Your questions, answered #

Why does this site exist? #

TfNSW is so bad at their job, it's actually embarrassing. Maybe by compiling all their major failures into a single location, we'll be able to shame them enough that something will start getting fixed.

Who are you? #

I'm just a resident of Sydney who holds these two beliefs:

1. If your policy is bad, you should change it so that it's good.
2. If your policy is decent to good, you should follow it.

Somehow, TfNSW fails spectacularly at BOTH of these things - in many areas their policies are atrocious and ignoring best practices, and the decent ones are being blatantly ignored. It's ridiculous and I want to shine a light on this fact. It's our taxpayer money being wasted and all our lives being harmed as a result of this behaviour, after all!

Are you a traffic engineer? #

You don't need to be a registered tradesperson to see when a surface is ridiculously unlevel. You don't need to be a boatbuilder to know when your boat has a bloody big hole in it and water is pouring in.

I may not be a traffic engineer, but TfNSW's failures are so egregious that you don't need to be one to see them, and that's supremely embarrassing.  

I want to contact you (contribute an issue, fix an error, etc.) #

send it to my email at - tfailsnsw at proton.me

Erskineville Rd, between Linthorpe and Angel Street, is a bridge that goes over the railway line. This bridge has ZERO lighting and hence is a deadly hazard for pedestrians every single night of the year.

Also, there's awful flooding on the northwest end, so every time it rains cars drive through the water and drench everyone on the footpath. 

City of Sydney Council aren't ALLOWED to put any lights on it or fix the flooding because the bridge is owned by TfNSW and everything has to go through them. People have campaigned for over a year to get TfNSW to fix this, there's been a petition and news articles written... 

And after many months TfNSW finally came back with a proposal:

• Put a single new streetlight next to the bridge on the northwest end, as far away as possible from the pitch black southern footpath, 
• put no lighting on the actual ground where the pedestrians are actually walking along the bridge
• say they're "looking into" the flooding issue, no actual fix or timeline

#

Can anyone say PATHETIC? Any local primary schooler could have delivered a better proposal within three days! #

TfNSW should hang their heads in shame!

https://friendsoferskineville.org/index.php/2024/09/26/light-up-the-bridge/

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/light-up-the-bridge

In 2006 the government said they would build a bridge between north Eveleigh (Carriageworks) and south Eveleigh, they committed $6 million, and promised it would be built by 2008. 

It's now 2025 and we STILL don't have a bridge. 

TfNSW keep giving incredible, unbelievable sob stories like:  

• it's too hard (you can engineer an entire Westconnex monstrosity for many lanes of cars and trucks, with associated tunnelling and exhaust considerations, and can't design one tiny bridge for pedestrians? BULLSHIT) 
• it's too expensive (have you tried allocating more than a pathetic 0.2% of the transport budget to active transport? The UN recommends 20%!!! Also, funding was ALREADY allocated for this!) 
• it's not feasible (If it wasn't feasible, it wouldn't have already had funding committed and promised completion before 2008. Also, why don't you actually release the feasibility studies so we can see them, instead of hiding them and keeping them secret? Is it because they say it IS feasible and you have no excuse?)
• you don't need a bridge, you can go around (Hello???? A bridge would take 2 minutes to walk, going around takes 20 minutes! If you can build the monstrous, overpriced white elephant that is the Tibby Cotter bridge over Anzac Parade even though there are MULTIPLE traffic lights near it available for crossing, you can definitely build us a bridge here where there are NO available crossings within eyesight)

TfNSW, stop jerking us around and BUILD THE BRIDGE ALREADY!!!! It's almost 20 years overdue, and it's a bloody embarassment!

For more info, see here:

https://arag.org.au/2024/05/07/can-you-help-build-a-bridge-buildabridge/

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/build-a-bridge 

This missing leg is still not filled in. When it was requested TfNSW suggested they didn’t have the budget to do it because it would cost too much to remove the modal filter and reengineer the intersection from 3 way to 4 way. NOBODY ASKED FOR REMOVING THE MODAL FILTER????

What is a shared zone? #

A road which is 10kmph and pedestrians can walk safely on the road. Cars have to give way to pedestrians and cyclists at all times.

What types of shared zones are there? #

There are 2 types:

Type 1 shared zone is one where the street is smooth across the entire space. No kerbs, and the road surface has been changed to make it look different from a regular road. To convert a regular road this takes a LOT of engineering changes and money for stormwater drainage, removing street parking etc. This is appropriate for large streets which currently have ok footpaths but the plan is to change it to a pedestrian mall vibe.

Example: George St where the light rail has been put in

Example: Tung Hop St in Waterloo 

Type 2 shared zone is where you just change the signage to say 10kmph and make the road surface different from a regular road. No kerb rebuilds, cheap and quick. This is appropriate for tiny local streets and laneways and can be applied much more broadly. 

