Featured Graphic. A Community-Led Critique of Accessibility of Sydney's Public Transportation Network

Abstract

The shift from auto-dependent modes of urban transportation has been a key focus of the sustainability literature for over two decades (Low, 2013; Mees, 2010). This literature argues that mobility in cities ought to be addressed through public transportation rather than individualised forms of transport as a pathway to low carbon economies. However, pathways to achieve such a city remain highly contentious. Many authors suggest that citizen action and engagement is a crucial part of efforts to reshape public transportation (Low and Gleeson, 2001; Mees, 2010). The Sydney Alliance, a coalition of over fifty trade union, community, and faith-based organisations, decided through extensive community based discussion to take action on public transport across Sydney. A ‘transport research action team’ was formed to develop a set of principles for public transport in Sydney through discussion with community, academics, activists, bureaucrats, and politicians. As members of the National Tertiary Education Union, both authors have been active members of the Transport Research Action Team. Based on its research, the Alliance is organising to implement these principles to achieve improvements to public transport that will address ‘accessibility gaps’ (Mulley and Daniels, 2010), and contribute to the ‘network effect’ (Dodson et al, 2011; Mees, 2010; Nielsen and Lange, 2005). As part of our campaign work, we produced a map of Sydney to show which parts of the city have access to minimum standards of distance and frequency. The first part of diagram shows the areas of Sydney that are within 400 m walk of a transit node (rail, bus, and ferry stops). The second part shows the area of Sydney that is within 400 m walk of transit nodes that have a minimum service frequency of at least every 15 minutes between 5 am and midnight on any given weekday. The map shows that, while there is comprehensive geographic coverage of transport services across Sydney, there is a spatial concentration of public transport services that meet the minimum standard of a useful, frequent public transport service. It also highlights the gaps in accessibility of these services for large parts of, in particular, Western Sydney. The map informs an ongoing Sydney Alliance campaign to ‘fill in the gaps in the maps’.

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