Sydney

Dr. Bahman Lahoorpoor

| David Levinson
Bahman Lahoorpoor

Congratulations to Dr. Bahman Lahoorpoor for “satisfying the requirements for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney.”

Thesis Title:  “Terraces, Towers, Trams, and Trains : Examining the Growth of Sydney using Empirical Models and Agent-based Simulation“

Lead Supervisor: Professor David Levinson.

Abstract: Transport networks and land use are inter-dependent. This joint co-development process of infrastructure and building location is often theorised to be a positive feedback cycle: transport infrastructure produces accessibility that induces land development, which induces transport demand and increases accessibility, increasing the production of transport networks (i.e. inducing supply) and further intensifying land development. In Chapter 2 we investigate the critical elements of this dual connection between land use and transit. Sydney as a good example of a rapidly developing city, had public railway transport services beginning in the 1850s, which facilitated and responded to the development of suburbs. Chapter 3 explains how the historical railway network, including trams and trains, and historical population data are collected and digitised. A series of network characteristic measures and a metric for characterising the population distribution are also presented. In Chapter 4 we test whether trams expanded accessibility relative to buses by comparing the services provided by historical trams, the replaced bus services, and the remaining train and light rail networks. We compare 1925, when the tram system was at its peak, and 2020. In Chapter 5 we investigate the theory of interaction between land use and the transit network. We investigate the direct and indirect links between land development and transit investments using the concept of accessibility. We develop an empirical model to capture the Greater Sydney area’s historical evolution of land use and public transit networks. In Chapter 6 we develop a simulation framework to replicate the growth of railway networks by given exogenous historical evolution in land use. The framework is an iterative process that includes five consecutive components including environment loading, measuring access, locating stations, connecting stations, and evaluating connections.

Publications by Bahman Lahoorpoor include:

  • Lahoorpoor, B. and Levinson, D. (2022) In Search of Lost Trams: Comparing 1925 and 2020 Transit Isochrones in Sydney. Findings, March. [doi]
  • Lahoorpoor, B., Rayaprolu, H., Wu, H., and Levinson, D. (2022) Access-oriented design? Disentangling the effect of land use and transport network on accessibility. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives. [doi]
  • Lahoorpoor, B., Rayaprolu, H., Wu, H., and Levinson, D. (2022) Prioritizing active transport network investment using locational accessibility. TeMA – Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment (in press)
  • Rayaprolu, H., Wu, H., Lahoorpoor, B., and Levinson, D. (2022) Maximizing Access in Transit Network Design. Journal of Public Transportation. 24. [doi]
  • Wang, Yingshuo, Lahoorpoor, B. and Levinson, D. (2022) The Spatio-temporal Evolution of Sydney’s Tram Network Using Network Econometrics. Geographical Analysis. [doi]
  • Lahoorpoor, Bahman and Levinson, D. (2020) Catchment if you can: The effect of station entrance and exit locations on accessibility. Journal of Transport Geography. 82, 102556. [doi] [full report]

Sydney FAST 2030: A Proposal for Faster Accessible Surface Transport (FAST).

| David Levinson
Sydney FAST 2030: A Proposal for Faster Accessible Surface Transport (FAST).
Sydney FAST 2030: A Proposal for Faster Accessible Surface Transport (FAST).

Compared to comparably-sized cities in North America, Sydney does very well on Public Transport (Transit), with a pre-Covid 26% transit commute share. Compared to cities in Europe or Asia, it does poorly, indicating significant room for improvement. 

Much of that difference has to do with wealth and space. Despite the complaints,  Sydney is rich (money doesn’t grow on trees, but it does grow in rocks), so most families have cars. Sydney is also far less concentrated than cities in Europe or Asia, so distances are more amenable to the automobile and less to public transport, and the accessibility indicators show that.

Still, it’s clear more can be done.

There have been a forest of expired plans for public transport in Sydney. There are more plans still in the works. They almost entirely focus either on Trains (and especially Metros), or on specific lines that a particular party is pushing. But a detailed comprehensive look at the layer below the trains is missing.

I believe that removing rather than recapitalising most of Sydney’s Tram network was a mistake, and the evidence of Melbourne’s popular Tram service is as close to case-control comparison you can find in this field. Sydney has higher transit mode share than Melbourne, but that is because the Trains are so much better (higher frequency), not because people like the buses better than the Trams.

Still, that does not mean the trams should all be put back. First, Sydney cannot build everything on the historic maps, at least not all at once, even Chinese Metros have been built over phases. Even more significantly, you do not want to:

  1. It may have been overbuilt. Many historic tram lines were abandoned fairly early, indicating the proponents missed their mark.
  2. We have to prioritise. Some things are more important than others, or have a higher benefit/cost ratio. 
  3. Conditions have changed. The places where historic trams were built may not warrant tram service today because the land use has changed, and of course because people’s travel preferences have changed with the widespread introduction of the automobile, the broader train network, and telecommunications and other technologies. 

I have been thinking about a “blank slate” redo of Sydney surface public transport (buses and trams). This is something the Government could do in a decade if they applied themselves.

You can see a detailed version in Google Maps here. You will need to zoom out, as it centers on the Liverpool CBD (the geographic center of the region). As always feedback is welcome.

Extending the LRT System

The Figure below shows the Existing, Under Construction, and the Sydney FAST 2030 Proposal LRT Lines. 

Sydney FAST 2030 Proposal: Proposed LRT Lines, Existing LRT and BRT, and Under Construction LRT.
Sydney FAST 2030 Proposal: Proposed LRT Lines, Existing LRT and BRT, and Under Construction LRT.

Design Principles

  1. History: The routes on the historic maps were reasonable starting points, they knew what they were doing and often reshaped the landscape to fit trams, and the human landscape reshaped to adapt to tram corridors. Trams added access.
  2. Comport: The new lines should comport with their environment and take almost no existing buildings, but instead use existing street space as much as possible, especially former tram lines, as well as former rights-of-way where appropriate. 
  3. Significance: We want to connect places that were significant 100 years ago because they are most likely to be significant 100 years from now, lines should follow historic RoW.
  4. Directness: Routes should proceed in a fairly direct (non-circuitous) routes between the origin and destination.
  5. Parsimony: We should have a few core lines with a maximum of one split (two branches) at either end. The branches can be numbered differently (L2 vs. L3), but they share a core. Spurs with high frequency can be used if branching becomes a problem.
  6. Complementarity: All lines should complement existing higher capacity public transport (Trains and Metro), not substitute for them. (Net riders on Trains and Metro should increase after the LRT opens)
  7. Terminals: Lines should start and end at key transfer points (e.g. a Train Station) or destinations (e.g. the Beach)
  8. Gap-filling: Lines should serve areas that are today underserved, even if it violates the above (e.g. Lane Cove)
  9. Rebalance Movement and Place: Motorway construction allows us to repurpose roads that presently have a conflict between Movement and Place function (Parramatta Road, King Street/Princes Highway, Military Road)
  10. Reconcentration: The collection of new lines (these plus that already committed) should serve all areas of the built up parts of Greater Sydney, and support infill (and brownfield) development rather than speculative greenfield development. 
  11. Exclusivity: The designs assume LRT to get high ride quality on exclusive tracks with lower operating costs. These are not classic trams that shared space with roads.
  12. Frequent: Most lines are served by single (articulated) car (L1), at a high frequency rather than fewer but longer trains (L2) at low frequency. 
  13. Electrical: Electric powered, electricity delivered by wire (more efficient than battery storage)

