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.

Moving around Perth.

I just returned from Perth where I attended the AITPM 2013 national conference. While I spent most of my days there attending the conference, I had a day and a half to visit the city centre, the beach and Fremantle.

Perth is a magnificent city that supports a high quality of life for its residents. Perth was ranked as the 9th most  liveable city in the world at the Economist Intelligence Unit's latest livability ranking. This ranking assesses living conditions in 140 cities around the world for 30 indicators across five broad categories: stability; healthcare; culture and environment; education; and infrastructure.Perth is the 4th Australian city in this ranking bellow Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney and above Brisbane.

Focusing on mobility management, Perth ticked all the right boxes in terms of public transport, street calming and livable streets. I really liked the traffic calmed streets in the CBD, around the main pedestrian streets (or malls as they are called in Australia). The use of pavers for the surface of pedestrian crossings creates a pedestrian friendly street environment.

In Fremantle this idea goes a step further. Pedestrian streets and traffic calmed streets with street furniture and landscaping along with well preserved heritage buildings create an atmosphere that goes beyond a typical port town and place Fremantle at the top of Perth attractions and places worth visiting. On a Saturday with the market open and everyone enjoying a coffee or a beer under the sun, you feel so relaxed that you start thinking that Perth is definitely a place worth considering moving to.

 Street artists painting in the street or playing music enhance this atmosphere.

  

 

Unfortunately as a typical Australian city there is a lot of work to be done when it comes to cycling and cycling infrastructure. Perth has very low percentage of people cycling to work at 1.3 %. The percentage of people using public transport for their every day trip to work is much higher at 12.7 % lower than Brisbane but on a upward trend which is expected to further rise in the near future thanks to the new free for all CAT (central area transport service) bus lines. Perth operates a Free Transit Zone ( FTZ ) where within the Perth city centre travel on public transport is free. 

To travel within this zone you can simply hop on any train, bus or CAT. You are not restricted to the amount of times you can use this service and no tickets are required. The FTZ includes City West and Claisebrook on the Fremantle, Midland and Armadale train lines, the start and finish of the FTZ are clearly marked, on the train stations and bus stops.

My tour around Perth ended at City Beach where looking at the sunset over the Indian Ocean on a clear and warm winter day I thought that won't be long before the day that I will return there to explore further this wonderful part of the world. 

April Fools’ Day traffic.

Although this is not one of my favourite days of the year I must admit that I found rather funny and amusing the following stories with urban traffic themes.

The first one comes from Philadelphia USA. Watch the Mayor announcing the E-lane initiative where pedestrians can walk and use their mobile at the same time safely.

The second one comes from Vancouver Canada where Vancouver Observer online newspaper announces the province's new mandatory pedestrian helmet law. This one if it was on Brisbane Times it would be more believable since Australia has already the mandatory cyclist law.
 

The first really interesting April fools’ day story about traffic and transportation that made world headlines was the Copenhagen’s new subway. It looked as if one of its cars had an accident, and had broken through and surfaced on the square in front of the town hall.

 

April Fools ’ Day presents a great opportunity to draw peoples attention to sustainable mobility and humour is quite an effective way to reach behavioural change.

One sign I haven't found in Australia

The above sign is quite common in Europe. Most of the European countries have it and in Greece the official name translates to “Start of residential area marked as traffic calm”. 

In Netherlands is called “woonerf” which is the most used international term from the Dutch words wonen 'reside' + erf 'premises, ground'.

Historically this scheme originates from Holland. The Dutch government developed traffic regulations for woonerfs in 1976, though the first woonerf was built in the city of Delft a decade earlier.

In the UK they have the “Home Zone” sign which is much similar. 

In Australia we have the 10 Km Shared Zone which is a quite different in colours. 

 Maybe we need to rethink about not only the sign design but the sign usage as well.

Road safety: A tale with a dragon with big teeth.

The other day I was discussing some road safety issues and a treatment with the name of “Dragon’s teeth” was mentioned. To tell you the truth it was the first time that I heard of the term so I asked myself “What are Dragon’s teeth?”

By the term Dragon’s teeth in traffic management we mean one of the following three things:

1. Triangular road markings that have been installed at the entry points to all 10,000 school zones across New South Wales up to 32.5 metres at the start of each school zone, to improve road safety for students. The Dragon’s Teeth markings further increase the visibility of school zones for motorists and provide a constant reinforcement to keep to the 40 km/h speed limit around schools.

 

2. Calibrated edge and centre line markings used as a secondary method to check vehicle's speed manually by calculating its speed between them when using a road side speed camera.

3. Road surface mechanical devices used to enforce one way traffic. They are mostly used on private road.