced demand fills newly built capacity. If, as with this road, the new capacity turns out not to exist, then you don't get induced demand.
Yes hopefully people avoid this interchange and less people drive than used to.
Induced demand is fulfilling people's needs and desires - it was too difficult to do something they wanted to do, and now it's easier.
A massive fail. They knew the massive number of cross town inner city private vehicle journeys that already existed and they dumped more traffic into the sewer. It would be a disaster to widen Anzac bridge. The advanced publicity proclaimed an engineering marvel with this interchange. How many of these trips involve parents who live in the inner west and can’t train their children to catch public transport to school or even university.
Anzac Br should’ve been built double-decker with 8 lanes each way. But hey, this is Australia where roads are always built inadequately. Even LA with 15m people has better traffic flow and yes I’ve driven there in peak hours.
BAD BAD planning as is typical of this city ,no surprises there except the amount of money this has and continues to mount. Sydney has to be up there with the most congested cities on the planet
Long term major car infrastructure projects are such a a scam. I moved away from Melbourne in 2019, when they'd already started the tunnel link (I forget the name), and I travel back to this day (2023), and the roadworks are still going on.
They get advertised as "saving 15 minutes off your trip", but in the meantime, during the roadworks, 40km/h limits and constant roadblocks, its taken you an extra half an hour to get to where you're going, and when the project is finally done, its finished over budget, more cars are using it, you dont save your 15 minutes, and ALL THE TIME YOU LOST DURING THE ROADWORKS YOU NEVER GET BACK WHEN ITS DONE.
Government thinking on this is so fucking stupid, especially state thinking.
10 lanes into 4 sounds crazy but everyone (including this video) chooses to ignore that this is just an interim as the Western Harbour Tunnel will extend the new M8 under the Harbour with three extra lanes and meaining that this road will not have to funnel onto the Anzac Bridge once it is complete. The WHT was originally meant to open in 2025 but it has been delayed till 2027, Ultimately the M8 will emewrge onto the Warringah Freeway that is 12 lanes wide.
This will be a global case study in stupid transport planning.
Gee who’d have thought that building more roads would just generate more traffic?
Gladiolis Berjyklianus at her worst.
This is a gross over simplification of the issue, I live in Balmain and now any person who needs to leave the suburb for any reason heading towards the city or away from it, is now trapped for 30-60 minutes to travel a few hundred metres (PEOPLE WILL DIE IN AMBULANCES TRYING TO TRAVEL 3 KMS TO RPA). The suburb already is reasonably well services by Public transport to a point (ferry and good buses, but no light/heavy rail), however by compressing 3 lanes into 1 on the approach to the Anzac bridge with additional slowing traffic light contraflow, the public busses coming from all over Sydney have formed an impenetrable wall that cannot be breached, this has meant all 4 arteries from Balmain to Victoria rd are also now blocked even when travelling in the opposite direction to the traffic (i.e. the lights turn green but no car can leave a side street as the busses are a wall across the intersection). After 8 years of putting up with 24/7 west connex construction work we are now a walled city before 10am (now forced insular peninsular). I am lucky I catch the ferry to the city, which too now is super crowded as those who caught public busses are now also trapped in the Transurban scam with government that has created this mess and now catch the busses away from the city to the ferry (go backwards to go forwards). Our crime is voting Green so neither Minns nor his predecesors give a shit that they have landlocked 50,000 people across 4 high density suburbs to a single lane shared with busses from multiple regions. Balmain has one of the lowest rates of car ownership in Sydney and the highest use of public transport, bikes and even electric scooters to travel the 3km to the city. The problem now is that this has become a deliberate tar trap as busses from Ryde, Drummoyne etc now have blocked all access onto Victoria Rd in any direction for the locals (every side str now is full for hours as cars cannot even got onto Victoria rd when lights change). It will not improve the "ADJUSTMENT" that is referrred to by the road minister etc, is a community accepting that they are now landlocked by government decisions unless they are willing to go by ferry or walk. I am lucky I catch the ferry and work in the city, for others who are not so lucky they will now be getting up at 6am to travel the 500m across the suburb and brief commute on Victoria road in either direction to get past the blocked artery. This has nothing to do with time to come to grips with a new free tunnel, this is a DEAL STRUCK WITH A PRIVATE ENTITY IN TRANSURBAN TO CONTROL MONEY MADE FROM PUBLIC ROADS IN THIS CASE THE ANZAC BRIDGE (PAID TOLL ROADS TO TAKE TRAFFIC from Parramatta rd and beyond and force it through Rozelle at the cost of the citizens. Victoria Rd was already Australia's slowest rd before west connex now it is a complete parking lot. COOL and GROOVY..... catch public transport you whinger...... yeh they too are stuck in this shit fight, maybe Minns will mine the harbour next to block this last form of escape in the ferry. i am genuinely fearful for the first heart attack patient who cannot get out and will die, unless helicopters can be brought in, they are dead, also Transurban makes its money.