Proposed LRT Lines

The Proposed Lines are discussed below:

  1. L1sx: (Red) L1 Southern Extension: Central to Green Square and Mascot via Elizabeth and O’Riordan, Rationale: Serves existing high density areas and potential redevelopment sites. Elizabeth and O’Riordan are most feasible for Tram services due to Street widths among parallel routes and centrality. Provides capacity relief for T8 service, as well as serving areas in between the far-spaced stations. FAST Buses would serve parallel routes.  Extends L1 to maintain balance of flows (not split CBD frequencies too much on L2/L3, single car trams appropriate for this street running service. (~5.8 km)
  2. L2/L3liz: (Dark Blue) Elizabeth Street: Relocate the L2 and L3 on the eastern side of the Sydney CBD from George Street to Elizabeth Street (Phillip Street), and then circle around to George St. Rationale: Provides service to Eastern CBD via Tram (currently missing), allows George Street to serve L2 and L3 western extensions.
  3. L2ex: (Light Blue) Coogee Extension: Extends L2 from Randwick through The Spot to Coogee Beach. Rationale: Connect to a popular beach from the CBD without a transfer
  4. L2wx: (Light Blue) Broadway – Wolli:   This line takes over the George Street LRT (which meets (and through runs with) the Elizabeth Street LRT. At Central it proceeds west along Broadway, South along City Road, down King Street in Newtown, down Princes Highway, to Wolli Creek. Rationale: Provides high capacity services to part of University of Sydney (Camperdown) currently without rail service, Newtown. It has the potential to pedestrianise King Street in Newtown (like George Street in the CBD)  by terminating City Road at Carillon Avenue and terminating Prince’s Highway at Sydney Park Road, which should be now feasible in a post-WestConnex world.
  5. L3ex: (Dark Blue) Little Bay Extension: Extends L3 along Anzac Parade from Kingsford through Maroubra to Little Bay
  6. L3wx (Dark Blue) Broadway – Five Dock: The line splits with the L2wx line and runs along Parramatta Road to Norton Street in Leichhardt, and turns West at Marion, to proceed through Haberfield to Five Dock, where it terminates at a Metro Station.
  7. L4: (Green) Oxford Street/Victoria Road:  From West to East: West Ryde, via Top of the Ryde, Gladesville, Huntley’s Point, Drummoyne (assumes A40 tunnel under Drummoyne), Rozelle, sharing the existing L1 line (Alt: take two lanes from the Anzac Bridge), Museum, Darlinghurst, Paddington, Woollahra, Bondi Junction  to Bondi Beach
  8. L5: (Purple) North-South: Wynyard to Northbridge via Harbour Bridge, North Sydney, Cammeray to Northbridge. This project restores Tram service to Wynyard Station and the Harbour Bridge, providing local services to North Sydney, and enabling interchanges with regional Trains and Metro services.
  9. L6: (Purple) Wynyard to Lane Cove via Pacific Highway. Sharing track with the L5, it branches to provide local services on the dense Pacific Highway corridor and connecting with the historic regional center of Lane Cove, which is in an area underserved by rail.
  10. P1nx: (Orange) Castle Hill Extension: (Female Factory through Baulkham Hills to Castle Hill)
  11. P1ex: (Orange) Camellia Service (Rosehill – Camellia – Silverwater – Newington – Olympic Park)
  12. P2nx: (Orange) Epping Extension (Carlingford to Epping). Extends Parramatta LRT Phase 2

Creating a Rapid Bus Network

Sydney FAST 2030 Proposal: Rapid Bus Lines. 
Sydney FAST 2030 Proposal: Rapid Bus Lines. 

Buses have not received the attention they deserve. We could do much better with buses than we actually do, but elite projection (elites can imagine themselves riding trains but not buses) is hard to overcome, so buses are regarded as inferior to trains for reasons that mostly have to do with how we use buses in the system, rather than the technology itself.  [Recognising that the ride quality of buses on streets is not as high as trains on exclusive rights-of-way]. This vision for Rapid Buses is not T-Ways (on exclusive rights-of-way) everywhere, but more akin to the Arterial Bus Rapid Transit services that Metro Transit in Minnesota provides. (You can see a nice video about the service). In short, buses are the workhorse of the public transport system, and need more attention to make them as excellent as possible.

Principles

  • Gridded: We should design a Grid-like network, so that people can get to their destination with at most one-transfer. I don’t think this actually holds because of an inconvenient river. All of the proposed V-Lines stop south of the Parramatta River. Rail service north of the River is good, the B-Line already exists (which can be thought of as V-01), and the proposed LRT extension above are fairly comprehensive, so the areas north of Sydney Harbour and the Parramatta River get more H-Lines and no V-Lines. The existing Railroad rights-of-way present another barrier, as there are few surface street crossings of the lines, those are taken advantage of where possible, but wind up distorting the network from an idealised grid. (See Bambul’s post for a similar idea with a slightly different implementation or my earlier version focusing on Inner Sydney.)
  • Directness: We should minimise bus circuity for these routes (there can be other minor routes after these are fixed, I won’t bother with that here), so that travelers are not riding all over creation as the bus operator seeks a few extra passengers or to meet some arbitrary standard about distance to the nearest bus stop. 
  • Complementarity: Routes should complement not compete with existing Train, Metro, LRT, BRT routes. So even when there are bridges over the Parramatta River, they are already served by existing rail lines, so the principle of complementarity reduces the ability to provided continuous V-Line services from the south to the north, relying instead on transfers. This proposal assumes everything under construction and budgeted will be built (major Motorways, Metros, etc.)
  • Feasibility: The cost should relatively minimal (achieving High Return on Investment), so essentially no new roads, bridges, and so on, are built for the bus routes, and a minimum number for the proposed  LRT links.

The services are gridded, so they are divided into H-Lines and V-Lines. Specific lines are itemised below.

