Moving around Sydney.

For the New Years Eve holiday period I took the family to Sydney on a city trip. I only had been to Sydney just once before on my trip to present the on-line mobility management toolbox at the AITPM conference in 2012. At that time I didn't had much chance to explore the city so this year I was keen to explore the traffic and transport in the city.

Moving around the city, I was quite impressed not only by the major attractions, the landmarks and the beaches but also with the extended public transport system. Although I was stunned to see and learn that the monorail was dismantled; buses, trains, light rail and most of all, the Sydney ferries all played a major role in discovering the city as a tourist.

In my previous time in the city I didn't have the chance to take a ride with the monorail system so I was quite disappointed when I found out that it no longer exists let alone operate. The funny side of the story was, that I was looking for it just outside the Haymarket station, looking at one of the maps at a light rail station. Apparently while the system was removed, the maps remain the same indicating the line and stations of the monorail system. I don't have the details of the removal project so I can't really say if that was a good or bad decision, but I must say that a lot of people would miss the monorail. Looking at the amount of pictures of the system in the Internet and sites like Panoramio it looks like it was a popular tourist attraction on it's own.

The Sydney ferries were my favourite transport mode in the city. The beautiful scenery along Sydney Harbour and Parramatta River and the views of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge are worth the slightly  more expensive ticket. Different but equally attractive is the night ride. I suggest to take the ferry to Manly so you can get a different view of the city.

Of course when considering moving around Sydney by public transport as a tourist, the best option is the one day MyMulti pass. With this ticket you can travel unlimited across the city for a full day (to midnight). Sydney Transport  has also a very good offer for Sundays called Family Funday Sunday where for $2.50 per person, your family gets unlimited travel on all trains, buses, ferries and light rail in Greater Sydney provided by a bunch of different operators. Another good choice for Sydney visitors is the free city CBD shuttle bus that runs every 10 minutes on a loop from Central Station to Circular Quay via George Street (both directions).

Sydney has a lot of common traffic and transport practices with Brisbane. But it also has a few differences that caught my attention. I have written in an old post about Dragon's teeth, the markings around school zones. Another interesting difference that I noticed was the footpath arrangement, where at least at the suburb where I was staying, was different than the usual Brisbane footpath. The concrete strip is located adjacent to the property boundary and not at the middle of the verge. Personally I like this arrangement and I think it allows for better landscaping with tall trees.

Sydney's inner suburbs have a unique character as they preserve to the most part their architectural heritage. Some of the traffic calming I saw also looked  quite old. They feel in line with that historical character as they are not the standard precast ones that lately have prevailed.

Of course not all traffic and transport parameters in Sydney were world class. Sydney's congestion is notorious and visiting the city at a holiday period helped me avoid all that. Another bad example of mobility management were the parking meters and the parking management system in general, outside the Botanic Gardens. Having to pay at a specific parking pay station for a number of bays can be quite confusing especially if you have parked at the outermost of the lot. In this area Brisbane's parking management system is a lot more advanced.

On the other side in Brisbane we don't have a parking facility like the Sydney Opera House underground parking. Although, that too has gone into receivership, it is a really beauty architecturally and a brilliant transport design. It's innovative double spiral design can accommodate approximately 1200 vehicles in 12 stories.

I can understand the frustration of everyday commuters facing delays on their trips to work or home. After all Sydney is an Alpha +  global city where traffic and transport improvements are a constant requirement. To me Sydney was a great trip experience and a great place to visit or live.

Segways on the footpaths.

It's really funny that now that I'm working with heavy vehicles and dealing everyday with road access to some of the largest vehicles in Australia like ABB quads, the smallest of transportation vehicles caught my attention.

I am talking about Segways in Brisbane and electric bikes/scooters in the Gold Coast.  Just recently Queensland government announced that from 1 August 2013, approved Personal Mobility Devices (PMD) can be used on road related areas such as footpaths, bike paths and shared paths. At the moment Segway is the only PMD that has been approved but other similar devices like gyro-stabilised electric unicycles can be approved and until then can only be operated on private property.

There are certain conditions under which Segways are allowed to operate in Queensland. Those include among others the use of helmet (no surprises there), give way to pedestrians and having a warning device as a bell or horn. There is a speed restriction of 12km/h and you shouldn't be driving past a "PMD prohibited" sign.

Queensland police has adopted Segways on a 3 month trial for use on Brisbane's South Bank and Cairn's Esplanade. Officers are actually allowed to reach 20k/h when chasing a bad guy.

This whole PMD issue is not really new to Qld and Australia since mobility scooters, motorised disability wheelchairs and electric bicycles were allowed to travel on road and on the footpath for quite some time now. These vehicles need to achieve specific performance based standards and are limited to 200 Watt of power where the new PMD's don't have that limit. Segway seems to have far more power than that.

Other countries around the world allow Segways on the streets and footpaths under various conditions and contrary to the urban myth the inventor of Segway didn't die riding one of his inventions. 

And then, the other day while driving back from the beach at Surfers Paradise I saw a bunch of teenagers lane filtering and even moving from the pavement to the footpath on electric scooters. Those vehicles looked a lot like regular scooters although I noticed that they had pedals. It appears that they are available for hire without a drivers licence and they have less than 200 Watts of power.

They reminded me of my first vehicle the Honda Camino which I used to drive to school everyday between the ages of 16 and 17 back in Kavala Greece before I replaced it with the at the time very popular "ducks" Yamaha Townmate. They both had 50cc petrol engines and you needed a special drivers license issued by Greek Police to drive them.

 
As I said in an older blog post, I believe that scooters and even Personal Mobility Devices can provide better alternatives to urban travel than the car. And while I don't think that we will see a lot of Segways in the next years travelling on our footpaths it is certainly an idea worth exploring.