Image: CBD Coordinator Marg Prendergast with NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay. Photo: Kenji Sato.
BY KENJI SATO
A section of George Street was closed to all traffic last week in preparation for the CBD light rail construction.
Sydneysiders were told to brace for high levels of congestion on Monday morning, due to the closure between Market and King streets.
But despite fears of ‘carmageddon’, the traffic went along “reasonably well”, according to NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay.
“It’s just a great result. Can we say thank you to the people of Sydney, you’ve just been fantastic,” Mr Gay said on Monday.
He said that the level of traffic in the CBD on Monday was the same as the week before, but that it was much more evenly spread out.
“People have done the right thing and have moved their systems of travelling into the CBD. They’ve changed their travel times and they’ve also moved to public transport.”
However, Mr Gay told Sydneysiders not to let their guards down, and warned that the situation might worsen throughout the week.
“Don’t get complacent, don’t go back to your bad old ways, otherwise we are going to continue to have problems,” he said.
CBD Coordinator General Marg Prendergast said that Sydneysiders had heeded her warnings and avoided the CBD during peak hour.
“What we’ve seen today is what Sydney could be like,” Ms Prendergast told reporters on Monday.
“[Commuters] heeded our warning and tried public transport, travelled a bit earlier or later or travelled along the edges.”
“Changing how you travel can help us break congestion, because we can’t always deliver the amount of capacity or absorb people who want to travel. We need to do it differently and smarter,” she said.
Mr Gay said he was concerned that emergency vehicles might struggle to make their way through the city, now that a main arterial road was closed off.
“Accidents will test us. We have enough up our sleeves to have covered an accident because people are being so terrific,” he said.
However, while the government has praised the decrease in people utilising George Street, City of Sydney Councillor and business owner Angela Vithoulkas said that the potentially dire consequences for small business had been ignored.
“People have been told what to do to make the government’s life easier, nobody has jumped in to make the life of the small business owner easier. All they have is effectively a message of ‘wait and see’. I can’t write a cheque out for my rent to ‘wait and see’,” she said.
Although Clr Vithoulkas said she did not have “a marketing degree or a PHD in Urban Planning”, she said it was clear that the government’s planned ‘activation strategy’ for business activity during construction was misguided.
“I hope that someone does a street count, and tells me this is a good investment and spending of public money,” she said.
On December 3, another section of George Street between Market and Park streets will be closed.
