Their Way Is Only the Highway Traffic in Sydney is bad, and anyone can see it. But Liberal promises to fix it rely on more and bigger highways from the west into the CBD. Problem is, that isn’t the problem. The current project underway, Westconnex, aims to expand and extend the M4 and M5, but in the end dump the increased volume of traffic into the inner west, along already the already highly congested King Street and Parramatta Road. Worse, this project will use “spaghetti junctions” at these interchange points, and the junction at St Peters will take up newly transformed green space, the only parkland of any significant size for kilometres. In addition, many kilometres of tunnels will be required, not a bad thing in themselves, but you have to consider the 35-metre tall exhaust stacks, concentrating particulate pollution and sending it out and across the city. The planning for Westconnex, a pet project of current NSW Premier Mike Baird, but supported by NSW Labor as well as the Federal Liberal and Labor parties, actually shows the project won’t achieve its stated goals. The new roads will reach capacity within eight years and the overall reduction of time spent in traffic will be a grand total of five minutes. The Liberal government in Canberra, under former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, stated that public transport was not an option at all anywhere ever. This policy continues under Malcolm Turnbull. Labor’s official position is also in support of Westconnex, even though they have the example of Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, who canned the East-West link the previous government had planned, so that better mass transit could be implemented instead, even in the face of the Abbott government withdrawing co-funding. Mass transit won’t be improved by Westconnex. It will be the same limited trains and busses serving the same routes – and at the same volume and level of service. But new rail links, service improvements, better capacity, would improve traffic congestion, and air quality, along with emissions reductions. Bigger transport projects, such as the long-proposed and postponed heavy rail link from Brisbane through Sydney to Melbourne, would do their part, removing freight by trucking. But we get no traction. Urban planning is hard, but there are lots of examples of getting it right, all around the world. A new tram service, currently under construction in Sydney, will link the Eastern Suburbs with the CBD; and the existing lightrail, extended out to Haberfield, has already achieved its utilisation goals, despite naysaying from the state government. London has more bicycle usage, and bike-share projects are popping up all over, opening city centres in ways not seen in decades. We don’t need Robert Moses-style projects, projects designed to destroy neighbourhoods. No Westconnex!