New Hope for Newcastle?

It's a little hard to immediately know what to make of O'Farrell's plans to remove from service part of the Newcastle train line.

On one hand, for a government that has made all sorts of commitments to build infrastructure and, in particular, train lines, the decision would seem an odd one. The government is planning to spend billions and billions building the North-West Rail link just so that people don't have to get buses any more.

So why on earth are they eliminating that part of the line? Have a look at this map:

Full size map here

You can see the rail line running along the Northern part of the CBD, just the other side of Hunter St.

The plan is to truncate the line at Wickham and have commuters hop on a bus to get into the CBD:

There has been a great deal of writing recently about Hunter St and the attempts to revitalise it. There is a great document here that speaks about the problems the street has at the moment and the plans to fix it.

The short-term plans include beauties like this:

Renew Newcastle as is brilliant new initiative:

But they are both short-term solutions.

One of the biggest problems in the Newcastle CBD, in short, is that there is a great big bloody rail line in the way.

True it is that Sydney copes with a great big massive train station in the middle of it. The difference is that in the main commercial section of Sydney the train lines are hidden underground - Central Station is actually a fair way outside the main commercial centre.  Town Hall and the other City Circle stations deliver most people to their jobs in the CBD.

CBD is under the "A", Central Station bottom middle, blue squares all underground stations except for Circular  Quay at the top.

Moreover, Sydney has more room to move - as the map shows, the Newcastle CBD is in what must now seem like a pretty dumb spot, hemmed in by water as it is.

The ideal solution would be to rebuild the line and the station underground - but I think it is safe to assume that the cost is well beyond what the government can possibly justify (or, for that matter, afford).

In recent years multiple developments have been stymied because developers claimed that the train line was in the way.

A few days ago the ABC reported these plans for the area:

Presumably the idea is that the new crossings will greatly assist the flow of cars and pedestrians around the city. It may be the case that developers will now be able to build closer to the train line, opening up new opportunities.

Naturally enough, Robertson has jumped all over the plan to rip up the line. Yesterday he caught a train from Maitland to Wickenham, and then a bus to Newcastle. Presumably his point was "How impossible is THIS?", the fact that he was quite easily accomplishing the task being an unimportant detail.

Full story from the ABC

What he may have forgotten (or not realised?) is that Labor once had a plan to tear up the line. It had the enthusiastic support of Michael Costa, then Minister for the Hunter and the Independent Mayor of Newcastle John Tate.

Unsurprisingly, the plan was shelved in 2006 by Morris Iemma after the predictable public outrage, notwithstanding independent reports that supported the change.

It's obvious why the locals in Newcastle may not like the idea. If they are travelling into the CBD for work, this will lengthen their trip.

I'll leave it for others to speculate as to whether it will actually have a positive effect on the Newcastle CBD itself. If it means that the area is opened up, traffic can move around more easily and new and exciting developments can go ahead, then it may be a good idea.

The fact that the Coalition will be expecting to still win easily in 2015 also means that the project will likely not be cancelled due to short-term fears of imminent defeat.

Whether they will be able to get the Novocastrians on board remains to be seen.

Opal of a Good Result

I've been spending some time recently thinking about how the Coalition is going to try and portray itself at the next state election in 2015.

I'm sure they would have loved to have shown a clean record of ethical conduct, to be weighed up against Obeid, Tripodi et al - but given the trouble the government had already had on that front it may be too much to ask for.

Photo from the SMH

That said, old perceptions die deep.

The one comparison that is likely to still be available, however, is that of building things.

True it is that Labor did build infrastructure while in power. The problem for them is that just about all the significant projects actually built were toll-roads that didn't require any investment from the government.

Those roads are important, and I'm not suggesting they shouldn't have been built. I'm also not suggesting that toll-roads should not be tolerated.

What I am saying is that Labor's expensive toll-roads that seem perpetually choked with traffic will not compare well to the Coalition is investing cold hard cash in the rail network - something that Labor constantly promised to do but never did.

One of the ads I have in mind is a collection of cuts from news conferences of the (various) Labor Premiers announcing the North-West Rail Link.

In case you've forgotten:

1998 - Bob Carr announces a link between Epping and Castle Hill. Completed by 2010

2001 - Plans to build the line shelved indefinitely.

2002 - Transport Minister Carl Scully releases report detailing possible route

2005 - Metropolitan Rail Expansion Plan announced. Projected completion date 2017

2008 - Plans for North West Metro announced by Nathan Rees. Plan would run line all the way to the CBD

2008 - Plan revised to CBD Metro, running between Rozelle and Centrol

2008 - Plans announced to extend the CBD Metro to the original North West Metro stations once built

2008 - Metro plans indefinitely deferred.

