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

Amenity
All three options reallocate road priorities and provide greater certainty for
road users travelling along Market Street.
The difference comes in how the priorities are provided.
All three options would prioritise traffic turning from Market Street into
York Street. However by including a dedicated slip lane, ‘option a’ and
‘option c’ remove the conflict of having a dual-purpose through and leftlane
as provided under ‘option b’. This would benefit road users by
providing greater certainty and removing conflict.
‘Option b’ would maintain pedestrian capacity as it would require the least
kerb adjustment and footpath width reduction. This would benefit
pedestrians along Market Street. However, the associated footpath widths
in Market Street are typically wider than many other locations in the city
centre. As such, by reducing the footpath widths under ‘option a’ and
‘option c’ it would not have a notable impact on pedestrian capacity as the
remaining space would be sufficient to accommodate the footfall in
the area. Consequently, the benefit to road users from having the
dedicated slip lane could be achieved without negatively impacting
pedestrian capacity.
Kerbside
use
There would be some amenity impact under all the options; however the
wider footpath along Market Street would mean that the impacts of any of
the options would not be notable or significant. As such, all options would
benefit road users with little amenity impact.
‘Option c’ would require additional kerbside restrictions and footpath width
losses to install an additional level of capacity that would not benefit the
surrounding roads. People and businesses that rely upon and use these
kerbside allocations would therefore be impacted more under this option
than ‘option a’ or ‘option b’.
Business
impacts
Summary
‘Option a’ and ‘option b’ would generally allow some level of timerestricted
parking and loading to be retained along Market Street and they
would therefore benefit those businesses and people who rely on these
kerbside uses.
‘Option a’ and ‘option b’ would take less time to construct than ‘option c’
due to their reduced scope of work. The benefit would be the reduced
disruption to traffic entering and leaving the city. Also, there would be less
amenity impact on the streetscape of the road corridor during construction
under ‘option a’ and ‘option b’. This would benefit people who use the
outdoor dining areas and businesses that rely on passing trade.
Pedestrians, road users and businesses would be impacted for longer
under ‘option c’ due to its longer construction program, making it the least
beneficial option in this regard.
In summary, only a limited amount of traffic capacity needs introducing
along Market Street as there are other capacity constraints preventing its
use. Consequently, this makes ‘option c’ least favourable compared to the
other two options. ‘Option A’ and ‘option b’ provide similar outcomes;
however ‘option a’ provides better through capacity, with the main aim to
improve Market Street. This would have the greatest benefit for road
users. Whilst both ‘option a’ and ‘option b’ would achieve the proposal
objectives, ‘option a’ provides a better outcome overall as it would remove
conflict, would not introduce redundant capacity, would have a shorter
construction program and would only have a minor impact on amenity and
pedestrian capacity due to the wider footpath widths along Market Street.
Sydney City Centre Capacity Improvement 38
Review of Environmental Factors