One noticeable change, however, is the new Metrobus Route 30 from Mosman to Enmore via the CBD. I obviously can’t take any credit for it, but I must say it looks rather like my proposed metro route that runs from Newtown to Neutral Bay!

Another interesting point is that the brochure addresses the question of why mini-buses aren’t used – a good question, given that a one-size-fits-all approach, intuitively at least, doesn’t make sense.

Many innovative people are probably having many innovative ideas right now, but do any of these ideas solve real problems that people care about?

As an example, my pet peeve are those barcodes on posters that you’re meant to scan with your mobile phone. Telstra seems to think they’re a great idea, but really, what problem does it solve? Is it that I can’t get enough advertising in my day that I need to access promotional crap even faster? It doesn’t even save me time, and it’s not easier either. I tried it on a bus once: navigating the menus on my Nokia and trying to get the camera (which (un)helpfully zoomed in to telescopic depths) to focus on a little square on the ceiling above my head got me nowhere except for stares all round.

Anyway, back to the main point for today. Firstly, I’d say metros are good. I like metros. Nathan Rees likes metros too.

But what problem does the Central-Rozelle metro solve?

According to the Herald today, the first three stops are Central, Town Hall and Martin Place. We already have a train line that allows you convey yourself between those very three points. Then it continues on to Rozelle. What on earth is at Rozelle? The idea is, it would be seem, to make people alight from Victoria Road buses and finish the balance of their journey on the metro. Yes, Victoria Road is a parking lot during peak hour, but does this metro solve the problem? If people aren’t catching the buses right now, there’s no indication that more people will be inclined to catch buses that connect onto a metro. Look at the map yourself: Victoria Road is a nightmare because it’s the free alternative to the Lane Cove Tunnel and the Harbour Bridge, for people up north-western way (Ryde, etc).

Then there’s the Central end. The idea is to make people get off CityRail trains and force them to change onto the metro… which runs to Town Hall, Martin Place and Wynyard. Apart from the fact that those stations can already be reached by people getting off at Central, what problem is the metro solving? It’s a little crowded at times, but it works reasonably well, and the government must have been thinking that they could artificially engineer a problem by making everyone get off. It’s not going to work.

Spending $5bn for a patronage of 5,500 people is pathetic. But people will come if you solve their problems.

So what problems are there that could be solved by a metro? Buses. Sydney Buses suck. Especially the ones that run along George and Castlereigh Streets. If you stand along George Street during peak hour, every second vehicle going past you is a bus. The Wynyard bus terminal is also a nightmare; office workers queuing up for miles to get on buses destined for the northern beaches, along with the Great Wall of China, are the two man-made formations visible from space.

I’ve had this drawn up for a while, but this is a metro line, if it were built, that I think would solve problems:

Enlarge this map

With this metro, you would terminate Parramatta Road and City Road buses before Broadway. In this case, forcing people off won’t irk anyone because the ride into the city is currently torture anyway. Likewise, on the northern approach, terminate northern beaches buses before they hit the bridge. I’ve only paired two stations with CityRail stations – Central and Wynyard (I think Town Hall is beyond hope) – and moved city stations closer together. They’re further apart than bus stops, but frankly, bus stops on every block as it currently stands is a bit ridiculous. Combined with some light rail on the surface, which Clover seems more than happy to provide, this, I humbly submit, is a metro that solves the CBD’s problems.

It’s not that I think a metro can’t be a good solution, but as it stands, the Central-Rozelle metro gets Sydney nowhere.

The strangest thing is that they haven’t made any announcements at all, not on the web and not on noticeboards at stations either.

The chance came about because as part of our clerkship at Blake Dawson, we get to have a one-day pro bono visit to one of the centres that the firm supports. So, on a warm summer’s day, I found myself at the Intellectual Disability Rights Service on Regent Street in Redfern; the service provides legal advice to people with intellectual disabilities:

The day begins by heading out of the “other” side of Redfern station:

Redfern, to the south of the CBD, is a stone’s throw from the city centre; the Ernst & Young sign can be clearly seen just above the trees:

It was surprising how spacious Redfern feels, in comparison to the cramped city streets. Combined with the general lack of high-rises, you could say that it is fairly free of visual clutter, but at the same time, it lacks the relatively lucious greenery that you find on the way from the station to uni. The atmosphere along Regent Street is a little subdued, somewhat lacking in vibe, confidence and energy – almost as if its inhabitants were already preparing for a siesta by early morning:

Architecture-wise, there were no surprises, with many terrace houses typically found in the older parts of Sydney and on the west side of the station as well:

But there was no doubt that this was suburbia, despite its relative closeness to the CBD:

Some parts have been gentrified, with higher-density development. It looks like they were after a community plaza feel further down Regent Street, although it appears that this benefited more pigeons than people:

What was surprising was the ethnic diversity in Redfern; for example, Wikipedia reliably informs me that 5.5% of Redfern’s population speaks Chinese, and only 55.9% spoke English exclusively at home. I would never have suspected that the suburb was a magnet for migrants, although I suspect migrants of past times were not as well-off or as well-connected as more recent migrants:

There was some street art, but I couldn’t help but feel that its primary purpose was to fill up space, rather than invigorate the streetscape:

Redfern, together with the other areas south of the CBD, will be undergoing substantial redevelopment in the next few decades, as the CBD reaches capacity and the attraction of inner-city living increases with rising transport costs. The challenge, however, is to work out how Redfern can be integrated with the rest of the city. Paradoxically, the railway line that forms the lifeblood of the city divides it in two, with Redfern, Surry Hills and Darlinghurst on one side and the trendier Glebe, the gentrified Ultimo and the well-patronised Haymarket on the other.

More photos.

A while back, CityRail started having these Empty Trains. I can’t for the life of me work out why anyone would choose such a stupid name. Does it mean that there’s no one inside? Does it mean it doesn’t go anywhere afterwards, as in, it’s terminating? (If so, what’s wrong with the word terminating?) I suppose it’s better than a (null) train.

The real WTF in the picture, though, is how a platform 23 service ended up on the Illawarra Line screen.