Sydney urged to follow New York’s bus system to keep the city moving

New York style rapid buses travelling on dedicated transit lanes could fix a flailing Sydney bus system seen as complex, confusing and unreliable. Commuters, have your say in our poll.

Does New York’s bus system hold the key to Sydney’s woes?

New York style rapid buses travelling on dedicated transit lanes could fix a flailing Sydney bus system seen as complex, confusing, and unreliable, while helping grow density in new suburbs before upgrading transport routes to Metros or rail.

A major government report, to be released on Wednesday, called for the government to develop a high priority list of 39 rapid bus routes to fix the bus network, while scaling up transport infrastructure over time and growing network capacity.

But ahead of the report’s release, a Western Sydney business leader stressed the importance of fixed rail in the long term as a way to boost investment.

The Bus Industry Taskforce white paper found that passengers currently see the bus network as “complex, confusing, unreliable, indirect, and infrequent”.

It found that bus passengers can have no idea how long their trip will take so need to start their journey earlier just to arrive on time.

The new 'B-Line' bus service which is running from Mona Vale to Wynyard has been a great win so far. Picture: Julian Andrews

“Passengers lose about 2.8 million hours every year across the network because of travel time variability,” the report found.

Only 70 to 75 per cent of services run on time during peak hours.

The report found that each of Sydney’s “six cities” faces their own unique problems.

The Eastern Harbour City (including the CBD, inner suburbs, and North Shore) is crippled by congestion, and most services only go into the city.

In the sprawling west, the Western Parkland City (including Liverpool, Penrith, Campbelltown and the Blue Mountains), needs better-designed transport links that can be scaled up as the population grows. There are 40,000 bus stops, 5000 buses and 53 depots across the six cities.

Industry experts have told the government that the problems facing Sydney’s transport network now are the same as those facing the Big Apple in 2018.

“They invested in the technology to get the bus regularity right, to actually get them moving through intersections better, therefore making the trips seamless for the passenger,” Bus Industry Taskforce Chair John Lee said.

“As Frank Sinatra one sung, ‘if you can make it work there you can make it work anywhere’. And that’s why we should take the lessons out of New York and bring them to Sydney to allow a lot of the travelling public to get those benefits,” he said.

Mr Lee said replicating the B-Line to the Northern Beaches would be a “recipe for success” in fixing the bus network.

The B-line drove road use down, and increased bus use by more than 20 per cent. Travel times were reduced by about 14 per cent.

The B-line increased bus use by more than 20 per cent. Picture: Julian Andrews

The report also found that reserving dedicated bus routes and building permanent major bus stops could help grow density in new suburbs and cities, and could then be upgraded to metros or rail services when people move in.

“We could use bi-articulated buses … and then as patronage grows, you can upgrade them again into Metro,” Mr Lee said.

At the Sydney Bus Symposium held at Parramatta Square on Wednesday, WSP principal engineer Taylor Gouge, who worked on an 8.5km project in the Bronx from 2013 to 2018 deemed it a success.

“Ninety-five per cent of people like it – we joke that New Yorkers don’t like anything so this is a big win,’’ she said.

“New York is not a particularly beautiful city but it is functional.’’

WSP principal engineer Taylor Gouge at the Sydney Bus Symposium.

Along one shopping strip in the Bronx, a 71 per cent boost in sales was reported and the roads could carry more cars because the rapid transitway alleviated traffic.

Ms Gouge said services were rolled out on 17 routes – which served a quarter of a million commuters every day and were between 10 and 30 per cent faster than previous journeys.

Before the election, Premier Chris Minns put the brakes on two proposed Metro lines – including one linking Westmead to the Western Sydney Airport.

Business Western Sydney CEO David Borger said rapid buses are a good quick fix, but stressed the importance of fixed rail lines in the long term.

“Fast buses are a great short term option, but the advantage of steel rail is that it really brings private sector investment to an area,” he said.

Prospect state Labor MP Hugh McDermott, whose electorate encompasses the Blacktown, Cumberland and Fairfield council areas, called for urgent attention to improve regular bus services, not just rapid services.

He told the forum his seat was home to the largest manufacturing hub in the southern hemisphere, adding how the on-demand buses were “a monumental failure’’.

Transport for NSW greater Sydney public transport director Adrian Dessanti acknowledged there were holes in the network.

“We know we’ve got workers who hop off the bus, they’ll get off the bus and then they’ll walk 2km because we haven’t kept pace with these local services,’’ he said.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen welcomed the white paper on Tuesday.

“More than 138 million trips are taken on our bus and on-street transit network each year, we can’t grow our communities properly if our bus network isn’t meeting demand.”