2010 - Kristina Keneally cancels North West Metro and announced North West Rail Link. Construction to commence in 2017.

Labor left government in 2011, 13 years after having first announced the line, having not turned a single sod  on a train line to the fastest growing area in Sydney.

The last clip in the ad would be a bunch of construction workers actually making things happen on the line, probably with O'Farrell standing in front of it is his hi-vis gear looking pleased with himself.

The other major transport project that the Coalition has the chance to get right is the Opal Card - probably the only project that Labor spent just about its entire time in power getting wrong.

To get a ticketing project so wrong that you can spend 16 years in power and leave with absolutely nothing of value done is a real achievement - but that is exactly what Labor did.

The Coalition - well, on the weekend this happened:

Full story in the Tele

I'll be taking another look at the Opal Card in more detail later this week, which is when I understand the ticket prices and some other information will be released.

But let's be clear - people have long memories for governments that promise and don't deliver. The Opal Card and the North West Rail Link are the two most obvious ways in which the Coalition can sow up a long, long time in office.

A Driving Ambition?

The criticism of O'Farrell's draft 20-year Master Plan has been almost universal.

It's surprising, and a little unfair, but not unexpected.

The people at the Terrorgraph have continued their campaign to paint O'Farrell as being a dithering planner rather than the bold doer they would rather write about.

Full editorial here

That criticism is not without basis. O'Farrell has showed himself to be quick to plan and slow to do.

Other papers have focused on the lack of confirmed funding for plans. Whilst the projects highlighted in the plan are categorised as being short, medium or long-term, there is no specific information as to how the projects will be paid for.

Precisely how the state of the budget in 2020 is meant to be predicted accurately enough to say that a project will be paid for in a certain way is beyond me.

That said, the plan is still only a draft - we won't get the final version until later this year. Plus, it's a PLAN - not a budget.

O'Farrell does deserve credit for planning in this way. An oft-repeated and richly deserved criticism of Labor's history of transport planning is that it was all "back-of-the-envelope" stuff - plans announced and then dropped before you knew it.

If ever an area of public policy required forward planning, it is transport. It is appropriate and commendable that these steps are being taken.

The problem for O'Farrell is that the public is restless for more action.

Full story on the Herald Sun site

That's not all O'Farrell's fault - he is being forced to carry the can for the failings of his predecessors. People are all out of patience.

He's snookered in because he came to power talking big about infrastructure and transport - but his budget just doesn't have the space.

These projects are going to be hugely, massively expensive - and he is committed to starting the North-West Rail link soon. This all in the face of a shrinking tax base and the exploding cost of the public service.

When the retrospectives are being written, no one is going to remember whether announced funding at this time, or the number of plans released.

What will be remembered is whether O'Farrell, like the Labor Premiers before him, announced then shelved plans, never once showing the citizen an ounce of respect.

Did he deliver on his promises? That's the question that matters.

PS Memo to John Robertson: No, you can't criticise yet. Give it a decade.

A Promise he won't Forget

Politicians break promises all the time.

Big ones, small ones, implied ones, core and non-core promises - they all get broken.

Some get broken because circumstances change. Some get broken because they are no longer feasible. Still others are broken because the person or party who made them knows that no one really cares whether it is kept or not.

Some broken promises have little or no consequence, and certainly no negative result for a government.

Core and non-core promises. Photo from here

Others can have such long-reaching consequences that the very sanity of the person breaking it has to be questioned.

Sometimes this is undeserved. Perhaps the original promise has been mischaracterised, or the perhaps media's narrative makes the promise into a defining characteristic of a politician when it had no business being any such thing.

The obvious example is Gillard and the Carbon Tax. No matter what she achieves for the rest of her time as Prime Minister, whether that be for another 18 months or 18 years, it seems likely that the title of her biographies will involve a none-too-subtle pun on the Carbon Tax. It was a single, stupid sentence on a breakfast TV show at the end of a gruelling campaign, but it has coloured the entire country's perception of her.

O'Farrell has broken a heap promises in his time, and Labor has tried to convince the public that he has broken a whole lot more.

Many of those promises are so inconsequential that he would be almost crazy not to break them.

Others are big, but don't seem to have gained much traction to date.

This most recent effort, however, is a true whopper.  And, worst of all (at least for him) there is going to be an ever present reminder of what a dumb decision he has made.

