These are not great metrics, but are useful heuristics – including for verifying and comparing claims of density and network length metrics per council (a pertinent topic!) with deterministic, open source calculations on human-verified consensus-based data (OpenStreetMap – which I contribute to almost daily).

A better metric, perhaps the most important, is cycling access using safe streets and cycleways – and one I am deeply passionate about. Affordable homes where people want to live need safe access to destinations people want to visit (without burning oil). Measuring this metric is important – almost as important as increasing it.

UrbanSpectra is open to work for evaluating, modelling, visualising and communicating urban data – and has an exciting product in development. If your private or public organisation is looking for rigorous analysis or tools using such data, or is interested in an early demo of this product – get in touch!

UrbanSpectra‘s capability statement is published at urbanspectra.com/capability-statement/

The post Updates to Australian Cycleway Stats first appeared on Jake Coppinger.

I’m pleased to share the completion of a recent commercial engagement with the Heart Foundation: the Community Walkability Map, a new interactive tool designed to help communities understand and advocate for more walkable, healthier neighbourhoods.

Table of contents

About the Project

The Heart Foundation has a longstanding commitment to environments that support heart health, physical activity, and healthy living. As part of this mission, they commissioned a user-friendly platform that visualises pedestrian access to everyday destinations – empowering residents, advocates, and planners alike to identify opportunities for improvement in the built environment.

The map allows users to drop a pin anywhere in Australia and visualise accessible destinations within 5, 10, 15, and 20-minute walk catchments. These walkability catchments are not based solely on distance – they account for real-world walking conditions including path connectivity, barriers such as highways, and signal timing delays.

This map is now a central feature of the Heart Foundation’s Community Walkability website, which also includes community checklists, fact sheets, planning guides, and a Supporters’ Toolkit for professionals in the built environment sector.

A Data-Driven Tool for Policy and Advocacy

A key innovation of this project is the integration of traffic signal delay-aware isochrone modelling – a methodology that highlights delays to people walking at crossings, often overlooked in conventional walking catchment calculations.

Built using open-source OpenStreetMap data, the tool translates complex urban transport data into an intuitive, map-based interface that supports both strategic communication and policy engagement.

From a technical perspective, I led all aspects of the solution design and delivery, including:

• Co-design and scoping with the Heart Foundation team
• Project management and delivery oversight, using an incremental approach with regular status updates
• Backend isochrone algorithm development, implementing signal delay estimation
• Geospatial data integration and transformation
• Serverless backend development
• Graphic design
• Frontend software engineering

The end result is a tool that blends open data, urban analytics, and visual storytelling to support healthier, more walkable communities.

Data Sources

The map’s core walkability modelling is based on OpenStreetMap (OSM) data. Where possible, users are encouraged to contribute updates to OSM or via the Mapbox contribution portal.

Additional datasets integrated under agreement with the Heart Foundation include:

• Street lighting data from Ausgrid and Citipower
• Tree canopy coverage from the NSW DPHI (CC BY 4.0)
• Traffic signal delay data from Better Intersections (ODbL licensed), supplemented with interpolation or estimated averages in data-sparse areas

Users can explore data attributions directly via the map interface and are welcome to contribute additional signal timing measurements here.

Reflections

It was a pleasure to work closely with Anna Gurnhill and the broader Heart Foundation team throughout this project. Their vision, clarity of purpose, and genuine commitment to creating healthier, more accessible communities made this a rewarding collaboration.

What’s Next?

If you have an interesting challenge in the urban analytics, planning or community consultation space and would like to collaborate – let’s chat.

You can also read more about my background, including my five years as a full-stack engineer at Atlassian, open source work and policy advocacy here. I’ll have more to share on a new commercial entity soon.

I’m looking to further explore the potential of traffic signal-aware isochrone analysis to quantify urban accessibility and support data-driven planning and placemaking initiatives.

I’m particularly interested in applying similar methodologies to cycling network analysis.

I retain ownership of the underlying IP developed in this project and am open to discussing its further application in other domains.

This blog post has been reviewed with the client before publication.

The post Introducing the Heart Foundation’s Community Walkability Map first appeared on Jake Coppinger.

Edit 2024-11-29: ChatGPT 4o’s answer when asked if the project is still going ahead:
“…In summary, while the Sydney Park Junction project is moving forward, the extent to which it will align with the original 2021 design remains uncertain. Ongoing community engagement and monitoring are essential to ensure that the project’s outcomes meet the initial commitments and community expectations.”

At 3:04:27pm on November 11th 2024, TfNSW (the state transport department) updated the Sydney Park Junction project website page. Apart from removing any mention of creating “a people-friendly place with more open areas for people” and “create dynamic community spaces”, there was only one notable addition: “The project is being delivered in stages and we will keep the community informed as the designs for the remaining stages are finalised”.

Unless you were lucky enough to get the email to selected stakeholders on the same day, you wouldn’t know that “Transport for NSW will continue to progress the final design of the Sydney Park Junction project, which includes a new cycle path connection between Sydney Park Road and the Mitchell Road cycleway” (emphasis mine). Nowhere is it mentioned – not on the project page, not in the stakeholder email, not even in the slides of the September 19 TfNSW briefing to the Roads Minister and Transport Minister’s Office – that the now overturned “Sydney Park Road scope reduction was approved by the Ministers Office” one year ago in November 2023.

TfNSW originally stated in a 5th August 2024 presentation that scope reduction of this project was required as the “project estimate exceeded the allocated budget”. What budget? The value of this budget (or the estimate) was never made public.

This cycle path connection is now back in the project scope because of community outrage. In case you missed my previous blog post (which was the first the public learned of this issue), the cycleway connection that was deleted makes up a “major design feature” (Review of Environmental Factors, PDF pg. 68) and acts on a “key consideration of the proposal” (Submissions report, PDF pg. 35) of a condition of consent (B50, B51) of a portion of the WestConnex urban motorway project – which the government sold to Transurban in transactions totalling $20.4 billion dollars in 2021 (estimated in 2018 by Dr Christopher Standen as a “financial return of 34 cents for every dollar spent” and a spend including associated works of AU$23 billion).

You would be mistaken for thinking TfNSW will implement the original September 2021 design after the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Minister Jo Haylen directed TfNSW to “abandon the reduced plan” and “Haylen’s office confirmed the upgrades would take place as the initial proposal publicly exhibited in 2021”.

However, in a 20th November briefing with the Friends of Erskineville, TfNSW would still not rule out the removal of several major aspects of the 2021 project design and requested the group share elements of the project that are “super important” or features “you want the team to consider” – suggesting not all features would be included. On the same day Jenny Leong (Greens Member for Newtown) asked a number of questions to the Minister for Transport in the NSW Parliament to clarify what is included in the scope, and by the 25th of December the public should receive these answers along with timelines and additional insights of how the project went off track (unless TfNSW manages to obfuscate the answers).

If TfNSW is this desperate to reduce the scope and cost of the project, after Clover Moore requested “the design for the Sydney Park Junction project that was exhibited in September 2021”, after two excellent Sydney Morning Herald articles, and after an intervention by the Minister for Transport, it appears evident a significant increase in active transport funding is required.

TfNSW is not short of money – for road projects at least. As Clover Moore’s 5th September letter stated TfNSW “is continuing to allocate significant funding and resources to develop the Western Distributor Road Network Improvements project, even though the safety and transport arguments justifying this project are highly questionable” – the 1950s style project that involves cutting down 71 trees and removing multiple zebra crossings and pedestrian signals to funnel even more cars into inner city streets. TfNSW also found $0.8 billion to fund an update to Elizabeth Drive (half funded by the federal government), duplicating the new M12 motorway and which TfNSW’s own traffic modelling shows is not required. Is TfNSW willing to break promises to the community on the Sydney Park Junction scope to free funding for new road projects?

How much is the $20.4bn WestConnex sale figure? While the Executive Director at Business Sydney is wondering (and Murdoch’s Daily Telegraph is publishing) “So, have we blown many millions of dollars on seldom used CBD bike lanes while forcing motor vehicles into traffic snarled narrow corridors?”, the active transport budget for the entire state of NSW was $38.5 million in 2022/2023 – 0.2% of all the total NSW transport funding over the same duration, and 0.188% of the WestConnex motorway sale figure. The UN recommends we spend 20% of transport funding on active transport. That is 100 times more than we currently do in NSW.

0.2% is so little that TfNSW denied Get NSW Active funding for over 74% of active transport projects that NSW councils requested this year (258 of 346). Our local communities are desperate for improvements in safety for pedestrians and cyclists – as tank-sized SUVs further take over our streets precariously close to vulnerable pedestrians at dangerous speeds and people attempt to follow the slivers of life-saving bike lanes (~0.8% of road network by length in Greater Sydney) so they don’t die on their trip to work (or your home with a food delivery – when I cycled through Chalmers St and Cleveland St on November 23rd 2020 as I did twice per day, fragments of the customer’s food were still remaining on the asphalt alongside pieces of crushed grey helmet. I will spare you the photo).

As per the second recommendation TfNSW made to the Minister on the 19th of September 2024 to “note the opportunities and funding requirements to improve active transport outcomes”, Minister Haylen should rightfully seek 20% of transport funding allocated towards active transport as recommended by the UN (as Ireland has done) – or at least 10% as recommended by the October 2024 Australia Institute report (as Scotland have). Such guaranteed funding would enable TfNSW to at least meet the original scope of this project, parts of which make up a condition of consent for a section of WestConnex.

Every person deserves to be (and feel) safe on every street they may walk, cycle, or dwell on – and as George Street, Pitt Street Mall and mountains of peer-reviewed evidence show, “walkable and bikeable streets are good for business”. (Title of factsheet by Committee for Sydney & AECOM, November 21st 2024).

This is my last of 8 blog posts this year. If you’d like to follow what I write (and build) in 2025, subscribe to my mailing list below.

Table of contents

Overview

The Sydney Park Junction project should be implemented as per the original September 2021 project scope. Additionally, the portion of NSW transport funding for Active Transport should be increased from 0.2% substantially to ensure situations like this do not occur again.

The following sections of this include further analysis on briefings documenting the secret scope reduction of the project in November 2023, what the current promised scope of the project is, and a timeline to try and help you make sense of it all!

Thanks very much to all the folks in active transport advocacy (especially Bicycle NSW), community groups, government (especially Clover Moore, City of Sydney and Jenny Leong MP, Greens Member for Newtown) and the media that have pushed for these improvements to be implemented in full to improve safety and connectivity for cyclists and pedestrians. I hope this analysis is a useful resource for other advocates as well as to inform the public – there hasn’t been a community update regarding the project design or scope since March 2022!

My background is in computer science and I work as a software engineer – I am not a traffic engineer and this analysis is a side project. Please let me know of any mistakes, corrections, improvements or constructive criticism in the comments below, via Mastodon, Bluesky or privately to jake@jakecoppinger.com. I have redacted the names of individual community members in letters from the community (published with permission) and if I publish any briefing minutes I will also redact the name of all staff and community members present.

Maps

Friends of Erskineville TfNSW briefing

The Friends of Erskineville (FoE) community group took up the invitation for a briefing on the project on November 20th 2024. After refusing to confirm any original project scope elements (that had been deleted in secret) would be included in the current/future project scope, TfNSW communications & project management personnel requested the group shared elements of the project that are “super important” or features they wanted the [TfNSW] team to consider.

Considering that the Sydney Morning Herald published the quote that “Haylen’s office confirmed the upgrades would take place as the initial proposal publicly exhibited in 2021” (November 10th, 2024), I believe that attempting to solicit acceptance of continued scope reduction, in private, is unacceptable.

New insights from this meeting are detailed in the scope and timeline tables below, including construction of the pop-up cycleway replacement to start from mid-December, and a community consultation (or “engagement piece”) from “early next year”.

Why did the 19th September 2024 TfNSW briefing not mention the Minister’s Office approved the scope reduction in November 2023?

As the Sydney Morning Herald reported on Oct 7th 2024 (Archive.org link), Minister Jo Haylen rightfully “directed” TfNSW to “abandon the reduced plan” for Sydney Park Junction 5 days (2 business days) after the September 19th letter Bicycle NSW addressed to Minister Haylen, which among many good points included a link to my previous blog post. This direction also took place 5 days after a TfNSW briefing to the Roads Minister and Transport Minister’s Office on active transport, speed reductions & vibrant streets – advising on “projects” where active transport has been de-scoped or reduced and why. Sydney Park Junction is one project.

All this briefing stated on historical timelines was that “Revised project scope was approved by the Minister’s Office mid-2024 with the project to be delivered in stages”. This aligns with Clover Moore’s September 5 letter: “As recently as July, the project was further reduced to remove the critical cycling connection at the western end of Sydney Park Road (connecting to King Street) between Sydney Park Road and the existing cycleway on Mitchell Road, leaving gaps in the bike network” (emphasis mine).

However, in addition to including the dot point “Revised project scope on Princes Highway including staged project delivery was approved by the Minister’s Office mid-2024”, the 5th of August TfNSW presentation also included an additional dot point: “Sydney Park Road scope reduction was approved by the Minister’s Office in November 2023”. I’m sure the Minister was busy in November 2023, but this suggests she was at least aware of the changes – at least 8 months before cycling advocacy stakeholders were notified (by omission) in the August 1st City of Sydney Cycling Advisory Meeting (in the same month construction was due to begin as recorded in the slides of this meeting), and almost 10 months before directing TfNSW to abandon the reduced scope.

By omission (again!) the September 19th briefing to the Roads Minister and Transport Minister’s Office suggested the “Sydney Park Road scope reduction” was approved in mid-2024 and not in November 2023. Perhaps this was an honest mistake or conveyed verbally – however the Lord Mayor’s September 5th letter suggests the actual timeline could have been obscured more widely, and rock bottom public trust on this project does not inspire charitable interpretations.

“As recently as July, the project was further reduced to remove the critical cycling connection at the western end of Sydney Park Road (connecting to King Street) between Sydney Park Road and the existing cycleway on Mitchell Road, leaving gaps in the bike network”

Lord Mayor’s September 5th letter

Misleading the public by announcing by omission is now known, but could TfNSW have misled ministers and councillors?

Will the new cycle path connection be built as originally designed, or perhaps destroy trees to preserve space for cars?

While “Haylen’s office confirmed the upgrades would take place as the initial proposal publicly exhibited in 2021” (SMH, Nov 10th), the Nov 11th TfNSW email states “Transport for NSW will continue to progress the final design of the Sydney Park Junction project”. Between the promise in this email that the final design “includes a new cycle path connection between Sydney Park Road and the Mitchell Road cycleway” and Nov 11th text on the project page stating “we will keep the community informed as the designs for the remaining stages are finalised”, this suggests that TfNSW is attempting to change the design further.

If the final design was (or could be) the same as publicly exhibited in 2021, it seems logical that TfNSW would simply announce this, mitigate another bruising round of community consultation (or a “community engagement piece”) early next year, avoid the cost of further design work and end this saga. Unless the original design is somehow no longer feasible to piece together under a staged delivery approach required due to already signed contracts for the pop-up replacement, we can reasonably assume the future design is intended to be a lower cost or more desirable than the original. Desirable to TfNSW that is – perhaps to preserve vehicle level of service at the Sydney Park Road to Mitchell Road intersection contrary to TfNSW Road User Space Allocation Policy.

If all the above is correct, either the SMH comments by Haylen’s office were false, or TfNSW is not following Haylen’s direction for the upgrades to “take place as the initial proposal publicly exhibited in 2021”.

Why redesign a cycleway that already received glowing feedback from Bicycle NSW? How else could you build a cycleway between Sydney Park Road and the Mitchell Road cycleway?

My concern is an alternative design would involve building it on the existing verge (ie. between the kerb and adjacent buildings), requiring the removal of mature trees, purely to preserve an extra turn lane for vehicles.

Perhaps this is paranoid, but we know TfNSW preserves road capacity for cars even when it requires narrowing of a footpath in the middle of the Sydney CBD. Stranger things have happened.

The community is likely to receive a response to this question by the 25th of December 2024 as a result of Jenny Leong (Greens Member for Newtown in the NSW Parliament) asking questions to the Minister for Transport regarding the project, which included:

(3) Can you confirm if existing road space will be reallocated for the cycleway linking Sydney Park Road and Mitchell Road, rather than using the grass verge which would require the removal of a large number of mature trees?

https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/la/papers/pages/qanda-tracking-details.aspx?pk=101985

Tree roots may hinder future development of path: WestConnex Mitchell Road Safety Audit, A18

The Mitchell Road Safety Audit (2017) includes under reference A18 that “Tree roots may hinder future development of path” (see PDF page 110 for this mention, page 111 for the map of where this applies – the entirety of the west side of Mitchell Rd). This suggests there is not sufficient space for a cycleway to be implemented within the existing curb (ie. on the grass) without removal of these trees.

TfNSW could argue planting new trees is a sufficient “offset”, however the NSW Government Biodiversity Policy states TfNSW will have only met “no net loss” if they have “avoided biodiversity impacts to the fullest extent reasonably practicable”. Such a rationalisation to the contrary would have to be published in another Review of Environmental Factors.

Environmental impact assessments including those undertaken as part of a Review of Environmental Factors (REF) and State Significant Infrastructure (SSI) projects must demonstrate the actions taken to avoid, minimise, mitigate and offset impacts on biodiversity as far as practicable.

NSW Government Biodiversity Policy (CP22004), under heading 3.1

TfNSW policy and an extra turning lane

Building the cycleway on the kerb would allow a dedicated vehicle turn lane. Implementing a dedicated turn lane could be rationalised by increasing the vehicle level of service rating, though with the plentiful queuing capacity on Sydney Park Road eastbound perhaps it could not even be rationalised in this manner.

The newly updated Road User Space Allocation Policy states “Transport must allocate road user space based on the following principles”

…
allocate road user space based on the network vision and road functions, considering all road users in order of:
1. walking (including equitable access for people of all abilities)
2. cycling (including legal micro-mobility devices)
3. public transport
4. freight and servicing
5. point to point transport
6. general traffic and on-street parking for private motorised vehicles.

