Watch the Road: Solving Transport Issues in Sprawling Cities, Sooner Rather than Later

This is about the causes of and solutions to worsening traffic congestion and deficient public transport. Although much is already said about such issues, this title stands out because it proposes arrangements which are affordable and feasible. It focuses on subtle changes that can be made to the role of roads, as the antidote to the issues. In effect, the book articulates achievable and timely alternatives to current plans, policies and actions, so prone to delivering too little too late, year after year.

The book is an endeavour to contribute to the literature and improve state of the art plans, policies and decision making in this field.

It delves into the insidious spread of congestion along urban and interurban corridors worldwide, and the gloomy prognosis that delays will only get worse in virtually all large cities globally. It explains the weaknesses in contemporary responses and goes outside the square and beyond current policy approaches and programs to articulate affordable and sustainable solutions to traffic congestion and public transport issues.

Australia and Sydney feature in the analysis although several other international cases are discussed, both at the national level and by looking at specific global cities.

Roads are the dominant transport infrastructure worldwide by a huge margin and it emerges that roads can be the solution rather than the problem; and they are pivotal not peripheral to successful public transport.

Crucially, the role of roads needs to change, not so much the infrastructure, which only expands slowly anyway in most cases. It is the way the road system is operated that can reduce delays and increase transit system capacity, through decisive steps over coming years.

Rail services (and other mass transit segregated from roads) are a bonus where they already exist and can be operated efficiently. However major new infrastructure of this kind is more a catalyst for longer term redevelopment along confined corridors, than a remedy for current metro-wide growth and transport issues.

In car dependent cities the necessary changes can occur by introducing high quality, integrated bus transit services webs metro-wide and on interurban corridors; creating local feeder hubs (including walk, cycle, taxi, car share, parking and drop off and pickup) and transit stops at all middle and outer metro suburban centres. Further growth of dense inner areas, if indeed intensification is required, relies on more efficient train, tram or bus services or new infrastructure.

A conceptual Sydney scenario is explored, with extraordinary possibilities unfolding over a decade, including a reduction in the cars’ share of the overall travel market and a substantial increase in metro-wide transit capacity and use. Also, congestion growth can be halted and the dip in car use would liberate more than enough road space to compensate for the additional bus demand.

This concept can be realised with equitable distributions of transport budgets to bus and the feeder modes across the metro area generally.
Although everyday precedents have yet to be implemented, transport strategies for very large events, especially the Olympic Games, have already demonstrated variants of the concept and of the planning and decision making processes involved. These experiences leave valuable legacies.

Similar opportunities are there for the taking when it comes to everyday transport operations in large sprawling cities.