He may want to be the infrastructure premier, but if he goes about it like this then all the pain of finding money to build this network is going to be for naught.

O'Farrell campaigned hard on the North West Rail Link (NWRL) during the election. And he was right to do so - the present arrangements (tollways, large numbers of buses, constantly shifting bus-lanes, seemingly ever-present road work) is, and always was, at best a stop-gap. Heavy rail to the North-West was the only solution that was going to satisfy the new residents pouring into the area.

Just one of the hundreds of articles on the topic. Original story here

As late as yesterday, the promise that there would be direct services to the city was still on the a NSW government website promoting the line. Unsurprisingly, Penny Sharpe, Shadow Minister for Transport, had one of her minions quickly grab a screenshot before it disappeared

Today, the offending paragraph is missing

This new plan is going to make no one happy. And while it is being built, and every day it exists until the new harbour crossing is built in about 2089 (or so) it will remind the population about a promise broken.

The map at present

The original plan was for the NWRL to join up with the network at Epping (top middle), head down the new line to Chatswood (top right), and then into the city. That was the only way it could work financially - I don't think anyone was seriously suggesting that the line should connect any nearer to the city - the price-tag was already eye watering, and connecting closer to the city would increase the cost several times over.

The obvious problem that raises is that the North Shore line is a crowded one - and one where capacity cannot be increased much more. For safety reasons, there is a limit on how many trains can head across the Harbour Bridge in an hour - and we are pretty much already at that limit.

In other words, for every NWRL heading across the bridge during peak hour, a North Shore service would need to be cancelled.

Now, that problem can be partially alleviated by the fact that many people who would usually get a North Shore Service from a station south of Chatswood could hop on a NWRL service.

But, as I type this blogpost sitting on a North Shore train, I can assure you that many, many people get on North Shore trains well north of Chatswood.

Moreover, under current population planning for Sydney, councils have had to find space for new residents.  At least on the North Shore, they have been finding that space by cramming apartments blocks in and around the train line. As those block are completed, even more people are going to be heading to the station to get to work.

This is not a new problem. It has been plainly obvious ever since the line was announced.

Presumably the O'Farrell government decided that it was all too hard. We haven't yet heard accusations of O'Farrell favouring the residents of his seat (a seat which covers just about every North Shore Line station north of Chatswood, but it surely won't be long.

So what is the government's new plan? The NWRL will simply be a shuttle running between Rouse Hill and Epping.

It's an awful plan. First of all, this may deal with the problem of having to squeeze the NWRL services over the bridge - but how does O'Farrell think these people are going to get to the city? They will need to hop onto a train heading to the city via Chatswood. More services will HAVE to be put on to deal with the extra passengers.

True it is that the new plan includes a new line a few km east of the North Shore line to scoop up some areas not presently served, and plans for the much needed new harbour crossing. But these plans are over a decade in the future. Construction of the NWRL will begin during this term. Heaven knows how many terms it will taken for this new harbour crossing to move off the plans into the real world.

Photo by @sarethebear, the ABC's new NSW politics reporter

Of all the options available to O'Farrell, short of cancelling the NWRL altogether, it appears to be worst one possible.

But there can be no doubt - none whatsoever - that this broken promise is going to be one that that he is never allowed to forget. Whether he'll be forced to regret it will probably depend on whether his opponents can lift their game and make some criticism stick.

Linking up?

There are some topics that, one would have thought, NSW Labor would be wise to avoid.

Abscence makes the heart grow fonder, and there can be no doubt that the voters will soon become more cynical about the Coalition, and less more favourably disposed towards O'Farrell.

How long it takes for the public to attain the required level of cynicism will depend on the topic.  Wages and conditions for public servants will alwys be a hot topic - after all, the Coalition is a government drawn from the right, and they are practically expected to hurt the public service.  And so they have.

On other issues, however, the left should be slower to throw stones. And there is no issue that Labor should be quicker to retreat from than Infrastructure spending.

The Labor government achieved very little in the way of infratstructure during its time in government.  True, a number of large road projects were built - but they were funded by private companies, resulting in heavy tolls - and not tolls carefully calibrated to encourage commuters onto puiblic transport, but rather heavy tolls calibrated to deliver the maximum return to the private companies.

When it comes to public transport, the Labor can point only to the Airport Link and the Chatswood-Epping Rail-link.

The Airport link is not nearly as impressive as one might suppose.  It was sorely needed (indeed, the only surprise is that it wasn't built before) - but it was funded by the private the sector, meaning that the cost to use it is so high that, even from outer parts of Sydney, it is often cheaper to use a cab.

