The draft NSW Long Term Transport Master Plan, running to about 140000 words, which was released on 4 September has many flaws. Some of these problems have already received comment in the main-stream media.
The problems include:
The draft professes support for a hierarchy of suburban centres yet also wants radial motorways expanded. Motorways generally bypass dense centres and therefore weaken them.
The draft has much to say about the Opal smartcard integrated ticketing scheme for public transport but does not mention integrated fares which must come first. Interestingly, the February discussion paper does not make this error.
Generally, the draft is not a plan but rather a large amount of verbiage written in defence of a number of decisions which were made last year.
