No, Epping Road Bridge does NOT need Widening (Sydney, Australia)
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- Опубліковано 26 лип 2024
- Man, why do my side characters keep dying... realtor Chris I won't miss but the scholar seemed pretty nice. Anyway, check out the project page for the Epping Road Bridge widening project and sign up to the mailing list: www.transport.nsw.gov.au/proj...
Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/christopherurbanism
Sources:
/ 1635735472831094784
/ 1639105012231192577
• Give us back our Eppin...
www.transport.nsw.gov.au/syst...
www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/di...
www.betterstreets.info/our-as...
www.betterstreets.info/safesp...
streetmix.net/
CHAPTERS
0:00 Give us Back our Epping Road
2:15 The "reasons" for widening the bridge
7:03 Solution 1: Bus Lanes
7:48 Solution 2: A Cycleway
12:19 Solution 3: Pedestrianise Langstone Place
13:07 The Numbers
14:47 The true meaning of Give us Back our Epping Road
16:09 What you can do
17:06 Ko-Fi shoutouts!
URGENT: It has been announced that the bridge widening is going ahead without consultation, even on the design (at least in the past year or so). Contact the Transport Minister here: www.nsw.gov.au/nsw-government/ministers/minister-for-transport
It is a mystery how this project is being considered given that moving the lift shaft and the western support for the pedestrian bridge is not part of the project.
Proud to be one of your 500 subscribers. Keep up the good work!
Thanks heaps! Proud to have you as one!
As someone not from Sydney who was in Epping just yesterday (very timely upload for me btw), I don't understand why there's so many cars there in the first place. There's a literally a train & metro line, just one of those would be so far beyond anything from where I'm from and yet the surrounding roads are still so unpleasant & scary.
Langston Place would also be a lot more pleasant if cars were just removed, like, entirely.
Edit: WAIT you said that in the video :( i wasn't done yet and here i am thinking i have original thoughts
yeah it boggles the mind haha, I do think it's just too many roads inducing demand and the surrounding suburbs being pretty car-centric (the Parramatta tram should hopefully help that).
Haha Langston Place being pedestrianised is just such a good idea that everyone who goes there thinks of it
the trains don't go where one needs to drive
@@suave-rider That can definitely be a problem for a lot of trips, especially further out from the city. One remedy is cycling infra to increase the catchment zone of existing train stations, but improving PT through bus lanes and better bus routes is important, too. Some trips just require driving as well though, and if many of the easily replaceable car trips were shifted to more space efficient modes, there would be far less traffic for those trips
There's so many cars in Epping because it's where four major roads meet: Carlingford Road, Beecroft Road, Epping Road and Blaxland Road. And two of these roads (Carlingford Road and Blaxland Road) end in places without a train station. I can easily get a train to West Ryde but pretty much anyone travelling from Epping to Top Ryde is going to drive down Blaxland Road. Same for those going from Epping to Carlingford. Once we have a Victoria Road train line and either a Parramatta light rail extension to Epping or a Parramatta to Epping metro, then we might actually see less car journeys through Epping.
@@bendowson3124 That's very true. I don't often think about Top Ryde or Carlingford Court since they're unpleasant to get to by bike and public transport but a lot of people would drive there often. More PT would be really great and I would absolutely love a LR extension to Epping, I think bike infra would be a big help as well since Carlingford Court and Top Ryde are both a 20-25 minute bike ride from Epping
We need to build a wallway station
whom
wait so did they get their epping road back or not I'm really confused
no not yet but maybe one day :(
The goat
baaaa
Great video and proposal. My only criticism is that having just one Eastbound car lane would mean that traffic wanting to turn right onto Blaxland Road would be holding up traffic wanting to go straight onto Epping Road. This could be quite an issue during the evening peak hour when there is often a big queue of cars waiting to turn right onto Blaxland Road due to the traffic lights prioritising those heading west on Epping Road.
There is quite a big queue of cars *because there are quite a lot of cars* though - the changes suggested here prioritise everyone except cars, which is what we need to do to reduce emissions and deaths and improve our communities.
Once the full Metro is open next year, you will be able to get from Epping to Wynyard 18 minutes faster than you can right now, with trains running every 4 minutes (4 times as often as right now). It's only 9 minutes bus ride to Carlingford (with bus priority lanes it would be even faster), and less than 30 minutes from Epping to Parramatta. The light rail needs to be extended to Epping, then it would be less than 25 minutes. It's also less than 20 minutes from Epping to Strathfield, Hornsby, Chatswood or Castle Hill via public transport.
Good point - Kyle addressed it well but light phasing could also be changed to give those turning right priority for the first few seconds as well
@@kyletopfer7818 True, but even on quieter roads, traffic light intersections pretty much always involve at least three car lanes on each road to improve traffic flow through the intersection. For instance, Midson Road is only two lanes but becomes three lanes as traffic approaches Carlingford Road so that traffic turning right doesn't have to hold up traffic going straight or turning left.
