Cities can get stuck in their own history. This is a story of how Sydney broke out of their stuck history and created some “greatness”.
In April 2004, I was announced as the first Sustainability Commissioner in Sydney (part-time) and given an immediate task to help with the growth plan for Sydney. I had spoken at a Sydney Town Hall event with a young Malcolm Turnbull a few weeks before on why rail was having a comeback world-wide. The crowd, packed to the rafters, were stomping in response as Sydney was stuck in traffic.
Craig Knowles, as Minister for Planning, had picked up on a growing movement to look again at how urban growth was managed and had brought in another West Australian, Evan Jones, to help unstick the model being used for planning. Knowles said on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Previous attempts at Sydney’s growth have been little more than a developer’s street directory’.
The turning point was a Forum on 18-19 May 2004 when I was asked to assess ‘world best practice’ on the new Land Release areas that linked the city to the north. It was a scary event as I could see that in all the criteria and studies done that everything was ‘good to very good’ – water, biodiversity, housing diversity, waste management… – except transport.
What would the 600 people say, from agencies, local governments, politicians, when I stood up and said buses would not cut it for the two corridors being developed? The Minister had told me to say my bit as an independent assessor of what his agencies had produced about ‘world best practice’. But this crowd was not the Sydney Town Hall.
I did it. The Minister immediately responded and said publicly ‘what is wrong with Transport?’ They had not done their job as they had been stuck in the bus lobby rhetoric and thought that is what the Minister wanted to hear.
Within two weeks they came back with a new proposal which we then called the Global Arc Rail. It would join the two corridors going to the north east and the north west and could be a separate, fast service.
Cabinet endorsed it immediately.
It took a while and still has some way to go but the first stage of the Metro seems to be transformative with huge numbers choosing to leave their cars behind. The Transport Minister at the opening said ‘The Sydney Metro confirms that we are a great global city’.
Unsticking the city can lead to greatness.
