sydney-city-centre-review-of-environmental-factors

Cars, buses and other vehicles
Over the past ten years the number of people travelling into the city centre by car has
plateaued at around 47,000. Whilst this accounts for seven per cent of the journeys
made into the city each day, cars make up 87 per cent of vehicles on the road during
the morning peak period 2 . This compares to the eight per cent taken up by buses and
the remaining five per cent that are taken up by trucks and cyclists.
Cars represent 35 per cent of people travelling into the city centre and buses move
about 60 per cent of people.
Taxis and commercial vehicles also compete for the limited street space. The timely
movement of commercial traffic is critical to supporting the city centre’s economy.
Light commercial vehicles represent 95 per cent of weekday commercial vehicle
movements in the city centre, with about 29 per cent of commercial light traffic
movements occurring during the morning and afternoon peak periods (Transport for
NSW, 2013).
Many of the city centre’s streets have allocated part or all of the kerbside to various
uses including taxi bays and zones, loading zones (delivery and service vehicles),
mobility parking, authorised vehicle zones (including mail zones, emergency
services, works zones), other authorised parking zones (consulates, car share,
coaches, city-centre residents) and general on-street parking (private vehicles and
motorcycles). The kerbside allocations are typically time-restricted during peak
periods in favour of using this space to prioritise traffic movements across the road
network, through creating kerbside ‘no stopping’ provisions. Transport for NSW is in
the process of developing a kerbside allocation strategy that will manage and
prioritise the changes that need to occur within the city centre to deliver the Access
Strategy. This strategy will set a hierarchy for kerbside allocations in the city centre
and will cover the various uses listed above, including taxi zones, loading zones,
mobility parking, other authorised parking and general on-street parking.
Many of the roads within the city centre also provide access to off-street parking and
other basement provisions such as basement loading areas.
City centre road network and intersection performance
As a consequence of the high volumes of traffic that use the city centre road network
during the morning and evening peak periods, the existing road network is at or
above capacity. At many locations in the city:
Traffic demand exceeds capacity resulting in long delays
Vehicle queues extend to and through adjacent intersections dramatically
reducing capacity and efficiency at these locations and overall network
efficiency as a result of further cascading effects.
Further details are provided below.
Table 6-3 shows the level of service, queue lengths and maximum degree of
saturation (DoS) (performance indicators) at each intersection that would be
improved under the proposal based on data presented in Appendix C. The results
considered the performance of each individual intersection in isolation.
2 Including taxis
Sydney City Centre Capacity Improvement 172
Review of Environmental Factors