H-Lines

Shown in pale blue, East-West or Horizontal (“H”) Lines (always even numbers, major lines end in 0, lowest numbers in the North, highest in the South)

  • H10: Parramatta – Eastwood – Macquarie Park
  • H20: Chatswood – Cremorne – Mosman – Manley
  • H30: Crows Nest – Cremorne – Mosman – Taronga
  • H40: Guildford – Lidcombe – Olympic Park – North Strathfield – Concord – Canada Bay – Drummoyne – Birkenhead
  • H50: Bonnyrigg – Cabramatta- Yagoona – Chullora – South Strathfield – Enwood – Burwood Heights – Croydon – Haberfield
  • H60: Bankstown – Belfield – Ashfield – Leichhardt – Annandale – Glebe – Usyd – Redfern – Surry Hills – Moore Park – Waverly – Bronte
  • H64: Stanmore – University of Sydney – Redfern – North Waterloo
  • H68: St Peters – Randwick – Clovelly
  • H70: Liverpool – Canterbury – Dulwich Hill – Petersham – Enmore – Newtown – Alexandria – Green Square – Kensington (via Old Canterbury Road)
  • H80: Bardwell Park – Earlwood – Marrickville – Enmore – Newtown – Erskineville – Alexandria – Green Square – Kensington – Coogee
  • H90: Sydenham – Mascot – Rosebery – Eastlakes – Kingsford – South Coogee – Maroubra
  • H100: Revesby – Padstow Heights – Beverly Hills – Bexley – Arnclife – Kyeemagh – Botany – Pagewood – Eastgardens – Maroubra – Maroubra Beach

V-Lines

Shown in light purple, North-South or Vertical (“V”) Lines (always odd numbers, major lines end in 5, lowest numbers in the East, highest in the West)

  • V03: Bronte – Vaucluse – Watson’s Bay
  • V05: Rose Bay – Double Bay – Eastcliffe – Randwick – Maroubra
  • V11: Botany – Eastlakes – Rosebery – Zetland
  • V13: Potts Point – Zetland – Green Square – Mascot – Botany – Malabar
  • V15: Botany Road – Circular Quay – The Rocks – Barangaroo – Redfern – Green Square – Botany – Pagewood – Eastgardens – Maroubra
  • V21: St Peters – Waterloo Metro – Redfern
  • V23: White Bay – Annandale – Stanmore
  • V25: Balmain – Leichhardt – Petersham – Marrickville – Sydenham – Wolli Creek – Miranda
  • V29: Dulwich Hill LRT – Earlwood – Bardwell Park
  • V31: Summer Hill – Hurlstone Park
  • V35: Abbotsford – Five Dock – Croydon – Canterbury – Bardwell Park – Banksia
  • V41: Bexley – Rockdale – Brighton-Le-Sands – Kogorah
  • V45: Sans Souci – Carlton – Bexley North – Cabarita
  • V47: Mortlake Spur 
  • V55: Ramsgate – Allawah – Bexley – Kingsgrove – Belmore – Strathfield
  • V65: Carrs Park – Hurstville – Beverly Hills – Wiley Park – Flemington
  • V67: Penshurst – Lakemba – Greenacre – Chollura – Lidcombe – Olympic Park
  • V71: Mortdale – Riverwood – Punchbowl
  • V73: Padstow – Bankstown – Yagoona – Regent’s Park – Auburn
  • V75: Rose Hill – Sefton – Revesby
  • V85: Parramatta – Merrylands – Chester Hill to Panania
  • V95: East Hills – Villawood – Fairfield – Westmead

Physical geography is always a factor. Because of the width of Sydney compared to the height, there are more V-Lines than H-Lines. Also, based on the principle of non-redundancy, more vertical bus routes are provided, as there are more existing and under construction horizontal train lines.

Note this service stops in Liverpool, as the areas west are not developed yet. We have ideas about that, and I am currently doing work in the area, so will abstain.

If any of these H- or V-Lines are successful, they can of course be upgraded, and as the physical rail network changes, one expects these lines will evolve as well, taking advantage of the flexibility offered by buses. I have not conducted a formal accessibility analysis of this FAST network proposal, but if you are interested in funding something, find me.

This vision is essential if public and active transport are to be the preferred choice for most Sydneysiders, which is critical for achieving the environmental goals of eliminating CO2 emissions.

Access-oriented design? Disentangling the effect of land use and transport network on accessibility

| David Levinson

Recently published:

  • Lahoorpoor, B., Rayaprolu, H., Wu, H., and Levinson, D. (2022) Access-oriented design? Disentangling the effect of land use and transport network on accessibility. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives [doi] [Open Access]

In urban planning and design, a holistic perspective is needed to examine multiple potential scenarios in future developing plans. Access (or accessibility) is a concept that measures the performance of a city in terms of how easily residents can reach their desired activities. The land use pattern and the transport network configuration are the two critical elements of spatial access measures. This study investigates whether access-oriented design can improve accessibility outcomes, and disentangles access benefits from network design and land use patterns. A generic superblock with two types of street network design is defined, and populated with two different land use allocation strategies. Local access is measured from transit stops. Furthermore, to test the hypothesis at a larger scale, the Liverpool LGA in Sydney is selected, and different combinations of land use pattern and network topology are tested. Results indicate that the land use pattern plays a vital role in the local access; however, the network configuration significantly impacts the access at the regional scale. The application of access-oriented designs in future urban growth is discussed.

Two different superblock layouts: Grid vs. Ring-Radial.

The Thirty-Minute City on ABC Sydney Afternoons

| David Levinson

I had the pleasure of being on James Valentine’s

Afternoons on ABC Radio on Friday (June 18, 2021)

We discussed the thirty-minute city and related topics for about 15 minutes.

An automated transcript is below:

James Valentine 0:11
You’ve been hearing for a while now that we’re going to have sort of three cities in Sydney. We’re going to have the city city, the river city of Parramatta and now the new Bradfield city, the Western Sydney parklands city, the Aerotropolis, it seems to be a city, it’s got at least three names at the moment, that Western one and there’s going to be three hubs, we’re going to be a 30 minute city, we’re gonna be able to get around this city, you’ll be able to live, you know, Jason, the paramedic, everything will be there, your job will be there, the school will be there to help services will be there and everything. So you’ll never need to leave that area, necessarily. The you may have also heard that the IBC announced a little earlier in the week that 300 or so staff will be moving to Paramount or will be based in Parramatta in a few years time that we’re in the process of looking for the right accommodation and figuring out what what would be best in that in that part of the world. So these are interesting things. And I wondered whether it was a good time to have a conversation about how successful is this going to do things like this work? When when, when an industry when something like our says yeah, when a government department or the ABC or an industry says, Okay, we’ll base ourselves here. What is it? What do we need to make that work? Do we have the infrastructure to make it work? And what effect does it have on the area? Is that a good thing? Does it you know, usually mean? Yep, this is great. The play starts to boom. And it works. I mean, there’s a big broad questions, but let’s see if we can crunch them down a little Professor David Levinson joins us. He’s from the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney. He’s a very successful career looking at transport and urban infrastructure in lots of ways. He’s the author of something that’s got a dissertation that’s called probably my favorite title, “on whom the toll falls”. Yeah, a brilliant title about road road charging. Really a title of people good road charging and the like. But it’s great to have you been here for a for a conversation. Professor David Levinson. Good afternoon. Thank you for having me. I mean, you’re we’ve been sitting about four years or so now from from Minnesota. Is that right? Yes. And so do you look, I would look at the City of Sydney go. It’s pretty congested, messy, haphazard, thing, but you know that that’s grown like, like Topsy over over a couple of centuries. Now. How do you see it?