The Chatswood-Epping Rail Link is great - until you consider that it was meant to be the Parramatta-Chatswood Rail-Link, until budget blow-outs and general incompetence meant that it was shortened and still, incredibly, managed to come in well over budget.

Parramatta-Epping is the dotted link - the solid line had already been built

So Labor has no right to throw any stones.

And yet:

During the last election, a commitment from Labor magically appeared - NSW would spend $500 million and the Federal Government would contribute $2 billion to link Epping to Parramatta.

This was an obscenely cynical promise. By the point that the promise was made, Labor knew that they had no chance of winning. They also knew that O'Farrell has committed to the North-West Rail-Link - an extremely expensive but equally necessary project. Pennies would need to be pinched.

Moreover, the Parramatta Epping Link was now Labor's idea - and if O'Farrell decided to fund it then it would be "Labor's idea" - and all credit for the plan would evapourate.

What Labor's promise really meant was that the Parramatta link would never be built - or, at the very least, it would slip well down the priority list. Like I said, cynical.

This is what press releases like this from Labor are meant to achieve. It is meant to damage O'Farrell for not doing something that Labor would relentlessly hammer him for doing.

Does it work? Probably. But far less than it would if Labor actually had a good record of building the infrastrusture that the press release talks about.

The problem is that of course Labor has no such record - and the public remembers that Labor squibbed on building that link in the first place.  It seems pretty unlikely that an attack on the Coalition for not building is going to do anything other than remind the public about Labor's (many) failings.

Penny Sharpe (who I generally like and respect) might be better advised to find a credible basis to attack O'Farrell. Because this infrastructure line sure ain't much chop.

A Promise from the Heart I

It's now almost a year since NSW went to the polls and unceremoniously dumped out the Labor government.


Much of the talk since then has been about the things that the Coalition changed that they never mentioned - the pay and conditions for the public service being the most obvious example.


Given that O'Farrell made as few promises as possible before the election (hence the whole blank cheque argument) there are perhaps less promises that the O'Farrell government can be held to.


You might also remember this document that purported to the 100 promises that O'Farrell had broken - I wrote about what a joke that document was here.

What I thought might be fairer would be to have a look at some of the bigger promises that O'Farrell did make and assess how he has gone in relation to those.


I'm going to start today with Transport and get to other issues as and when my schedule allows.


Transport


I've written at length about O'Farrell's ambition to the "Infrastructure Premier".  It's a noble aim - there can be no doubt that there is a major infrastructure backlog in this state, and we need O'Farrell to do something about it.


Having said that, infrastructure costs money.  Labor's solution was Public-Private Partnerships, which just generally were a bit of a disaster.


The big ticket item was always the North West Rail Link. What did he promise?

From this story

Progress?

From this ABC story

Can't argue this that, although I suppose the "promise" hasn't really fallen due yet. O'Farrell knows that if he was to break this promise then all hell would break loose, and he would be tarred with the same brush the Labor government was.

What else?

From this Crikey story

The Roads and Transport Authority and NSW Maritime have been combined in the Roads and Maritime Authority - whether it actually achieves anything remains to be seen.

The T card dispute has been settled, and in September it was announced that the integrated card would be called "Opal".

Part of the Press Release

Of course, choosing a name is a nothing step - commuters are going to want to see progress. This piece (written in February of this year) suggests that the Coalition has indicated a late 2012 roll-out - if so, this will be an outstanding development, given that the T-Card was first announced in 1996 and was perhaps one of the best and most infamous examples of Labor's incompetence.

The Coalition promised to create Infrastructure NSW - this has happened, and Nick Greiner has been (controversially) appointed Chairman.  

It remains to be seen how much concrete benefit the organisation can deliver.  Their website promises a 20-Year State Infrastructure Strategy in September of this year, which will no doubt prove interesting. 

The Hunter Infrastructure Board was given a surprising level of prominence in O'Farrell's "Contract".

Done.

Whilst I will always push for more public transport, we do need to have a functional road system.  Of course, a very large percentage of voters couldn't care less about trains and busses - they just want to see better roads.

This from the RTA website:

So?  On the whole, big tick for O'Farrell on Infrastructure promises. That said, to date most of the decisions have been cheap, easy ones - the real test will be the commitment to retain the funding when budgets get tight.

More later.

TGIF (tomorrow)

This has not been a good week for the Coalition.

The new government has had more than its fair share of politically tricky issues in its first year (many of them of their own making).

In many cases these problems have been single large issues - often a large structural change or the implementation of a (at least, in their eyes) necessary but inevitably unpopular change.

