Comments on: I’m a road nerd

By: Pat

Pat — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 05:24:21 +0000

Cheers Ben. And to think, I thought I was the only one :)
I don’t know much about the train situation, since I haven’t caught the train regularly in Sydney for many, many years.

By: Ben Graham

Ben Graham — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 02:32:41 +0000

“One characteristic that touches on both of these aspects is when something is unfinished or abandoned. Things like disused underground railway stations, old tram systems, ruins of buildings or incomplete public infrastructure works really pique my interest…” me too!
The County of Cumberland planning scheme of the 50’s was certainly very impressive, and I have to agree with you - why didn’t they just bloody finish it! It’s a very fascinating story, they scrapped the freeways because they didn’t want to increase commuter traffic into the city and they wanted to focus instead on public transport, but decades on, public transport is pathetic, and the traffic problem is getting absolutely ridiculous - especially on the routes where the proposed freeways would have gone! Although, having spent a lot of time in Los Angeles, I think it’s wise to say, that if they did build the freeways, they would be just as congested - so in a way I think they were somewhat wise - if you build a freeway it just generates more traffic, you expand the freeway, it generates more traffic. The Lane Cove Tunnel is going to be at capacity soon and it just pushes more traffic onto the congested Harbour Bridge/Tunnel. Likewise, if they did extend the Warringah Freeway to the northern beaches, where will all the increased traffic go when it hits the Harbour Bridge/Tunnel? It never ends… Doomed if you do, doomed if you don’t I guess.
It’s going to be very interesting to see how they fix the problems they’ve created - will they ever link the M4 to the city? Will they ever link the Warringah Freeway to Warringah!
And what about the train links? It’s a shame that Bradfield’s plan for the train network never lived up to its full potential. Maybe things would be a bit different on the Northern Beaches if there were a train line…

By: Asymmetric

Asymmetric — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 06:29:04 +0000

I’ma road nerd…

http://www.militaryspot.com/ …

By: Pat

Pat — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 06:14:02 +0000

Yeah I heard that, but who knows which route their tunnel will take. Could be very interesting in terms of housing prices in the area *gulp*

It really is a shame that someone had the foresight back in the 40s and 50s to try and map out some decent road infrastructure for Sydney, only to have it overturned by politicians chasing votes in the 70s. In many cases this resulted in projects being canceled (leaving us with some seriously stupid roads) and reserved land being sold off, making fixing the problem much more expensive now.

Of course another generation of politicians are now having to try complete the puzzle of freeways (using mega-expensive tunnels etc) to get traffic out of the city because that's now what will get them votes.

It's crazy. To think we could have had an efficient and cost effective system for the last 30 years, with no huge tolls nowadays to pay for the fixes.

By: Larry

Larry — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 05:13:41 +0000

Very interesting! You may like to know that the NSW Gov have recently put the M4 East back on the cards: see page 19 of the Urban Transport Statement available at http://www.nsw.gov.au/urban_transport.asp