David Levinson 3:35
Well, I mean, it’s certainly grown fast. But all cities are messy. All cities are congested. A city that’s not congested, is probably dying. And so congestion is one of the prices for urbanity. Right? We can’t expect our infrastructure to grow as fast as our population and places that tried to invest excessively in infrastructure before the people are there are going to have a lot of white elephants, a lot of projects that aren’t aren’t well used.

James Valentine 4:02
Right? So. So the notion that you might think, let’s, let’s build all the metro and the schools and the parks and hope people come, that doesn’t quite work.

David Levinson 4:11
We don’t have the resources to do that, unless you want to not address the existing problems that are already there. You know, if, if planning were 100% accurate, and we could forecast these things perfectly sure. But that’s not the case. that’s never been the case. And, you know, you, you can’t expect the populations that were here before 1788 to have built in advance of the settlers. It just doesn’t, you know, so we have to think about what are we trying to do and try to establish some sort of concurrency between the development of land and the development of infrastructure. And once you’ve solved all the problems for your existing residents, then if you have some excess resources and want to sort of plan for our future residents We might be moving into currently greenfields undeveloped areas. That might make sense. But we clearly haven’t solved the problems for all of our existing residents. And yet we’re starting to build some infrastructure for people who don’t live here yet.

James Valentine 5:12
Right. So is your sense of most cities is that the it’s enough for them to play catch up.

David Levinson 5:19
I think most cities need to play catch up with their existing demand. Certainly a fast growing city is always going to be playing catch up. When the growth slows, you might be able to have caught up at at some point. But at that point, your city’s not really growing anymore. And I think of cities in the American Midwest. You’re Detroit’s in Cleveland, well, they probably have enough infrastructure for the population that’s there. Now, they did catch up. And then things change, because that’s what happens, things change, we can’t accurately foresee how the technology is going to change how preferences are going to change how economics are going to change. And we really need to be thinking I mean, a 40 year time horizons fine for a vision. So if you think about the plans currently out there 2056 plans they were started in 2016. That’s fine for vision, but we have to also constantly be updating and and checking those and make the next investment decision aligned with the plan. But we can’t expect to build out a 40 year plan today and just wait for those roads and train lines

James Valentine 6:22
fell out. Yeah. And we can’t control that within a city like Sydney, will say things like, there’ll be another million people here in 10 years old and that sort of stuff. And people will say, Well, does that have to happen? Is this also somewhat uncontrollable cities have a great gravitational pull?

David Levinson 6:37
Well, I mean, a city is part of a country and the national government will decide immigration levels. And obviously, unexpectedly last year, immigration levels fell. And we see cities in Australia, especially Sydney, are losing population in the past year to regional areas as there’s more out migration and then migration. Now, maybe immigration will reopen. But that’s a policy choice. And assuming that that policy choices made, may be probably those people will come to cities, because that’s where most of the economic activity still is. But there’s no guarantee of that. I mean, we could have much better telecommunications technologies in 10 or 20 years, in which case, the advantages of the city are lower than they are today. Because today, it’s still better to be in person for doing things than to do them virtually.

James Valentine 7:30
Yeah, that’s right. And we’ve seen that, you know, 10 years ago, if people said, Yeah, I could probably work from home and use the computer system where you couldn’t really it didn’t really work. But it wasn’t robust enough, it couldn’t carry enough.

David Levinson 7:41
Yeah, and I think that the shift has been, I mean, there’s been a push, obviously a force factor, which has required people to work from home more than they otherwise would. But there’s also been the enabling of technology, which is better that we had video conferencing. 15 years ago, I lived in London for a year and supervise my students from in who were in Minneapolis via Skype calls. And it worked beautifully. We had a 24 hour work schedule, and it’s like I would, you know, it’d be late at night there and early in the morning in London, and I have meetings with them. And then you know, they would do things in and they would go to sleep, but I would wake up and I would see what they done. And it was probably more efficient than us being on the same timezone. Because the response was, was taking place during their off time. So we need to think about this dynamic of telecommunications is changing, not just work for for people who work in offices, I mean, it’s also changed how we shop significantly and our social patterns. And you know, how many people do you know on the internet that you’ve never actually met in person? I mean, this is a growing phenomenon. We’ve seen from travel data that people are making fewer social trips than they used to. And our hypothesis is they’re substituting online communications. Yeah, social social media for that guy is that even pre COVID COVID. work at home was rising as well. And virtual shopping was rising as well, but obviously is a huge spike in the in the last little over a year.

James Valentine 9:08
At this point. He listened to what Professor David Levinson. He’s from school of civil engineer at the University of Sydney and we just joined the fat a little on some of the planning issues around Sydney and some of the ways in which we’re moving around and some of what what what was coming so this notion of the 30 minutes city is that more than a slogan is that is that a reality?

David Levinson 9:26
Well, it depends on what you mean by the 30 minutes city right so the the Greater Sydney Commission has a few definitions in their report, which are not all the same, but that you can reach the the destinations that you need for your daily life within a 30 minute trip by public transport or active transport, walking and biking. But that’s not guaranteed that you will have a job within 30 minutes or in your local region of Sydney. And we see today of course there’s huge tidal flows of people who come from the western parts of Sydney towards the eastern parts of Sydney because There’s more housing in the West and more jobs in the east. And until all of these areas are balanced with terms of jobs and housing, a workers and housing in each of those places are roughly equal. We’re going to continue to have those kinds of tidal flows. And so it won’t be a 30 minute city, if you live in the West and work in the next city over or if you run if you’re if you’re in Bradfield and Western Sydney or near retropolis. And you work in the City of Sydney, that’s going to be well, more than a 30 minute commute by any mode of transport at this point. Yeah. And so

James Valentine 10:32
is that answered by you know, we’re making a gesture of moving 300 people to to paramedic, so then those people there, if that’s their job, is there, that’s good? Could the same thing? What is the answer also, then, for other industries and ourselves to move to campbelltown, to move to the hills district,

David Levinson 10:50
I think some of this will happen anyway. Because as telecommunications gets better than need to pay the high rents to be in the center, go down, or you see that you own a building in the center, and you can sell it and if you don’t actually need to be there. So there’s some industries for which the technical term economies of agglomeration are really high the benefits of being near other firms within walking distance of other firms. And typically, that’s things like finance and media and advertising. And arguably government. And there’s other industries, manufacturing, for which there’s no real benefit to being adjacent to the shelter. You know, you need the space. And once upon a time, it might have been appropriate when you physically move the goods by hand or horse from one building to another. But now, since it’s by truck, you just need to be nearby. You don’t need to be adjacent to. And so we’ve seen this kind of decentralization for decades. I mean, we’ve essentially been decentralization since 1788, right? I mean, we’ve people landed at a point and then they’ve spread out. employment in the Sydney CBD is about 15% of regional employment, which, you know, is probably not as high as people imagined it is. So what was the percentage of the 15% of total workers in the Greater Sydney region work in the CBD, right? And if you count the neighborhoods adjacent to the CBD, like ultimo or piermont, or Surry Hills, it gets up to about 20%. Right? Yeah.