TfNSW Road User Space Allocation Policy, heading 3.1 (Principles)

Under “To give effect to the principles, Transport must” … “adhere to these principles ahead of any guidance that seeks to protect or maintain private vehicle level of service”. (3.2, “Requirements”. pg 3, dot point 7)

It also includes “where reasonably practicable and feasible” that “The loss of native and amenity trees, green space and other amenities then alternative provision must be allocated in accordance with the Transport’s Biodiversity Policy” (3.2, Requirements). As discussed above, it would not be allocated in accordance if TfNSW does not avoid “biodiversity impacts to the fullest extent reasonably practicable”.

These provisions suggest that removing mature trees to protect or maintain private vehicle level of service with a dedicated turning lane is not compatible with following the Road User Space Allocation Policy – but it wouldn’t be the first time TfNSW has not followed its own (excellent) policy.

Besides – it would be extremely unpopular with locals (or users of the third-largest park in inner-city Sydney).

What’s in scope, out of scope or unclear?

Edit/note: I do not consider this table up to date.

Since September 2021, TfNSW has not publicly announced any scope changes. As per the timeline below, we may receive an announcement “early next year” (2025).

Answers to most of these questions are expected in response to Jenny Leong’s (Greens Member for Newtown in the NSW Parliament) questions to the Minister for Transport regarding the project. “Answer due on 25 December 2024”.

The Sydney Morning Herald quoted that “Haylen’s office confirmed the upgrades would take place as the initial proposal publicly exhibited in 2021”.

An unofficial timeline of the Sydney Park Junction project

Note: This table has been updated since this blog post was published with new rows, and minimal changes to existing rows.

This is accurate to the best of my knowledge. Please get in contact if you have any corrections or additions to make. Please share a link to this page rather than copying this table in case I make corrections or add new information.

Appendix

TfNSW suggested a shared path that does not meet TfNSW design standards is safe

Since the Nov 10 Sydney Morning Herald article a separated cycleway link between Mitchell Road and Sydney Park Road has been confirmed as in scope. The section and titles below outline flaws in documents rationalising the now-cancelled scope reduction of this section.

TfNSW claimed the existing shared path is safe on the slides of the 19th of September presentation to the Roads Minister and Transport Minister’s Office. They claimed:

• That the City of Sydney have raised safety concerns regarding the existing shared path
• There are currently no crash incidents since the installation of the pop-up cycleway in July 2020 along the length of the Sydney Park Road
• That there was a low volume of cyclists around the corner of Sydney Park Road and Mitchell Rd
• That a Road Safety Audit would be undertaken to confirm the permanent cycleway and connections are safe

If you read that sentence carefully, it doesn’t even specify there haven’t been any crashes on the shared path between the Sydney Park Road pop-up cycleway and Mitchell Road cycleway (though I’m not aware of any).

TfNSW’s own report states there is a high level of pedestrian and cyclist activity at Mitchell Rd / Sydney Park Rd

TfNSW’s own Sydney Park Submissions report included that:

The high pedestrian and cyclist activity at the King Street/Sydney Park Road, Princes Highway/May Street and Mitchell Road/Sydney Park Road intersections, as well as along King Street to access St Peters Station and Sydney Park, is one of the key considerations of the proposal, as noted above and discussed in Sections 3.3, 4.3.2 and 5.2.5 of Appendix C (Traffic and transport assessment) of the REF.

March 2022 Submissions report, TfNSW, PDF page 36 (emphasis mine).

The latest Mitchell Rd safety audit was before bicycles were allowed on the existing footpath

Note that in the previous safety audit of Mitchell Road was undertaken in 2017 (PDF page 110 of “WESTCONNEX NEW M5 PEDESTRIAN & BICYCLE TRANSPORT NETWORK REVIEW” by McGregor Coxall (17 May 2017)). In NSW, it is illegal to cycle on a footpath unless it is designated a shared path using a blue line or signage. This footpath only became a shared path after the 17 March 2022 City of Sydney Local Pedestrian, Cycling and Traffic Committee meeting – which included:

The proposal includes the provision of a Shared Path on the western side of Mitchell Road between Sydney Park Road and the access to Sydney Park Village, a private road. As part of future proposals to upgrade Sydney Park Road, through the King Street Gateway project, the separated cycleway in Sydney Park Road will connect to the proposed cycleway on Mitchell Road. (emphasis mine)

Item 19, “Traffic Treatment – Separated Cycleway – Mitchell Road and Huntley Street,
Alexandria”, Background PDF page 3, City of Sydney Local Pedestrian, Cycling and Traffic Committee meeting 17 March 2022.

Therefore the existing safety audit would find few bicycle / pedestrian conflicts as cycling on the path was illegal.

What would a safety audit have found if no separated cycleway connection is added?

The 1.8 metre wide concrete footpath does not meet the required width for a footpath, let alone a shared path in this busy location connecting dense residential neighbourhoods and the third-largest park in inner-city Sydney. The Walking Space Guide Summary states a “Main street footpath – Medium activity / Local footpath – High activity” with 70 or more people per hour at peak times should have a minimum target width of 3.2 metres, and an intervention trigger width of 2.2 metres.

The TfNSW “Shared Paths: Discussion of research findings and key safety issues” report (August 2015) states “The recommended minimum [shared] path width is between 2.5 and 3.0 metres“. The TfNSW Cycleway Design Toolbox (PDF page 50) states that the “desired minimum width of a shared path is 4.0m“. The Austroads “Guide to Road Design Part 6A: Paths for Walking and Cycling” (AGRD06A-17, 2017) states that 3.0m is a workable minimum in a location like this (heading A.2, Figure A2: “Shared path operation”, PDF page 90, document page 83).

If TfNSW undertook a Road Safety Audit to confirm the shared path is safe, they would find that it does not meet design guidelines.

TfNSW was proposing to evaluate the safety of an asset after designing it not to meet their own standards. Imagine designing a car not to satisfy government safety ratings but promising to “audit” that it’s safe afterwards! This would be unthinkable – and it’s only because of media pressure that the safety of pedestrians and cyclists adjacent to a state road are not subjected to this logic. It is unthinkable that TfNSW was proposing this order of activities before the Minister stepped in.

Cycling and walking count dashboard data

While a screenshot of the TfNSW Cycling and Walking Counts dashboard is shown in the 19th September slides claiming low usage of the Sydney Park Road to Mitchell Road shared path, the sidebar highlighting the site name or data timeframe appears to have been cropped out. Additionally, the “Average counts ( per site per day) panel does not appear to include a selected green site dot. The Total counts for the single monitored site specified is 4,620, analysed days is 128, and the graph shows one datapoint before the Apr 2024 dashed vertical line with a gradually decreasing trend. This means the claim of only an average of 36 cyclists per day is not easily reproducible with this dashboard.

36 cyclists per day is definitely wrong and suggests an issue with the detector (the average is closer to 150). If TfNSW knowingly presented a statistic taken during a data outage to the minister to rationalise the original scope reduction that is extremely concerning.

This screenshot must have been taken on or before the 19th of September 2024. As of the time of publishing there appear to be 2 green selected site dots positioned on the shared path corner of this intersection. One of these dots has a number of analysed days 5 more than the other. Counting back the number of analysed days on the live dashboard from the date of writing this paragraph, the first day of measurement for the oldest of these two sites seems to be May 3rd 2024 (perhaps with an off by 1 or 2 error).

This places the screenshot date of this dashboard as perhaps May 3rd + 128 days, or May 3rd + 128 + 5 days – 13th September 2024 or 18th September 2024.

The post Sydney Park Junction: TfNSW Won’t Commit to Original Scope Despite Ministerial Intervention first appeared on Jake Coppinger.

edit: Sydney Morning Herald reported Oct 7th 2024 (Archive.org link) that Minister Jo Haylen “directed” TfNSW to “abandon the reduced plan” for Sydney Park Junction. This reportedly took place 5 days after the September 19th letter Bicycle NSW addressed to Minister Haylen, which among many good points included a link to this blog post.

edit: On Nov 10th SMH published “GIPA Access Application 25T-0513 Page 3 of 15” (a slide part of a briefing on August 5th) which includes “The Sydney Park Junction project will no longer deliver an on-road cycleway connection from the proposed permanent two-way cycleway along Sydney Park Road to the existing cycleway along Mitchell Road.” (SMH article url, Archive.org url). As of 11th Nov TfNSW has still not shared this publicly. On the afternoon of Nov 11th TfNSW confirmed designs for the remaining stages are being finalised (archive.org diff). The reduced scope was never publicly shared.

edit: I’ve written a second blog post on Sydney Park Junction describing developments since this post: Sydney Park Junction: TfNSW Won’t Commit to Original Scope Despite Ministerial Intervention

Ever wondered why there are random dead ends for cycle paths in Sydney? This is a deep dive on how one particular missing link might not get fixed after more than seven years of planning. Let this be a record of how hard it is to get safe cycling intersections built in Sydney, even when the improvements are required approval conditions of a $4.3 billion portion of a motorway project (yes, international readers – Sydney is still building urban motorways this century).

On the 30th of August, Transport for NSW (TfNSW) updated the project page for the improved Sydney Park Junction, a project to “improve the safety, performance and efficiency of the Princes Highway and Sydney Park Road intersection”.

The project was mandated to include “traffic calming initiatives along Princes Highway, improvements in accessibility to Sydney Park and the provision of upgraded cycle and pedestrian facilities” as part of the approval conditions for the M8 Motorway (Westconnex).

This project included a stunning new intersection fixing the infamous missing link – the gap between the Mitchell Road cycleway to the Sydney Park Road pop-up cycleway. In 2021 Bicycle NSW commented “The project will be of enormous benefit to the community” and that “This project sets an exciting precedent for better place outcomes throughout Sydney.”

By fixing this missing link, TfNSW was also improving pedestrian safety by reducing the number of folks cycling on the narrow 1.8 metre wide footpath with blind corners, and adding a missing pedestrian crossing on Sydney Park Road. This is a main entrance to Sydney Park, with a large volume of families, kids and their pets using this thoroughfare every day.

Thanks as always to the Internet Archive, we can see exactly what text TfNSW updated on October 30th 2024:

• “We expect to start construction in mid to late 2024.” has changed to “We expect to start construction in late 2024.”
• “To keep up to date with this project and download the submissions report visit the Sydney Park Junction Portal” has changed to “To keep up to date with this project download the Submissions Report – March 2022 (PDF, 40.18 MB).”

Little does the public know, on August 1st TfNSW (the state transport department) told the City of Sydney’s Cycling Advisory Committee meeting (which I attended as a volunteer of Better Streets) that the cycleway would be implemented “replacing the full extent of the existing pop-up cycleway” – that is by omission, only part of the project was going ahead.

That a “major design feature” (Review of Environmental Factors, PDF pg. 68) or “key consideration of the proposal” (Submissions report, PDF pg. 35) could be deleted in secret, 2 years after going through community consultation, 3 years after the Review of Environmental Factors, 7 years after the initial M8 approval condition B51 concept design, and announced by omission floored everyone in the room.

A City of Sydney employee is recorded in written minutes stating the change was “breaking earlier promises to the City and the community”. Council employees also verbally stated that when designing the Mitchell Rd separated cycleway they were instructed by TfNSW to not build up to the intersection, as TfNSW would fix that gap (the City was instructed to end the cycleway where it is).

Almost a full month later, the 30th of August TfNSW project page update wilfully or negligently misled the public by omitting that the project (stated in TfNSW slides Aug 1st to begin construction in September 2024 – that is, this month!) had secret, major design changes. There has not been any community update since February 2023, and on these this particular intersection since March 2022.

After Bicycle NSW wrote to the Secretary of Transport (TfNSW) seeking direct clarification, the response was a similarly vague response of deletion by omission, with a map as confirmation.

It shouldn’t be this hard to get safe cycleway intersections built in Sydney.

Overview

• Section 1 shows current (secret) plans do not include the design in the Review of Environmental Factors for the project, and leave the option open for it to never be completed
• Section 2 explains the complex history of the shared path that TfNSW is not upgrading
• Section 3 explains that the project does not meet TfNSW policy for prioritising walking and active transport
• Section 4 guesses at why TfNSW would make these changes
• Section 5 drills into the details of the Westconnex approval conditions that mandated a separated cycleway at this intersection
• Section 6 outlines why this change and behaviour is not in line with recommendations made from the “Impact of the Rozelle Interchange” parliamentary enquiry
• Section 7 briefly looks at previously broken promises to the community regarding active transport projects as part of Westconnex
• Section 8 has more info on what you can do to advocate for the original project going ahead
• Section 9 includes photos and tables indicating safety risks of the existing infrastructure

My background is in computer science and I work as a software engineer – I am not a traffic engineer and this analysis is a side project. Please let me know of any mistakes, corrections, improvements or constructive criticism in the comments below, via Mastodon or privately to jake@jakecoppinger.com.

Thanks to the tireless advocacy of Bicycle NSW and the City of Sydney on this project and other life saving cycleway infrastructure in Sydney. I wrote this over a weekend; they’ve been tackling this for years.

Clover Moore as Lord Mayor of the City of Sydney council has been a considerably outspoken supporter of safe cycling infrastructure and other progressive urbanism even when politically inconvenient, against targeted criticism from conservative tabloid media. She has never lost any state government or council contest and is seeking reelection for a record 6th term, for which she has my full support.

1. What are the current plans?

In short – it is not publicly known, and unclear at best. Below is a timeline of letters that may suggest clues of the current plans.

On the 15th of November 2023 a community member wrote to the TfNSW Network Integration Community Engagement Team requesting an update when construction would begin. The 13th December response stated “details are still being worked out with City of Sydney and Inner West Council” and “we will issue a notification in early 2024 when we have news to share”. The community member did not receive an early 2024 notification (and still hasn’t).

On the 22nd of March 2024 (a full two years since the previous public project newsletter on the cycleway design) this community member wrote to Jo Haylen, requesting confirmation “whether this project has been canceled”. It included:

In the face of silence and inactivity, interested residents and groups have had to resort to private enquiries. The information TfNSW provides in return is scant and unreliable. For example, on 13 October 2022, the Network Integration Community Engagement Team advised me by e-mail that ‘Transport are working with the local councils on finalising the designs’. (This ‘finalising’ was now almost one-and-a-half years ago.) A further twelve months passed, when I contacted the team again. In their response (an e-mail of 13 December 2023), I was advised that ‘we will issue a notification in early 2024 when we have news to share’.

It’s exactly the type of project that TfNSW ought be proud of, and marketing loudly. Instead, nothing further has been heard.

Letter from community member to Jo Haylen, 22nd March 2024

The community member received a response from Marjorie O’Neill (Parliamentary Secretary of Transport) on the 7th of May 2024, which was shared publicly by the Friends of Erskineville organisation on Elon Musk’s X.

It includes:

I am pleased to advise that this project has not been cancelled and that Transport for NSW, the City of Sydney and Inner West Council have been working together to refine the design over the last two years. Construction on this transformative project is expected to start later this year. I also understand that a representative from Transport for NSW contacted you on 18 April 2024 and provided you with a project update.

I appreciate that it may have appeared that the project had been delayed, however, the refinement process is crucial and requires a large investment of time to ensure that the design and implementation of the project are as successful as possible.

You may be assured that once there is new information about this project, it will be shared to the community via print notification, email, Transport for NSW website updates and social media posts.

Letter (7th May 2024), Marjorie O’Neill to community member, shared publicly on X

This reference to ‘contact’ on 18th April 2024 was a phone call from TfNSW. The community member recalls the TfNSW staff member dismissing his concern about the project being canceled, then confidently stating: “I wish I could tell you more, but there will be news very, very shortly”.

As of the time of the original publication of this blog post (September 9th) or this modification to it (September 14th) there has still not been any public project update.

I received consent to publish this correspondence from the community member without their personal details.

Following the August 1st 2024 Cycling Advisory Committee meeting, Bicycle NSW wrote to Josh Murray (Secretary, Transport for NSW) on the 9th of August to seek clarification. This letter expressed disappointment with the design changes and requested evidence that Road User Space Allocation Policy had been applied for the intersection changes.

On the 5th of September, Clover Moore wrote to John Graham (Minister for Roads) and Jo Haylen (Minister for Transport). The letter to John Graham requested the project proceeds with the September 2021 design. I became aware of this letter since the initial publication of this blog post and am unaware of a response. The letter included the following clues:

The pedestrian crossing in front of Sydney Park Brick Kilns, which we are refurbishing and activating for public use, has been removed. TNSW is also retaining the slip lane into Barwon Park Road instead of removing it.

As recently as July, the project was further reduced to remove the critical cycling connection at the western end of Sydney Park Road (connecting to King Street) between Sydney Park Road and the existing cycleway on Mitchell Road, leaving gaps in the bike network. TfNSW will also not plant street trees on the south side of Sydney Park Road and have limited speed reduction to 40 km/h along Princes Highway, which will reduce safety and amenity for all road users in the area.

Letter (5th September), Clover Moore to John Graham (Minister for Roads). Letter published with permission.

TfNSW replied to Bicycle NSW in a letter on the 6th of September 2024. The letter did not directly state there was no intersection upgrade, but made it clear by omission.

Damningly, it stated:

Transport acknowledges that the existing shared path connection between the Mitchell Road cycleway and the Sydney Park Road cycleway is narrow and is investigating options to provide improved connectivity between the two on-road cycleways.

Letter: Executive Director Planning & Programs (Greater Sydney) on behalf of Secretary of Transport for NSW, “Re: Sydney Park Road cycleway”, 6 September 2024.

This investigation has already been done in 2017 in the WestConnex M8 Pedestrian and Bicycle Transport Network Review as required by the M8 approval condition B50. The result was the design as depicted in the implementation strategy (B51 as required in the M8 approval conditions) and detailed in the 2021 Sydney Park Junction Review of Environmental Factors. It is not clear from this statement (or from the rest of the letter):

• if “investigating options” is within the scope of the project
• if implementation of this investigation is part of this project

Considering the project is due to start this month, I assume not. In any case, it leaves enough ambiguity to drive a bus through.

