You really have to admire the power of the road lobby. In 1998, when the Cross City Tunnel was announced, the then Premier, Bob Carr, ecstatically declared the project would "liberate the city from gridlock". Surface traffic would be reduced and space allocated to more sustainable modes of transport: cycling, walking and public transport.
Eight years on, the result of this $680 million private sector investment is obvious: traffic chaos on William Street and in central Sydney. Yet the road lobby, which campaigned vociferously for the tunnel, is now demanding and has achieved changes to the surface traffic arrangements, including removal of the bike lanes on William Street (the only bike lanes in the city centre) to fit an extra lane for traffic, and the abolition of new and planned bus lanes.
Yet it is NSW Government policy to provide for bicycles on all road infrastructure projects, because the Government recognises the individual, community and economic benefits of getting more people cycling. Every piece of cycling infrastructure is also an investment in reducing the future health budget in a society with growing waistlines and worsening air quality.
The news isn't much better for cyclists elsewhere in the city. In the recent NSW budget from the Treasurer, Michael Costa, funding for the state's roads was up $415 million to $3.3 billion a year but, of that, a measly $5 million was allocated to cycling.
There also used to be a joint NSW Government-RTA initiative, Bike Plan 2010, which aimed to build 420 kilometres of safe, off-road cycleways in Sydney by 2010. Funding for that was abolished in the 2005 state budget, a decision made by the (then) roads minister, Michael Costa.
So at a time when the city is suffering from unprecedented traffic congestion and pollution, when the threat of global warming is so serious the Federal Government is even considering nuclear power despite its obvious dangers, and when petrol prices are skyrocketing as the reality of peak oil hits home, the NSW Government is actively discouraging cycling, even though it is the cleanest, quietest, cheapest and most efficient form of transport devised.
Is there anyone in the NSW Government or Peter Debnam's Liberal Opposition game enough to tell the road lobby, and its backers at the RTA, to get on their bike?
Jim Hope Coogee
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