James Valentine 12:21
But when we think of it as the CBD, so there’s all these workers come in. And that’s a fairly low percentage, it’s a low percentage. I

David Levinson 12:26
mean, it’s bigger than any other business district. And Paramount is on the order of 2%. Right now, and Western Sydney is going to be pretty close to 0% right now. And this will change over time. But this percentage has also been declining, historically. And so in 1789, it would have been close to 100% of all jobs were in the CBD. Now, it’s it’s much fewer. So this is a long term dynamic and the shock to the system of enabling office workers to work from home full time, but you know, maybe they’ll go back two days a week or three days a week? we don’t we don’t know yet. I mean, it’s still, I mean, we’re a year and a half into this. And public transit, which is basically a measure of how many people are going into the central business district is still below 70% of its pre COVID levels, indicates that it’s probably some kind of permanent effect. And yeah, and I think that’s going to be you know, an issue for people who own real estate and CBD who own businesses in the CBD and so on that, that it’s going to be harder for them in the future to generate as much money as they used

James Valentine 13:32
to So will it just happen all the deliberate moves and deliberate infrastructures have to put in nothing if something like the metro out to the to the northwest and that you know, huge industrial park and and business park out there, which major firms have their head office set up? Now? That’s a it’s made to be some, you know, some planners sitting down guy, put the trail on there, build that thing there, you know, that’ll boom, that area, it’s the same source, is that what they never aerotropolis look like? Yeah, I

David Levinson 13:56
mean, there has to be there. There are 1000s of deliberate decisions I think is the way you need to think about it and and ABC moving offices from ultimo to Parramatta is, is one of many of these kinds of decisions that will take place over next decades. That will help adjust the regional balance of jobs and and workers and ultimately reduce commute times overall. giving people more freedom. But you know, the question I mean, you physically are working in a building, I physically work in a building, but how often do you actually have to be here? It’s better if we’re in the building, perhaps but is I

James Valentine 14:34
very much have to be here between 1230 and 330. In the audition, sure, but I mean, at

David Levinson 14:38
the peak of COVID lots of reporters and working at home and makeshift studios and sound quality wasn’t quite as good. And, you know, obviously there were other issues associated with that. It’s better to be interviewed in person than it is to be interviewed over the phone. So these kinds of what actually needs to be done in person versus what can be done remotely is going to be needed. Oceana is going to be steadily changing as telecommunications technology gets better as more deals are built

James Valentine 15:04
as more software is made, once your report card on how Sydney’s handling all this in the moment,

David Levinson 15:09
Sydney is doing pretty well, overall, I mean, compared to say, how Europe, the United States did over the last, you know, your year and a half? I think we’re being a little bit, perhaps overcautious on some things.

James Valentine 15:25
Also, this is with the with COVID. You’ve been with Calvin sort of in general is our is that is that getting that road? that balance? Right, between the long term planning and the short term investment, for example, is that sort of, we’re getting it I think,

David Levinson 15:37
I think we make transport decisions based on assuming the land use is fixed. And we make land use decisions based on assuming the transport is fixed. And we’re not really taking these decisions together in the way that we could, I mean, we, we should be planning for access and trying to see, you know, the city is measured by how many things you can reach. And we know that a function of where things are located as well as how fast you can move on a network to get there. We want to be able to we should be planning for that directly. And right now, the planning is is somewhat fractured for that. And we also are there’s sort of a mismatch between who gets the benefits from infrastructure decisions and who’s paying for the infrastructure. If you build a train station, and somebody owns land adjacent to it, they get a huge uplift in value, but they didn’t really pay for the full costs of the benefits they’re receiving. Yeah.

James Valentine 16:29
David Levinson great to get some time with you. Thanks so much for coming in. All right. Fight faces. Great. So nice to meet you, Professor David Levinson from the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney. We’ll talk about employment and wage growth with with David Taylor in a moment or two ABC business reporter. I asked him if there was a song he wanted to sort of intro and he said I am in this one I want to groove into Michelle Pfeiffer that white. This was a masterpiece. Living in the city got Chuck was saying we got a kiss. So pretty. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Don’t give it to you. Believe images

Observations of Arncliffe

| David Levinson
View of Sydney in the distance
View of Sydney in the distance

After three and a half years in Australia, and having received permanent residency, we decided to buy a piece of the continent. The decision to buy was pretty straight-forward given the below 2% interest rates, significantly below the price of rent. When I first arrived in Sydney, interest rates were higher than rent, and so renting seemed the obvious answer (as well as the huge penalty for buying existing homes socked to non-permanent residents).

The buying process in Australia differs from the US in several key ways.

Auctions are dominant here, not just what happens at foreclosures. In our first attempt, we bid at an auction, significantly above the price guidance. It however went significantly above that. That was much higher than the Hedonic Model my research group has estimated, so I passed. In our second attempt, the house we ultimately bought in Arncliffe, had passed under at auction. The owners bid in the auction at a price higher than any participants would match, and so it ‘passed under’. It was then listed the normal way with open house and accepting offers. We made an offer, and then a counter, and got an agreement on the house.

We hired a solicitor for the contract review (which would typically be done by the buyer in the US). The solicitor also arranges house inspections (although sometimes those are arranged by the selling agent, there is a literal principal/agent problem there). I’ve seen much more thorough inspections in the US. Normally settlement takes up to 42 days, but we got it done in 3 weeks.

This also required financing, which we did with an Australian Credit Union. Australia has gone through a severe demutualization process in a few sectors (notably property insurance, I couldn’t find a mutual insurer left), but a few credit unions remain, as well as a few health insurers.

Arncliffe Steam Tram - Bexley Line

Arncliffe Steam Tram – Bexley Line. It’s a bit more built up now.

So we have now relocated to Arncliffe, a suburb (i.e. a neighbourhood) of Sydney about 10 km south of the CBD. I believe COVID (and the prospects for working-from-home vs. the ghost town we call the University) made me more willing to move farther out than I would have previously preferred, but the main issue was just the price of real estate per square meter.

Arncliffe is near the Sydney airport, but not under the flight paths, so the flight noise is minimal (and especially minimal now with COVID restrictions, but in general you can’t really hear the planes). Our house is literally on top of the M5 Motorway (or rather the Motorway is under the house, since the house was there first). So on top of it that Google Streetview thinks I live on the Motorway, and shows a picture of the tunnel instead of my house (they have been apprised of this fact and refuse to correct it). We cannot see, hear, feel, or smell the road. There is an fresh air intake location down the block, but since it is intake rather than output, it seems fine.

From a walking perspective we get a 68/68 from WalkScore, which somehow beats my old address in Alexandria that had a 22/72. I can only conclude WalkScore is not the most reliable accessibility measure.