In many ways these larger issues can be handled as they are easily anticipated.  This is why many of them have been introduced in the government's first year - they hope that memories will fade by the next election, and they're probably right.

This week has been different though.  Put simply, there has been a sudden spate of pretty obvious stuff-ups of various sorts, and Labor is making a lot of hay with it.

The NSW Labor website has a very handy collection of "News", and their items posted there really do tell the story of the Coalition's week.

Monday was about planning.  Before the election O'Farrell made a big song and dance about returning planning control to councils, and immediately on being sworn in the hated Part 3A was repealed.

The thing is, there are some developments that should be controlled by the state - major developments that are too big for councils.  Almost everyone acknowleges this - the issue is where that bar is set.

At this stage it seems unclear exactly what the Coalition has done or is intending to do - but whatever the precise change is, there will be a political cost to be paid.

It is hard to say whether O'Farrell was foolish to over-promise on this issue.  He knew that ALL control could not be returned to councils - if he had qualified his statements before the election, isn't it more likely that the qualification would have been lost in the media reporting, and therefore would not have lost him any votes?

Having said that, no amount of qualification before the election would have spared O'Farrell a slap from Labor when the issue arose, so perhaps he was better placed to simply do it early and take his lumps when it came up.

In any event, the headline generate by the Labor website was this:

The bigger issue on Monday, however, was about disabled kids.  And it's hard to comprehend just how such an easily anticipated problem was not avoided, especially when it presented such a easy opportunity for Labor.

The Labor press release is here. In short, bus contracts were not orgnised and signed in time, meaning that disabled kids could not get to and from school on the first day.

When it was revealed on Tuesday that a quick thinking Labor MLA wrote to the Minister a week earlier to alert him to the issue, the Coalition really had no excuse.

Without sounding crass, this story really had everything. It's about transport (always a sensitive issue).  It's about not just kids, but disabled kids.  It made the Coalition look disorganised and incompetent.

This is the kind of screw-up that starts to taint a government.  Put simply, this is the kind of thing the public expected from Labor, and the Coalition will not like being tarred with that same brush.

The drama continued through the week as it was revealed how long the Coalition had known about the issue and then will calls from Labor for Minister to resign.

Wednesday was mostly about the carers allowance.

Carers are a horribly undervalued sector of society.  Most people have a great deal of respect for the work they do, not least of all because it is an incredibly difficult and challenging job that no one else will do.

Foster carers get an allowance from the government to cover the cost of caring for the kids.  The suggested change was that, once a child is over 16 and in receipt of youth allowance, the carer's allowance would be reduced by the same amount.

One a purely accounting basis, it makes sense.  On a political basis, it is stupid.

Labor called it an attack on carers, and whilst that may be hyperbole, one has to wonder what the government thought would happen.

Most incredibly, according to this SMH article, that there are only 1000 or so families affected.  This means that the government let itself get tarred with "doesn't care about foster carers" for what, in the scheme of things, is a pretty small sum.

Moreover, after the week the Coalition has had, Labor has every excuse to lead off with this:

When you include the cutting of funding to vision impaired and the Fair Work Australia decision, the week was thoroughly Labor's.

As I said earlier, this kind of politics is all to easy for an even vaguely competent opposition.  And the more stories like this there are, the more the idea of a mean, selfish and uncaring government sets in.

The Coalition is already going to struggle to dispel that idea, being a centre-right party.  They don't need to make it easy for the opposition.

But that's exactly what they did this week.  They'll want to stop.

A Wider View

Public Transport has to be among the highest priorities for a state government.  For a government in a state where public transport has been neglected and designed on the back of an envelope for so long, the need is even more pressing.

It is appropriate that the O'Farrell be pressured to keep its public transport promises.

But that doesn't mean that no new roads should be built under any circumstances.

Certainly when it comes to chosing between a road project and public transport project, it would be tough to convince me that the road project is a better option.

Photo from here

Road projects typically begat more traffic, and frequently result in no net reduction in travelling times.  NSW's long history of road project shows how often that is the case.

Having said that, there is a place for the Public Private Partnerships that the Labor government was so enamoured with.  Many of the roads we now have were built at little or no cost to the public purse, meaning that the government had funds available to spend on public transport.


The fact that, for the most part, they failed to do so is a separate issue.  PPP's are, in principle, a good idea. User pays to drive, which seems like an eminently sensible way to give commuters the option they often need, but also encourage public transport for those who are able.