Another peculiarity in the Secretary’s reply is the mention that the intersection of King Street
and Sydney Park Road would be “consistent with the project Review of Environmental
Factors” – that is, again by omission, the intersection of Mitchell Road and Sydney Park road would not be consistent with the Review of Environmental Factors.

The existing shared path connection does not meet TfNSW design policy (see section 3) and has numerous safety concerns (as detailed in the Appendix at the end of this post).

What else is missing? Potentially lots – the new map doesn’t have the cycleway between Mitchell Rd and Euston Rd (~270m of separated cycleway). Will the Princes Highway mid block crossing remain? Will Princes Hwy still be reduced from 6 lanes to 4? The speed limit for 60 to 40? It’s hard to trust that other aspects haven’t been removed also.

edit: Clover Moore’s 5th September letter suggests at least the Sydney Brick Kilns pedestrian crossing, western end of Sydney Park Road separated cycleway, street trees on the south side of Sydney Park Rd, and some speed limit reductions have been removed in the design.

1.1 A new pedestrian crossing has also been removed from the plan

The supplied map does not include the proposed and approved new pedestrian crossing on the west side of Mitchell Road at Sydney Park Road. This means cyclists as well as pedestrians have to navigate multiple crossings and wait multiple long traffic signal cycles just to get to their local park.

This is reminiscent of the recent TfNSW Western Distributor project that removed the pedestrian crossing at Allen St & Harris St to increase the traffic flow into the city from Anzac Bridge (and the Rozelle Interchange / Westconnex), which Bicycle NSW described as …”out of step with 21st century planning” and WalkSydney also strongly condemned.

2. Was this change brought on by a newly signposted shared path?

This is the only map I know of depicting the post-change design.

The map differentiates between current and proposed on road cycleways (purple vs dark green). It does not include any title, name, caption, date or data source, however some cutoff text is slightly visible below it.

It is unclear whether the map represents the current or future shared paths network (again, ambiguity).

It appears to depict the current network of shared paths, as could reasonably be assumed given future on road cycleways are highlighted, and that a previous paragraph references this “existing shared path connection”.

In the 19th of August 2021 the City of Sydney Local Pedestrian and Cycling Traffic Calming Committee exhibited plans for the cycleway (item 44). The engineering plans did not include shared path linemarking or signage (while they were marked in other areas and were in the map key), while the recommendation text did include “A Shared Path on the western side of Mitchell Road, between Sydney Park Road and the point 54.6 metres north of Sydney Park Road”. At this meeting the decision “This matter was deferred.” As there is no video / audio recording or more detailed minutes I’m not able to see why.

The plans were re-exhibited on the 17th of March 2022 (item 19), where plans were also missing shared path linemarking or signage and the recommendations still included a shared path on the west side, and the item received a “Recommendations Determined”.

The item comments include:

The proposal includes the provision of a Shared Path on the western side of Mitchell Road between Sydney Park Road and the access to Sydney Park Village, a private road. As part of future proposals to upgrade Sydney Park Road, through the King Street Gateway project, the separated cycleway in Sydney Park Road will connect to the proposed cycleway on Mitchell Road.

Item 19, “Traffic Treatment – Separated Cycleway – Mitchell Road and Huntley Street,
Alexandria”, Background PDF page 3, City of Sydney Local Pedestrian, Cycling and Traffic Committee meeting 17 March 2022.

This shows the City of Sydney believed that a state government project would include a future upgrade to a separated cycleway to connect the missing link.

On May 25th, 2023 I surveyed the path and recorded it on OpenStreetMap as a 1.8 metre wide concrete footpath, without R8-2 signage or a blue painted line that would permit cyclists, which would suggest the signage had not yet been installed if I did not make an error: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1050723997/history/2

On the 8th of September 2024 I noted new shared path signage present and recorded it in OpenStreetMap. It is unclear when it was installed as there has been no Google, Apple or Mapillary imagery since the cycleway or signage was installed. The sign shares a pole with “no stopping” signs, with a “May 2023” label present. There is no blue shared path line marking (which is not strictly necessary) in contrast to the blue line on the Sydney Park Road shared path segment and the east side of Mitchell Park Road.

It was not yet marked on:

• OpenStreetMap (and therefore the TfNSW Trip Planner)
• the TfNSW Cycleway Finder
• Google Maps
• Apple Maps

Could this sign have been the enabling factor of this design regression, even after the City of Sydney stated TfNSW would be upgrading the intersection in the document that permitted it?

3. The design changes are not consistent with the Walking Space Guide or mandatory Road User Space Allocation Policy

Given that the only current TfNSW commitment is “investigating options to provide improved connectivity” which does not have a required deadline (like bus lanes on Parramatta Road didn’t), it is likely future changes will be delayed for some time or indefinitely.

The 1.8 metre wide concrete footpath does not meet the required width for a footpath, let alone a shared path in this busy location connecting dense residential neighbourhoods and the third-largest park in inner-city Sydney. The Walking Space Guide Summary states a “Main street footpath – Medium activity / Local footpath – High activity” with 70 or more people per hour at peak times should have a minimum target width of 3.2 metres, and an intervention trigger width of 2.2 metres.

The TfNSW “Shared Paths: Discussion of research findings and key safety issues” report (August 2015) states “The recommended minimum [shared] path width is between 2.5 and 3.0 metres“. The TfNSW Cycleway Design Toolbox (PDF page 50) states that the “desired minimum width of a shared path is 4.0m“. The Austroads “Guide to Road Design Part 6A: Paths for Walking and Cycling” (AGRD06A-17, 2017) states that 3.0m is a workable minimum in a location like this (heading A.2, Figure A2: “Shared path operation”, PDF page 90, document page 83).

The location has a high level of pedestrian and cyclist activity, and a shared path is not a suitable long term solution, as per TfNSW Cycleway Design Toolbox 3.4.3 (PDF page 50). The March 2022 Submissions report included:

The high pedestrian and cyclist activity at the King Street/Sydney Park Road, Princes Highway/May Street and Mitchell Road/Sydney Park Road intersections, as well as along King Street to access St Peters Station and Sydney Park, is one of the key considerations of the proposal, as noted above and discussed in Sections 3.3, 4.3.2 and 5.2.5 of Appendix C (Traffic and transport assessment) of the REF.

March 2022 Submissions report, TfNSW, PDF page 36

As Bicycle NSW noted in their letter, the newly updated the Road User Space Allocation Policy (July 2024) provides Transport for NSW with a stronger mandate to find a better balance between movement and place, with priority given to people walking, cycling and using public transport.

The policy states among other requirements that Transport must:

• document the strategic intent of all road user space allocations, including all
  changes
• track how the road space allocation principles are being implemented against the
  strategic intent and outcomes identified as part of strategies or plans
• document road user space trade-off decisions, providing evidence and reasons
• ensure proper endorsement by the relevant Transport governance body
• demonstrate adherence to this policy as part of internal Transport assurance
  reviews and INSW reviews for projects proposing changes to road space
• report periodically on all road-related projects to enable monitoring against this
  policy
• adhere to these principles ahead of any guidance that seeks to protect or
  maintain private vehicle level of service.

Not only has compliance against these principles not been published, the design itself is still secret!

4. Why make these changes to the design?

edit: Clover Moore’s 5th September letter (which I was not previously aware) of suggests the project is not going ahead due to funding reasons:

TINSW advised the City that it is unable to fund the previously agreed and exhibited design. Meanwhile, it is continuing to allocate significant funding and resources to develop the Western Distributor Road Network Improvements project, even though the safety and transport arguments justifying this project are highly questionable.

Letter (5th September), Clover Moore to John Graham (Minister for Roads). Published with permission.

Short answer (again) – it is not publicly known. TfNSW has not yet stated in direct language that this intersection is not getting built privately, and made no public announcements.

Could it be a cost cutting exercise? If so, given the large ticket cost of Westconnex this leaves a very sour taste.

Could it be a political / local community concession? Considering the community consultation was released two years ago, it seems unlikely.

Could it be be to minimise the project duration? It is well known that traffic signal redesign projects take some time, however considering the original concept was documented in 2017 and construction has not begun this doesn’t make much sense.

Could it be to increase the curve radii? Considering the proposal including the separated cycleway supported turning buses, this seems unlikely.

The most likely explanation seems to be increasing the number of car lanes available, with the vehicle-throughput-maximising side effect of leaving one signalised pedestrian crossing missing.

Perhaps we will get a public update explaining the reasoning and how it implements the mandatory NSW Movement & Place Guidelines, but I’m not holding my breath.

5. Approval conditions for the M8 motorway (Westconnex)

The Sydney Park Junction project (with upgraded cycle and pedestrian facilities) was mandated in approval conditions for a section of Westconnex. The Review of Environmental Factors stated “Approval conditions for the M8 Motorway (Stage 1) project also specify the introduction of traffic calming initiatives along Princes Highway, improvements in accessibility to Sydney Park and the provision of upgraded cycle and pedestrian facilities”. (PDF pg. 33, REF)

The M8 motorway was the second major underground stage of Westconnex. City of Sydney employees were recorded in written minutes of the August 1st meeting that this change was “breaking earlier promises to the City and the community”.

Approval conditions for the M8 Motorway project are located under M8 Environment Documents. The Sydney Park Junction Review of Environmental Factors describes the relevant approval conditions:

The proposal would be consistent with approval conditions B44, B50 and B51 for the M8 Motorway project by providing traffic calming initiatives along Princes Highway, improvements in accessibility to Sydney Park for the residential areas of St Peters, Newtown and Erskineville and the provision of upgraded cycle and pedestrian facilities within one kilometre of the St Peters Interchange.

Page 33 of the Sydney Park Junction Review of Environmental Factors

5.1 M8 approval condition B50

Condition B50 states:

The Proponent must undertake a Pedestrian and Cycleway Network Review. The Review must be prepared and approved by the Secretary within six months from the date of this approval (or as otherwise agreed by the Secretary) to identify pedestrian and cycle facilities that are to be provided by the Proponent as part of the SSl. The Review must be prepared by a suitably qualified and experienced person(s) that has been approved by the Secretary. The Review must be undertaken in consultation with the relevant councils and Bicycle NSW and address the matters raised during consultation.

The Review must identify (and consider), but not be limited to:
a) current and future land use and associated pedestrian and cycle demand and needs;
b) pedestrian and cycle impacts associated with the project;
c) the King Street Gateway Project, including potential Princes Highway traffic calming initiatives;
d) Alexandra Canal initiatives;
e) regional and local pedestrian and cycling strategies;
f) pedestrian and cycle safety, accessibility and connectivity, including to the public realm;
g) intersection and signal phasing opportunities to reduce waiting and crossing times for pedestrians and cyclists;
h) provision of upgraded cycle and pedestrian facilities within 1,000 metres of the boundary of the St Peters Interchange, apart from the areas addressed in conditions 862(c) and 864; and
i) concept designs for pedestrian and cycleway infrastructure and implementation timeframes.

The Review is also to consider the delivery of the ‘M5 East Green Link’ between Kingsgrove and Mascot approved as part of the M5 East Motorway project. The review shall address past constraints to the delivery of this project and options to overcome these constraints.

The Review must not result in a reduced level of cycle and pedestrian infrastructure as identified in the documents referred to in condition 42, unless required by these conditions.

The resulting report is contained in WestConnex M8 Pedestrian and Bicycle Transport Network Review (17 May 2017).

5.2 M8 approval condition B51

Condition B51 states:

A detailed Pedestrian and Cycle Implementation Strategy must be submitted to the Secretary within 12 months of the date of this approval (or as otherwise agreed by the Secretary) and implemented at the commencement of project operations, except as permitted by this approval.

The strategy must be prepared in consultation with relevant councils and Bicycle NSW. The Strategy must be consistent with the approved Pedestrian and Cycleway Network Review and include:

(a) pedestrian and cycle engineering and safety standards;
(b) a safety audit of existing and proposed pedestrian and cycle facilities to address the above standards (including the shared path audit undertaken for the King Georges Road Interchange Project SSI-6547);
(c) details of selected routes and connections to existing local and regional routes;
(d) timing and staging of all works;
(e) infrastructure details, including lighting, safety, security, and standards compliance;
(f) signage and wayfinding measures; and
(g) details of associated landscaping works.
The Strategy shall be endorsed by a suitably qualified and experienced person(s) approved by the Secretary. The endorsement shall address each of the listed matters in this condition.

All identified works arising from this condition are to be implemented by the Proponent.

Approval condition B51, M8 Motorway Project

The resulting report of this planning condition is captured as the report titled “WestConnex M8 Pedestrian and Cycle Implementation Strategy ” (or “WESTCONNEX ATN ST2 PLANNING CONDITION B51 – Pedestrian & Cycle Implementation Strategy”), February 2019.

Heading “5.6 SYDNEY PARK – ALEXANDRIA – MOORE PARK” of this report (PDF page 38) contains the following:

The Condition B50 review has identified a gap between the existing shared paths within Sydney Park and the on road cycleway in Belmont St connecting to Alexandria. At the north side of Sydney Park exiting across Sydney Park Road onto Mitchell Road is a proposed off road bike lane. It is associated with road works on the local streets surrounding the St Peters Interchange. It is 3m wide and it turns onto Huntley Street where it remains 3m wide. It connects to Belmont Street which is a council planned regional route, linking to Redfern and Moore Park. The route connects back into Sydney Park which has an existing shared path. Additional parking will be provided along Sydney Park Road, Huntley Street and Belmont Street to maintain the existing amount of on-road parking.

The Belmont Street on road bike path will also connect through to the future shared paths along the north side of Euston Road and McEvoy Street associated with the Alexandria to Moore Park Connectivity Upgrade Project, which is currently in planning phase.

Final concept design for cycle paths on Sydney Park Road and Mitchell Road are in consultation with Councils.

Refer Appendix 05 for detailed drawings of the Mitchell Road separated cycle path.

“5.6 SYDNEY PARK – ALEXANDRIA – MOORE PARK”, “WestConnex M8 Pedestrian and Cycle Implementation Strategy “, PDF page 38

The implementation strategy report goes on to depict the proposed implementation diagram of this cycleway in Appendix 5. It includes “NOTE: Final concept design for cycle paths on Sydney Park Road and Mitchell Road in consultation with Councils”. Revision A is dated 8/3/17, revision F (depicted) is dated 10/9/17.

5.2.1 Endorsement of B51

The B51 approval condition includes that “The Strategy shall be endorsed by a suitably qualified and experienced person(s) approved by the Secretary.”.

This endorsement was made by then managing director of Sustainable Transport Consultants, and detailed in a letter dated 20th September 2017 (listed as Appendix item 15, PDF page 264, in the B51 report). This letter endorses (among other projects) “City of Sydney Regional Cycle Route R8 connection north of Sydney Park”:

The proposal in Section 5.6 of the Strategy provides a separated cycleway link between the intersection of Mitchell and Sydney Park Roads and the intersection of Huntley and Belmont Streets. The concept design shown in Figure 5.12 and Appendix 5 of the Strategy, proposes a separated two-way bicycle path along the northern edge of Mitchell Road between Sydney Park Road and Huntley Street continuing along the northern edge of Huntley Street to Belmont Street.

Paragraph 4.6, “City of Sydney Regional Cycle Route R8 connection north of Sydney Park”, PDF page 267, B51 report. (emphasis mine)

6. Undermining confidence in TfNSW following Rozelle Interchange inquiry recommendations

This change has occurred in fresh memory of the damning July 2024 “Impact of the Rozelle Interchange” inquiry report where inquiry participants raised a “lack of transparency regarding decisions made by the government following consultation” (paragraph 5.3, PDF pg. 97) and made recommendations:

• …that there is greater transparency, accessibility and accountability of community consultation processes. (Recommendation 5)
• That the NSW Government ensure that all future road-based projects prioritise the inclusion of safe and accessible active transport infrastructure.” (Recommendation 15)

It does not give confidence that TfNSW is learning from the lessons of previous failures around transparent consultation and active transport inclusion in major projects.

7. A brief history of broken Westconnex promises

This is not the first broken promise made to the community as part of the Westconnex project. These are ones that come to mind, but I’m sure this is not exhaustive (comments & feedback on improving this section is welcome).

Parramatta Road

The Sydney Morning Herald article “‘Hollow promises’: Years after opening, WestConnex tunnel conditions still not met” (August 2021) states “More than two years after the first WestConnex motorway tunnel opened in Sydney, the NSW government is yet to meet a condition of approval by dedicating two lanes of Parramatta Road solely to public transport.

Victoria Road

As recorded in the July 2024 “Impact of the Rozelle Interchange” inquiry report:

As promised in the EIS, there should be separated cyclepaths all the way from the beginning of the Rozelle interchange—that’s the junction between Victoria Road and the City West Link—all the way up and over, up Victoria Road and over the top and down the other side to the Iron Cove Bridge. That was promised in the EIS, as was a separate cycleway which I think is over two kilometres along Lilyfield Road. None of those have been built at all.

Paragraph 4.48, PDF page 86, Footnote 405.

That is, a condition of the Environmental Impact Statement of the project was Victoria Road would include a separated cycleway.

8. What can I do about this?

Bicycle NSW published an article on the 13th of September (“Another Broken Promise from Transport for NSW”) about Sydney Park Road utilising research from this article, however they also included some great suggestions on what you can do to make this project happen as originally promised!

See under the “A call to action” header on https://bicyclensw.org.au/another-broken-promise-from-transport-for-nsw/

Their article also details other TfNSW projects that have been neglected or delayed.

9. Appendix

9.1 Safety risks on Mitchell Rd

PDF page 110 of “WESTCONNEX NEW M5 PEDESTRIAN & BICYCLE TRANSPORT NETWORK REVIEW” by McGregor Coxall (17 May 2017) includes safety risks on the state of Mitchell Rd at the time.

The risk matrix (below) indicates “Moderate” severity indicates injuries requiring hospital admission, and “likely” probability as “Expected to occur at some time”.

The post Another broken WestConnex promise: secret Sydney Park Junction design changes first appeared on Jake Coppinger.

I built it to quickly compare and contrast Australian cities with their international counterparts. Clicking on any statistic opens an Overpass Turbo query displaying the relevant data.

