Congestion, Noise, Safety pressures on residential amenity

1
Congestion, Noise, Safety- pressures on
residential amenity

• Richard JarvisManager Transport Infrastructure
  ServicesRockdale City Council
• National Local Roads Transport Congress, July
  2005

2
What is happening in our cities?

• Urban growth
• Inadequate alternatives to the car
• Congestion
• Pressures on urban amenity
• Put simply the future is grim

Source BTCE
3
Finding Balance

• Congestion is good
• Too much congestion is bad
• So how much congestion is enough?
• Noise and safety issues are products of main
  route traffic and local accessibility
• How much accessibility is enough?Or what is an
  acceptable lack of access?

4
About the City of Rockdale

• Part of St George Region
• Adjoins Botany Bay
• Immediately south of Sydney Airport

Rockdale
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Location

• Middle ring suburbia
• Is the corridor to south and south west
• Developed early last century
• Undergoing redevelopment

6
Travel Generators Hubs

• Includes Orbital Motorway
• Includes Sydney Airport
• Adjoins Port Botany
• Abuts the older industrial region

7
Traffic Traffic Traffic

• 250,000 vehicles cross the Cooks River every day
• 160,000 veh/day go through the Airport Tunnel,
  nearly equals the Sydney Harbour Bridge

8
Other Travel Modes

• Illawarra Rail Line
• Most successful line
• 25 million passengers per annum
• 130 capacity in am peak hour
• East Hills/Airport Line
• 18 million passengers p.a.
• Surplus capacity

9
Community Impacts

• Traffic and its effects ranked as the issue most
  affecting quality of life
• Perceptions of
• lack of safety
• noise
• poor air quality
• loss of accessibility

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What residents want

• Residents seek
• controls on
• traffic
• congestion
• and policing of
• Road traffic
• car hoons

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Why is it such an issue?

• Traffic volumes

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Why is it such an issue?

• Traffic volumes
• Traffic speed

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Why is it such an issue?

• Traffic volumes
• Traffic speed
• Traffic accidents

14
Local road management

• Local Area Traffic Management Schemes have been
  proven successful
• when partnered with
• Improvements in main road priority and capacity

15
Change is inevitable

• M5 East Motorway opened December 2001 with 80,000
  vehicles per day
• Now carries 105,000 vehicles per day
• Congested flows for 13 hours per day

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The Good Changes

• 30 to 60 reduction in main road traffic on the
  parallel surface routes
• Rat runs died
• Suburban amenity blossomed
• Safety perceptions altered to issues of crime

17
The Bad Changes

• 10 reduction in parallel train line patronage
• 10 pa increase in traffic on the motorway
• Travel time gains of new motorway now much reduced

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What did we learn?

• LATM Schemes reduce the impact on the local
  community
• But exposure to heavy traffic on the main road
  network is also a major factor in perceptions of
  amenity

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Other pressures on urban amenity

• Car enthusiasts
• Attracted to popular waterfront locations
• Cronulla, Bondi, Brighton, and now The Rocks
• Treatments applied to deter their endless
  parading
• Road closures, turn bans
• Carpark closures
• Vehicle inspection blitzes

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Traffic Growth

• Sydney Airport
• 24 million travellers by 2023 3 times current
• Port Botany
• 3 million containers by 2023 3 times current

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Rockdales Survival Strategy

• Cap the peaks of through traffic
• Seek to isolate traffic from residential uses
• Expand other transport modes, especially public
  transport
• and most importantly
• Have a say in the strategic planning