In terms of reducing traffic, it's going to take a long time to overturn the car-dependent culture that has plagued this part of Sydney. The metro and better public transport will help but we also need to take drastic measures to reduce the demand for traffic on Carlingford, Beecroft, Epping and Blaxland roads. In terms of Carlingford Road, my suggestion is extending the light rail along Carlingford Road but also allowing buses to use the tram lanes so that it doesn't interfere with present bus routes. An underpass could be built near Rembrandt St to allow trams to go under Pennant Hills Road and avoid the intersection. Beecroft Road should have just two lanes for cars south of the M2 instead of four and Blaxland Road should have two lanes for cars north of Balaclava Road.
@@bendowson3124 1. The suggestion here was to firstly close Langston Place to through traffic so you don't need a left turn lane eastbound, and westbound can turn left at any time provided they watch out for bikes & buses. Then if eastbound vehicles turning right onto Blaxland Rd are given more priority on the lights you get more through in a cycle. But it also needs to be accompanied by a general reduction in traffic, which gets to your next point.
2. I obviously am supportive of Light Rail extension, but I think what they actually plan to do once the Western Sydney Airport Metro is completed is convert the T5/T2 tracks all the way from Leppington to Merrylands and make that part of the new WSA Metro, then build a new tunnel straight from Merrylands under Parramatta to Epping via a Carlingford interchange with Light Rail. This would then give you a Metro line from Epping to Parra then all the way to the new Airport via Liverpool, and would be 15 minutes faster or so than Light Rail from Epping to Parramatta.
3. But frequency and speed is also a thing. At present you've only got 8 trains per hour from Epping to Strathfield in the peak and only 4 trains per hour at other times; whilst from Strathfield the connection to Parramatta is way too slow. By 2030 you will likely have more like 12 trains per hour (every 5 minutes) Epping to North Strathfield, and at North Strathfield you can swap to the Metro which will only take 5 or 6 minutes to Parramatta so it's incredibly fast.
A much funnier solution (& probably not practical in this location) would be to replace the said traffic lights with a roundabout or a diverging diamond interchange.
I ride a bike on trafic lanes i wont use a shared path or cycle way when im in a hurry.i ride my bike most days I use my one tonner only to carry what the bike cant take I live in west epping
Nice, even 60km/h roads like Epping Road? Around 4% of people in NSW are that confident, cycleways help the 54% who are interested/cautious (although shared paths help pretty much nobody haha). Source: micromobilityreport.com.au/infrastructure/integration-and-data/2021-national-survey-shows-increases-in-cycling/
Great video... why not throw in a tram to Carlingford!
Yes please! That's the dream
Good vid
Cheers!
5000 people per hour on a bus lane?! If one normal big bus can carry about 100 people (if full) then that'd mean 50 Busses per hour. I have never seen a busline with a headway of 50 busses per hour. Not even if there are multiple buslines. So I wonder, how realistic can that number be?
Good point - there would certainly be some bus lanes in the CBD where that would be happening but it wouldn't happen in Epping. A better approach could have been looking at the capacity of the M2 T-way or another more equivalent bus route
I once broke down on Epping Rd bridge in peak hour due to an apprentice mechanic not reconnecting the alternator after a service. I was subject to much abuse and stuck there for over an hour until some kind (and perhaps sensible) strangers helped push my car off the bridge and around the corner toward station. I think the jam even made the traffic news! I hope your ideas are taken up and work but living in kingsdene and working in north Ryde there just isn’t a good public transport option. And as a cyclist I’d never cycle around that route. Too far, too many hills and illegal to ride on footpaths
Wow what a nightmare! Good on the people who finally helped you out. The public transport options around there certainly aren't great which is a shame, I'm glad you support the ideas as someone who commutes by car!
Wouldn't a tram from Carlingford station help?
@@listohan Definitely
> When you have Dissociative Identity Disorde.
Epping Bridge widening has been a political auction at many elections. ua-cam.com/video/C3roxYSGLIM/v-deo.html Both parties try to outbid each other with a solution local people do not want especially since a better one is closer now than it has been. The Liberal Party offered the widening as its main promise for Bennelong at the last election. Despite this, the formerly safe seat fell to Labor.
Improved public transport is the only solution that is future-proofed no matter how many more apartments are built in this part of the world. What does it take for them to listen?
Definitely, the emphasis on car infrastructure is such a shame
Urban design aside, I think it's ridiculous that $200m of public taxpayer funds will be required to do so.
Definitely
Widening ? Nah It needs less lanes for motor vehicle traffic & a better pedestrian crossing 🚦 configuration.
Exactly! It's bad enough that people have to cross 5 lanes to get to the train station, imagine crossing 7!
genius
@@ChrisTopher_Urbanism It doesn't even look that hard to add another entrance to Epping station at the Beecroft Road overpass. They are going to need to rebuild Epping station again at some point anyway, it's a major bottleneck on the railway as you can fairly easily build 4 tracks all the way from Strathfield to just before Epping station (it's already 4 tracks from Strathfield to Rhodes and from West Ryde to just before the Beecroft Road bridge at Epping) but having only 3 at Epping station causes trains to merge and not be able to run suburban and express trains at the frequency we need whilst allowing freight (6 trains an hour or 10 minute frequency at least on the suburban lines, 4 intercity trains per hour to Newcastle and Central Coast, plus freight trains).