I previously wrote a blog post on turn-by-turn bicycle navigation apps that use this data at The Best Apps for Bicycle Directions (2020).

Architecture

The website is a simple frontend React Typescript app, however the data is statically compiled into a large JSON blob.

Generating the JSON blob requires thousands of Overpass Turbo requests. These requests are cached at build time on the filesystem using a hash of the query string as a key. This currently requires clearing the cache to completely regenerate data to fetch new updates from OpenStreetMap. When generating data for Australian councils I use a self-hosted Overpass server (also improving speed dramatically), while using overpass-api.de for the few international examples.

I could achieve a faster first paint by async loading this JSON blob at runtime but I haven’t yet implemented this.

Population counts are sourced from Wikidata (and pregenerated in the JSON blob) based on the wikidata tag on OpenStreetMap relations.

When area names have a non-english name (identified by a name:en tag present), both English and local names are displayed.

Overpass queries

Overpass queries are written in https://github.com/jakecoppinger/australian-cycleway-stats/blob/main/static-backend/src/utils/overpass-queries.ts and are somewhat complex. They contain some “opinionated” tradeoffs (informed by policy) in what roads are considered safe (<= 30kmh) and what is considered a dedicated and shared cycle path. Improvements or questions are welcome!

The post Which Australian councils are building the most cycleways? first appeared on Jake Coppinger.

A street is defined as ‘contraflow’ or two-way for cyclists (and in some cases pedestrians) where people on bikes (or on foot) are legally able to travel in both directions on a street designated a one-way for motor vehicles. Suitable streets typically have low traffic volumes and low speeds, with one (or no lanes) marked, sufficient width and may already be designated as a shared zone (the Australian term for a living street).

In 2014, the state agency Transport for NSW issued a technical direction permitting contraflow bicycle travel on suitable streets if approved signs and markings are allowed. When provided on suitable roads, these simple street treatments create safe new routes for cyclists with an incredible value for taxpayer funds.

The TfNSW Technical Direction (TTD 2014/002) describes contraflow cycling facilities as “a cost-effective treatment that enhances the cycling experience by improving the permeability of neighbourhoods and by reducing bicycle trip lengths”.

This is by no means an argument against more substantial investment in separated cycleways. The Queensland Government found cycling infrastructure has a 5 to 1 return on investment, and the UK Government found with beneft-to-cost ratios in the in the range of 5:1 to 19:1 – some as high as 35.5 to 1 (that is, a return on investment of up to 3550%). These benefits include improved public health, reduced emissions, reduced traffic, and reduction in expensive taxpayer funded road maintenance (road wear is proportional to the 4th power of axle weight). We can’t afford not to invest in dedicated cycling infrastructure.

New contraflow cycling in the City of Sydney

The City of Sydney has recently approved 159 suitable streets across 24 suburbs, which will greatly improve the network of legal cycling routes in inner city Sydney. The implementation will proceed as soon as budget and works capacity allows.

This blog post is a proposal of additional streets which may be suitable for basic contraflow cycling infrastructure that the council could install in future, with a focus on the utility of OpenStreetMap for researching potential streets.

What makes a safe contraflow street?

Most streets can become contraflow streets with the right infrastructure (a separated cycleway), but this blog post focuses the extremely cost efficient cases where they are feasible with only a sign and/or painted markings.

The TfNSW technical direction specifies:

Contra-flow bicycle facilities should be assessed as a potential treatment on all local low speed, low volume one-way streets, including shared zones.

Ideally, all contra-flow bicycle movements will be delineated by a bicycle lane. A bicycle lane must be installed in locations where:

• Sight distances are restricted due to bends in the road or other features.
• Motor traffic volumes or speeds present a safety risk.
• Bicycle traffic volumes or speeds present a safety risk.
• The gradient and/or other road geometry increase the risk of collisions or unsafe driving or riding behaviours.
• The number or location of driveways present a safety risk.

Note: The NSW Road Rules prohibit parking in signposted bicycle lanes.

If the road space is too narrow to permit a marked bicycle lane and there is good sight distance, motor traffic volumes and speeds are low and the road geometry does not present an unacceptable safety risk, the contra- flow movement can be provided by signage alone.

TTD 2014/002 Signposting for contra-flow bicycle facilities

With this in mind, OpenStreetMap does not include traffic volumes, however by filtering out multi lane roads, roads with high speed limits and roads that are designated as important to the motorway network we can remove from our query most high volume roads and identify further potential candidates for contraflow cycling facilities.

Streets that currently allow contraflow cycling

Below is a map of current streets that permit contraflow cycling. All maps are generated just for you as you load this page – so it’s always up to date.

I make use of open source OpenStreetMap (OSM) data which is a rich data source of cycling and road infrastructure. OSM is collaborative – if you notice any errors you can edit the map, and they will show up here. The dataset is heavily used (and improved) by commercial entities including Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, TomTom, Uber, Strava, Citymapper and government entities such as the Transport for NSW Trip Planner and the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning (who recently made the strategic decision to use OSM as their foundational mapping data source).

A technical note: these maps are using Overpass Ultra – a brilliant, open source, vector map powered OpenStreetMap query engine by Daniel Schep (on Mastodon), inspired by Overpass Turbo. Overpass Turbo shows dots for small details by default which are not possible to disable in a shared map.

You can click on highlighted streets to view more data, such as:

• name
• lane count
• road classification
• whether it’s a shared zone / living street

View/edit query

(note: some of the map embeds are currently broken, please follow the “View/edit query” links)

Previously approved but not yet built contraflow streets

Below is a map of streets where the contraflow infrastructure (signs and/or road markings) is approved but under construction, or not yet built (previously approved). I have mapped them on OSM with oneway:bicycle=construction.

View/edit query

Potential future contraflow streets

Below is an automated query of streets that are potential contraflow street candidates. As the data is automated there may be streets not suitable, such as circular one-way service roads. The intention of this queried data is to provide a helpful starting point, from which to filter for potential candidates, through use of the easily accessible, open source data. You can run the query yourself here and modify it if desired. See the wiki for the available OSM tags relevant to bicycles to filter by.

You can read the full query on which roads are shown in the appendix below.

View/edit query

A proposal of streets that may be suitable contraflow streets

These are a non-exhaustive manual selection of streets from the above query (in no particular order). Some I have taken width measurements using Lidar on an iPhone.

I’ve excluded lanes that appear to be very narrow and lanes where an alternative is very close (eg. William Ln & Corfu St).

There may be errors or other reasons they aren’t suitable – any feedback or corrections is welcome in the comments below!

Other notes

• Devonshire St would be very useful, but a paint & sign treatment likely not sufficient
• There are plenty of one way segments on the pedestrianised George St which would be perfect for cycling – the cycling situation on George St likely needs it’s own blog post

Appendix

More maps

Contraflow permitting streets globally

Potential future contraflow streets globally

All the Overpass queries!

Query: CSV of candidates of contraflow lanes

https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1ytu

Note:

• See the OSM Wiki for what tags mean
• This is an automated query of open source data – there may be errors

Query: Current streets allowing bicycle contraflow

[out:json];
(
  // Relation 1251066 is COS boundary:
  // https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/1251066
  rel(1251066);map_to_area->.region;
  way(area.region)["highway"]
  ["oneway:bicycle"="no"]->.ways;
);
.ways out geom;

Query: Streets that CoS will turn into contraflow

[out:json];
(
  // Relation 1251066 is COS boundary:
  // https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/1251066
  rel(1251066);map_to_area->.region;
  way(area.region)["highway"]
  ["oneway:bicycle"="construction"]->.ways;
);
.ways out geom;

Query: Potential future contraflow streets

[out:json][timeout:25];
(
  // Relation 1251066 is COS boundary:
  // https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/1251066
  rel(1251066);map_to_area->.region;
  
  // Select roads
  way(area.region)["highway"]
  
  // Only roads which are marked one way,
  // and don't allow bicycle contraflow
  ["oneway"="yes"]
  ["oneway:bicycle"!="no"]
  
  // Exclude already approved contraflow lanes
  ["oneway:bicycle"!="construction"]
  
  // Excluded roads under construction
  ["highway"!="construction"]
  
  // Excluded proposed roads
  ["highway"!="proposed"]

  // Exclude driveways
  ["service"!="driveway"]
  
  // Don't include roads that are bidirectional,
  // but are separated (and appear to be one way)
  ["dual_carriageway"!="yes"]
  
  // Don't include if a cycleway is already mapped as separate
  ["cycleway"!="separate"]
  ["cycleway:left"!="separate"]
  ["cycleway:right"!="separate"]
  
  // Don't include if a cycleway already present
  ["highway"!="cycleway"]
  
  // If a road is customers only it's likely
  // in a parking lot
  ["access"!="customers"]
  
  // Don't include roads where public access not allowed
  ["access"!="no"]
  
  // Don't include link roads (on ramps/slip roads)
  ["highway"!="motorway_link"]
  ["highway"!="primary_link"]
  ["highway"!="secondary_link"]
  ["highway"!="tertiary_link"]
  
  // Don't include major roads
  ["highway"!="primary"]
  ["highway"!="secondary"]
  
  
  ["lanes"!=2]
  ["lanes"!=3]
  ["lanes"!=4]
  ["lanes"!=5]
  ["lanes"!=6]
  
  ["access"!="private"]
  
  // Don't consider parking isles
  ["service"!="parking_aisle"]
  
  
  

  ->.ways;
);

.ways out geom;

Query: All streets with bicycle contraflow allowed, including outside City of Sydney council

[out:json][timeout:25];
(
  way["highway"]
 
  ["oneway:bicycle"="no"]
  
  ({{bbox}});
);
out body;
>;
out skel qt;

Other useful data

Ethan’s Sydney Bike Map

One of the best OpenStreetMap powered maps of cycling infrastrure, including proposed and under construction paths: https://sydneybikemap.ethan.link/

Possible further work

• Categorising sightlines of road segments computationally to narrow down the list of possible candidates
• Creating an Overpass Turbo query of manual candidates

The post Contraflow streets in the City of Sydney first appeared on Jake Coppinger.

This blog post provides an overview of traffic signal operation in Sydney (focusing on the inner city), based on technical documentation, conversations with government & industry experts and data I’ve collected after building Better Intersections.

Traffic signals are quite literally at the intersection of our urban spaces and transport policy. They have a huge impact on city life, pedestrian safety, and the uptake of active transport like walking and cycling. Through the brilliant Movement & Place framework, Transport for NSW has a stated goal of increasing walking and cycling trips and reducing pedestrian wait times at intersections.

Currently there is no open data on traffic light timing programming or timing in Sydney or NSW. Timing programming in a proprietary format can be purchased for AU$200 per intersection with a restrictive license that does not guarantee advocacy organisations would not be faced with legal action. Meanwhile, WA Main Roads publishes monthly exports of past actual cycle time phases in GeoParquet format, and Victoria publishes all their operational sheets under an open CC BY 4.0 license, including > ~10 PDF pages (or HTML sheets) of documentation per intersection (but still don’t include nominal cycle time).

I hope this article demonstrates why signal data should be as public as a train network timetable – and subject to the same public scrutiny and debate as one (even though complex trade-offs are involved). It’s long and dry, but should be a helpful resource for others looking to write more detailed or opinionated analyses.

Note: I am not a trained traffic engineer; my background is computer science and I work as a software engineer. This analysis is a side project. Please let me know of any mistakes, corrections or improvements in the comments below (or privately to jake@jakecoppinger.com) and I will update if incorrect.

Table of contents

Maps

Automated pedestrian signals

Above: Map of automated pedestrian signals in Sydney’s CBD, ref GS22402_V006_17JAN23 (Source: TfNSW, supplied. Published with permission.)

In the blue area some major roads (state roads) have the automatic pedestrian signal feature disabled. These exact locations are publicly unknown. 

Earlier automatic signal maps are published as:

• GS22402_V004_15DEC22: https://transportnsw.info/document/6231/gs_2402_automated_pedestrian_crossings_map_v004_15dec22.pdf
• SCO_0573 / 002/ 23MAR20: https://transportnsw.info/document/4897/sydney-cbd-pyrmont-pedestrian-access-automation-map_23mar20.pdf

Above: Map of CBD signal phasing times, 2018 (Source: TfNSW, supplied. Published with permission). Filename CCO_0604_SYDNEY CBD BRIDGE ST TO GOULBURN ST PED EVAL MAP_05APR18_V005.

This map has not previously been publicly available. The above map shows the state of the city in April 2018. The “Study area” border is still a broadly accurate border of the 90 seconds cycle area, with minor changes at the edges (also not publicly available). A number of years ago (I don’t know exactly when) the cycle time was 120 seconds, which had been reduced to 110 seconds.

Some of these intersections (10 or 15) sometimes runs 45 seconds in off peaks. These appear to be intersections with more people, but there is no guidance on how these were selected.

• Map of traffic signals with countdown timers in OpenStreetMap (needs some work, let me know if you know of others): https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1wVx
• Map of scramble crossings in OpenStreetMap (needs some work, let me know if you know of others) https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1wAk

Traffic light cycle times

Why do traffic light cycle times matter?

Walking and cycling are more attractive when you don’t have to wait for minutes at a traffic light. When pedestrians have to wait more than 30 seconds they are more likely to cross on a red light. (Martin, A., 2006. Factors influencing pedestrian safety: a literature review (No. PPR241). Wokingham, Berks: TRL (Transport for London). Longer light cycle times increase car throughput and increase vehicle speeds at the expense of pedestrian & cyclist amenity.

Sydney is an important study location as it is the birthplace and development location of the Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (abbreviated SCATS). This traffic management system includes an algorithm that optimises traffic throughput at signals, but it can only measure vehicle volume on the road. I have been told it has been used in Shanghai to measure bicycle volumes to calculate phase times for cyclists, but am unable to verify this.

SCATS does not count people on the footpath, and the crossing phase is only “called” by either a push button or by being automated. It currently does not support a non-binary pedestrian presence – innovative solutions like LiDAR or computer vision need to count pedestrians and then activate a (boolean) sensor value. It is unclear whether in-progress upgrades to SCATS will provide any functionality to measure or prioritise pedestrians and cyclists. Press releases mention prioritisation but previous work to add more interfaces to SCATS has not been widely released (see Future Signal Development section).

The NSW Government sells the system commercially to 30 countries and 200 cities around the world by the NSW Government. We are quite literally exporting our biases (in technical respects like limited pedestrian counting functionality – maximum cycle time and other choices are made by the local operator).

The Transport for NSW (TfNSW) technical guide, “Traffic Signal Design Guide: Section 7 Phasing and Signal Group Display Sequence” (2016) states one of the design objectives of choice of phasing should be to minimise the cycle time (pg 5).

Sydney lags behind best practice signal timing compared to London, Copenhagen and the USA

The Sydney CBD has a 90 second SCATS maximum cycle time which is generally considered short by Australian standards. The CBD cycle time was reduced from 110 seconds to 90 seconds on the 7th of January 2018 (CoS motion 2018-08-17). This achievement was noted in the 2020 report by Gehl Architects 2020:

The reduction in waiting times has improved pedestrian amenity, however further improvements can be made.
…
Transport NSW have reduced pedestrian signal cycle time from 110 seconds to 90 seconds enabling more frequent crossing opportunities for pedestrians.

Further changes will be explored after light rail becomes operational to ascertain further efficiencies.

“Public Space & Public Life Study 2020” Gehl Architects, page 142

TfNSW & the RMS undertook monitoring for a three month period to assess impacts across the network (“Look up: Keeping pedestrians safe, June 2019, NRMA, PDF page 8, in turn referencing “Transport for NSW (2019). Personal correspondence.”) It was reduced from 120 seconds to 110 seconds a few years prior (I do not know when).

Copenhagen has a 70 second cycle time as the maximum, and high pedestrian usage areas have cycles of 48-60 seconds. Gehl Architect’s state “Jaywalking is not a common phenomena in Copenhagen as traffic lights accommodate for reasonable waiting times for pedestrians” (Gehl Architects, Public spaces & public life: Sydney 2007 (part 1), page 142).

The London Cycling Design Standards states “junctions with pedestrian crossing facilities, signal cycle times should only exceptionally* be longer than 90 seconds.” *(emphasis mine).

The 2018 transport for London walking action plan states:

TfL has responsibility for all London’s traffic signals, undertaking annual timing reviews at 1,200 signal junctions and crossings. In 2017, TfL reduced the wait times for people walking at 200 crossing locations close to schools, hospitals and transport hubs (see Figure 8). From 2018 onwards, this will be an objective for all signal timing reviews and, for the first time, ‘pedestrian time saved’ will be measured alongside other performance metrics.

Of the 200 reviewed crossings to date, 94 per cent now run a cycle time of less than one minute, meaning that if a person walking was to arrive just as the red signal for pedestrians came on and traffic was given a green light, they would only wait around 40 seconds or less to cross.

Chapter 6 – Building and managing streets, “Walking action plan – Making London the world’s most walkable city”, Transport for London, July 2018 (PDF page 29)

The Urban Street Design Guide by the (USA) National Association of City Transportation Officials recommends cycle times of 60-90 seconds in urban areas.

See traffic signal cycle times around the world on Better Intersections, and see graphs and charts at betterintersections.jakecoppinger.com/analysis.

Open source data collected with Better Intersections

I previously wrote a blog post on a website I built to crowd-source the collection of pedestrian traffic light timings: https://jakecoppinger.com/2023/06/mapping-pedestrian-traffic-light-timing-in-sydney-australia/

The data is licensed ODbL (for you, OpenStreetMap contributors!) and the website is open source too.

It has collected over 800 data points, each with measurements on green duration, flashing red duration, solid red duration, and notes such as whether the crossing is protected or has a countdown timer. Community groups including WalkSydney have expressed interest in involving their members in sourcing measurements.

Max Bo, a software engineer at Canva, has also begun some preliminary analysis of the data using the informational visualisation platform Observable: https://observablehq.com/@mjbo/better-intersections-sydney-traffic-light-timings

Who sets signal cycle times in Sydney?

