Sydney is experiencing growth at a rapid rate and with that comes significant challenges for city planners. One of the most pressing and heated issues is around the traffic, especially following the disastrous opening of the much-hyped Rozelle interchange. Its left some wondering what the Sydney of the future will look like.
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00:00 It's a picturesque harbourside city, with billions of dollars being spent building the
00:12 Sydney of tomorrow.
00:13 But driving around it today can feel like being on a road to nowhere.
00:20 Sydney is a very challenging city for transport planning.
00:23 We have this beautiful harbour in the middle, but that's also making it very difficult to
00:26 transport people from every side.
00:30 The Roselle interchange is the final stage of the WestConnex Road project connecting
00:34 Sydney's west and CBD.
00:37 But its opening caused commuter chaos, especially for those living on top of it.
00:42 It was a hot mess.
00:44 The subway went from being pretty easy to get around.
00:47 As soon as it opened, it was just complete gridlock.
00:51 To be brutally honest, I just didn't use it.
00:53 I didn't use my car for a couple of weeks.
00:55 I caught the ferry to the city, to North Sydney, and if I had the bus, just to avoid getting
01:00 involved in it.
01:02 He hopes the traffic woes improve because he can see the wider benefits.
01:07 I can go from here to Campbelltown, two sets of lights.
01:10 So I think that's pretty impressive.
01:12 It's cut down a lot of lights, but as I said, it is a bit costly.
01:16 The government blamed the gridlock on teething problems.
01:18 But as traffic again increases after a summer reprieve, some worry it's the result of design
01:24 flaws.
01:25 You can already tell now that people are starting to ramp up work that the traffic is getting
01:29 a lot heavier, the congestion is getting a lot worse.
01:32 It's really just a shambles.
01:34 Australia's a driving nation.
01:36 And while Sydney-siders are more likely than other city dwellers to ditch their cars, Professor
01:41 Mikael Bleimer reckons Sydney's at a crucial crossroads.
01:45 Do we want to live in a car-oriented city and we have lots of traffic in front of our
01:49 street?
01:50 Or would we like to live in a city with lots of parks, cycling ways, and we use mainly
01:54 public transport?
01:56 To do that, the city will need more higher density living and more public transport.
02:01 This last decade where we've built so many urban tollways and very large motorways, I
02:06 think we now need to turn a corner on that.
02:09 We need to say no more.
02:11 What we need to do now is focus on the rail and public transport networks and I think
02:15 getting much better at operating regional rail networks that are interacting with the
02:20 metropolitan rail network.
02:22 When you think things are going to get better and they just get steadily worse, it does
02:25 make you second guess if this is the lifestyle that you want.
02:28 Big questions for a city that's just getting bigger.
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