Cross-City Tunnel - an adject (financial) failure.  Map from here

The problem in NSW was the repeated failure of companies who engaged in these PPP's. Why they failed is a bit beyond the ambit of this post, but suffice to say it must be difficult to convince a company to engage in a new partnership when the last few infrastructure partnerships with this government have been such abject failures for the private sectors.

Map from the RMS website

The M5 is operated by Interlink. Interlink has a contract allowing it to collect tolls until 2023, upon which ownership will revert to the state.

The road is 2 lanes for most of its length.  Labor negotiated at length with Interlink to widen the road to 3 lanes, but it appears that agreement was never reached.

As part of the election campaign, O'Farrell promised that the road would be widened, and he has now signed a contract the deliver on that promise.

The original plan had been that the toll collection period be extended by 4 years.

Labor had, during the campaign, criticised that option, saying that it was $680 million (tolls of $170 million per year times 4 years) in exchange for a project that would cost $350 million.  Of course, that ignored the obvious fact that it was $680 million 13 years from now in exchange for $350 million worth now, which any first year actuarial student will tell you is a very different proposition.

In any event, agreement has now been reached on the following terms:
- tolls collection period extended for 3 years
- truck toll to increase from 2.5 times to car toll to 3 times
- the government to contribute $50 million in noise abatement

Usually, widenings like this only achieve something if they occur at the bottle neck. I almost never drive on the M5, and don't think I have ever done so in peak hour, but I understand that the main bottle-neck is at the M5 tunnel.

This article suggests that a duplication of the tunnel would be enormously expensive - some $4 billion. With the other promises that O'Farrell has to fund, that would seem to be thoroughly beyond the government's means.

The tunnel entrance. Photo from here

However, O'Farrell claims that 60% of the road users get off before the tunnel, meaning that these users will get considerable relief once the work is done.

That would seem to be consistent with a traffic study that suggests that the widening will decrease the rate at which traffic levels build up on the road.

At the end of the day, this deal appears to cost the government very little, and may actually result in a significant benefit to many drivers. True, in the fullness of time traffic will expand to fill this new space - but user pays means that this new traffic will provide significant income to the government once the tolls are removed in 2026.

There is one final thing to be said - the Cashback scheme.  This is amongst the dumbest ideas a NSW government has ever had.  Private vehicles who use the M5 are entitled to claim back their tolls.  Why?  It's hard to say.

Now that Cashback is in operation there is no way that O'Farrell could "sell" a proposal to remove it. That's roughly $100 million per year that could be far, far better spent.

But I suppose that's the kind of thing we've come to expect.

Faring Pretty Well

Public transport fares are a difficult issue for any government.


It goes without saying that it would be great if there were no fares and public transport was subsidised 100% - no doubt there are many people who take that view.


The problem is of course government's limited resources - when there are only so many dollars to go around, it makes sense that the people using public transport chip in.


How much should that contribution be?  As of right now, NSW train passengers (just to take an example) pay approximately 25% of the cost.  In other words, 75% of the cost of running CityRail is covered by government funding.

Taken from Prices and Services Report

For some people, fares are far too high, so they don't use public transport.  For others (like me) the fares are low enough that we would happily pay a fair bit more before we were tempted to jump into a car.


Early 2010, we were introduced to the MyMulti ticket. The most generous MyMulti ticket allows you to travel anywhere you could get to without a countrylink (the area bounded by Newcastle, Dungog, Scone, Lithgow, Richmond, Goulburn, Bomaderry and Bondi Junction) as well as unlimited bus and ferry.


As of June 2010, a MyMulti3 cost $2280 for a yearly pass.


The strange thing is this - a yearly ticket from Gosford to Wynyard is still available to be purchased for $2464.

Before the election, O'Farrell promised to reduce fare prices for CityRail services.  The table provided (and still available on the Liberal website) promised savings of $100 on all yearly tickets, regardless of the original price.

There would be the same reduction for persons buying MyMulti tickets.


Today Gladys Berejiklian announced tickets would be falling by 9% (see this table)


The cut applies to all monthly, quarterly and yearly tickets, but not to individual tickets or, crucially, weekly or fortnightly tickets.


These cuts are well in excess of the cuts promised during the election.


I don't have any stats on this, but anecdotally it seems to me that, as a percentage of total trips, not many trips are made on individual tickets.


But, judging from the queues every monday morning, a lot of people travel on weekly and fortnightly tickets.


Last year Labor introduced fortnightly tickets in an attempt to reduce the number of people queuing on monday mornings, which made a lot of sense. That said, the tickets somewhat inexplicably did not give any discount compared to buying a weekly (in the way that discounts are given for monthly, quarterly and yearly tickets).