In NSW the state transport department (TfNSW) builds, maintains, programs and operates all traffic signals. This is the case even on local roads (90% of all roads), where the local council is the authority.

TfNSW Operations has the very challenging task of designing and operating the timing of the network, with many stakeholders and a steady flow of complaints.

At present I understand that there is not a perceived need for the data to be published, however it is not considered to be confidential (see the below section TfNSW reasoning against release of signal timing data in NSW). On the contrary I would like to note the extremely restrictive license conditions upon purchase of traffic data detailed below. From what I can understand, one of the main reasons why the data has not been freely published is that the data export is a manual process. However, no data on minimum or maximum green times is published in NSW, though Victoria (who also use SCATS for their traffic lights) publishes all their operational sheets under an open CC BY 4.0 license.

Many transport advocacy groups, such as WalkSydney and BicycleNSW have attempted to source this data for a number of years for advocacy purposes to further understand how to better support vulnerable road users, but to date have not gained access. The restrictive license on data sourced from the TfNSW Traffic Signal Portal does not make it clear if any use of the data for advocacy purposes would result in legal action by the state.

In the City of Sydney (the CBD) the TfNSW operations team will know in little time if gridlock occurs, either from stakeholders or an extensive network of remotely controlled pan/tilt traffic video cameras (though they’re likely too busy to be watching such feeds unless an issue presents). They have to manage the traffic volume entering the CBD grid from motorway off ramps to prevent the queuing of cars on motorways.

Whilst many cities are demolishing their urban motorways, the recent WestConnex urban motorway project was recently constructed under a public-private partnership between the NSW State Government and Transurban. Transurban is a publicly listed company that after considerable privatisation, has majority ownership of 95 of the 99 kilometres of Sydney’s toll roads.

A given intersection will have a number of phases programmed into SCATS. A phase is a particular movement at an intersection (such as cars green in one direction and red for the other direction).

Note the phases on the left hand side of the SCATS software.

For a deep dive on the SCATS software, see “The New Generation SCATS 6”: https://www.aldridgetrafficcontrollers.com.au/ArticleDocuments/230/Introduction_To_New_Generation_Scats_6_5.pdf.aspx

TfNSW does not currently have a policy on cycle times

Transport for NSW’s Traffic Signal Operation document does not provide specific guidelines on cycle times and only focuses on safety critical timings. This means they do not currently have public guidelines for traffic signal cycle times.

However, “method 3”, page 7 of the Technical Direction on Traffic Modelling (https://roads-waterways.transport.nsw.gov.au/trafficinformation/downloads/ttd_2018-002.pdf) states

Method 3 (for new signals)
Assume a typical phase configuration and a cycle time of 140 sec (longer or shorter than 140 sec times may be used when accepted by RMS) and calculate phase times using traffic signals software such as SIDRA, LinSig, TRANSYT, etc. Then set initial maximum green times of all phases in the same way as in Method 1.

https://roads-waterways.transport.nsw.gov.au/trafficinformation/downloads/ttd_2018-002.pdf

This appears to be a statement of an internal policy, but note the words “unless accepted by RMS” (the predecessor to TfNSW).

The TfNSW Road User Space Allocation Policy provides strategic advice but does not provide any guidelines for cycle times. It specifies the equitable allocation of of temporal and spatial space must consider walking first:

This policy sets out the mandatory principles and requirements Transport staff must follow when allocating physical and temporal road user space safely and equitably to support the movement of people and goods and place objectives. (emphasis mine) 

Transport must allocate road user space based on the following principles:
…
– allocate road user space based on the network vision and road functions, considering all road users in order of: 

1. walking (including equitable access for people of all abilities)
2. cycling (including legal micro-mobility devices) 
3. public transport 
4. freight and servicing 
5. point to point transport 
6. general traffic and on-street parking for private motorised vehicles. 

TfNSW RUSAP, page 2

Although there is no policy or commitment to lower cycle times and pedestrian waiting times, it is apparent the lower cycle times are situated in areas of high pedestrian activity.

Note that for coordination, a common cycle time must be used, so generally, intersections in a network or along an arterial road need to have the same minimum and maximum.

I have been told SCATS has a feature of multiple minimum cycle times which are chosen based on the degree of saturation (DS). Switching between such minimums can result in a large drop in cycle time relatively quickly.

How long do pedestrians get to cross the road?

Length of green light

The length of the green pedestrian signal at traffic lights is calculated by summing a minimum value, plus a constant amount predetermined by how many people will cross at the intersection (in theory).

The NSW standard is for a minimum 6 second green light, and then an extra 2 seconds for each additional rank (row of people) above 3. This presumes that 6 seconds is enough to clear 3 rows of people from the adjacent footpath.

This NSW operational theory falls down in the CBD when there are large volumes of people.

Although not formalised the operations team are constantly reviewing intersections in the CBD especially for pedestrians. Furthermore, for major projects such as Sydney Metro or Light Rail, modelling with Pedestrian Comfort Levels as per TfL standards or TfNSW Walking Space Guide is undertaken on nearby footpaths and intersections to ensure reasonable levels of service are maintained.   

In general the length of time is set by manual observation (not real time CCTV or computer vision or anything), and is private. (see below section on SCATS data cost).

Information I’ve not been able to ascertain includes:

• how often measurements of the pedestrian volume are taken;
• what time of day they are taken;
• whether the min/max/avg/85th percentile is used;
• how often they are updated.

In Victoria, Volume 5: Intersection Modelling of the Transport Modelling Guidelines (2020) specifies:

At existing locations, where a revision to the intersection control is proposed, pedestrian crossing counts should be undertaken. These would usually be done as part of video surveys of peak periods (Section 6.6.1.1). This is particularly important where pedestrians will be provided with priority over vehicular traffic as it can have a significant impact on capacity e.g. left hand turn movements. The presence of high numbers of pedestrians may also influence the form of intersection control on safety and amenity grounds. The data collection may involve more than just an aggregate number of people at a site but might identify how pedestrians impact the movement of traffic.

(emphasis mine)

The Victoria Department of Transport even release their manual count data from detector and survey locations, though the link appears to currently be broken.

The Department of Transport have a repository of manual count data from detector and survey locations. For further information and project specific request visit the following link: https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/traffic-and-road-use/road-network-and-performance/road-use-and-performance

When there is no need to make the pedestrian light red (that is, there are no cars to implicitly prioritise and move across the intersection), the pedestrian green light will stay on for as long as possible until the end of the non-conflicting phase (subtracting the time for the flashing red of course).

The green walk period can be extended at schools during school hours, either by time-of-day routine (Personal correspondance, 2025-03). I am unsure of how such locations are specified or how much extension is provided.

SCATS has three methods of controlling the length of the green walk signal:

1. terminate “x” seconds from the start of the phase
2. terminate “x” seconds from the end of the phase
3. walk for green – stay green for as long as possible regardless of phase length

In all cases, the green signal for pedestrians is never be displayed for less than the minimum time as defined in the times setting saved inside the traffic signal controller.

Length of flashing red light

The length of the flashing red light is determined by the road width. People are assumed to walk at 1.2 metres per second (an 85% percentile figure, so about 15% of people walk slower than this), so the road width divided by this figure is used to determine the minimum flashing red time.

When and why are cars allowed to cross when people are still walking?

The flashing red light is legally defined so that pedestrians may not step off the kerb, but may finish their crossing.

Generally cars are allowed to have a green light when a flashing red light exists for pedestrians, and they are meant to yield to pedestrians.

Vehicles turning left or right who enter an intersection on a green roundel must give way to pedestrians on parallel crossings when either the Green man or flashing red man is displayed.   

TfNSW is undertaking a safety program to add red arrows to prevent “green-on-green” occurrences – when pedestrians and cars have a green traffic light which is in conflict.

It is being rolled out at two-phase signalised intersections across NSW, and is being expanded to cover all traffic signals. The modification is mandated whenever major works are undertaken outside the program.

While this program undeniably improves pedestrian safety and is a positive change, it is unclear whether reducing vehicle speeds would be a more cost effective use of taxpayer money than retrofitting thousands of traffic signals in NSW (or could be pursued in addition). I consider this outside the scope of this blog post.

Automated pedestrian traffic signals / automatic introduction

Automated pedestrian traffic signals don’t require a pedestrian to press a button to request to cross the road.

When the pedestrian phase is automated:

• The button does nothing when pressed (placebo)
• The pedestrian phase is never skipped – every SCATS traffic light cycle includes the pedestrian phase

Non-automated pedestrian signals may skip the pedestrian phase if the button is not pressed.

There is no such functionality where holding in a PB/5 pedestrian button extends the green light for pedestrians.

Pressing the request button before the car phase goes red should guarantee the green man for pedestrians (prevent skipping the green pedestrian phase), however this varies depending on the age and model of the controller. I’ve not come across any public information on differences between controllers on this behaviour in my readings thus far.

The actual pedestrian-experienced duration between when you push the button and you can actually cross is a mystery – not public knowledge, and I have not yet implemented the ability to measure this with Better Intersections (PRs welcome!).

Automated pedestrian introduction at traffic signals has existed in some areas in the Sydney CBD since the late 1970s or early 80s.

For certain time periods during the day they are also operating in Parramatta, Redfern, Chatswood, Liverpool, North Sydney, Newtown, St Peters, and numerous isolated intersections (outside of these times pedestrians are still required to press the push button).

To my knowledge there are no publicly available maps of the automated pedestrian signal area until COVID, even though automation has existed since the mid 90s.

Pedestrian crossings during COVID outbreaks

I wrote an article about the situation during the initial COVID outbreaks:
Sydney CBD is bringing back pedestrian “beg buttons” (December 2022).

In summary, more pedestrian signals were automated and covers were placed over the buttons so there was less physical contact.

The locations of all newly automated pedestrian signals programmed during the initial COVID outbreaks was not public, however a 2020 media release mentioned 11 health precincts (TfNSW Media Release, 28/3/2020).

Removal of automated pedestrian crossings after COVID outbreaks

After initial COVID outbreaks:

• the plastic button covers were removed
• a publicly unknown number of crossings at not publicly locations were reverted to non-automatic operation permanently
• the automated crossings that remain are only automated for daylight hours (hours for the CBD is known)

Buttons in the CBD are affixed with an adhesive plastic label explaining the hours of automation which is already coming off in many places.

On Friday the 16th of December, Transport for NSW announced:

From mid-December 2022 Transport for NSW is removing the push button hard covers but maintaining the automation of pedestrian crossings at traffic signals during daytime hours. This is to reduce overnight noise for local residents and allow for more efficient intersection operation for all users when activity is low.

The overnight noise mentioned – the stated reason for removal – was due to many complaints from residents living near signals, where the frequent green pedestrian walk sound disturbed sleep.

I do not know, and it is publicly unknown how many complaints were received. I also do not know why the changes were applied to area where there are few ground floor residents (eg. many streets in the city centre).

It was not uncommon for signals to allow a green phase every cycle (often a 24-36 second cycle due to low traffic volumes). The areas impacted by overnight noise are not publicly known – likely in dense residential areas where homes are very close to traffic signals.

However, the “green walk” sound of the pedestrian signals can be muted. SCATS supports this functionality and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program study “Accessible Pedestrian Signals: A Guide to Best Practices” (https://www.trb.org/Publications/Blurbs/164696.aspx, DOI: 10.17226/22902), summarised at http://www.apsguide.org/chapter10_australia.cfm states:

APS [Accessible Pedestrian Signals] are sometimes turned off at night due to neighbors’ complaints about noise.

NSW has no crossings where the audio feature is muted. To my understanding the NCHRP guidelines were overridden disallowing selective overnight muting of individual problematic traffic signals in NSW on safety grounds. I do not have context for why this was the case.

Muting of audible traffic signals in Brisbane

There is a 2014 article about Brisbane turning off audible traffic signals for the entire CBD between 9:30pm and 6:30am, with very real impacts on people with a visual impairment.

The current content of the Brisbane City Council website suggests a more case-by-case basis approach to muting traffic signals, however I have not found any recent updates on the current state.

Automatic introduction of pedestrians signals in Melbourne

In Melbourne, automatic introduction currently applies from 5:30 am to 12:30 am every day. This is two hours more each day than in Sydney and there are more people living in the centre of Melbourne.

The automated phases matches the times that tram services are operating.

Automated phases also operate 24/7 crossings of the narrow ‘Little’ streets (where pedestrian lanterns exist) and at the intersections along King St (Flinders Lane to Latrobe St) and along Collins St (Queen St to Exhibition St).”

(Review of Signal Operations for Pedestrians in the City of Melbourne, David Nash, 2014)

Pedestrian priority signals / cars requesting to cross the road

In Sydney there are very few places where cars have to request to cross the intersection, rather than pedestrians and cyclists.

Some of this rare locations are:

• Most of Martin Place
• Carrington St (the eastern bus stops outside Wynyard Station)
• Harbour St near Hay St, Chinatown (multi lane road) – just north of the zebra crossing near the QMS advertising panel
• Somewhere in Chatswood, likely near the station

These locations are where there is very low car volume and high pedestrian volume.

Where they exist a zebra crossing would likely be more optimal, however in NSW zebra crossings are not permitted on roads with more than one lane in each direction for safety reasons.

There are none outside the CBD – although there are many locations where the volume of people could justify this type of intervention (eg: near railway stations, shopping streets or along beach fronts)

Research

Transport for London (TfL) trialled pedestrian priority signals at 18 locations in May 2021, and has published new data that giving priority to people walking, showing them a continuous green signal until a vehicle is detected approaching, resulted in:

Compliance with traffic signals by people walking increased by 13 per cent, reducing the risk of a collision with a vehicle, while compliance by people driving stayed the same. The data also shows that the signals had virtually no impact on traffic, with only minimal changes to journey times for buses and general traffic – the largest increase for buses was only 9 seconds and for general traffic only 11 seconds. Several sites showed improvements in journey times.

New TfL data shows success of innovative ‘pedestrian priority’ traffic signals, 24 February 2022, TfL

Isolated signals

Signals may also operate in Isolated mode, with local vehicle actuation (by detector loops) being the sole operating strategy. In Isolated mode the sequence and the maximum duration of each phase is as specified in the local controller time settings. The local controller may terminate any phase under the control of the local vehicle actuation timers or skip an undemanded phase, unless prohibited by the local controller settings. Isolated mode may be specified as the fallback mode of operation.

The New Generation SCATS 6

This results in faster start to the green pedestrian phase when a button is pressed

SCATS can set any intersection to isolated mode at any time for any reason. It could be based on

• time of day
• day of week
• cycle length
• a low degree of saturation (measure of how much demand there is relative to the capacity)

The decision is up to the signal programming.

A type of isolated signal is known as “Master-Isolated”. These behave like an isolated intersection (where a pedestrian pressing the button may almost immediately get a green), however are under the control of Masterlink (under remote control of SCATS). This gives a pseudo-Isolated operation that’s managed by the SCATS cycle length and plan data. Where designed, it’s usually enabled when the cycle length drops below a pre-defined threshold.

Locations of isolated signals

• The mid-block crossing on Joynton Avenue outside the Gunyama Park Aquatic and Recreation Centre in Green Square
• The mid-block crossing on Chalmers Street (near Central station) outside the swimming pool

Let me know if you know of more!

What sort of “green waves” are used?

A green wave occurs when a series of traffic lights are coordinated to allow continuous traffic flow over several intersections in one main direction.

They are commonly implemented for peak hour vehicle traffic into and out of the city. Where possible, the operations team also attempts to provide a “reverse” green phase in the opposite direction. My understanding is that this is tricky and not always possible.

I’m not aware of a any examples in Sydney of a green wave for cyclists or pedestrian traffic, except in cases where electric bicycles can achieve a similar speed as road traffic for a car-focused green wave (eg. Bridge Rd in morning peak). Cycling southbound along the new Castlereagh Street cycleway can sometimes feel like a green wave, however this is because cyclists may catch the motor vehicle green wave.

When switching between directions of green wave, SCATS rotation can adjust cycle time 20-30% to switch link plans.

Green waves for cyclists in Melbourne

There is a green wave operational on Albert St bike lanes in east Melbourne. It runs 8:00-9:30am inbound and 4-6pm outbound. Few people know that it exists – there are limited public comms. There are no inbuilt progression LED lights built into the pavement due to budget constraints.

There is also a current trial on Rathdowne Street, Carlton, using fisheye cameras. I’m unsure if this is yet integrated with SCATS (and if so, whether it presents a virtual loop or some other integration method)

University of Melbourne is partnering with Cubic Transportation System to roll out a number of smart cameras that watch road users and could control traffic flow accordingly – in real time.

Seven fish-eye cameras will be installed over the next few months above intersections along Rathdowne Street in Carlton as part of the Australian Integrated Multimodal Ecosystem (AIMES), led by Melbourne University professor Majid Sarvi.

https://bicyclenetwork.com.au/newsroom/2020/07/16/melbourne-tests-traffic-controlling-smart-cameras/

On Canning St, the Princes and Johnston St signals are timed to give a good bicycle run in AM & PM peaks. However, it is set to ~23km/h which in practice might be too fast.

Green waves for cyclists in Copenhagen

Meanwhile, the City of Copenhagen established the first green wave for cyclists on Nørrebrogade in 2007, so bicycles travelling at 20kph did not encounter red lights. This system included LEDs embedded in the pavement to help cyclists keep the same pace.

As of 2014, Copenhagen was experimenting with “Green wave 2.0”, a detection system that keeps traffic lights green if there are 5 or more cycling citizens (roughly) cycling together.

The evaluation report on green waves on Nørrebrogade showed that “travel time decreased by 17 percent for a cyclist who cycled out of town at 20 kilometres per hour”. [6] (Centre For Public Impact, 2016).

The complaint process for pedestrian signal timing discourages feedback

Complaining about a long pedestrian wait time at a traffic signal is not an easy process. It takes 7 steps on https://www.nsw.gov.au/transport-for-nsw/contact-roads-waterways/online and it is not clear that this is the correct form for walking related feedback at all:

• Click report an issue -> roads -> management -> set location -> then explain issue.