I am so happy I no longer have to commute in Sydney.
It was built through private equity with a for-profit model. A tram line or mass transit would never have been built in it's place as there is no money in it.
Underground highways are massively expensive stupidity personified.
How to concentrate pollution in a confined space and do next to nothing to fix transport.
Victoria road is way too long for a light rail line. A victoria road metro would have been much better off.
A metro stop was proposed for Balmain and it was shot down by the locals wasn’t it..?
You are sending a great meassage!
The cure for road congestion is allowing people to work from home. If they can. This will reduce the road network problems and decrease fuel consumption and pollution.
It seems that every other person in Australia is a tradie, they don't work from home...they only work on the homes of other tradies, or on another 30 tolled roads paid for by the taxpayer
trains*
What a joke! Peak hour will still be peak hour with or without new roads. Most of these people are just trying to avoid tolls. The "chokepoint" is just from City West Link. There is no problem with the tunnels. I have driven in both directions and it was a dream rum. It took me half the time as it did before. That's M4 to ANZAC Bridge and then, ANZAC Bridge to Iron Cove Bridge. Brilliant piece of infrastructure. Can't praise it enough. The signs are clear and easy to follow. First time through and there was no confusion where to exit.
Yes, more of the gifts the Looters N Plunderers and the privatised road operators just keep giving. Are these now the train parking statrions that ScuMo and the Bin Chicken were so proficent at pork barrelling.
Although Australia is very good at building large infrastructure projects, performing well on cost and build time, I think that worked against it in the case of the Rozelle and St Peter's Interchanges. They were built so fast that there wasn't enough time to challenge the logic behind them. The worst place to build highways is in a CBD or downtown, as this is where density and demand are highest so traffic on the highways will be through the roof. Hence permanent congestion.
The only way out of induced demand is to somehow limit access to the underground highways, either through high tolls (though this punishes the poor) or some kind of hard limit on the number of vehicles entering the system per minute (which shifts the congestion to surface streets and makes it a free for all to try to get to the entrances on time).
Work from Home and staggering rush hour helps too, but maybe only a little.
what city is that in the end of video footage?
His city on city skylines. I don’t think he’s released the files 😢
The only things that should be using roads in metropolitan areas are trucks. Everything else should be taken care of by public transport
The underlying assumption here is that roads are built to address congestion - that’s the justification but not the underlying cause of road building which in australia is the utterly corrupt relationship between developers, construction and political elites, lack of scrutiny and accountability of mega projects and road building, scant media scrutiny and a populace beholden to the “freedom of the road” frontier mentality that underpins the growth of SUVs and 4x4s. The solution is however correct - stop building roads!
Australian road engineers and designers. Some of the highest paid in the world building and designing some of the worst roads in the world.
Brisbane is living proof of how bad of how city town planners are at designing roads. With Brisbane you can't even bypass the city without taking toll roads. And without proper highway ring roads most of the traffic is forced to go with the city if they want to avoid the toll roads.