What the changes announced today effectively do is increase the discount for a monthly, quarterly or yearly purchase.


So, what discount is allowed at the moment?  I'm going to assume that most people buying these tickets are commuters, and are therefore travelling between the same two stations five days a week.


Using the example of Gosford to Wynyard, we can see the following:


Return: $15.60
Weekly (7 days, so 5 workdays): $56, or a 28.2% discount
Monthly (28 days, so 20 workdays): $224, or a 28.2% discount
Quarterly (90 days, so approx 65 work days): $616, or a 39.3% discount
Yearly (365 days, so approx 260 work days): $2 464, or a 39.3% discount


As you can see in the table released today, the additional discounts apply to the monthly, quarterly and yearly tickets only.


The new price structure works out as follows:


Return: $15.60
Weekly (7 days, so 5 workdays): $56, or a 28.2% discount
Monthly (28 days, so 20 workdays): $204, or a 34.6% discount
Quarterly (90 days, so approx 65 work days): $560, or a 44.8% discount
Yearly (365 days, so approx 260 work days): $2 240, or a 44.8% discount


The My Multi tickets will fall in price as well, but only by the amounts promised during the campaign - $9 for a monthly, $25 for a quarterly and $100 for a yearly.


A yearly MyMutli3 will therefore cost $2 180 (still cheaper than a Gosford to Wynyard yearly).


I guess my thoughts are this: first of all, kudos on the Liberals for overdelivering.  It's not often we see that a party over-deliver after a win, and it is not often that we see fares reduced outside of an election year, so they deserve credit for that.


That said, one would have thought that the massive budget black-hole would prevent any such generosity, but perhaps I'm too cynical.


Secondly, why are people still able to buy yearly tickets between two stations in situations where it would be cheaper to buy MyMulti3 tickets? I don't know whether CityRail have a policy of suggesting the MyMulti tickets were it is in fact cheaper, but I would have though that to do so would only be fair.


What I'm really interested in though is whether these changes well directed.  We certainly should be encouraging more people to buy monthly, quartly and yearly tickets, because the cost to CityRail is less (staffing at windows, servicing of machines etc) - but if a 39% discount wasn't enough to convince you to commit, is 45% going to be?


Is this discount just throwing money away for a good headline - or will it actually have an appreciable effect on consumer behaviour? Or is it just meant to be a recognition of sorts that monthly, quarterly and yearly ticket prices are generally too high?


A lot of people still buy weekly tickets for all sorts of reasons - perhaps they might be planning on changing jobs, or locations, or perhaps they are not sure when they might take a week or two of leave.


Perhaps others don't have sufficient funds available to "pre-pay" for the travel to such a degree, even though in the long run it works out cheaper.


I'm certainly not complaining - I'm a yearly ticket buyer, so that is $100 extra in my pocket next year.  I just hope that this move is being done for more than a positive headline.

Another Late Train

Public transport remains one of the biggest issues for the O'Farrell government.


There are a number of problema that they, as the incoming government, have been lumped with.


Decades of under-investment (predating the Labor government) have left public transport networks that lag behind the road system that we now have.


The transportation system has been described as shambolic, abysmal and even (with disturbing frequency) "third world" which is surely proof that the writer in question has never actually been to any third world country.


Of course there is massive room for improvement - but the base we have is not a poor one.


The obvious missing feature, however, is integrated ticketing.


Sydney's "T-card" was meant to be in use by the Olympics. The Olympics! The year 2000! That was the year we got the GST; the year we learnt the Y2K bug was a fizzer; and the year that the Airport Link opened.


THAT'S how long ago it was.


Since then, it has been delay after delay.


Nothing typifies the problem better than these little beauties (picture from this website).


I don't know how many stations have had these "things" erected, but anecdotally it appears to be a very large number.


A couple of years ago they appeared almost overnight.


For a while there was confusion as to their intended purpose. Eventually it was revealed that they were to be used to mount the machines that would read the T-cards and record the commuter's travel.


I have no idea what they cost to install, but given it was a government contract, and given the materials involved, it certainly would not have been a small amount.


These things have never been used. They still sit at stations unadorned - a constant reminder of the governments failure to actually accomplish anything.


Unsurprisingly, the Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian has announced today that Labor's timeline for imlementation of the T-card is wholly unrealistic, and that testing is unlikely to begin by 2014.


No doubt this is at least in part an exercise in lowering expectations so that any progress whatsoever can be a brilliant example of just how wonderful it is to have a Coaltion government, and another reason to give them 4 more years.