68 Walk Score
Somewhat Walkable Some errands can be accomplished on foot.
68 Transit Score
Good Transit Many nearby public transportation option

Walking is fine, two train stations (Arncliffe and Turrella) on the T4 and T8 lines respectively are each ~12 minutes away (uphill in both directions). The lines have 10-minute frequency service during peak hours (but 30 minute service on weekends, not so good). There are a number of restaurants and shops within a 5 minute walk, and more near Arncliffe station. The shops are aligned along a former Tram line (from Arncliffe to Bexley along Wollongong Road), in two clusters, presumably the two stops. The clusters are not contiguously served by retail, as I guess the demand c. 1900-1929 when the Trams ran, was not high enough, and the tram was never electrified.

These retail clusters on Wollongong Road are not exactly contiguous with the larger cluster of shops adjacent to the Arncliffe train station, though it’s only a block away from one of them. (Turrella has very little retail activity). There are multiple butchers and bakers, a fishmonger, a fruiterer and poulterer and one IGA supermarket, all within walking distance. There are no major grocery stores in convenient walking distance. Wolli Creek, the next station to the north on both lines has two supermarkets, and of course many Asian stores, but is a 25 minute walk, a bit too far for the daily shop. [A comprehensive retail analysis is below, from my family’s list of stores one finds on shopping streets in Australia]. I have a personal preference for urban forms that arose during the tram (streetcar) era, and find suburban neighbourhoods from that era the most walkable and most pleasant. 

The retail on Wollongong Road straddles Arncliffe Park, which is a large open space with a soccer field and a cenotaph memorialising World War I dead. It also features a flock of Ibises and Cockatoos and a small cafe.  There is a gorgeous arcade of Gum trees along the diagonal path through the park.

Overall pedestrian conditions are pretty good for this kind of suburb, though there are missing footpaths on some sides of some street sections. On my street I think it has to do with the steepness of the cliffs, (we are near the top of a hill, garnering the view at the top of this post out the front door, and a glimpse of Botany Bay out the back windows), but on others there is no such excuse, and it is just assume pedestrians will cross the street twice to get where they are going. There are a few raised pedestrian crossings (Wombats), but there are a few missing. Similarly the kerb cuts for disability access are haphazard, and don’t face curb cuts on the opposite side of the street where one might think they belong.


Trash Pickup is organised by the local Council (local municipality), which has few other functions in Australia. Trash is collected weekly, recycling fortnightly. That is unfortunate, and still reflects poor practices of the past. There is no garden waste or food waste pickup, as we had in the City of Sydney. Also no obvious way to deal with electronics, batteries, light bulbs, or hazardous chemicals without driving somewhere.  Strangely, the Council has a quarterly large item and miscellaneous pickup, so the streets are lined with stuff you might otherwise see in yard sale or headed for the tip (dump), but it’s multi-day (the pickup is announced for say Monday, stuff goes out the Friday before, and isn’t necessarily actually collected Monday, just that week). So people walk and drive around looking for free loot. A free-cycle-like free-for-all. Society accumulates lots of junk. The City of Sydney would pick up your large items when you contacted them, on demand. I don’t know which is better for the environment, but the City is obviously more crowded and doesn’t have space to let broken appliances accumulate, while the suburbs do.

Trash pickup
Trash pickup

 

Appendix:

The following activities can be found within walking distance of our house

  • Train Station 
  • Thai restaurant 
  • Schools / Primary, High, TAFE 
  • RSL
  • Poulterer / Chicken
  • Places of Worship / Church, Mosque, Synagogue 
  • Pizza place/Pide (Turkish)
  • Pharmacist
  • Pastry shop
  • Park
  • Newsagent/Lottery
  • Nail shop
  • Mixed Business
  • Massage
  • Locksmith 
  • Library 
  • Laundry 
  • Italian / Greek deli
  • Indian Restaurant
  • Hot bread (Bun Mi)
  • Grocer
  • Fruiterer
  • Fishmonger/chippie
  • Employment Agent
  • Dry cleaner 
  • Doctors office/Clinic/Surgery/GP
  • Dentist 
  • Day care/ Crèche / Nursery / Preschool 
  • Convenience 
  • Club
  • Chiropractor osteopathic 
  • Charbroiled chicken 
  • Cafe
  • Butcher 
  • Burger
  • Beauty salon
  • Barber
  • Baker 
  • AUS Post
  • Anzac Memorial
  • Alcohol wine cellars /Bottle shop/Liquor 

But the following cannot be found (apologies if I missed something, this is mostly from memory):

  • Accountant Tax
  • Adult store
  • Antiques lifestyle chachki 
  • Appliance/TV Repair
  • Art Supply 
  • Asian grocer
  • Bags/Luggage 
  • Bank
  • Betting 
  • Bike shop/skateboard/surf
  • Bistro
  • Books new and used
  • Books religious 
  • Bowling alley
  • Brothel
  • Candy shop / Nuts / Confection 
  • Car Hire
  • Car repair
  • Card store/stationery 
  • Cheesemonger 
  • Children’s clothing 
  • Cinema
  • Christening clothes
  • Clothes
  • Cobbler
  • Comic books
  • Copy shop 
  • Crafts shop
  • Dim sim 
  • Discount Department Store
  • Dispensary/ pot shop
  • Dollar Store
  • Draper
  • Electronics
  • Exchange 
  • Fire Station/ Ambo
  • Florist
  • Function Hall /Meet Rooms
  • Funeral home
  • Furniture store
  • Games
  • Guns hunting outdoors army surplus
  • Gym
  • Haberdashery/male formal wear/rental
  • Hardware store
  • Headshop 
  • Herbalist
  • Hobby shop 
  • Home goods
  • Hotel / pub / bar / brewpub/ microbrewery 
  • Hotel / Hostel / Inn
  • Immigration agent
  • Insurance 
  • Jewelry / watch
  • Karate/Kung fu/tae kwan do/judo/assassin skill set training 
  • Kitchen equipment 
  • Knife sharpener 
  • Lawyer/Solicitor 
  • Lingerie/Underwear 
  • Medical Labs
  • Medicare Centrelink
  • Men’s clothing
  • Milk bar
  • Millenary
  • Mini golf
  • Money Lender
  • Music instruments 
  • Natural Food Store
  • Op shop
  • Optician
  • Party 
  • Pawn shop
  • Perfume 
  • Pet store/groomer/vet
  • Phone store/technical (radio shack)
  • Pasta (Italian)
  • Podiatrist 
  • Pool hall, Billiards
  • Print Shop
  • Providore 
  • Razors
  • Realtor 
  • Record Store
  • Sandwich shop
  • Schlock pop culture 
  • Seamstress mending/tailor
  • Servo (Petroleum)
  • Shared Workspace
  • Spice shop
  • Spiritualist/Astrologer/Tarot
  • Sporting goods/Golf/Tennis
  • Sushi joint
  • Swimming recreation 
  • Tattoo
  • Tobacconist 
  • Town Hall with Clock Tower
  • Toy store
  • Travel agent
  • Tutoring 
  • Uniforms (School/Work)
  • Upholstery 
  • Used
  • Vacuum 
  • Video game arcade
  • Video sales/rental
  • Video conversion 
  • VIP lounges
  • Wedding /Bridal 
  • White goods
  • Women’s clothing 
  • Video game sales

 

 

Roderick Distinguished International Webinar: Jennifer Whyte from Imperial College London on `Infrastructure projects and digital delivery.’

| David Levinson

The University of Sydney’s First Roderick Distinguished International Webinar is scheduled on Thursday, 19 November 2020, from 6-7pm via Zoom.

