Free transport, parking push to get Sydney workers back to office

A new report is calling for incentives to lure workers from their homes and back to Sydney’s CBD as JobKeeper ends.

Public transport and parking in Sydney’s CBD should be made free in a bid to prise workers from their homes and prevent “entirely dead days” in the city on Mondays and Fridays.

A new “playbook” outlines how Australia’s business centres can bounce back from the coronavirus pandemic.

The Future of CBDs report, prepared for the Property Council of Australia by consultants EY, also reveals just 48 per cent of central Sydney’s workers headed into their offices over January and February compared to 94 per cent pre-COVID.

Free public transport could held revive the Sydney CBD on ‘dead days’ like Mondays and Fridays. Picture: NCA NewsWire / James Gourley

Jane Fitzgerald, the Property Council’s NSW executive director, said “now was the time to experiment” including with free public transport, in a bid to boost CBD numbers.

“We don’t know what the right occupancy rate is – but 50 per cent feels too low,” she said. “We’re at a point in time where we should be prepared to try stuff and innovate.

“(We need to look at) how do we make sure we don’t have entirely dead days in the CBD.

“For cafes, dry cleaners and small businesses, it’s really tough for them in a post-JobKeeper world.”

Post JobKeeper is expected to be tough for shops, cafes and other CBD businesses. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

Mrs Fitzgerald added Transport NSW had an “amazing data set” which could be used to trial options to entice travellers into the city.

However, transport minister Andrew Constance appeared to rule the move out, saying “the taxpayer already covers 75 per cent of the fare box and we need revenue to keep services going”.

The report also found the average CBD worker expects to visit the office 3.3 days a week post-pandemic, while 51 per cent of respondents believed city centres wouldn’t return to pre-COVID levels.

Michael Rodrigues is the chair of the Night-time Industries Association. Picture: Daniel Boud

Property Council of Australia NSW Executive Director Jane Fitzgerald. Picture: AAP

Michael Rodrigues – who last month was parachuted into the newly created state government role of 24-hour economy commissioner – said one of the barriers to getting people into the CBD was the price of a night out.

“My ambition is to get people out of the house more than once a week,” Mr Rodrigues said.

“We love to do things so big in Sydney we make them so inaccessible … ‘it’s going to be the biggest, the best, so exclusive’ … (but) what we’re saying to people is ‘please don’t come’.

“For the longest time we’ve anchored our going out experience in a big night out which is code for drinking a lot and that is just not reflective of future generations and their consumption habits.

“It’s OK for it to be average, it’s OK for it to be a bit s***, as long as people can come out and enjoy it, because this is what the suburbs are offering.”