But, unavoidably, it means further delays and excuses.


The strangest thing is that the excuse that has been repeatedly proferred for the delays is that the pricing structure is the issue.


This seems plainly ridiculous, as pricing is probably the easiest thing of all for the government to amend. Just change the price. How hard is that?


The MyMulti system is an obvious example of how easy it is.


I have a ticket that gives me unlimited travel on any bus, train or ferry across the network. At train stations and ferry wharves I put it through the machines. On busses I flash it at the driver, not that they seem particularly fussed anyway.


I happen to know that CityRail records every use that multiple use tickets get (as long as, of course, the ticket is used in a machine).


So why is integrated ticketing such a massive step? How can it have taken so long?


A few responses spring to mind: constant inter-departmental bickering and buck-passing. A lack of political will. A tightfisted government only willing to spend money on things that will improve that sacred statistic, "on-time running".


Barry O'Farrell has declared his intention to be the man that "fixed" NSW public transport. That is why he has put one of his "most trusted" colleagues in charge of this vital area.


It will cost money, and will require recources, and political will. But if it is done, and done well, he can take a big first step to making an efficient and expanded public transportation system a part of his legacy.


It seems like there could not be a better place to start.

Training for the Future

The issue of train fares is an odd one. I'm not certain of the timing, but I think it was late last year that Keneally announced that train fares would be frozen - no fare rises in 2011.  This is not an original tactic - multiple previous premiers have done so in the lead-up to elections.  It is painfully transparent, but apparently effective.

Labor have also detailed on their website that under their Fairness for Families Act (see my comment thereon here: http://bit.ly/ezmkWU) that all further fare rises would be tied to CPI increases.

O'Farrell announced today that the Coalition would be reducing fare for persons who buy monthly, quarterly or yearly tickets.  As someone who buys a yearly ticket once a year, this certainly has appeal to me - O'Farrell says that commuters such as me could save as much as $108 per year.  When you consider that a yearly MyMulti3 ticket costs $2280, that's a pretty good deal.

At its centre is the issue is the level of contribution that a train user should make towards their travel.  At present, the contribution from the government hovers around the 70% mark (see page 9 of this report: http://bit.ly/dS1f8k)

There can be little doubt that people using public transport is good for the community.  It reduces pressure on the roads, reduces the travel-related environmental impact, and means that less roads need to be built to handle the public's transportation needs.

More people on trains and busses is, I think most people would agree, good for everyone.

On one hand, on that basis it could be said that public transport should be free, or at least as cheap as it possible to ensure that as many people as possible use public transport.

There are two problems with that - first of all,  CityRail needs funds to operate, and in the absence of further funding from the state government, CityRail needs that income from fares.  Further, if fares are reduced there will be additional pressure placed on the train system that will result in further costs incurred.

Lower train fares are good, but they will inevitably result in further costs to the state.  The state budget is, it would appear, constantly pressed, and it doesn't appear that further expenditure is available.

The question I ask is - should it be?

Earlier on today I retweeted a tweet from Jo Tovey that linked to Labor's 1998 transport plan.  It listed shockingly large number of plans and projects that have, for the most part, not proceeded.

Public transport funding is, for reasons passing understanding, shockingly transient.  

The fact is that an cut to fares (or even a fare freeze) will inevitably lead to a larger number of people relying on public transport.  Whilst this is an undoubted good, it requires further expenditure.  Not only day to day expenditure, but ongoing capital investment.

The more people that use train lines, the sooner that further capital expenditure will be required. 

It appears, from my vantage-point, that this cash is simply not available, or at least it is horribly difficult to come by.

It's a sad state of affairs.  Sydney (and, for that matter, NSW) needs further expenditure on public transport, both capital and recurring.  But expenditure begats further expenditure - and the blow-outs in other areas of state expenditure make this all a very difficult balancing exercise.

Add the fact that it is a devastatingly sensitive political issue, and you have a situation where an area of public policy that is incredibly important to the NSW society is also a hot-button political issue,  And we all know what kind of public policy this inevitably leads to.

The result?  Both parties engaging in the illusion of action.  O'Farrell has committed to a number of capital projects, which is good.  Time will tell whether he is a promiser or a doer.

But public transport needs to be a public expenditure priority.  For the last 16 years it has been the first item to get cut as soon as pressures build on the budget, as they inevitably do.  If the further of NSW is to be protected, we need a government that is not afraid to invest in public transport.  Otherwise we risk become one groaning, smog-choked metropolis that is hopelessly reliant on cars for transport. And surely that is a future nobody wants.