Dear Councilor,
We are a facing traffic menace that seems to get no respite from frequent traffic snarls. Local residents in the Canterbury Bankstown region are unanimously groaning under the weight of the chaotic traffic management of some of Sydney’s busiest and well known roads and without a kinetic and curated strategy the quandary will continue to choke our city.
Average travel times for commuting trips by both car and public transport for Greater Western Sydney residents are on a daily basis longer than for the rest of Sydney. With a constant foot on the brake, commuters are finding it hard to keep moving . In recent findings by the Department of transport, the average commuting time of residents within this region has crawled to an intolerable 34 minutes one way only to be further delayed in ravaging weather conditions.
With the transport system unravelling everywhere, projections on other vital fronts are further cause for pessimism. Not surprisingly, public transport's decline is counterbalanced by growth in car ownership and increased saturation of traffic volumes on the city's packed roads. This limited choice for intra- regional travel and the lack of key public transport linkages to employment opportunities, facilities and services exacerbates the existing traffic dilemma.
The State Government had hoped its Metropolitan Strategy would guide the city's growth. Instead, the strategy has become a lightning rod for all sorts of dissidents all yearning for a new direction. Little attention has been given to how the intended direction of these reforms – especially the pursuit of efficiency, effectiveness and community engagement through strategic and corporate planning – interacts with frameworks for political and community governance.
The current academic, and to some extent, political focus in Australia appears to be moving away from how to accommodate more people on roads, to instead focusing on congestion pricing - in essence, how to get fewer vehicles on roads in peak periods by pricing them off the road.
This would inevitably result in those who have no option other than to start work before 9:30am, paying extra fees and charges for using the roads. Clearly this is something that needs to be considered before contemplating any form of road user pricing.
Integrating a more realistic proposal would be of more benefit to Inner West residents. A need to foster a new generation of thinking is required.
A change in management philosophy is required to actively manage the motorways and to ensure they are operated as a network. We need to get away from the prevailing attitude that once a road is built, it will pretty much look after itself. Consider recruiting external motorway management expertise to help demonstrate what is possible, achieve the required change in the way motorways are managed and make a positive difference to motorists travel.
Adopt implicit performance measures for freeways and toll roads, as well as for key arterial roads.
Undertake much more thorough traffic data collection and analysis to get much more intelligence on how the motorways are operating both historically and in real time, proactively use this data to identify issues, implement an effective response and to advise motorists.
In addition adopt a maximum target time for clearing major incidents on key regional roads such as King Georges , Canterbury, Punchbowl, Parramatta as well as the M5 Freeway and sub-main roads that lead of these main avenues.
In a dense and active city that is rich with mobility options, there will be as much car traffic as the city chooses to make room for. Through countless private readjustments, so long as there is an abundant grid of alternate paths into which traffic can disperse, and other modes, such as public transit, to which it can convert, and other times of day to which it can shift its travel.
A belief I strongly support, that there is an obligation on policy makers to provide efficient transport services and establish options for reducing main line traffic that the community need and have requested for many years needs imminent addressing. Failure to invest significantly will have dire consequences, social, economic and environmental.
The traffic congestion has paralysed our roads and has rained havoc amongst local residents who are fed up with the situation.
In rendering this issue I pose one question to you , will you be taking the driver’s seat or the back seat?

www.snarl.com.au/incidents/suburb/nsw/bankstown‎
m.livetraffic.rta.nsw.gov.au/Camera.aspx?r=d2e1865‎