Operators may sometimes state non-existent policy:

…
the whole principle of pedestrian movements is they are a slave to vehicular traffic.
…
The reason we don’t hold the walk is that we don’t want people running to get the walk because then, quite often, they’re running looking at the signal rather than the traffic, and in some instances, they step off the footpath in front of an oncoming car. So it’s a design standard that’s adhered
…

~5pm on the 28th of August 2024

After further correspondence this was corrected and a “walk for green” was implemented (York St and King Street). Walk for Green” means the green pedestrian light is displayed for only slightly less than the green roundel for vehicles.

Another successful “walk for green” implemented after a phone line complaint (which I have been informed of) is Regent Street at Lawson Street.

Why do traffic signals take so long to implement / redesign?

A consistent thread I have seen mentioned in this space is that the issue of the implementation of new signals or signal redesign is often longest part of any road redesign or cycleway implementation project, often requiring upwards of two years.

I have limited detail on why this is the case, however some contributing reasons may be:

• Design of traffic signals being safety critical, requiring 4 engineers signing off on documents and detailed infrastructure diagrams
• Team busy working on adding red turning filter lights (and associated design) throughout the state along with countdown timers

I received a suggestion that another contributing factor could be loss of experience and expertise as traffic engineers reach retirement age. The sender noted he had worked in DMR/RTA/RMS/TfNSW for over 50 years, and that they knew many others in Australia that have been in traffic nearly as long.

The extremely high cost of purchasing SCATS timing data

Victoria publishes all their operational sheets under a a free and open CC BY 4.0 license, including > ~10 PDF pages (or HTML sheets) of documentation per intersection. This data contains minimum and maximum green times, but doesn’t appear to specify nominal cycle times. In Sydney or NSW, you must pay at least $200 to purchase the programming of a traffic signal for a single intersection under a very restrictive license.

The walk timings (along with target cycle and phase timings) appear to be stored in a plaintext format known as LX, which I’m not currently aware of any open source way to process except https://github.com/johntrieu91/scatsutilities (Python, MIT license).

An incomplete specification of the LX format is detailed at Attachment A (pg 15) of “Traffic Signals in Microsimulation Modelling”, a Technical Direction document by TfNSW. Further documentation is on page 48 of the Signal Data Information for Modelling report (Main Roads WA).

It appears the LX file for a given region can be purchased under restrictive terms and conditions at https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/trafficsignal. The fee schedule is outlined at: https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/system/files/media/documents/2022/Network_Operations_Schedule_of_Fees_01.08.22.pdf

My understanding is that the export is a manual process an operator must run, followed by manual clean up of the data and sending it.

A few items:

Explanation of Phasing – Detailed lay explanation of traffic signal phasing for a specified date. – $600
SCATS Traffic Counts (TCS graphics plots included): $300
Interpreted SCATS history files (TCS graphics plots included): $400
TCS graphic plots: $200
SCATS Region LX file (all TCS sites on region): $200

An LX file for a single SCATS region costs $220. I’m unsure how many intersections (ie. TCS sites) are in each region, but I know SCATS supports up to 250 intersections per region. I am unsure how many regions cover the City of Sydney for example.

There are also strong terms and conditions, however I see a permitted purpose is “(d) you undertaking traffic modelling or transport related projects,but excludes the right to sell, monetise or commercially exploit the Traffic Signal Information and/or Developed IP (Licence).”: https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/trafficsignal/traffic-signal-portal-terms

The SCATS regional traffic control software has a maximum capacity of 250 intersections per region. With a maximum of 64 regions, the total capacity is 16,000 intersections.

I note that on page 13 of “The New Generation SCATS 6” document there is an undated screenshot of a region display:

TfNSW reasoning against release of signal timing data in NSW

Response to my public Q&A question at the “SCATS – What is it and where is it heading” talk on 2025-02-06:

Question: Jake Coppinger, day job at Atlassian, volunteer with Better Streets, but representing myself here.
A question on open data and cycle times: My understanding is from mid-March, WA Main Roads will be able to release monthly dumps of their cycle times that were the real-time cycle time data. Do these upgrades enable that feature in New South Wales, or would we be able to release open data here? Thanks.

Answer: Essentially, the New South Wales government hasn’t determined whether or not we will release information completely on an AI platform on cycle time data.

We will do it at a user pay cost just because that open platform, I think, because that open platform hasn’t been developed yet. So, you know, we will provide that data. The way in which we present it at the moment, again, is very labour intensive, so, we charge for that data. Do we have any real objection to providing that data as operators, to providing that data openly? No, I don’t think so. But exactly what the government and transport at a senior executive level wants to do, obviously that hasn’t been determined yet.

David Ballm (Director, Network Operations, Transport for NSW), transcript of Q&A question asked 2025-02-06 in public Q&A setting (SCATS – What is it and where is it heading?)

SCATS upgrade

SCATS has been installed at more than 60,000 intersections across 200 cities and 30 countries worldwide.

A major upgrade is underway. The upgrade will likely involve a visual facelift, judging by the dated visual language of the diagrams generated, but little additional knowledge of the improvements is public.

There was briefly a desire for a new commercial model however this looks to have been abandoned.

“TfNSW is seeking to implement a new commercial model, with a commercial partner to accelerate innovation and importantly future-proof the SCATS product and business,” tender documents said at the time.
But the department has now ditched that approach, with a new team to be established within TfNSW to accelerate the development of SCATS and expand its commercial activities. (ITNews)

Do buses get signal priority? Which routes and when?

Information from the public “SCATS – What is it and where is it heading?” talk. Corrections are welcome as always.

Bus priority only exists on 5 or 6 bus routes in Sydney:

• Liverpool to Parramatta transitway
• North West Transitway
• A couple on routes on Windsor Road

The tech is relatively scalable – if decision made to give route priority, it can be done without major capital investments

Traffic signals only give priority if the bus is 50% full and are running 2-3 minutes behind the timetable.

I received correspondence that bus priority is also used in Newcastle and Wollongong.

There is, of course, priority for light rail/trams in various cities. In Sydney this proper prioritisation for the L2/L3 came after some time, but that’s another topic in itself.

Future signal development

Media reports on SCATS upgrade

In July 2021, It reported:

A spokesperson told iTnews that “after further work, TfNSW has chosen to proceed with a new structure, which extends on aspects of TfNSW’s original plan in 2019”, part of which will include “working with partners”.
…
Features include better integration with third-party sensors, machine learning-based prediction, sophisticated analytics and performance reporting and a UI/UX refresh.

https://www.itnews.com.au/news/transport-for-nsw-ditches-scats-traffic-system-commercialisation-566722

ARN reported in 2021:

Called the Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS), it aims to trim travel time by a third, reduce fuel consumption by 12 per cent and lower emissions by 15 per cent, with more gains yet to be realised as the partnership pans out.

“Thanks to a new partnership with software development company Industrie&Co, our TfNSW development teams will collaborate to deliver the next generation of SCATS,” TfNSW deputy secretary for customer strategy and technology Joost de Kock said.

“SCATS uses algorithms and real-time traffic signal data to help customers get to their destinations faster and advanced sensors will allow cyclist and pedestrian movements to be included…

https://www.arnnet.com.au/article/693549/industrie-co-wins-transport-nsw-deal-new-scats-drive/

My understanding is that SCATs does not currently prioritise cyclist and pedestrian movements using any sensors – merely not skipping this phase when they are present.

https://www.arnnet.com.au/article/693549/industrie-co-wins-transport-nsw-deal-new-scats-drive/

More advanced pedestrian and cyclist detectors

Lidar detectors

In Victoria there is an ongoing trial using Lidar sensors to record road user positions in real time, which does currently feed data into the traffic light system. It can generate bounding boxes for vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists in real time and identify queues. I am unclear what the data from this trial will be used for.

My understanding is currently SCATS cannot natively use this Lidar input data as it does not have the capability to – the workaround is creating “virtual loops” that function like a magnetic resonance loop, giving a binary input to SCATS (with the added benefit of being able to create virtual loops for pedestrians). There has been development work on adding new SCATS interfaces but it has not been widely released. It is unclear if this will be included in the new SCATS upgrade.

There are multiple international vendors implementing traffic detection using Lidar, notably Velodyne’s Bluecity product.

Infrared and camera detectors

For pedestrians there is a trial in progress at Manly Wharf. This will likely also be applicable to areas outside schools; where there are usually few pedestrians, then many at once.

Infrared detection will be trialled at Manly Wharf where there is high pedestrian activity. 

This trial seeks to address the requirement to enhance efficiency and safety at intersections with large variable volumes of pedestrian traffic. 

This initiative aims to dynamically adjust intersection crossing times for pedestrians based on real-time detection. By using advanced detectors, we can:

• Identify if a pedestrian is waiting in a designated zone
• Determine the pedestrian volume in the detection zone
• Analyse the demand for pedestrians
• Measure the time it takes for pedestrians to clear the intersection.

“Pedestrian Detectors”, Intelligent Traffic Light Program, TfNSW

There is also an infrared camera trial for cyclists:

This trial aims to assess the performance of infrared cameras as a consistent and reliable method for detecting cyclists. Improved detection is anticipated to improve intersection efficiency and safety by reducing unused green phases and/or stranded riders. 

Transport for NSW is planning to demonstrate the cameras in use at the Future Mobility Testing and Research Centre on the Community Open Day – 31 October 2024.

The proposed trial site is the intersection of Gardeners Road and Bourke Street in Alexandria. 

This is a busy intersection due to the M8 off-ramp feeding into Gardeners Road. The traffic light phases are permanently configured to accommodate bicycles, regardless of their presence, causing unnecessary delays on Garden Road and impacting vehicle traffic flow. These factors make it an ideal testing site for this trial. 

“Bicycle Detectors”, Intelligent Traffic Light Program, TfNSW

Touchless pedestrian activation trial

There are prototypes of touchless buttons with audio feedback when it registers an intention to cross.

In Melbourne there are examples of buttons with an acknowledgement light but no automatic sensor. These lights, with or without the automatic sensor, mean pedestrians know whether they have to press the button or not. There are some disadvantages however:

When automatic introduction is activated, the red ‘wait’ light on the push button assembly is illuminated at all times that the pedestrian signals are not showing a green man (see Figure 1). This is a helpful indicator that the pedestrian does not need to push the button as a ‘call’ is already recorded. In bright sunlight, it can be difficult to see whether the wait light is illuminated or not. In a quick survey of sites in the CBD, it looks like not all push buttons have the ‘wait’ light. At William St/Bourke St, for example, only 1 of the 8 push button assemblies includes a ‘wait’ light.

Review of Signal Operations for Pedestrians in the City of Melbourne, David Nash, 2014

An example of this button is at Henderson Rd & Garden St. Acknowledgement of the intention to cross is displayed with a red light on the button and an audible beep.

Additional notes

The Sydney CBD effectively operates as a fixed time system during peak times

…but without the benefits of a fixed time system, such as pedestrian timers counting down until the end of the red light, rather than until the end of the green light.

SCATS will attempt to increase the length of a green phase for cars to satisfy the demand when the “degree of saturation” is high (as measured by cars travelling over magnetic resonance loops in the ground) – that’s what the “Adaptive” in Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System means. However, SCATS will only increase the green time such that it won’t make the cycle time higher than a given value (the maximum cycle time).

In the Sydney CBD, the 90 second figure is the maximum cycle time. If the SCATS algorithms determine there is no need (for cars), the cycle time will drop lower. Measurements of actual cycle time are recorded and can be accessed in the SCATS software, and to request this data you must pay $400 per intersection – see the section below on SCATS data cost.

With a 90 second cycle in the Sydney city, there usually isn’t any spare time in a cycle for SCATS to adjust the phase length (especially for bidirectional roads with more cycles), and will usually be running constantly at 90 second cycles (unless in off peak periods).

As a result of these decisions, this results in the Sydney CBD effectively operating as a fixed time system during peak – that is, the phase lengths are very similar to the expected, pre-programmed length.

The traffic signals tend to operate a peak of 1.5/2 hours in the morning and 2 – 3 hours in the afternoon.

In off peak periods it can sometimes run down to ~50 seconds.

That’s all folks!

Once again, I hope this article demonstrates why signal data should be as public as a train network timetable – and subject to the same public scrutiny and debate as one (even though complex trade-offs are involved) and I hope this document provides plenty of source material and an overview of the landscape for other advocates to dive into.

Note: I am not a trained traffic engineer; my background is computer science and I work as a software engineer. This analysis is a side project. Please let me know of any mistakes, corrections or improvements in the comments below (or privately to jake@jakecoppinger.com) and I will update if incorrect.

Further reading

Apologies for the haphazard referencing!

• ARRB Research Report 123 Traffic Signals: Capacity and Timing Analysis (1981). https://www.sidrasolutions.com/media/189/download
• Pedestrians should get the green light on traffic signal prioritisation, Cecilia Duong https://www.unsw.edu.au/news/2021/07/pedestrians-should-get-the-green-light-on-traffic-signal-priorit
• Python implementation of SCATS LX data reading (I haven’t read through), https://github.com/johntrieu91/scatsutilities
• Sydney CBD Cycleways Traffic Signals Optimisation, A Finlay, https://roads-waterways.transport.nsw.gov.au/documents/roads/bicycles/bicycles-sydney-cbd-traffic-signal-optimisation-2009.pdf
• “Traffic Signal Design Guide: Section 7 Phasing and Signal Group Display Sequence” (2016). URL appears to be currently broken (this is an archive link). Unsure if it’s been superseded. Great info on various types of pedestrian phase protection.
• Signal Data Information for Modelling report (Main Roads WA). Page 48 has some info on the LX timing format
• Review of Signal Operations for Pedestrians in the City of Melbourne, David Nash, 2014
• “The New Generation SCATS 6”, date unknown
• New TfL data shows success of innovative ‘pedestrian priority’ traffic signals, 24 February 2022, TfL
• Post metadata image: http://www.jctconsultancy.co.uk/Symposium/Symposium2014/PapersForDownload/A%20Review%20of%20SCATS%20Operation%20and%20Deployment%20in%20Dublin.pdf
• Traffic lights in ’s-Hertogenbosch; an interview, Biycle Dutch: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2016/06/21/traffic-lights-in-s-hertogenbosch-an-interview/
• “The Evolution of Traffic Signal Operations”, TfNSW, March 2024: https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/system/files/media/documents/2025/Active-Transport-Community-of-Practice-Evolution-of-Traffic-Signal-Operations-March-2024.pdf
• “Pedestrian Safety” brochure, September 2020, TfNSW, https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/system/files/media/documents/2023/Pedestrian%20Safety.pdf (file removed, archived 2025-05-15 from the original https://web.archive.org/web/20250515002811/https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/system/files/media/documents/2023/Pedestrian%20Safety.pdf), https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/system/files/media/documents/2025/crs_pedestrian_safety.pdf
• “Traffic Signal Operation” (Superseded standard), RTA-TC-106, April 2010 (“First published in this form October 1991, Reformatted October 2000, Revised April 2010”), https://standards.transport.nsw.gov.au/_entity/annotation/6b38b3c7-b835-ed11-9db1-000d3ae011f9
• “Traffic Signal Operation”, TS 05493:1.0, RTA-TC-106, 18 November 2024, Revision 1.0 (replacing First issue as RTA-TC-106 effective 1 April 2010), https://standards.transport.nsw.gov.au/_entity/annotation/5c3b61e9-4ea5-ef11-b8e9-000d3a6b1b0b
• “Staying safe as a pedestrian”, TfNSW (NSW Centre for Road Safety), https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/roadsafety/pedestrians/staying-safe
• “Pedestrian Priority at Traffic Signals”, Network Operations, TfNSW, February 2023, (supplied) http://files.jakecoppinger.com/traffic-signals/Pedestrian+Priority+-+Public+Presentation+V2.pdf

The post Shining a Light on the Traffic Signals of Sydney first appeared on Jake Coppinger.

See comments below, on Mastodon, Hacker News (51 comments), or LinkedIn (22 comments, 278 likes, 32k views)

Transport for NSW, the government agency which controls traffic signal timing in Sydney and elsewhere in NSW, has an excellent stated goal of increasing walking and cycling trips – and reducing pedestrian wait times at intersections.

However, there is no public data on traffic light timing in Sydney or NSW.

In the absence of traffic light timing data, and as we hold hope for it to become publicly available; the aim of Better Intersections is to crowdsource measurements and inform where positive changes could be made. You can add data yourself via a simple Google Form, and instructions are on the website about page.

Table of Contents

Better Intersections is a tool to record and visualise timing details for pedestrian and bicycle signals. It’s focused on Sydney & NSW, Australia, but is adaptable for anywhere in the world. This website is open source on Github (contributions welcome!), and the data is under an open license (ODbL license).

If you have ideas for improvements, please create a Github issue, comment below, email me at jake@jakecoppinger.com or message me on Mastodon (@jakecoppinger@aus.social).

It’s a work in progress! I’ve tinkered on it for a few afternoons and started working on it about two weeks ago.

This website bridges the excellent TfNSW Active Transport policy guidelines and pedestrians on the street themselves, allowing people on foot (and bicycle) to see their experience represented.

Why does the timing of pedestrian signals matter?

Transport for NSW, the government agency which controls traffic signal timing in Sydney and elsewhere in NSW, has an excellent stated goal of increasing walking and cycling trips – and reducing pedestrian wait times at intersections.

However, there is no public data on traffic light timing in Sydney or NSW.

In the absence of traffic light timing data, and as we hold hope for it to become publicly available; the aim of this project is to crowdsource measurements and inform where positive changes could be made.

This website bridges the excellent TfNSW Active Transport policy guidelines and pedestrians on the street themselves, allowing people on foot (and bicycle) to see their experience represented.

Increasing pedestrian priority and providing crossing opportunities at the right locations and along desire lines, reduces the risk of pedestrian injury at intersections by encouraging safer behaviours. Transport is currently rolling out measures at intersections to improve pedestrian priority in areas of high pedestrian activity. These measures may include automation of pedestrian crossings, reduced pedestrian wait times, provision of pedestrian crossings on missing legs and kerb ramps, where applicable.

— TfNSW Active Transport Strategy, page 30. Emphasis added.

