Spit Bridge solution: 'Work closer to home'
Posted
A city planning expert says the traffic congestion caused by last night's Spit Bridge malfunction would have been minimised if people lived closer to where they worked.
The bridge was jammed open for about two-and-a-half hours from 7:30pm (AEST) yesterday, bringing traffic to a standstill and causing extensive delays for thousands of commuters.
The Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) says the bridge reopened about 10:00pm, far later than expected, because the electrician who was called in to fix the problem was stuck in traffic.
The executive director of Cities and Centres at the New South Wales Planning Department, Chris Johnson, says traffic delays could be avoided if people worked in bigger business districts away from Sydney, in places like Parramatta, Gosford and Wollongong.
"If all the people worked at Dee Why, there wouldn't have been a problem," he said.
"If people worked closer to home - and in fact, the State Government has a major principle about getting jobs closer to where people live - and this is the fundamental problem with big growing metropolises, if people are travelling enormous distances to get to their jobs, you get all these problems."
Mr Johnson says other cities in the world are experiencing similar issues.
"I even spoke to the Mayor of Calcutta over in India and he amazingly has the same problem because poor people don't have a lot of money to travel, yet the jobs are distant from where they live, so everything they earn, they spend on travel," he said.
"So it's a world problem in these spreading metropolises and the answer generally is to restructure work closer to where people live. "
'Review useless'
NSW Roads Minister Eric Roozendaal says the Spit Bridge's opening times have been reduced in morning peak periods and he will now look at adjusting opening times in the evening.
"We are experiencing longer peaks and it may be appropriate that we review the opening times to ensure that they occur outside of the peaks," he said.
He says he also has concerns about how the RTA managed traffic last night.
But Vice Commodore Alistair Morrison, from the Middle Harbour Yacht Club, says the review is a political stunt that will not solve traffic problems.
"The whole process takes less than two minutes," he said.
"The fact that the bridge hasn't been maintained or hasn't been replaced with a high-level bridge is the big picture...
"The bridge times have been changed several times over the last few years.
"The last time it was changed, we did an extensive analysis of the effects of the bridge opening and they are quite minuscule compared to traffic problems on Spit Bridge and Military Road and the effect of Mosman Junction and all those types of delays."
'Area neglected'
The Liberal Member for Manly, Mike Baird, earlier today said delays like last night's were becoming a daily problem for northern beaches residents.
"Morris Iemma needs to announce that he's going to take this corridor seriously once and for all," he said.
"He's going to give the full attention of Iemma Government's resources to it and we are going to see an improvement in public transport and traffic congestion as a result."
Mr Baird said the roads heading towards the northern beaches had been neglected and locals were suffering.
"Last week, we had an infrastructure program announced by the Iemma Government of $140 billion and not one cent was allocated to this corridor," he said.
"We've seen the Spit Bridge stuck up for two-and-a-half hours, meaning there's thousands of residents who have been inconvenienced."
