On Greater Sydney's 40-Year Plan
On a Sunday (yes a Sunday, now that is odd) the Greater Sydney Commission and Transport for NSW both released draft 40 year plans:
TfNSW: Future Transport 2056, and the State Infrastructure Strategy.
Since I am under contract to neither organization, I am free to give a review of the documents. I have comments prepared on the idea of the Three-City plan (dislike) and have something in the hopper on the 30-minute city (like), but am not clear whether it realisable.
The Draft Greater Sydney Region Plan is a gorgeous document, it is well-laid out, and pleasing to read. The Transport for NSW plan is much draftier, and appears to have been rushed. On the assumption that this is not staff's fault, but rather that it was grabbed from their reluctant hands by political higher-ups who wanted a joint release, and who correctly assume that no one (i.e. only internationally-originating transport planning professors) actually reads plans, I will not pick on them for their unreadiness. The Sunday release is perhaps a tell in this regard.
My first blush comments about some remaining aspects of the Greater Sydney Region 40-year Plan are below (with the caveats that I have read the document once, have not read the previous documents, and am new to the country).
It is great to see the coordination between the agencies, and at least the idea that the transport and land use planning should be in sync.
The plan writes "Importantly, infrastructure will be sequenced to support growth and delivered concurrently with new homes and jobs." This is good planning practice, and it is important that timing as well as end-state is considered. Whether this is well-executed remains another matter. As they say, time will tell.
In general, most of the GSC plans seems reasonable and hard to disagree with, if somewhat vague in many cases. For instance. "Strategy 8.1 consider cultural diversity in strategic planning and engagement." OK, I've considered it, now what should I do with it?
It is a 40-year plan (Well a "40-year vision and 20-year plan"). Infrastructure lasts a long time, we want to make sure we take sound, long-term decisions. Now I like the future and all, and even think visioning is a good idea, as is preserving options, but 40 years is a long time, even in something as slow moving as transport networks.
The Chronologically-Aware might note that it is already 2017, not 2016, and it is a 40 year plan for 2056. Let us not be bound by petty calendars, this is planning time. Also since it is already 2017, and it won't be adopted for at least some time, it might wind up being a 38-year plan.
Think back to 1976, it was before the internet or mobile telephony (or even wireless phones), before widespread Cable TV or the VCR, before Personal Computers even (it was the year Apple was founded). How much of a 1976 plan's prediction of life today would be correct?
I'd suggest very little of the difference between 1976 and the present would have been accurately estimated by most people, or even most planners, or futurists, in 1976. Certainly we imagine that road projects that were funded in 1976 were realised soon thereafter. And much hasn't changed.
To borrow from Sting (1983, i.e. 34 years ago): People still face a
rush hour hell
packed like lemmings in shiny metal boxes,
contestants in a suicidal race,
'... shouting above the din of their Rice Krispies,' living their lives of quiet desperation. Other aspects are far different. Far fewer factories 'belch filth into the sky' as least in the developed countries. Far fewer workplaces are 'hindered by picket lines,' as the power of labour has withered. Far fewer businessmen have their own secretaries. We don't have flying cars. We do have 280 characters.
Still, plans (or visions) can shape growth patterns, even if the forecasts of life are terribly inaccurate. Plans I am most familiar with, the New Town Plan of Columbia, Maryland (where I grew up) and the Wedges and Corridors plan of Montgomery County (where I worked for 5 years) both gave form to, and continue to shape their communities. Columbia was expected to be completed (built out with 100,000 residents) within 15 years (in fact, it was closer to 35 years, and the Town Center area still is not finished, 50 years on).
The Interstate Highway System of course was an important shaper of development patterns across the US, and enabled the rise of just-in-time production, among other things. It was expected to be done in 16 years (1972, from 1956), but wasn't really essentially done until 1982, and officially done a decade later.
Laying a street network, like the Manhattan Grid, is a largely irreversible process, as evidenced by the lack of change in the street grid even after catastrophic events like the London fire or San Francisco Earthquake.
The expectation of the plan is that Greater Sydney grows to 8 million over 40 years. Demographics are among the easiest things to forecast for long time periods, as people age and migrate slowly. At current rates, I don't doubt the estimate of 8 million. This however depends on an open immigration policy, which I am not sure traditional Australia will continue to support.
I don't see any discussion of an intercity High-Speed Rail or Very Fast Train. Yet clearly the transport agencies are considering this and making provision for it. Certainly the notion of HSR remains vague, and the details missing, but this is a 40-year plan.
Aspects of funding made me happy to read, even if they were hedged:
"explore and, where appropriate, trial opportunities to share value created by the planning process and infrastructure investment (such as rail) to assist funding infrastructure" ... Land Value Capture ! p. 31
"investigate the potential of further user charging to support infrastructure delivery" ... Road Pricing ! (though "charging" users only shows up on 3 pages) p.31
Movement and Places Framework. Source: TfNSW and GSC
The technological tsunami about to hit surface transport is acknowledged, but not dealt with. The word "autonomous" (as in Autonomous vehicles) shows up on 5 pages. Not enough thought is given to this, given the timeframe.
The Movement and Place framework (p. 39) is good, and highly reminiscent of the Hierarchy of Roads. I like the more detailed and nuanced design from Transport for London better, (TfL's 9 cells vs. GSC/TfNSW's 4), but there is an argument for simplicity.
On education, the document says: "The NSW Government will spend $4.2 billion over the next four years on school buildings, which it estimates will create 32,000 more
Streets types matrix from Transport for London looking at tradeoff of Movement and Place. http://content.tfl.gov.uk/street-types-matrix.pdf
student places and 1,500 new classrooms."
This is $131,250 per student! This is $2.8M per classroom. This seems a lot, even for Sydney. (p. 40) I sure hope some of this maintenance, not just capacity expansion.
The term "Accessibility" shows up on 14 pages. This is good, and the word seems to be used correctly. This is consistent with the idea of the 30-minute city.
Under "Directions for Sustainability" (p. 122) It is great they are using metrics. I take issue with some of them ...
"An efficient city Metric: Number of precincts with low carbon initiatives ... A resilient city Metric: Number of local government areas undertaking resilience planning"
Honestly, these specific ones are terrible metrics. Particularly the first one. Just measure (or estimate) the carbon emissions, not the number of "initiatives". Compare with the tree canopy "Metric: Proportional increase in Greater Sydney covered by urban tree canopy", which looks at the actual amount of tree coverage. Resilience is admittedly trickier to assess.
Constructing a plan is hard (in a political sense of finding something that enough people will agree to that is more than pablum, writing down a coherent set of strong ideas is actually not that difficult at this stage in history, with so many go ideas to draw from). I applaud the effort, and think it is better than the alternative. But it could be better still, and that is the reason for discussion and comment.