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

8.1.2 Long-term impacts and benefits
Section 6.16 also identifies that there would be few anticipated long-term impacts
and a number of wider benefits to the city centre over the coming years. The impacts
would include an overall net reduction in the use of kerbside allocation at certain
times during the day. This would most-affect those businesses and individuals that
rely on the affected kerbside allocations. However notably, Transport for NSW in
collaboration with City of Sydney Council, 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.
The other key long-term effect of the proposal would be the resulting change to the
layout and configuration of certain roads and intersections. The part-time or full-time
introduction of additional traffic lanes would permanently change the character of
certain streets and intersections; the most notable effect of which would be
reductions in footpath widths and kerb extensions. This would increase the
dominance of traffic within the road corridor, which would have a minor effect on
each street’s amenity and streetscape character.
8.1.3 Summary
The proposal offers a mechanism to help enable the Access Strategy and the
associated reallocation and reprioritisation of traffic and transport demands within the
city centre. The proposal would achieve this by introducing traffic capacity
improvements on some of the city’s most congested roads and critical intersections.
The proposal is expected to achieve its objectives, but would result in certain
temporary environmental and social impacts during construction that can be
effectively safeguarded and managed. Over the long-term, the proposal’s predicted
impacts would alter the characteristics of certain city streets. However the scale of
these impacts would not outweigh the traffic, transport and access benefits of the
proposal and the broader Access Strategy that would be enabled by the proposal.
8.2 Objects of the EP&A Act
Part 1(5) of EP&A Act describes a number of ‘objects’ (objectives). They encourage
eight outcomes as described in the Table 8-1. The table also comments on the
proposal’s consistency with these objects.
Table 8-1
Proposal’s achievement of the EP&A Act objects
Object
5(a)(i) To encourage the
proper management,
development and
conservation of natural
and artificial resources,
including agricultural
land, natural areas,
forests, minerals, water,
cities, towns and villages
for the purpose of
promoting the social and
economic welfare of the
community and a better
Comment
This object describes how environmental and social
resources and values can be best used and preserved for
the community now and in the future. In the case of the
proposal, it would achieve the objective of supporting the
Access Strategy, which specifically focuses on promoting,
managing and developing the city’s transport infrastructure
in a sustainable manner over the coming years in light of
changing traffic demands, travel patterns and an anticipated
increase in the number of trips made into the city by 2031
(refer to section 2.1). The proposal is described under the
Access Strategy as needed to support the traffic and
transport changes that would occur by introducing a number
of projects, including the closure of part of George Street to
Sydney City Centre Capacity Improvement 463
Review of Environmental Factors