Research has shown that 30 seconds is the longest a pedestrian will wait at a signalised crossings before attempting to cross against the ‘red man’. (Martin, A., 2006. Factors influencing pedestrian safety: a literature review (No. PPR241). Wokingham, Berks: TRL (Transport for London.)

From the above report:

Hunt, Lyons and Parker (2000) state that ‘Although no clear relationship has been established between pedestrian delay and casualties, a more balanced and responsive approach to the allocation of time at Pelican/Puffin crossings has the potential to make a substantial contribution to a decrease in pedestrian casualties as well as improving pedestrian amenity’. They point out that because pedestrians are more likely to become impatient when a red man continues to be shown during periods of low vehicle flow, the reduction of unnecessary delay for pedestrians should encourage pedestrians to use crossings correctly and reduce risk taking.

In 2020, people driving vehicles killed 138 pedestrians on Australian roads (Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications (2021) Fact sheet: Vulnerable road users, National Road Safety Strategy.)

But isn’t traffic light timing variable?

Sydney uses a system called Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS) to control traffic signals, which makes use of many data feeds to control timing data.

Neither the inputs used, or the algorithm used to weigh the input data is public (as far as I know). This crowdsourced method of discrete measurements provides shows the output of the black box. In the case of outliers, multiple measurements (at different times of day/week) can be used to determine if the timing is variable.

Gehl Architects have a great methodology for measuring the overall impact of traffic light delays on pedestrians. At its most basic you walk along a street with two stopwatches;

• one you pause only when you’re walking;
• one you pause only when you’re waiting at a traffic light.

Divide one by the other at the end, and you have a single number that quantifies pedestrian delay walking along a street.

– Public spaces & public life: Sydney 2020, Gehl Architects, pg 142

The limitations of this method are that

• it cannot inform the exact problematic intersections;
• paths must be long enough to gather a large enough sample size to be statistically significant.

I’ve experimented with automating this method by recording a GPX (GPS) trace with a phone, uploading that file and getting a number instantly. Unfortunately the urban canyon effect (GPS signal loss caused by tall buildings) makes this method unreliable in cities, even with the remarkable sensor fusion on modern phones.

As with any of my projects, I am always open to collaboration. If you have any ideas, iterations or improvements, please drop me a line!

Technical details

This is a fairly simple Typescript app created using Create React App that I built in a few afternoons – please don’t consider it my finest code!

It is a static React app hosted on Cloudflare pages, and uses Mapbox GL JS to display the map (but could be easily updated to use Maplibre GL JS).

Google Sheets is treated as a backend (for simplicity using a Google Form for submissions), and the app makes use of OpenStreetMap node IDs as primary keys for intersections. This is definitely suboptimal but it’s quick to build – ideally I’d have a more custom form that is easier to use and doesn’t require a Google account – however using Google accounts for the form is a quick and easy method of minimising spam (and making it easy to identify) remove spam from a single person).

The OpenStreetMap API is used for looking up coordinates of OSM nodes and finding adjacent ways. There is currently one request per intersection made – this will not scale and I’ll likely need to cache the JSON (or hit an Overpass Turbo server instead).

The code is fully covered by Typescript types but doesn’t (yet?) have unit tests – it’s very easy to work with if you’re interested in tinkering with it!

Possible further work

• Adding a simplified version of the form
• Support OSM ways as the primary key rather than just nodes (useful for crossings across divided carriageways with multiple traffic light nodes per crossing leg)
• Tagging state roads and looking if these have longer wait times on average (probably)
• Scatter plot of crossing times vs number of lanes (as rough proxy for traffic volume)
• “sparkline” or other graphs of measurements for a given intersection
• Thinking about how to record relationships between intersections (ie. green wave/lack of green wave for pedestrians)
  • Using YOLOv3 or another off the shelf commodity computer vision model for recognising green/flashing red/red traffic lights for algorithm measuring cycle times

Related organisations

If you support better conditions for pedestrians and cyclists in Sydney/NSW, consider joining BetterStreets or 30 Please.

The post Mapping pedestrian traffic light timing in Sydney, Australia first appeared on Jake Coppinger.

The above poster is an orthographic (ie. no perspective) render of a 3D model of the underground train station.

I created a 3D model by walking around the station holding an iPhone 14 Pro running the 3D Scanner App, combining the segments in the 3d modelling software Blender and rendering it out as an image.

Aren’t the escalator and staircase crossovers a beautiful symmetrical pattern? I had no idea that’s how they were arranged. I think it’s a wonderful way to visualise architecture.

If you would like to download and print your own A3 poster, here are some high resolution copies. All are licensed CC BY-NC 4.0.

• 9921 × 7016, 600dpi JPEG, ~32MB: files.jakecoppinger.com/town-hall-station-poster/town-hall-station-poster-jake-coppinger.jpg
• PDF optimised for computers (RGB, interactive, ~4MB): files.jakecoppinger.com/town-hall-station-poster/town-hall-station-poster-jake-coppinger.pdf
• PDF optimised for printing (CMYK, marks & bleeds, ~50MB): files.jakecoppinger.com/town-hall-station-poster/town-hall-station-poster-jake-coppinger-print.pdf

Enjoy!

Read on if you’d like to learn more about how to create a model of your own local train station or a multi-story building.

Table of contents

Behind the scenes

Overview of method

• install the 3D Scanner App on an iPhone that supports LiDAR (iPhone Pro 12 or later, 2020+ iPad Pro)
• slowly walk around with the app to generate a 3D LiDAR model
• importing the 3D models into Blender
• align the models
• cleaning up any “noise” and chopping off half of some objects
• render the model to an image
• create a nice poster in Adobe InDesign!

Detailed method

Setting up your iPhone

These instructions are similar to those for my blog post on Generating aerial imagery with your iPhone’s LiDAR sensor.

I recommend using the app titled 3d Scanner App as it allows considerable customisation of the scan settings, though other scanning apps like Polycam would also work. It allows finishing a scan and extending later, though this can be buggy. I haven’t had a crash during capture – I’ve had Polycam crash halfway through a large scan losing all data.

Download 3d Scanner App and use the LiDAR Advanced mode. I recommend the using the following options for scanning streets:

• Confidence to low if you need the maximum 5 metre range for the sensor, otherwise set it to medium for a less noisy model
• Range to 5.0 metres
• Masking to None
• Resolution to 50mm (the lowest – for large models like buildings or streets)

In the app settings, make sure to set:

• Units to metric
• GPS can be turned on but likely won’t help you underground!

Capturing the model

Note that any commercial photography in a train station will require paperwork and special permission. Amateur/hobbyist/student use of a hand-held mobile device appears to be permitted in Sydney train stations, just treat it like taking a photo/video for Instagram or Tiktok – don’t photograph people and keep an eye on your surroundings.

The safety precautions are common sense, but have a read. Be careful not to cross over the yellow line when scanning. People will introduce artefacts into the model, so go in off peak or on a weekend to minimise crowds. The resolution and accuracy of the LiDAR scanning is not high enough to present any security concerns (any more than an Instagram photo).

When scanning, walk slowly with a sweeping motion to increase the maximum scanned width. If the area is wide enough to require a grid pattern, follow the same shape as a drone survey (an S-shape with considerable overlap). Not enough overlap or higher speeds mean the linear passes don’t connect correctly due to (I assume) inertial measurement unit drift.

Aligning and cleaning the models

You will likely need to do multiple takes of your desired building, and then combine them together.

Share your models from 3D scanner app as OBJ via Airdrop (or your preferred method), decompress the ZIP file and then import the OBJ into Blender (File -> Import -> Wavefront (.obj)).

Some basic Blender skills come in handy here – it’s not an easy program to use, and I am no expert. If you haven’t used it before I recommend following a beginner blog post or video tutorial. A few specific tips:

• Make liberal use of the numpad preset views: 1 for front on, 3 for side view, 7 for top, and 5 for toggling perspective
  • If you don’t have a numpad you will need to enable numpad emulation, see instructions at https://www.hack-computer.com/post/how-to-emulate-a-third-mouse-button-and-keypad-for-blender
• To remove noise or parts you don’t want, select the object, change into edit mode (tab key), and then change the Viewport Shading to Wireframe (with the globe button in the top right). Dragging with the left mouse button will select areas, or click c to drag a circle to select vertices (with +/- keys enlarging the circle).
  • Changing the shading to Wireframe means that you can select vertices “hiding” behind others that may not be directly visible
• I couldn’t figure out how to disable perspective and get the framing I wanted in a proper render, so I did a Viewport render with the background set to white, Material Preview as the Viewport Shading mode and Toggle X-Ray to remove the grid
  • The background still wasn’t perfectly white even though I set it to be, I had to use levels in Photoshop to get the background #FFFFFF. This may just be an error on my part!

Possible future improvements

• Capturing pointclouds instead of meshes, aligning them in Cloudcompare (I believe there are tools for aligning pointclouds), then either rendering straight to an image or generating a mesh and rendering only faces/normals facing the camera
• Reducing drift in capturing models. This would be algorithm heavy; maybe utilising survey markers or just known positions in a station, using Record3D, exporting sequences of .obj models (1 per frame), then constructing offline.
• A cross section from the north or south would be interesting! (this view is from the west looking east)
• Is it possible to create an accurate model with less takes? This would require less stitching in Blender
• Are there ways to create a full 3D model, then just not render faces/normals that aren’t facing the camera?
  • Better yet, not rendering faces/normals that are less than x degrees incident to the camera to reduce noise for flat surfaces
• How to handle glass surfaces better (LiDAR isn’t great with glass out of the box)
• 3D printing models

Please let me know if you use this as inspiration for modelling stations elsewhere!

Related/further reading

• Catharia O, Richard F, Vignoles H, Véron P, Aoussat A, Segonds F. Smartphone LiDAR Data: A Case Study for Numerisation of Indoor Buildings in Railway Stations. Sensors (Basel). 2023;23(4):1967. Published 2023 Feb 9. doi:10.3390/s23041967: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368448078_Smartphone_LiDAR_Data_A_Case_Study_for_Numerisation_of_Indoor_Buildings_in_Railway_Stations

• Great tips for better 3D scans: https://docs.3dscannerapp.com/

• 3D maps (orthographic projection) of every London Underground station

• https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/maps_of_public_corridors_on_larg
• https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/3d-maps-of-every-underground-station-ab-14630/

The post Subterranean Sydney: A cross-section of Town Hall Station made with iPhone LiDAR first appeared on Jake Coppinger.

The Heath Street section was enabled by $7 million grant from the NSW Government (New cycleway to transform the City of Canada Bay, 03 August 2020) as part of the Parramatta Road Urban Amenity Improvement Program (PRUAIP).

Canada Bay Council now plans to remove the cycleway it received state funding for. Cycleways are life saving infrastructure for cyclists and provide numerous positive externalities.

In this blog post I:

• Show the council is removing the cycleway while claiming to “modify” it.
• Show the council is removing the cycleway due to the third-party report.
• Outline errors and flaws in the engineering report prepared by a third party (which has now been hidden from the Canada Bay Council website).

To support my analysis I;

• conducted a drone aerial imagery survey using a commodity drone (following CASA laws)
• used the open-source photogrammetry software OpenDroneMap software to process this aerial survey into a high-accuracy 3D mesh and pointcloud (with 4.2 cm average ground sampling distance)
• used the pointcloud to take measurements on the street in 3 dimensions
• created ortho-rectified aerial imagery from the pointcloud, which I uploaded to OpenDroneMap
• captured on-the-ground imagery using Mapillary
• used the above data to survey the street in OpenStreetMap in high resolution
• released all the above data as open source to enable reproduction & further analysis

Update 30/03/2023, Canada Bay Council voted to remove the cycleway. A summary by David Martin (via BayBUG FB, shared with permission):

Canada Bay Council on Tuesday night voted to accept Traffic Committee’s recommendation to remove the uphill cycleway in Heath St Five Dock, just installed in August 2022.

Note that TfNSW voted on TC against the recommendation, refuting the arguments put forward (re road width, accessing driveways, sight lines at Heath/Rickard). Transport strongly supported the benefits of the cycleway for bike riders and in slowing motor vehicle traffic on Heath St. Transport “offered design support to assist Council in developing a concept design that balances all user requirements” and that “Council consider deferring the decision on removal of the [cycle] path pending the outcome of a design review conducted in partnership with Council”. This offer was repeated in a motion from Cllr Jago(Greens)during consideration of the TC recommendation but did not receive a seconder. (NB Both Labour councillors were absent.)

There were five speakers against TC’s recommendation: from BayBUG, Bicycle NSW and the [Mortlake-Cabarita]Peninsula Action Group.

The lack of support from the Mayor (Tsirekas) and the TC chair (Cllr Megna) for anything cycling was palpable. After our first speaker presented, the Mayor asked the rest of us whether we really had anything in addition to say. We all claimed our 5 minutes.

Cllr Megna put the formal motion, spoke to it, and in doing so diverted to a rant about cyclists riding across the wombat on Great North Road (at Henry/Barnstaple) and allegedly knocking down old ladies. Tsirekas re-directed him to the Heath St issue. The motion was carried with only Jago dissenting.

This was the most blatant anti-cycling (and active transport) views that I’ve heard from our councillors. It doesn’t augur well for the future.

Also, not to forget that we met with Mayor Tsirekas in February 2018 and he undertook to produce a revised Canada Bay Bike Plan; nothing has eventuated.

Update 11/04/2023: Unconfirmed reports that the demolition of the cycleway has been delayed for a week, or possibly to the end of the month.

I have shared all the data I captured under an open license so that all measurements are reproducible.

• orthrectified imagery (CC BY-NC 4.0): https://map.openaerialmap.org/#/151.1388087272644,-33.8689546011284,17/user/62e7e060d84998000537975e/641e61d31a8878000512120f
• 3D model (.obj) with textures (CC BY-NC 4.0): files.jakecoppinger.com/heath-st-scan/heath-st-textured-model.zip
• pointcloud (.laz) (CC BY-NC 4.0): files.jakecoppinger.com/heath-st-scan/Heath-Street-georeferenced_model.laz

I welcome any comments, contributions, constructive criticism or feedback either via comments below, on Mastodon (@jakecoppinger@aus.social), or privately to jake@jakecoppinger.com.

Note: I am not a traffic engineer and I do not currently have any formal geospatial or civil engineering training. However, I am passionate about the safety of people on bicycles, the improvements in urban space their uptake brings and enjoying tinkering with open source geospatial tools & data in my spare time.

People die on Sydney roads because of the lack of safe, separated bicycle infrastructure.

I hope this analysis contributes to the advocacy efforts by BicycleNSW, the Canada Bay Bicycle User Group (BayBUG) and others in retaining this infrastructure paid for by the taxpayers of NSW.

Table of contents:

Modifying or removing infrastructure?

Misleading FAQ section

In the FAQ section, the Canada Bay website currently says this:

Does this mean Council is removing the cycleway?
No. Council is fully committed to delivering the East-West Regional Route, and a cycleway will be maintained on Heath Street. This proposal is to modify the separate cycleway.

https://collaborate.canadabay.nsw.gov.au/ewcycleway/seg1heathst

This suggests the cycleway won’t be removed. However, also in the FAQ sections, the Council states why they will “modify” the cycleway:

Why is Council proposing to modify the cycleway?

Council is responding to local community concerns regarding the dedicated cycleway, which was constructed in late 2022 and potential impacts to other users of the share space. Council received feedback on issues including but not limited to line of site concerns navigating through intersections and access to properties, increasing of traffic congestion on the road users and potential increase of hazards to pedestrians.

Council heard through community feedback, and through our own observations on site, potential increase of risk for some users of the shared space as result of the solution currently built.

Council took the decision to seek independent advice on the as built solution to assess the acceptable level of risk for all users of the as-built solution and provide advice on alternatives.

Council has received and considered this advice and are proposing to address the outcomes by providing a more balanced solution that considers all users of the shared space.

The proposed modifications intend to provide a more balanced outcome for all users while also maintaining cycling infrastructure.

This sentence is demonstrably false: “The proposed modifications intend to provide a more balanced outcome for all users while also maintaining cycling infrastructure.”

Sharrows or painted bicycle icons are not bicycle infrastructure!

Holding all else equal, compared to no bicycle route, a bicycle injury nearby sharrows was nearly twice as likely to be moderate, severe, or critical (adjusted odds ratio 1.94; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.91–4.15).

Wall SP, Lee DC, Frangos SG, et al. The Effect of Sharrows, Painted Bicycle Lanes and Physically Protected Paths on the Severity of Bicycle Injuries Caused by Motor Vehicles. Safety (Basel). 2016;2(4):26. doi:10.3390/safety2040026

Changes to the council website

The Internet Archive (archive.org) Wayback Machine shows this diff of the council website copy.

The website has replaced the word removal with modification.

However, more has changed.

The copy of the “independent specialist consultant” report commissioned in December 2022 to “review and provide advice on the interactions of all users” has been removed from the website, along with any mention of it.

A hidden traffic report

In December 2022 we engaged an independent specialist consultant to review and provide advice on the interactions of all users. This review included residents/pedestrians navigating in and out of properties/carparking, motorists and cyclists using the road and the Regional Cycle away.

https://collaborate.canadabay.nsw.gov.au/ewcycleway/seg1heathst

Council took the decision to seek independent advice on the as built solution to assess the acceptable level of risk for all users of the as-built solution and provide advice on alternatives.

Council has received and considered this advice and are proposing to address the outcomes by providing a more balanced solution that considers all users of the shared space.

From the FAQ section “Why is Council proposing to modify the cycleway?“. Bold text my own highlighting.

The FAQ section makes it clear the “balanced solution” proposed is designed to “address the outcomes” of this traffic engineering report, on the merits of “acceptable level of risk for all users”.

This implies if the report has flaws then the proposed modifications may also have flaws.