Maybe this is a secret plot to make people not want to drive cars in Sydney
Another bottleneck is going to be created at the northern merge point of the western harbour tunnel, with the warringah freeway, it's the same spot where cars coming from the Sydney harbour tunnel merge with the warringah freeway and from experience traffic is forced to slow as 5 lanes merge to 3, the 2 extra lanes merging from the new tunnel is going to make it even worse
I agree. That’s why the tunnel needs to be extended into the northern beaches and straight through the National park for another Hawksberry river crossing. The current M1 is at capacity.
@@josephj6521I think a rail line should come before a highway to the northern beaches. but yknow, nimbys.
@@fjeoijweiojfweio8212 I agree with that too. Shame really. Little do they realize it’ll make their lives so much easier and of course assist those of us on weekends to have a swim. These nimbys think they own the Earth’s beaches.
its more of a shame as the northern beaches is quite dense and not particularly sprawly, which would make it perfect for a rail line. additionally, congestion and traffic is a huge problem on military/spit/manly roads, and there's only one realistic solution to remove and eliminate congestion off these roads... but yknow... nimbys. @@josephj6521
Transurban have a hell of a lot of sway over the NSW Government. Their lobbying would have been a contributor to this mess.
The solution is to make one or two lanes into dedicated bus lanes.
There is also the consideration of the new harbour tunnel, yet to be finished. When that opens, traffic will not need to go over the Anzac or Harbour Bridge.
Just a couple more lanes huh? That's just throwing good money after bad.
01:20 Tbf insufficient and/or confusing signage is a pervasive problem through the entire Sydney road network and has been for decades. I don't know why we seem to have such a problem with that.
Most of the footage in the video seems to be of road systems outside of Australia. Why?
Cause they're from the UK
We drive on the left here in the UK and I don't recognise any of the clips being from here. A lot of the clips are from countries which drive on the right!
Just a thought on a potetial video based on that 'metro taking 20,000 cars off the M1' stat.
Given we know the capacity added by a single traffic lane, and we can roughly guage the expense of adding a lane to the M2 by analysing the budgets of other projects, hypothetically you could find how much it would cost to create the additional road space required to accommodate 20,000 cars on the M2 and directly compare it to how much the metro cost.
While adding the room for 20k trips exactly the same as removing 20k trips from the motorway, it would at least give a very tangible comparison between the cost of PT projects against the cost of Highway projects.
They should add 4 more lanes to the bridge.
Didn’t Boston already try this the better part of 20 years ago? It’s Big Dig 2: Down Under
Not only that, the cost overruns assured there will be no mass transit railways built for the next half century.
And they cancelled the beaches link tunnel, a region that has zero rail support.
What do you mean “isn’t tolled, at least for now”? Iron Cove Link will never be tolled. Weird comment.
its not a mistake. Like many out west this interchange is NEEDED for people driving from the WEST to get into the city and can BYPASS the city link and Parramatta Rd. The only ones complaining are rich folks living in these 'inner' suburb.
So the people from out west who get stuck in the traffic jams are just grateful to be there? Nah, that really doesn't track.
It sounds like you need a second bridge parallel to the other…and make each one in one way…and a tramway connection on it to show the car drivers the alternative !
Stop requiring that office workers go into the city. We don't need denser cities, we need to reduce the requirement to move around in them as frequently as we do.
Most people don't want to use mass transport options, they want to be able to go directly from A to B, be self reliant and independent. Cycling is only for very short trips of a few km. Sydney is not flat and quite indirect route-wise.
I LMAO when you said 10 lanes merging into 4...like, WTF!
the first few days were hilariously bad, but that goes to show how bad drivers in Sydney are along with shit signage etc, I've driven the new interchange a few times since it opened and honestly i like it.. so far
they should build public transport and I live at least 1hr and 42 minutes away from the city and the interchange
You make some great points but ultimately they are gross oversimplifications. Getting to a tram or a tram stop is the first problem, walking is often too steep in my area, and would turn off most people not to mention the distance. People will most often choose this most convenient solution. Let's take the bus to the station, 30 mins instead of 10 by car. Let's drive to a stop or station - there's parking restrictions, or the 3-4 storey park and ride is filled before 7am. That leaves driving, even if it means sitting in the car in traffic.
