Steve Price: Why Melbourne needs to be more like Sydney
For too long our civic leaders have leant on the enthusiasm Melburnians have for live sport and major events — but despite the spin, the city is falling way behind Sydney.
Victoria
Don't miss out on the headlines from Victoria. Followed categories will be added to My News.
As a former resident of the city of Sydney I was a harsh critic of how dead the Harbour City could be on weekends.
Unlike Melbourne, our flashier neighbour up north lacked a vibrant sporting precinct on the edge of the CBD attracting weekend crowds.
Rugby League is still played at a smattering of suburban venues across Sydney while Moore Park, home of the SCG and the new Sydney Football Stadium (Allianz), are on the fringes of the Eastern suburbs.
Even further away is the former Olympic Stadium at Homebush, in the west.
Melbourne by contrast is blessed with one of the world’s best-located sporting precincts with the MCG, the Tennis centre and AAMI Park hosting footy, tennis, cricket, rugby league, rugby union and soccer. Add the soulless but convenient Marvel in Docklands for sport and entertainment.
Melbourne is truly blessed and Adelaide and Perth have paid us the ultimate compliment and copied the CBD/sport model.
Given the advantage those venues give our city makes it even more depressing how locals and visitors alike are being let down with the state of the CBD itself.
I have written repeatedly in these pages over two years about how a bunch of largely faceless people in the Melbourne Town Hall are destroying our city. My critics then resort to personal abuse suggesting if I don’t like Melbourne I should go back to Sydney.
Given I haven’t lived full-time up north since 2019 – enduring by the way the longest Covid lockdowns in Melbourne through 2020 and 2021 – that’s not going to happen.
I have, however, just spent a week in Sydney working and the gap between how that city has emerged post-Covid compared with Melbourne just gets wider and wider.
Sydney – and I’m talking CBD Sydney – is flying. It’s a truly international city with airport rail links, a rejuvenated public transport system with modernised CBD train stations like Wynyard and Town Hall all linked and accessed with a credit card for easy connections using new trains.
Circling the city is a functioning system of motorways and newly constructed tunnels – albeit attracting eye bleeding tolls – that put Melbourne in the shade.
Up the spine of Sydney city running north-south the light rail from Circular Quay all the way out to Randwick racecourse and beyond has transformed George St.
It’s now lined with upmarket retail stores like Apple and Louis Vuitton.
Circular Quay itself has seen a suite of new towering glass office towers and big corporates are moving in, just as more and more head offices of big firms desert Melbourne.
Despite the spin you’ll hear, Melbourne is falling way behind.
I take no joy in pointing this out but as this newspaper reported last weekend, a desperate city council starved of revenue will now start charging parking fees on street at weekends.
The council so hates cars they are determined people only get to the CBD on a bike, tram, train or on foot. This looks like some desperate attempt to fill their little-used bike lanes.
Let’s accept public transport is the way to go and again use Sydney as the comparison. Look at the filthy and impractical entry points to Melbourne by train.
Flinders Street station is a dirty homeless haven offering some tacky food kiosks and a graffiti-covered exterior and dark soulless platforms.
Southern Cross, isn’t much better – a relatively modern transport hub that’s cold and horrible.
Compare that city arrival experience with getting off a train at Mascot Airport and taking the train to Circular Quay and hop off looking at the Opera House.
We have no harbour I get that, but great world cities have great train stations, just think New York and Grand Central or London and St Pancras.
Melbourne by comparison has a couple of dreary cesspits smelling of urine – think the underpass at Flinders Street – and smeared with graffiti.
For far too long our civic leaders have leant on the enthusiasm Melburnians have for live sport and major events and they point to the buzz those crowds bring to the city.
It’s time now to get those lazy people in council resting on our past glories to be given an almighty wake-up call and force them to open their eyes to the decline they have presided over.
Don’t shove down my throat numbers at popular events like the Melbourne Comedy Festival or Food Festival or record numbers for F1 – I get that.
What our city leaders refuse to admit is that locals and visitors alike turn up to those things despite the crumbling city that hosts them.
Melbourne simply has been allowed to fall into decay. Covid and lockdowns didn’t help but the examples I have given – transport access hubs – have been ugly sores forever.
Instead of spending millions on bike lanes for a minority group and turning city streets into one lane concrete obstacle courses, why don’t we fix the obvious. Sydney has done it – with minimum disruption. So instead of councillors like Sally Capp and Nicholas Reece jetting off to Singapore and China why not hop on a plane to Sydney.
Take Daniel Andrews with you and show him the airport rail link. Get off at Central Station and catch the light rail to Circular Quay and a ferry to Barangaroo and then walk through the modern station linking that precinct to the city.
Oh, and Sydney hasn’t had any level crossings for more than 20 years.
Likes
• Coronation of King Charles 111 the British do pomp and ceremony better than anyone.
• Classy Queen Camilla seems universally liked by everyone.
• Long overdue pay rises for Aged Care workers
• Joint state funeral between Victoria and NSW for the legendary Barry Humphries
Dislikes
• Another cruel interest rate rise pushing home loans to highest in 10 years.
• Silly idea of trying to produce fake meat in labs an expensive folly.
• Federal governments crackdown on teenage vaping will just drive them underground.
• Federal funding of $240m for a football stadium in Hobart when the Budget is so tight.
Originally published as Steve Price: Why Melbourne needs to be more like Sydney
Patton’s downfall: What really went wrong for the top cop
Soon-to-be former top cop Shane Patton has faced a raft of challenges during his tenure, starting with the Covid pandemic. So when did it all start go downhill? Read the inside story.
Fed-up Victorian teachers gearing up for pay fight with Allan govt
Victorian teachers are preparing for a fight with the state government over demands for a “crisis catch-up” pay rise of up to 30 per cent which could add $1.5bn to the state’s public wage bill.