Category: Urbanism
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Better Streets submission to the Epping Bridge Project
The Epping Bridge Project is first and foremost a road widening project (5 car lanes to 7 car lanes). It does not follow Transport for NSW’s own Road User and Space Allocation Policy or Movement & Place design framework, and at $220 million costs double the allocation for active transport for the entire state over…
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Another broken WestConnex promise: secret Sydney Park Junction design changes
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…
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Why Did the Chicken Catch the Metro? Because It Was Faster Than Crossing the Road…
Sydney’s phenomenal new metro takes only ~100 seconds (1m40s) to travel from Central Station to the new Waterloo Station. However, you could be stuck waiting up to ~111 seconds (1m 51s) to cross Botany Rd just outside the Waterloo metro station when you arrive!
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Jake Coppinger nominated for Young Sydneysider of the Year Award (Committee for Sydney)
I’m incredibly humbled to have been nominated for the Committee for Sydney’s Young Sydneysider of the Year award!
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Preliminary analysis of Better Intersections data
These are a collection of charts picking apart the Better Intersections dataset. They provide multiple avenues to find further patterns in complex and incomplete date, but also as a tool for communicating and demonstrating improvement over time (or perhaps lack thereof).
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Better Streets submission to the North Bondi Shops and Bus Terminus Upgrade
This is a lightly edited version of a submission I wrote on behalf of Better Streets for the public comment opportunity regarding the North Bondi Shops and Bus Terminus Upgrade.
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Which Australian councils are building the most cycleways?
Australian Cycleway Stats is a dashboard that provides an in-depth look at the kilometres of cycleways and safe streets in every Australian council, encompassing current, under-construction, and proposed projects, as well as international benchmarks.
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Contraflow streets 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. 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…
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Shining a Light on the Traffic Signals of Sydney
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.
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Mapping pedestrian traffic light timing in Sydney, Australia
Better Intersections is a tool to record and visualise timing details for pedestrian and bicycle signals. 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.
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Subterranean Sydney: A cross-section of Town Hall Station made with iPhone LiDAR
Using just an iPhone with LiDAR to create a cross-section 3D model and image of Town Hall Station with the LiDAR sensor on an iPhone.
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Canada Bay Council plans to remove Heath St cycleway due to a misleading traffic report
Canada Bay Council plans to remove the cycleway it received $7m of state funding for. In this analysis I outline errors and flaws in the engineering report recommending the removal (which has now been hidden from the Canada Bay Council website).
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Generating aerial imagery with your iPhone’s LiDAR sensor
This technical guide details how you can create your own aerial imagery and 3D models of streets with the built in iPhone LiDAR sensor and open source tools in the OpenDroneMap package.
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Sydney CBD is bringing back pedestrian “beg buttons”
TfNSW have recently installed these around the Sydney CBD – a sticker on top of a pedestrian “beg button” explaining the button is redundant before 6am and after 10pm.
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Creating aerial imagery with a bike helmet camera (GoPro) and OpenDroneMap
This technical guide details how you can create your own orthorectified (aka satellite view/bird mode) imagery, point clouds and 3D models of streets with nothing but a 360 degree camera mounted on bicycle helmet, and the open source photogrammetry software OpenDroneMap.
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Observations from Australia’s first Micromobility Conference
Over the weekend I attended Australia’s first micromobility conference. The sessions were organised into themes reflecting the challenges Australia faces in transitioning it’s transport network and urban planning – from car and highway dominated streets to a safer, lower emission and more pleasant city permitting cycling, walking and other journeys.
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Visualising Sydney bus congestion with Marey charts
As a side project I built Sydney Transit Graph – a visualisation of real-time Sydney bus congestion. Each line on the graph (a Marey chart) represents a bus completing its route (percentage) over time.
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Mapping Sydney Billboards: Every QMS advertising panel in Sydney
Map live at SydneyAdvertisingMap.com. See also: Max Bo’s analysis of how many placed next to Telstra telephones: https://observablehq.com/@mjbo/sydney-qms-panel-public-telephone-pairings If you live in Sydney you will have seen them – the 86 inch advertising screens in the City of Sydney Council. These advertising panels are known as communication pylons in the language of the developer approvals.…
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The Drying Green opening – a new Green Square park
On Saturday the 15th of October, Clover Moore (Lord Mayor of the City of Sydney) opened The Drying Green, the new centerpiece park of Green Square. It’s been in construction since March 2018 and includes areas of grass, wetlands which filter stormwater before it enters the wider system, and a barbecue and seating area. It…
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The Best Apps for Bicycle Directions
Even though some cities have dedicated bicycle infrastructure, it’s of no use if you don’t know where it is. While Google Maps is excellent for car navigation (and the dominant market leader), it often has patchy cycle infrastructure coverage and tends to generate cycle routes on busy roads. The best dataset of cycle infrastructure worldwide…
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Construction of the Sydney CBD & South East Light Rail
I undertook a four-year project to document the construction over 6 focus trips at various stages of development, as well as after the opening of the Randwick segment.