The biggest problem in Sydney is the government's infrastructure building policies, the poor implementations (Rozelle Interchange), and the lack of innovation which means every fix has to cost $10 billion. I'm astounded how this pattern has constantly repeated since the 1970s, and before my time too. Meanwhile some other countries take a first principles approach and get things done using the economics of mass-produced construction, rather than costly bespoke solutions. Ultimately the construction companies propose great solutions which are ignored by government.
I think that this interchange is good ... as long they can reduce demand for it to a manageable level via public transport. Having actual good road connections is great for those who have to drive (i.e. Poor immune systems, as their job, etc.) but the overuse by commuters ruins it. It was also way too much money but what is one to do.
I agree. The new metro west rail line should have a station at the northern end of Leichhart/Lilyfield area.
They didn't do their lane mathematics.
Just like the M5 two lanes then still 20 years later adding lanes - M4 two lanes then still 20 years later adding new lanes - Then the M7 two lanes now adding new lanes which joins onto the new M9 which they will probably make two lanes then add new lanes years later 🤦🏽♂️
Are you sure these people haven't previously worked for the conservative government in Ontario. This all sounds so familiar!
Google map can be confusing to identify the complexity of the road and may mislead drivers also.
Obviously a major error of the opening was to block traffic from the crescent going west. Drivers were met with only the Victoria road and Anzac bridge fly over. No left hand route to travel to Ashfield, Strathfield, parramatta etc. Even if 200 cars found themselves on Victoria Rd what could they do?
Most left hand turns getting away from Victoria Rd are illegal. So a common thought would be to turn right at first opportunity. Then u turn head back to Victoria Rd. Once on Victoria Rd veer across heavy traffic to turn right back onto western distributor.
Oh dear no left hand turn into crescent Rd again. Even more confused traffic delaying Victoria Rd traffic turning right into western distributor.
Another case of engineers being humiliated by politicians being ready to hurry away for Christmas break and cutting the ribbon too early.😅
Once the crescent access was opened weeks later, traffic flowed easily on Glebe side.
I wonder if this becomes the tipping point and the NSW Government finally says we have enough urban freeways. Nah, who am I kidding
Sounds like you need a functioning public transport system. And to ban cars.
Toll costs in Sydney is one of the most expensive in the world just running through the urban area (pun intended). Not even Singapore charges that much (COE is another matter). And so Sydney drivers have every reason to avoid the toll road at all costs if they don't have to use it because any mistake would be very expensive to them.
Yeah, roads are super expensive and a waste of money. Governments have been subsidising car drivers for far too long.
Never forget this project was given the green light by the dodgy and disgraced former Premier Gladys Berejiklian. The same Premier who allowed construction companies to build around the block, right in front of people's home. In Rozelle, jack hammers were being used for months on end only metres away from homes.
The best way to fix this is to move to Adelaide.
Where are all these people driving to ? That should have been investigated more also.
To work 🤷
What Sydney Metropolitan needs is Rapid Bus Transits, dedicated roads for freight and light rail in each CBD and MORE parking, adding more lanes doesn't solve issues... look at America, 12 lane carriage ways and STILL end up with traffic
Amazing how much money humanity burns for highways
No wonder there's congestion...they're driving on the wrong side of the road in most of the video!
We can thank the previous LibNat Circus for this. They were up to their necks in it with Transurban.
Interesting comparison that for the cost of WestConnex, the CBD light could have been built seven times over, as that light rail project was itself considered scandalously over budget, to the point of being a disincentive to developing light rail.
Ah, but they sold 51% of WestConnex for $9.26 billion, and so for the overall $16.8 billion cost, they’re technically making money.
With the CBD light rail, that cost $3.1 billion and counting (due to having to pay for future maintenance, etc.), and it not being privatised means the government’s not going to get any of that back.
I’m sure the government would be significantly more willing to construct public transport if it could be privatised (e.g. the current metro lines are all designed to be able to be privatised separately), but there would be such a public outcry that it’s not really an option at this point.
"One more land bro I swear"
SO FEW PEOPLE AFFECTED >>THIS AN OVER THE TOP WHINGE