The SMH today carries an article with Treasury’s quantification of toll relief at a staggering $95 billion. Just to be clear because big numbers can sometimes overwhelm us, that’s:
- four times what we are spending on 3 new metro lines over the next 4 years,
- enough to fund all the cancelled and curtailed Metro projects AND fund the Transit White Paper recommendations (20 minute bus intervals, a dozen new B-Lines….). You would even have some spare change to find the Gonski public school share that NSW should be paying per student but isn’t – and won’t until 2030.
- $95 billion is $95,000 million additional dollars that would be spent on motorists, just to reduce their existing tolls, compared to the measly $60 million Get Active Fund (0.6%) for all new council alternatives for walking and cycling, including getting kids to school.
So perhaps, is now the time to rethink? As we proposed in our submission to Professor Fels’ Independent Toll Review, there are a number of better investments the Government could make many while achieving their stated goals of cost of living relief for Western Sydney and even toll relief such as:
- Offering people a transport subsidy (like a tax credit) that could be applied to tolls, or public transport costs, or even buying a bike
- offering people better alternatives to driving, like frequent public transport. This would align with the recommendation of the Transit White Paper and final report, as well as the Governments own Net Zero Act ambitions (as Transport will be the largest emitting sector in the near future)
- Investing in the Sydney Strategic Cycleway Corridors to offer high quality cycle alternatives long distance
- Funding more jobs and schools in local centres so people could walk to their local centre rather than driving for hours east. For example the Governments TOD and low-mid rise policies do nothing to improve local jobs or walkable schools in Western Sydney.
Really, though, as with our multi billion dollar road building schemes to date, and Audit Office / INSW / Treasury / Parliamentary Inquiry comments on their repeated failures, one has to ask at what point does the Government realise that spending even more money on roads is not a sound financial investment? Or are we more likely to see the Minister announcing another billion dollar widening for Victoria Road next, because the Lyons Road’s lights are now ‘chockers’ and congestion is causing tail backs to Lane Cove – all the while in denial that it was the last road widening that preceded it that caused this latest bottleneck, and will cause the next…. Just wait for the Western Harbour Tunnel and Warringah Freeway Upgrade to open…
Also, why (while we are on the point) did we have to find out from SMH, as the result of a GIPA request (that TfNSW charges you to answer)? Surely, after 2 years of thinking about this, and obtaining these kinds of estimates, the Government should have had a frank conversation about the cost of this pledge with the community, even perhaps admitting a rethink might be a smart idea? Perhaps around Budget Time?
Could we have one now?
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