Miranda Devine: Gladys’s tram is as slow to ride as it was to build
It was a climate-crazy folly to replace buses with a slow and expensive light rail system, writes Miranda Devine. We may as well have paved the streets with gold.
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Proof that Sydney’s new light rail is a stinker was the pathetic absence of Transport Minister Andrew Constance from the first press conference on its troubled opening day.
After disrupting the city for four years and driving CBD shopkeepers to despair and bankruptcy, the overdue and over-budget $2.9 billion white elephant lived up to its reputation on the weekend.
Slow and overly long, the cumbersome trams were plagued by technical issues and delays on debut, amid fears that inattentive pedestrians could wander into their path.
As we reported, in its farcical inaugural test run with real passengers the first tram ran a red light and sent an elderly passenger flying out of her seat when the driver hit the brakes.
Just 15,000 people used the service Monday, with reports that the morning peak hour was almost empty, more evidence that the light rail is an expensive adornment for tourists and day trippers rather than a commuting solution. What folly it was to replace public transport on a route which used to be well serviced by buses, a far more flexible mode of transport.
The bus journey used to take around 35 minutes and commuters didn’t have to switch between modes of transport.
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But one report this week found that the journey between Circular Quay and Randwick now takes almost twice as long on the new light rail than it did on the old Sydney trams in the 1950s: 50 minutes compared to 26.
Sydney was smart enough to get rid of its trams back then.
The Royal Commission for the Improvement of the City of Sydney and its Suburbs had warned as early as 1909 that “tramways cause congestion,” and recommended building a train network instead.
More than four decades later three British transport experts were commissioned to find a solution to Sydney’s worsening traffic problems, and the dangers posed by trams to pedestrians.
“To improve the general amenities of the city of Sydney, the tramcars should be replaced by buses,” declared the experts.
The trams were ripped out and Sydney didn’t look back, until Barry O’Farrell and his then-transport minister Gladys Berejiklian decided in 2012 to forget the lessons of history.
Despite traffic modelling by the former Roads and Traffic Authority warning that trams in the Sydney CBD would make traffic congestion 35 per cent worse, they pressed ahead. They ignored the opposition of Infrastructure NSW which slammed light rail as “significantly more expensive than bus services, no material speed benefits, less flexible in traffic and … does not offer significantly greater capacity,” and said George Street was too narrow.
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But light rail is an article of faith for climate crazies so Premier Berejiklian enthusiastically embraced Lord Mayor’s Clover Moore’s crackpot brainchild and here we are.
At the cost of $230,000 per metre we may as well have paved the streets with gold.
But In the spirit of the season, it’s best not to be churlish. After all, now it’s built, Sydney has no choice but to accept the light rail.
Merry Christmas to all and thanks for all the bouquets and even the brickbats. Let’s do it all again next year.