As mentioned above, this report is no longer shown on the council website. Fortunately, the Wayback Machine (hosted by the Internet Archive) indexed the council project page 30th Jan 23, showing the now removed report on the right sidebar: https://web.archive.org/web/20230130232813/https://collaborate.canadabay.nsw.gov.au/ewcycleway/seg1heathst

The report link itself was not yet archived, but is still live. I recommend you read it while evaluating the below section: https://collaborate.canadabay.nsw.gov.au/download_file/7173/1457 (it is now archived at https://web.archive.org/save/https://collaborate.canadabay.nsw.gov.au/download_file/7173/1457).

Discussion of report

Introduction to body of report

In 2.1, it’s due to road line marking being offset from the centre of the road. The (sensible) recommendation is to move painted lines approaching traffic islands closer to the centre of the road. I have no concerns with this section.

The following paragraphs appear in sections 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4 respectively of the traffic report.

Under a conservative approach, removal of the western kerbside parking lane would greatly improve the two-way traffic flow and exiting traffic travel lanes; however, traffic volume data could reduce the impact on kerbside parking given a lower-order requirement for passing opportunities; such that the removal of all subject on-street parking spaces would not be required.

Under a conservative approach, removal of the western kerbside parking lane would greatly improve two-way traffic flow, more aligned with the previous environment (but at the loss of on-street parking for residents, visitors and users of Timbrell Park); however, reinstating the previous kerbside parking with a shared two-way carriageway (for both vehicles and bicycles), pending future traffic volume data would be an improved and safer outcome.

Under a conservative approach, removal of the western ‘offset-kerbside’ parking lane (along Heath Street) would greatly improve the sight lines (approach sight distances), more aligned with the previous environment (but at the loss of on-street parking for residents, visitors and users of Timbrell Park). Further, as previously stated, reinstating the previous kerbside parking with a shared two-way carriageway (for both vehicles and bicycles), pending future traffic volume data would be an improved and safer outcome.

The similarity alarms me. The meaning of “conservative approach” is undefined. Each sentence suggests the conservative approach is removing the western kerbsite parking lane (to improve traffic flow and sightlines).

The first paragraph differs to the second and third later in the paragraph. Both the second and third claim that “reinstating the previous kerbside parking with a shared two-way carriageway (for both vehicles and bicycles), pending future traffic volume data would be an improved and safer outcome.”

Each of these paragraphs comes up in a different context.

In 2.2 (Adequate Clearances to Obstructions / Road Line-marking), a series of measurements is used to justify that the as-constructed works “does not provide adequate clearances to obstructions for both travelling vehicles (to parked vehicles) or cyclists.”

In 2.3 (Two-Way Passing / Carriageway Width (Heath Street)), a series of measurements is used to justify that “the depicted 4.2-metre-wide two-way carriageway is fundamentally insufficient for two-way passing/traffic given the context of Heath Street, Five Dock, the kerbside parking environment, Regional Cycleway and residential driveways.”.

In 2.4 (Approach Sight Distances (ASD)), one dash-cam photo, the cycleway width, and the road width are used to justify “As-Constructed works reviewed have reduced the approach sight distances (Image 5), specifically for drivers of vehicles undertaking a right-turn from Richard Street onto Heath Street. MTE witnessed vehicles ‘creeping’ into the intersection (and heard from local residents regarding this and other matters during the site visits), with the Heath Street declining at a gradient of approximately 10% [1:10] towards Timbrell Park being exacerbated by the shifting of the kerbside parking (to accommodate the Regional Cycleway path and 500mm concrete separation median) by approximately 2.25 metres.”

2.5 (Two-Way Passing (Heath Street on Approach to Intersection with First Avenue)) claims some measurements justify “The measured 8.85-metre-wide carriageway (inclusive of kerbside and offset-kerbside parking) within the proximity to the intersection of Heath Street and First Avenue is typically inadequate; however, a traffic volume based analysis should be undertaken given the importance of on-street parking with respect to the residentially and recreationally dense area.”

I now systematically examine flaws in the arguments of each of these sections.

Flaws in arguments of report body

2.2 Adequate Clearances to Obstructions / Road Line-marking

The report states “the As-Constructed works (inclusive of line-marking) does not provide adequate clearances to obstructions for both travelling vehicles (to parked vehicles) or cyclists”

• The creation of a separated cycle lane on Heath Street ensures a safe clearance (width) which cyclists can travel in
• Heath St does not have centre line markings. It functions as a yield street when required.
  • “Depending on the number and arrangement of parked vehicles, they effectively become a single travel lane at certain times and places along the street, requiring slower, cooperative driving: one driver yields to another.” Yield street, NSW Movement and Place guidelines
• Resolving the reduced clearances due to road line marking may not even require the removal of parking spaces pending a traffic volume survey
• No suggestion of removing the cycleway is recommended under 2.2.
• There is a fairly major error in this section: “The northbound exit lane (including the Regional Cycleway and vehicular traffic lane as shown in Image 4) …” under “2.2 Adequate Clearances to Obstructions / Road Line-marking” is actually the southbound exit lane. The caption of Image 4 is “IMAGE 4: HEATH STREET (NORTH FACING) FROM THE INTERSECTION OF HENLEY MARINE DRIVE AND HEATH STREET”

2.3 Two-Way Passing / Carriageway Width (Heath Street)

> Under a conservative approach, removal of the western kerbside parking lane would greatly improve two-way traffic flow, more aligned with the previous environment (but at the loss of on-street parking for residents, visitors and users of Timbrell Park); however, reinstating the previous kerbside parking with a shared two-way carriageway (for both vehicles and bicycles), pending future traffic volume data would be an improved and safer outcome.

• This sentence claims removing the separated cycleway would be an improved and safer outcome. No evidence is presented for this.
• “Improved” in this sentence seems to means the retention of on street parking for private vehicles, not improved safety.
  • Remember, the brief of the report according to the Council FAQ is “to assess the acceptable level of risk for all users of the as-built solution and provide advice on alternatives.”

2.4 Approach Sight Distances (ASD)

This section claims:

MTE witnessed vehicles ‘creeping’ into the intersection (and heard from local residents regarding this and other matters during the site visits), with the Heath Street declining at a gradient of approximately 10% [1:10] towards Timbrell Park being exacerbated by the shifting of the kerbside parking (to accommodate the Regional Cycleway path and 500mm concrete separation median) by approximately 2.25 metres.

• Vehicles “creeping” into give-way intersections is safe and desired lawful behaviour. The NSW Road Rules 2014 on the NSW Legislation website state:

give way, for a driver or pedestrian, means—

(a) if the driver or pedestrian is stopped—remain stationary until it is safe to proceed, or

(b) in any other case—slow down and, if necessary, stop to avoid a collision.

• Suggesting that there is any causal relationship between a 10% incline and motorists unsafely ‘creeping’ into an intersection is, quite frankly, ridiculous
  • The statement “gradient … being exacerbated by the shifting of the kerbside parking … by approximately 2.25 metres.” is not theoretically plausible, possible or backed up by measurement or reason.
    • There is no evidence of the gradient being increased by the shifting of the kerbside parking.
    • Assuming a constant road camber gradient across the ride, shifting the kerbsite parking would not increase the north/south gradient, and would decrease the gradient across the road
• Not only is this casual relationship ridiculous, the stated gradient of 10% is incorrect.
  • The gradient on Heath Street south according to the pointcloud model generated by OpenDroneMap from aerial imagery is approximately 10 metres over 150 metres, or a 6.6% gradient

2.5 Two-Way Passing (Heath Street on Approach to Intersection with First Avenue)

The text is very similar to the text of 2.2

2.5 however includes an sentence at the bottom.

• The measurement of 8.85m street width just south of the traffic calming table may be incorrect
  • > The measured 8.85-metre-wide carriageway (inclusive of kerbside and offset-kerbside parking) within the proximity to the intersection of Heath Street and First Avenue is typically inadequate; however, a traffic volume based analysis should be undertaken given the importance of on-street parking with respect to the residentially and recreationally dense area.
  • “typically inadequate” does not state any relation to AS2890.5:2020 Clause 3.2 Parallel parking
  • “given the importance of on-street parking with respect to the residentially and recreationally dense area” – the importance of on street parking on this street is discussed below under the “On street parking availability” heading

That concludes the analysis of the flaws in the body of the report. I now proceed to analyse flaws in the findings & conclusions of the report.

Overview of report findings & conclusions

• Report finding 1: Alignment issues for vehicles exiting from Henley Marine Drive onto Heath Street and conflicting with the offset-kerbside (western) parking lane;
• Report finding 2: Sight distances for drivers of vehicles exiting the residential driveways along Heath Street have been reduced, or otherwise restricted creating unsafe conditions;
• Report finding 3: Sight distances for drivers of vehicles performing right-turns from Richard Street onto Heath Street have been reduced, or otherwise restricted creating unsafe conditions;
• Report finding 4: The carriageway width of Heath Street has reduced resulting in fewer passing opportunities, restricting two-way traffic flow and creating the potential for hazardous “Head-on” collisions.

“In view of the foregoing, the resultant works have generally reduced the safety of all users for all movements along, across and access (i.e. residential access) via Heath Street. [conclusion 1]

Further, the As- Constructed works assessed have by-large introduced new risks and conflicts (i.e. trip hazards, reduced clearances and sight lines) between drivers of vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists between individual properties, public footpaths and the offset-kerbside parking. [conclusion 2]“

Analysis of flaws in findings

Report finding 1

The issue seems sensible, as does the resolution (resolved by repainting lines).

Report finding 2

Sight distances for drivers of vehicles exiting the residential driveways along Heath Street have been reduced, or otherwise restricted creating unsafe conditions;

(emphasis mine)

• No part of the report other than this finding mentions reduced sight distances at driveways
• Report heading 2.4 Approach Sight Distances (ASD) only addresses sight lines at the intersection: “works reviewed have reduced the approach sight distances (Image 5), specifically for drivers of vehicles undertaking a right-turn from Richard Street onto Heath Street”, not at driveways
• In case it isn’t obvious – the cycleway is flat, and the concrete bollards are ~15cm tall. Any sightline impact is due to private car parking on the public road, which could be reduced or moved with the stroke of a paintbrush.

Report finding 4

The carriageway width of Heath Street has reduced resulting in fewer passing opportunities, restricting two-way traffic flow and creating the potential for hazardous “Head-on” collisions.

• There is no evidence presented that reducing passing opportunities reduces the safety of the street
  • Conversely, reducing passing opportunities reduces the potential for “hazardous “Head-on” collisions”
• Reducing lane widths and parking “should be considered” according to the TfNSW NSW Cycleway Design Toolbox (heading 3.1.3, pg 22):
  • > To help achieve the preferred width of a bicycle path, the following measures should be considered to ‘gain width’:
    – Reduce traffic lane width, especially if the road does not service public transport
    – Reduce the number of traffic lanes, removing turning lanes or slip lanes, or introducing one-way traffic
    – Reallocate space used for carparking

• Section 2.2 claims “traffic volume data could reduce the impact on kerbside parking given a lower-order requirement for passing opportunities; such that the removal of all subject on-street parking spaces would not be required”. This implies that if there is a low traffic volume the authors believe there is a “lower-order requirement for passing opportunities”
• There is no evidence presented that “restricting two-way traffic flow” reduces the safety of the street. The report is tasked to discuss safety and does not discuss increased traffic flow as a desired outcome (and nor should it be on a residential street with a cycleway).
• The road width has been reduced. Reduced road widths decrease the average speed of a street (Karim, D.M., 2015, June. Narrower lanes, safer streets. In Proc. CITE Conf. Regina (pp. 1-21). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277590178_Narrower_Lanes_Safer_Streets. See below extract).
  • If there is a head on collision the speed of the vehicles would likely be lower
  • If there is a head on collision, it is less likely to be between a cyclist and a motorist, as the street now has a separated cycleway.
    • If the risk of head on collisions between motorists is considered too high, reducing the signed limit from 50kmh to 40kmh or 30kmh (as recommended by 30please.org) would reduce the risk
    • If there is a head on collision, cyclists not in the collision are likely to be protected by the parked cars separating the cycleway from the road.

Analysis of flaws in conclusions

Conclusion 1

the resultant works have generally reduced the safety of all users for all movements along, across and access (i.e. residential access) via Heath Street. [conclusion 1]

• The claim that the works have reduces the safety of all users for all movements along, across and access is demonstrably false.
  • The works in introduced a safe separated cycleway, creating a safer environment for some of the most vulnerable road users (cyclists)
  • The works narrowed road lane width. Narrowed road lanes (within reason) often improve safety of motorists and all other road users.
    • Karim, D.M., 2015, June. Narrower lanes, safer streets. In Proc. CITE Conf. Regina (pp. 1-21). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277590178_Narrower_Lanes_Safer_Streets
      > Given that the empirical evidence favours ‘narrower is safer’, the ‘wider is safer’ approach based on personal or intuitional opinion should be discarded once and for all. The findings acknowledge human behavior is impacted by the street environment, and narrower lanes in urban areas result in less aggressive driving and more ability to slow or stop a vehicle over a short distance to avoid collision. Designers of streets can utilize the ” unused space ” to provide an enhanced public realm, including cycling facilities and wider sidewalks, or to save money on the asphalt not used by motorists.
    • > The ripple effects of carefully designed narrower streets are large (Kenneth and Chen, 2012). Combined with other safer design features (such as a planted median, bump-outs or bulb-outs), narrower lanes in off-peak periods act as defacto psychological design controls, inducing the maintenance of a safer range of vehicle operating speeds.
  • There is no evidence presented for safety of movements across (excluding “residential access”) the street being reduced, or for which modes (pedestrian? cyclist?)
    • A reduction of road width means less distance for a pedestrian to cross
    • The second order effect of road width being reduced likely reduces the average speed of motorists on the road, further increasing pedestrian safety
      • discussion of the safety of residential access & sightlines is below

Conclusion 2

As- Constructed works assessed have by-large introduced new risks and conflicts (i.e. trip hazards, reduced clearances and sight lines) between drivers of vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists between individual properties, public footpaths and the offset-kerbside parking. [conclusion 2]”

• works assessed have by-large introduced new risks … trip hazards…
  • there is no other mention in the entire report of trip hazards

• assuming the “trip hazards” here is referring to the concrete islands separating the cycleway and the road:
  • The TfNSW NSW Cycleway Design Toolbox under Heading 3.1.3 (pg 22) states:
    > Kerb treatments provide separation between people walking and cycling. A slanted edge (less than 45-degree angle) is preferred, due to its forgiving design. Vertical edges (90-degree standard kerbs) pose a safety risk to people cycling, but may be considered when using existing kerbs and drainage (to reduce costs) or due to safety considerations for pedestrians (reduce trip hazards).
    • This implies that a 90 degree kerb (as used on Heath St) are preferred over slanted edge kerbs for reducing trip hazards.
  • The concrete islands have a high colour contrast and are unlikely to be missed
  • There are no concrete islands in front of driveways
  • footpaths exist on both sides of the street, so walking north/south would be undertaken on the footpath rather than the road

• works assessed have by-large introduced new risks … reduced clearances…
  • Heading “2.2 Adequate Clearances to Obstructions / Road Line-marking” says
    > “Under a conservative approach, removal of the western kerbside parking lane would greatly improve the two-way traffic flow and exiting traffic travel lanes; however, traffic volume data could reduce the impact on kerbside parking given a lower-order requirement for passing opportunities; such that the removal of all subject on-street parking spaces would not be required.”
    • The report claims the reduced clearances due to road line marking may not even require the removal of parking spaces (let alone the cycleway) pending a traffic volume survey
    • No suggestion of removing the cycleway is recommended under 2.2. The only suggested modification is moving the painted lines to be closer to the centre of the road.
  • The heading also says “the As-Constructed works (inclusive of line-marking) does not provide adequate clearances to obstructions for both travelling vehicles (to parked vehicles) or cyclists”
    • The creation of a separated cycle lane on Heath Street ensures a safe clearance (width) which cyclists can travel in

• works assessed have by-large introduced new risks … sight lines…
  • No part of the report other than this finding mentions reduced sight distances at driveways
  • In case it isn’t obvious – the cycleway is flat, and the concrete bollards are ~15cm tall. Any sightline impact is due to private car parking on the public road, which could be reduced or moved with the stroke of a paintbrush.

Other comments

On-street parking availability

At the time of survey, there was plentiful on street parking availability in the area. There was so much space that two boats and a caravan were on the adjacent street. The adjacent street width is very wide (10.76 metres).

Any reduction in parking availability on Heath Street would have a low impact on total parking availability in the area.

As mentioned above, I welcome any comments, contributions, constructive criticism or feedback either via comments below, on Mastodon, or privately to jake@jakecoppinger.com.

Note: I am not a traffic engineer and I do not currently have any formal geospatial or civil engineering training. However, I am passionate about the safety of people on bicycles, the improvements in urban space their uptake brings and enjoying tinkering with open source geospatial tools & data in my spare time.

People die on Sydney roads because of the lack of safe, separated bicycle infrastructure.

Further reading

Heath St cycleway

• https://bicyclensw.org.au/heath-street/
• https://micromobilityreport.com.au/infrastructure/policy-and-funding/new-separated-cycleway-earmarked-for-removal-by-sydney-council/
• https://www.bikenorth.org.au/2023/02/08/keeping-another-bike-lane-open/
• BayBUG Canada Bay Bicycle User Group videos
  • Council forgets about climate emergency in order to bulldoze cycleway for car parking: https://youtu.be/DYcH7I8WnDI
  • What does a successful cycleway look like?: https://youtu.be/H0Pyfl6u4ag
  • Heath St cycleway three minute review: https://youtu.be/vHljtv72_zQ
  • Heath St: https://youtu.be/w12PsLTDHM4
  • Has the Heath St cycleway increased risk or decreased it?: https://youtu.be/B2bNAbzM_iA
  • What are the changes in risk from building the Heath St cycleway – particularly for doorings?: https://youtu.be/CvY6kv9i3qc

Relationship between lane width and safety

• https://www.wri.org/insights/bigger-isnt-always-better-narrow-traffic-lanes-make-cities-safer

• https://grist.org/cities/heres-why-narrower-streets-are-safer/

• https://www.planetizen.com/node/77671

The post Canada Bay Council plans to remove Heath St cycleway due to a misleading traffic report first appeared on Jake Coppinger.