Welcome to this special edition of The Warren Centre’s e-bulletin, published to celebrate receiving the Bradfield Award for Engineering Excellence at the recent Engineers Australia (EA) NSW Engineering Excellence Awards. The Sustainable Transport in Sustainable Cities team members now have a Gold Logie to their credit as well as a growing list of tangible outcomes!  The Centre's thanks and congratulations are extended to all concerned.

This e-bulletin gives a very short description of each of the 13 reports produced by the project and provides links to each executive summary. Individual technical papers and their abstracts are at http://document-delivery.ucc.usyd.edu.au/warren_centre/.

Towards a City of Cities (the final and summary report)

There are five pillars to delivering a future where all Greater Sydney’s residents have an improved quality of life through better access to employment, education, recreation and social opportunities etc with less impact on the triple bottom line, provided we start now and stick with it for generations:

1. Develop Sydney’s City of Cities structure
2. Send the right pricing signals and broaden the transport funding base
3. Support the economic, social and cultural growth of the Cities within Greater Sydney (this is where transport is directly addressed)
4. Engage the community in the entire process
5. Remove the legislative and administrative barriers to change

The Way We Live

This report documents the state of Sydney’s transport systems at the end of the 20th Century and identifies the issues to be addressed by the project.

Community Values Research Report

This report summarises the lessons learnt from an extensive resident survey and reveals that Greater Sydney’s residents have a deep and passionate interest in major issues affecting their city. However they perceive a lack of effective overall longterm planning for the city.

Healthy Transport, Healthy People

This report investigates the link between transport and physical activity and between physical activity and health. Lack of physical activity is reputed to be the second greatest contributor to years lost to life! Get active in your transport choice now!

Changing Travel Behaviour

This report investigates proven ways of changing community behaviour and argues that to achieve the vision we must change our travel behaviour.

Transport Pricing: more than just a tax

Effective sustainable transport needs reform of pricing and funding. Current transport pricing does not encourage sustainable behaviour. The report discusses a range of options and concludes that Transparency and hypothecation are the keys to public acceptance.

A City of Cities

The best way to achieve the vision is to reduce the need to travel. This can be achieved by transforming Sydney into a City of six Cities.

Reforming through Informing

If you are not measuring it, you cannot manage it. This report looks at trends in, projections of, and a vision for, the transport task in the future. It looks at the impact on the environment and draws conclusions on the measurements that must be made and how to make them.

Why Travel

Focusing on the ‘means’ (mobility) rather than the ‘end’ (access) has led to sub-optimal outcomes for Sydney’s citizens for decades. If we improve access, then we can avoid the need to travel. This report presents a range of strategies to reduce the need to travel, as well as recommendations on how to manage travel demand.

Moving People

Unless current travel trends are reversed traffic will increase by 50 per cent over the next two decades. This report addresses the need to develop a comprehensive integrated multi-modal mass transport network and discusses ways to manage travel demand, highlights emerging technology and discusses the future of the motorcar.

Freight: The Forgotten Task

Freight is an essential and significant element of our economy. However, freight is an invisible service — there are no votes in freight. Establishing sustainable strategies to manage Sydney’s freight task is an integral part of creating a sustainable transport system and a sustainable city.

Flying: Planes and Trains

To achieve a sustainable city we must provide acceptable alternatives to many domestic air travel trips and reduce the negative environmental impacts of airports. A Very High Speed Train (VHST) would complement Sydney’s existing public transport system and, when combined with appropriate feeders, would have a significant impact on car use.

Removing the Barriers

This report argues that governments must work with the community to remove barriers to change created by existing legislation, regulations and organisational structure.

SPECIAL NOTE:

While the Sustainable Transport in Sustainable Cities project reports necessarily focus on Sydney, Sydney was simply a case study to develop a methodology that can be applied to any growing major city. The process is already being applied in Melbourne and in New Zealand and inquiries have been received from around the world.

This is what our press release following the awards said:

In a testament to the complexity of modern life, it is fitting that an award named after the man who single-handedly had the greatest influence on Sydney’s form and function as we know it today, John Job Crew Bradfield, was awarded to the vision for Sydney created by 200 of Australia’s leading urban planners, developers and transport professionals.

Engineers Australia also sponsored the recently released Infrastructure Scorecard, in which NSW infrastructure scored poorly. Now, as a pointer to the way forward they have endorsed the vision of a future where all Greater Sydney’s residents have an improved quality of life through better access to employment, education, recreation and social opportunities etc with less impact on the triple bottom line.

Ken Dobinson, the Project’s director said “People said Bradfield was too radical, but look at his legacy. We must have the resolve to leave a similar legacy for future generations.”

What a relief to see engineers saluting a multi-dimensional project that was as much about social issues and embracing change as it was about technology!

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Sydney’s Engineering Heritage
Sydney University Engineering Alumni Lecture Program: 2003
Various Sydney locations
6.30pm - 8.30pm Mondays from 13 October to 17 November: 6 meetings
Information and registration: Click here.

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Sponsorship/Advertising
To obtain more information about sponsoring this e- bulletin, please contact Mr Robert Mitchell, Chief Operating Officer, on (02) 9351 4048 or r.mitchell@eng.usyd.edu.au

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