The problem is obvious to anyone who uses public transport — in Sydney or any other major city in Australia. Public transport networks, designed in the 1940s, are straining to service growing cities.
In Sydney alone, patronage of the CityRail network increased by more than 8 million journeys in 2008/09. On August 6, the NSW government said passengers took 304.8 trips.
As demand for public transport has risen, modest rises in services have not kept pace. The pressure of overcrowding has led transport authorities to design more "realistic" timetables: bus and train trips now take longer than in past years.
In the outer suburbs of Australian cities, public transport is simply non-existent or woefully inadequate.
Two groundbreaking studies by Griffith University researchers Jago Dodson and Neil Sipe, Shocking the Suburbs (2006) and Unsettling Suburbia (2008) used Australian Bureau of Statistics census data to map areas of greatest disadvantage in Australian cities.
They found a strong connection between car dependency, low incomes and mortgage stress in the outer suburbs of Australian cities. The disadvantage of working people in outer suburbs was made worse by the near total lack of public transport.
The solution, the researchers said, was simple. Governments had to "improve public transport services to match the quality found in inner and middle suburban areas <193> There is a clear equity imperative to ensure that this level of public benefit is shared by those in the outer areas of Australian cities".
Better public transport
In August, the Sydney Morning Herald launched a public inquiry into the state of Sydney's public transport.
Ron Christie, former Co-ordinator General of Rail in NSW and author of the 2001 study the Long-Term Strategic Plan for Rail (known as the Christie report), is chair of the inquiry. It will take submissions and hold public meetings around Sydney.
The Christie report was a searching study into the strategic limitations of Sydney's public transport system. At the time, the author identified the central problem facing Sydney's rail system as being "the looming problem of severe capacity constraints on the metropolitan network".
This resulted from "the fact that in the last 50 years there have been almost no track amplifications — the equivalent of road widenings to provide extra traffic lanes — on the metropolitan rail network".
The lack of strategic planning has left Sydney with an ineffective and overly complex rail system.
The solutions Christie promoted included increasing the capacity of the tracks (adding more lines to existing tracks) and eliminating the bottlenecks in the system (reducing the impact of breakdowns or other problems any one line can have on other lines).
He also called for the upgrading of signalling systems and the purchase of new trains to replace and expand the aging CityRail fleet.
Christie put forward a 10-year plan to upgrade CityRail stations, lines and stock. By 2011, it would have radically simplified and improved rail transport in Sydney and eased overcrowding.
He also recommended building a new rail line through the CBD to lighten pressure on existing lines, and extending the heavy-rail network into north-west and south-west Sydney.
"Unless the 'reach' of the rail system is extended in this way, Sydney will be doomed to a future under which more than half the urbanised metropolitan area, and especially those areas at more distant locations, will not be serviced by the rail system, creating and reinforcing significant inequalities in access to employment, education and other community facilities", Christie said.
The NSW Bob Carr Labor government shelved the Christie report.
Some of its recommendations — notably the north-west rail line extension to Rouse Hill and the south-west rail line extension to Leppington were included in the NSW government's 2005 Metropolitan Strategy for Sydney.
But these have also been shelved by the Nathan Rees Labor government, which claimed the costs were simply too high.
Is 'metro' the future?
In a 30-year public transport plan for Sydney, released in August, University of Technology researcher Garry Glazebrook argued for a new strategic plan for Sydney public transport. A key element of his design is a greater reliance on European-style "metro" (automated, low-seating, multi-doored) trains.
Glazebrook's plan calls for seven new metro lines. "A metro system is proposed to fill the most important gaps in the heavy rail system and to link key commercial centres and universities with the rest of the public transport system", Glazebrook said.
He argued that by using "potential new metro trains with 1600 seats in a 160m long train" more passengers could be moved, with little loss of seating and faster than the existing heavy-rail system.
The plan envisages building "up to 20 additional rail platforms, and nine new rail stations in the CBD-South Sydney area over the next 30 years".
However, in 2001, Christie identified big problems in integrating metro and heavy rail — problems Glazebrook has not addressed.
Christie said large-scale substitution of metro for heavy rail would cause "significant inconvenience, especially in the case of large numbers of commuters passing through the CBD on their way to other major destinations such as Parramatta and Chatswood".
Glazebrook's plan also doesn't fit the reality of the NSW government's planned metro system. Rather than 160 metre-long trains with capacity for more than 1600 passengers, the NSW government is planning "a total train length of approximately 110 metres and capacity for approximately 1000 passengers per train", said the Sydney metro website.
The NSW government has planned for a metro from Central station to only the inner-west suburb of Rozelle. It may be extended to Parramatta in the future, but plans for a northwest metro, like the heavy-rail line to the northwest and southwest, have been shelved.
The NSW government's vision for a metro is a privatised and largely automated system that will shed rail jobs and be run for profit, not on a needs-basis.
"Twenty five national and international companies have shown a strong interest in securing a major contract to fit-out and operate the Sydney Metro", NSW transport minister David Campbell said on July 23.
The NSW government wants to outsource the metro at every level, giving private interests almost complete control of the project. The government's agenda in advancing the metro system may also provide a tool to smash the influential Rail Tram and Bus Union (RTBU), which covers rail workers and government bus drivers.
The experience shows privatisation is a recipe for failure.
Private transport company Connex was contracted to run Melbourne trains from 2004. Although it was given $600 million a year by the Victorian government, services declined to the point of collapse during heat waves in January. Connex was sacked in June and replaced by a new contractor.
Keep it public, make it free
Glazebrook estimated that the real cost to the community of Sydney's reliance on private transport was more than $41 billion in 2006. About half of this was borne by the user — $18 billion was borne by the public.
Glazebrook puts the real cost of car use at 86 cents per passenger-kilometre, when all externalities are factored in. The real cost of train travel is only 47 cents for the same distance, said a study he published on March 19.
Replacing each passenger trip by car with train travel saves society almost half the resources and creates half the pollution. But how do we encourage people to make the switch?
In 1996, the Belgian city of Hasselt made public transport free. Between 1996 and 2006, usage of public transport increased by as much as 1300%.
In Sydney, making public transport free would cost the state government about $1 billion a year.
The RTBU's Moving On policy, released in 2006, raises options for rail funding such as an extra payroll tax on businesses in the CBD and higher developer levies. These could cover the cost of making public transport free.
Extending public transport along the lines envisaged by Christie and Glazebrook would cost billions. However, when stacked up against the external costs paid by society for private road transport, let alone the threat of runaway climate change, it's a public investment worth making.
But that would be possible only if control of public transport remains in public hands. So keep it public; make it free, fast and reliable.