@@kyletopfer7818 Definitely, I walked to the end of the platform there the other day and just marvelled at how perfectly it was positioned for some lifts and stairs to go right up to Epping Road Bridge. More frequency at Epping station would be so good, I would absolutely love if it got some upgrades!
@@ChrisTopher_Urbanism there's a bride ove the road that you conveniently ignore
bro really get himself struck by a car to make the video
Method acting💪
Yeah just the best solution into less than 1 min........ Mascot have protected bike-line through to CBD it barely used WHY? because there is bloody good public transport, please separate bike and pubic transport argument like the meant to compliment each other, alot of Sydney cbd bus-lane need to be rerouted just to make barely use dedicated bike path.
You make some great points, but 30 km/h speed limit? You're just encouraging pedestrians to take higher risks when crossing the road at that speed. I can't find any studies on the subject, but you just have to spend an hour on any Surry Hills side street to see a significant number of pedestrians crossing the street in a dangerous manner due to the slower speed of vehicles. A much better option is to have a 40 km/h speed limit & multiple pedestrian crossings in close proximity. it has the same effect at reducing overall vehicle speed while also providing safe & convenient locations for pedestrians to cross. Just look at Railway Parade in Kogarah as an example, where there are 2 traffic light crossings & 2 zebra crossings in the space of 200 m. Pedestrians can cross safely, drivers can easily predict pedestrian movement & it doesn't significantly impede traffic when there is little to no pedestrian activity.
40km/h streets with lots of pedestrian crossings can be great, especially if the street is trying to balance a decent amount of car traffic and pedestrian traffic like Railway Parade, or even Rawson Street just down the road from Bridge Street. For streets that get few cars, though, like the side streets in Surry Hills and Bridge Street in Epping, pedestrians feeling safe enough to treat the streets like shared spaces - which is what they are in these areas - is a good thing. It would be better if there was less street parking and therefore more visibility, but I don't think the random road crossings are actually very dangerous thanks to the slow speeds of everyone involved and the alert state that complex, people-centred environments tend to place drivers in. There's also still the issue of 40km/h streets not being safe enough to be considered bike infrastructure as well.
Maybe if the Hills motorway wasn't tolled there wouldn't be so many cars using Epping road. 🤷♂🤷♂
Definitely, but mode shift from cars to public transport and bikes is important too!
No matter how wide or cheap motorways are, you still have to get to them. Every car on a motorway starts and ends its journey on a local road.
You are not a car driver. Thats why you think narrow lanes are fine.
I don't own a car but I do drive (usually a van for when I need to move something big, so about as wide as cars get) - narrow lanes are good on slow roads, bad on fast roads. Epping Road Bridge is a slow road for the reasons mentioned, the rest of Epping Road is a fast road and should have wider lanes, which it does.
There's already research to show that wider lanes can be more dangerous than narrow ones. Plus I've driven across the bridge heaps of times and have never once thought the lanes were too narrow. They just cause me to pay more attention which is what people should be doing anyway. Wide lanes are most appropriate on long stretches of straight road.
Like saying you are not an alcoholic so you think small glasses are fine.
@@jack2453 No is more like you never drink alcohol but suggesting drinking with small glasses make you drunk faster......
@@bendowson3124 then we should narrow down all bike line as-well for the sake of safety. This is Australia road you taking about not Murican wide road.
I have no idea how many cyclists travel and want to travel from one side of the railway line at Epping to the other.
Many more people in cars and buses undertake that journey daily. There are twelve trains an hour from Epping station towards the CBD. There will be about six trams to Carlingford station. With two tracks, there is a capacity for more. In the morning, many of those travelling to Carlingford station would be headed for Macquarie Park/University and beyond-there is nothing for them any more in Epping. Or in Carlingford for that matter apart from James Ruse. Conversely many in the increasing number of apartments in Epping will want to go to Parramatta/Westmead. Extending the light rail from Carlingford to Epping will cater for more people than catering for cyclists.
Northern European cities are cyclists' heaven with hundreds of metres of the area around stations covered in bicycles tinyurl.com/24rg8ups. But the land in those cities is flat unlike Sydney and population densities are consistently higher.
Bike infrastructure and public transport are definitely not incompatible or mutually exclusive, and they work really well together due to bikes being space efficient and therefore able to park at train stations. Even just in the last year or so I've seen cycling slowly get more popular around Epping, but due to the lack of infrastructure and the high traffic volumes it's nowhere near as popular as it could be.
In my video I mentioned bus lanes on Epping Road as well. Extending the tram to Epping would definitely be amazing and it should happen for sure. Flatness isn't really relevant as shown by cities like Zurich and the popularity of e-bikes, and density is increasing in Epping and with more public and active transport options it will be able to increase further without traffic getting even worse on the surrounding main roads.