In this webinar, we will hear from Prof. Jennifer Whyte from Imperial College London. The talk will focus on Infrastructure projects and digital delivery.

Please CLICK HERE to register at your earliest convenience.

Speaker
Prof. Jennifer Whyte is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London, and holds the Royal Academy of Engineering and Laing O’Rourke Chair in Systems Integration. Her research is on the delivery of major infrastructure projects, and on the integration of systems, modular and digital delivery strategies. As a member of Construction Leadership Council in the UK, she has strong links to industry and policy, giving advice based on her research. She has been visiting faculty at Stanford and is Director of the Centre for Systems Engineering and Innovation at Imperial College London. She is the incoming Head of the School of Project Management and Director of the John Grill Institute at the University of Sydney.


Title: Infrastructure projects and digital delivery
The talk will focus on how is the delivery of major infrastructure projects transformed by pervasive use of digital technologies and digital information? This lecture will explore how the practices of delivering infrastructure are changing, arguing for the need for focus on systems integration and the realization of value from projects. It draws on research on London megaproject, Heathrow Terminals, London 2012 Olympics, Crossrail, Tideway, High Speed 2.

Sydney’s bike network stuck in the slow lane | Sydney Morning Herald

| David Levinson

Nigel Gladstone at the Sydney Morning Herald writes: “Sydney’s bike network stuck in the slow lane“. My quote below:

Sydney University Professor of transport engineering David Levinson said bike network plans are “unambitious” because the government seems reluctant to face any backlash from the loss of car parking.

“What’s the most valuable use of road space: moving people or storing cars?” he said. “The alternative is turning over more footpath space to cyclists, which creates a different set of conflicts and footpath space is a lot scarcer.”

Dr Levinson said judging demand for bike lanes under current conditions is like trying to “judge the demand for the harbour bridge by the number of people swimming across the harbour.”

The City of Sydney has installed 6 temporary cycleways as it makes bike riding a transport priority in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
City of Sydney Bike Network, including Pop-up Cycleways. The “Local Bike Network” is not even sharrows, and some links are shared footpaths..

Outer Sydney Orbital, Western Sydney Freight Line: no corridors rezoned for M9 motorway | Daily Telegraph

| David Levinson

Jake McCullum at the Daily Telegraph writes: Outer Sydney Orbital, Western Sydney Freight Line: no corridors rezoned for M9 motorway . The big news is that the freight line will be tunneled (and the trains electrified) along with the M9 motorway.

My quote:

Transport expert and University of Sydney Civil Engineering Professor David Levinson said electric locomotives for freight transport had been used in NSW previously, and was used “much more widespread in Europe”.

“There are no technical reasons freight trains can’t be electrified, and if they have renewable power — which over the next decade will be increasingly common — electrified freight would be much cleaner than diesel overall, and due to lack of emissions, better for operations in tunnels,” Prof. Levinson said.

Western Sydney orbital (M9). Source: Daily Telegraph
Western Sydney orbital (M9). Source: Daily Telegraph

I’m going to Sydneyland

| David Levinson

One day, the world will reopen, and people will again travel and want to see the sights. Some of them will come to Sydney.

SydneyHarbourBridge
Sydney Harbour Bridge

According to Australian Tourism  Statistics, during 2018 in Australia there were 8.5 million international visitors spending $43.9 billion over an average of 32 days. It generates 2.6% of GDP and 4.5% of employment Much if not most of that takes place in Sydney. This is one of Australia’s largest export industries, and despite the dollar signs in the eyes of the local capitalists, I don’t think it is maximised.

Disneyland

 

Scrooge McDuck represents the miserly side of capitalism.
Disney’s Scrooge McDuck represents the miserly side of capitalism.

Disneyland’s Magic Kingdom in Anaheim, California , one of many parks owned by The Walt Disney Company, saw 18.67 million visitors in 2018, similar to, but less than, a successful shopping mall (Mall of America gets 40 million visitors a year). Most, if not all, of those Disneyland visitors were single day (I am not clear how the accounting is done, but if I were them, like a transit agency I would be reporting turnstile entries rather than distinct people), and many were domestic, but nevertheless, Australia is a bigger tourist attraction than Disneyland.  Disneyland, like Germany, is divided into several lands:

  • Main Street USA
  • Adventureland
  • Fantasyland
  • Frontierland
  • New Orleans Square
  • Star Wars Galaxy Edge
  • Tomorrowland
  • Toon Town

Disneyland also sports an adjacent California Adventure Park with its own lands. Its sibling, Disneyworld, Florida features Hollywood Studio, Epcot, and Animal Kingdom parks in addition to the Magic Kingdom.

Sydneyland

IMG_0641
Sydneyland’s Opera House functions like Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty’s Castle.

Sydneyland is similarly divided into lands

  • Circular Quay and Opera-land
  • Shopping land: George Street and Pitt Street
  • The Domain / Botanical Gardens
  • Darling Harbour (Casinoland and Convention-zone)

In addition, there are some other nearby Parks that are elements of the greater Sydney amusement properties

The Opera House serves the function of the Princess’s Castle, though it is not quite visible from all the lands. Both have fireworks and entertainment for visitors.

Sydneyland vs. Disneyland

Sydneyland and Disneyland differ foremost in  urban embeddedness. Disneyland is situated as an isolated park in Anaheim within the Greater Los Angeles region. Sydneyland is enmeshed in the Sydney urban fabric, it’s part of a real, if a bit fantastical, city. The ownership and management of Disneyland is centralised. Although the transport links are fully public controlled, with private contractors, Sydneyland’s attractions are largely decentralised. That creates value, opening its creation beyond the cathedral of Disney Imagineering to a broader marketplace where individual entrepreneurs can create a more changing experience. But while the gain is creativity, there is a loss in synergy, of a central oversight that tries to capture positive externalities. Similarly there is no system-wide pass, cash is required for every attraction.

People work in Sydneyland for purposes other than immediate guests services. While tourism is a dominant feature of the economy, there are other aspects which have non-touristic functions interspersed among the various lands.

Disney has played with urban planning.  EPCOT was initially conceived as a real city, that is not how it was realised. Disney did ultimately construct the town of Celebration, Florida on its properties, but with a population of 7,500, it hardly compares with Sydney’s 5 million people, or even the City of Sydney’s 250,000. So Sydneyland restaurants and museums can serve locals as well as tourists. This provides some robustness.

Visitor Transport in Sydneyland

Visitors typically arrive in Sydney by boat or by air, both of which have good connections to the local network. Beyond walking, the primary tourist transport system in Sydneyland is the ferry and train services, along with special buses, though the ferry and train network fails to connect all the key destinations without the concomitant bus service, and transfers are required.

