Sydney Roads Are A Joke 
Sydney roads are increasing in congestion and have slowed driving speeds on the major arterial roads for morning and afternoon peak hour dramatically.
Commuters from the north-west face the worst of it via the M2, Lane Cove Tunnel, Gore Hill Freeway then Sydney Harbour Bridge or by Victoria Road. Either way they experience extensive delays but at least via Victoria Rd they don’t have to pay to be sitting in traffic.
Traffic speeds for motorists to the CBD who use the M2, Lane Cove Tunnel, Gore Hill Freeway & Sydney Harbour Bridge dropped to just 30 kms p/h in 2009-10, which is down from 39 kms p/h in 2008. The M2 has a variable speed limit from 80 to 100 kph, no-one should be paying to travel on a motorway at those speeds
Even now with the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Tunnel going cashless has not eased the pain as motorists continue to crawl through the toll area fearing that if they drive any faster the tag will not respond and they will get penalised. Driving faster or no stopping does not ease the traffic snarl as motorists have to stop at traffic lights on entering the CBD and with the merging and changing of lanes from public buses coming off the Cahill Expressway to the York St bus lane is an absolute disaster.
This makes a joke of the Government planning to ease traffic congestion caused by population growth in the north-west by putting more buses on the route. The solution is not to add to the traffic by putting on more buses but to allocate bus corridors for buses, not a bus lane for 2 kms then an un-policed transit lane for 2 kms then mixing with the peak hour traffic for 10 kms and back to a bus lane. Do people actually get paid to make these terrible decisions?
It gets worse with the M5 tunnel (another disaster that someone got paid to design) but the slowest artery was Victoria Road, at an average of 18 kms p/h, down from 29 k’s seven years ago. This is a massive 42 kms under the speed limit. At this rate, Victoria Road will be a real car park by 2020.
They have just done some road work on Victoria Rd but it does not help the traffic. I suppose they have to give the road workers something to do so why not make them work on the most terrible road in Sydney to cause more delays. Typical.
Sydney needs more bus lanes. It’s ok to say that everyone should get out of their cars and catch public transport to work but one thing that stops them is the fact that public transport IS more unreliable than driving in traffic. Take a look at the bus lanes that are scattered around Sydney.
Except for the T-way from Parramatta to Liverpool and the T-way from Parramatta to Rouse Hill, where do the other bus lanes really go? They go from maybe 20 metres at traffic lights with bus priority lights, to a couple of kilometres on some of the arterial roads & the M2 busway is a joke. If the government wants to get people out of their cars and onto public transport, they need to spend to make public transport MORE attractive to the prospective user.
Those bus lanes including the M2 busway should go right into the City and not end short like they do now. Bus lanes should be 24 hours as should the bus service. For me to get to and from work it’s 2 hours or so by public transport and 50 minutes in the car each way. Even though I am a bus driver, I think that I’ll stick to my car to get to work.