Action for Public Transport (N.S.W.) Inc.

Action for Public Transport is a transport consumer group, operating around Sydney. Our funds derive almost entirely from membership fees. Our members are users and beneficiaries of public transport.

We submit as follows:

1. A report prepared for the former federal government has been extensively quoted in today's (17 Feb 2014) Daily Telegraph under the title "Sydney workers rail against gridlock". It makes very clear that Sydney residents want effective action taken on transport infrastructure.

2. WestConnex, although politically attractive, is not an effective use of money to clear congestion. No credible business case has been given for building it. Well-placed critics include Michael Deegan - see Infrastructure Australia's submission on the Infrastructure Australia Amendment Bill 2013 where he says:

   "With rising infrastructure expectations and limited budgets, there is an air of unreality about our infrastructure planning. As Infrastructure Australia has noted in its reports to the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), there is a profound mismatch between our need for improved infrastructure and our willingness to pay.
   "Promises are made with only limited regard for funding these commitments. This is a particular problem during election periods where commitments are often made although robust business cases have not been prepared, let alone independently reviewed. Recent examples include the WestConnex road project in Sydney and the East West Road link in Melbourne. Both major political parties are guilty.
   "The consequence is cynicism about the justification for such big-ticket projects, combined with little perspective on the overall infrastructure backlog and little appreciation of its scale - or the cost of overcoming that backlog."

   The submission can be downloaded from http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Rural_and_Regional_Affairs_and_Transport/Infrastructure_Australia_Amendment_Bill_2013.

3. WestConnex does itself no favours by exaggerated claims of its benefits on its website. The most blatant exaggeration is perhaps the claim on http://www.westconnex.com.au/about/key_benefits.html that 9 new light rail stations is a benefit of WestConnex. As residents of the area know well, the rail stations are all but complete and should be in service within a month, years before the construction of WestConnex.

4. Turning to the "M4 East Motorway Concept Design" brochure of November 2013 we again find blatant bias, this time in the form of ignoring disbenefits. There is no mention of the inevitable induced traffic, and what effect that will have on the approach roads to the M4East. Many of those approaches will suffer increased congestion from the induced traffic or will need to be widened or upgraded. Who will pay for that? Are these costs included in the $11 billion cost of WestConnex?

5. There can be no doubt that, by the time Sydney's population is 9 million, we will need many freight roads. However, there has been no suggestion anywhere that WestConnex is to be groomed for that and certainly no discussion of how Sydney's car drivers can be persuaded to accept freight priority. There should be such a discussion, presumably followed by a long planned campaign of educating private motorists.