Gaps in the Sydneyland Experience

What’s missing from Sydneyland? The Sydneyland tourist experience would be much improved if many things that were once here were not removed. Sydney is too quick to abandon places and networks, abandonments which it may come to regret, which results from their decentralised decision-making and failure to maintain.

Restoration

Transport

The Sydney Monorail, c. 2000.
The Sydney Monorail, c. 2000.

  • Trams  provided connections between many of the scattered destinations in Inner Sydney. The system was designed for local residents, but one imagines today it would have evolved like Melbourne to have a large tourist market.  Sydney’s trams were removed in favour of buses by 1961, Melbourne didn’t make the same decision. New light rail lines have a different function, and are also much more expensive to construct.
  • The Sydneyland monorail was disabled last decade, rather than being expanded to fully cover Sydneyland. The network was too small to be effective and too expensive to be for anything other than a one-time ride. But the concept of an urban circulator geared toward visitors is not of itself unreasonable. Rather, the execution needs more thought.

Attractions

  • History: Historical buildings. Sydney then and now (book) and Facebook group show many sites where buildings were lost and replaced with something inferior. While restoring many of those older architectural structures that have been replaced is a big ask, preserving what remains should be a higher priority.
  • Living History: A full-fledged history park, perhaps like Old Sydneytown, but better located, to help assuage the parents that the trip to Sydneyland is educational, and not simply entertainment. Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia is a model. (There is Australiana Pioneer Village, which I have not yet visited so cannot assess)
  • Food: A good food market, like the Haymarket’s Paddy’s Market might have been. This could be revised on the lines of Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Market.
  • Rides: Sydney once had Wonderland Sydney in the western region, as well as O’Neill’s Adventureland. There are proposals for new amusement parks, but nothing concrete.
  • Entertainment Film: A studio tour, transforming Fox Studios, now accessible by light rail, and the adjacent area into more than just a sterile Entertainment Quarter site for those attending stadium events. Imagine a Mad Max: Fury Road themed ride, or entering the Matrix (filmed in Sydney). (a Studio Tour for Fox’s Back Lot is not a new idea either, Fox had a theme park from 1999-2001). [Of course there is a Warner Bros Movie World in the Gold Coast, but that’s pretty far from Sydney]
  • Entertainment Games: SegaWorld – themed on everyone’s favourite Hedgehog, Sonic, located in Darling Harbour
  • Animals: A world-class aquarium [Seaworld in Gold Coast doesn’t count, nor does SeaLife]
  • Animals: A ‘safari tour’, though hopefully with a more Marsupial theme, as people probably don’t come to Australia for an African Lion Safari.  (The Safari started as a home for Bullen’s circus animals apparently).
  • Exhibits: A  Garden Palace, which Sydney once had for the 1879 Sydney International Exhibition, before it was burned down, coincidentally? destroying public records along the way.
  • Nightlife: Shows and drinks and things that take place after dark. People always seem to be saying it used to be better in their youth.

Expanding Sydneyland

But in addition to wishing that what was taken away was instead preserved or will now be restored, we might also think about what never was but should be. Copying other cities is a cheap way to get some attractions, but the real question is what can be done that would make Sydneyland more unique, not just another homogenised tourburb in the world vacation system.

Transport

Unlike me, most people don’t come to a city for its transport in general, a few distinct icons, like San Francisco’s Cable Cars exempted. But they stay and return if the transport system is interesting and convenient. From the tourist perspective, the most glaring gap is easy service by Train to Bondi Beach. A local circulator bringing White Bay, Darling Harbour, and Circular Quay is also an obvious gap, and some have proposed a gondola, which we would all ride once, but this seems less efficient then rebooting the Monorail, and perhaps the Metro West line stations at the Bays Precinct, Pyrmont and Barangaroo will fit the bill. The mode that will make people happiest is undoubtedly ferry though. Most cities don’t have good ferry systems, and people like being on the water. The ride itself is an attraction.  It is well within Sydney’s grasp to have a more efficient ferry system that turns boats around quicker and serves more destinations at a higher frequency.

A decent shared bike/e-bike and scooter system coupled with a comprehensive network of separated and protected bike paths will also enable many tourists to get between attractions independently and happily. The city and region need to be more ambitious on this front.

Attractions

While Disneyland is short of land, Disneyworld has planned for the future, and has plenty of expansion opportunities. Sydneyland too is readily expanded. The most obvious target area is around Glebe Island and White Bay, which can easily be plugged into the Ferry and Metro networks. DisneySea in Tokyo can be a model for this. In fact the DisneyWharf at Sydney Harbour proposal, more like Florida’s Celebration, considered this site and would have been open to the public without a gate, though individual elements would of course been charged for. White Bay has a Cruise Terminal now, but not much is walkable from the site, and it is not as desirable as the Cruise Terminal at Circular Quay (which is great for the tourists, but less attractive for everyone else). The government has tried to pitch this site for corporate headquarters, but no one has bitten yet.

Woolloomooloo Bay, with the naval base protecting us from a Japanese invasion looks like another site for potential addition to the Sydneyland core economy. What the appropriate feature for this site remains to be seen, but undoubtedly there is always room for more casinos.

The various islands in the Harbour could also feature nice attractions. It has been proposed (and rejected) to turn Cockatoo Island into an art precinct.

Sydney also should have a first-rate transport museum. The Tramway museum is a bit remote and under-developed, but has a nice collection of rolling stock. The Sydney Bus Museum is excellent, and is adjacent to a bus depot in Leichhardt, but still a bit obscure. The State Train Museum is in Thirlmere and requires a bus transfer to reach by public transport. The Powerhouse, named because it was a Powerhouse, an energy generating building for Sydney trains, combines transport (including rail, aviation, and space, among others) and fashion (under the guise of technology), and a few other bits and bobs, but is being dismantled and reassembled for Parramatta, apparently, as part of a redevelopment opportunity. The Nautical Museum in Darling Harbour is really nice as well, and perhaps most oriented toward tourists. This should be systematically rethought.

The ethnic suburbs of Sydney are great, and not really well marketed to those from outside. While as customers we don’t want our favourite local places overwhelmed with tourist buses, I am sure the vendors would like more business. And if you are spending on average a month in Australia, more time in these suburbs seems appropriate. A food tour of Sydney should definitely take you out of the CBD.

John Cornell and Paul Hogan, mates
John Cornell and Paul Hogan, mates

The Statue of Liberty, facing New York City, was a gift of the French. Their two other core values: Égalité and Fraternité, should similarly be located at the entrepôt of other world cities. While Australia, like many places struggles with equality, the value of mateship, or fraternité, is central. A giant statue of Fraternité in Sydney Harbour would help cement Sydney’s position among the great cities. I imagine it would be a statue of John Cornell and Paul Hogan, but perhaps there are better sets of mates, like Burke and Wills (though that ended badly) or Bennelong and Phillip.

Notes

  • Disneyland, California is used as the example here, obviously different parks have some differences in their land, embeddedness, and so on.