Example: Goodchap St Surry Hills

Here's TfNSW own design manual showcasing the two types of streets:

https://www.movementandplace.nsw.gov.au/standards/design-solutions/shared-zones

And here's the Speed Zoning Standard with more details:

https://standards.transport.nsw.gov.au/search-standard-specific/?id=TBA%20-%200004459:2022

What's the problem? #

Problem 1: Transport for NSW always tries to pretend that Type 1 is the only type of shared zone that exists. They expect councils to shell out $$$$$$$ for rebuilding kerbs and stormwater drains for no reason. 

Problem 2: Transport for NSW doesn't have a Type 3 option where you put up signs and nothing else. Even if you argue that a Type 2 is appropriate, they always want councils to spend $$$$ on doing extensive pavement treatments, even if it's a tiny laneway which is being obviously treated as a shared zone ANYWAY because there's nowhere else to walk! 

Seriously, tell me why lanes like Parker Lane in Erskineville are still officially labelled as 40kmph? There's no footpath! It's a total no-brainer! Yet somehow TfNSW won't let council change it to 10kmph without an extensive consultation process where they'll probably just say no anyway.

 

Further reading:

https://walksydney.org/2023/11/06/erskineville-stations-new-accessible-concourse-is-surrounded-by-inaccessible-streets/

Thesis on Australian shared zones https://www.be.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/upload/pdf/schools_and_engagement/resources/_notes/5A2_44.pdf

Reworking Sydney Park Junction was a MANDATORY condition of consent of Westconnex. The original Westconnex documents state it was due to be completed by end of 2021.

TfNSW released great designs in 2021 that everyone was on board with… and instead of proceeding, they tried to quietly bury the project, and then cut 90% of it and claim they can’t deliver the whole thing due to cost. Why wasn’t the budget for this MANDATORY project allocated at the start of Westconnex???

Jake Coppinger has done a lot of digging into this fiasco:

https://jakecoppinger.com/2024/09/another-broken-westconnex-promise-secret-sydney-park-junction-design-changes/

https://jakecoppinger.com/2024/11/sydney-park-junction-november-2024/

https://jakecoppinger.com/2025/05/not-enough-funding-for-sydney-park-junction-addendum-ref-to-cut-scope/

(between Erskineville Road and King Street)

After many many years TfNSW finally released the updated design for this tiny missing link of cycleway.

And then they decided the design should include NO TURN signals which means that cyclists are never allowed to turn left/right into King St or Erskineville Rd from the cycleway. Apparently TfNSW thinks that when you get on a cycleway you must only ever go straight for multiple suburbs and can never turn to get to, oh I dunno, THE SHOPS????

Also there’s no evidence of the mandatory Road User Space Allocation Policy being applied. 

Insufficient rat run prevention in Alexandria/Erskineville off Euston rd? TBC

The road at the top end of Erskineville Station is a mess. The newly reinstated cycleway is adequate but only one way, the pedestrians are crammed into a tiny footpath and hemmed in by fences so someone with a pram cannot be passed. TfNSW are finally proposing to remove the fence and improve the cycleway… but in the same breath they are sneakily proposing to remove the median strip and trees on this road! Erskineville Rd NEEDS traffic calming and removing these trees is a serious step backwards.

The original designs presented to the community showed a wide, spacious entrance. What was actually built is tiny, cramped, and missing all the amenities (benches, bike racks etc.). How is it possible that such a big downgrade to project scope can be made without having to go back and inform the community again?

TfNSW is really, really bad at managing traffic lights. 

In other states local councils manage their own traffic lights and can make updates quickly and seamlessly to serve their local residents. Why does TfNSW maintain all the control and yet refuse to use their power to actually improve the situation?

In general, any time TfNSW designs an intersection, they usually make it vastly worse for anyone not in a car by:

• increasing the number of slip lanes that are dangerous for pedestrians
• increasing the number of times a pedestrian has to stop and wait to get to where they need to go (wait to cross the slip lane, wait to cross the road, wait again to cross another slip lane...)
• failing to follow their own policy on eliminating missing legs from intersections
• making the intersection vastly wider than necessary (increasing car traffic and making it harder to walk or cycle across safely) 
• setting the light timings to be as bas for pedestrians as possible (do TfNSW even check pedestrian Level of Service? It doesn't seem like it)
• remove trees (making the crossing as inhospitable as possible to wait at in the sun, wind or rain if you're not inside a motorised air-conditioned box)

Here's some resources and further reading:

• Jake Coppinger's crowdsourced map of really, really bad light timings in Sydney: https://betterintersections.jakecoppinger.com/

and the blog post explaining the issue https://jakecoppinger.com/2023/07/shining-a-light-on-the-traffic-signals-of-sydney/ 

• A View from the Cycle Path is a great blog showcasing examples of both good and bad traffic light design in this tag https://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/search/label/traffic%20lights

With motor vehicles, there are essentially two groups of infrastructure:

One is roads, which is designed for cars, trucks, buses etc to go long distances and quickly. These are busy motor thoroughfares with high speed  limits. They are uncomfortable to be in if you are not in a motor vehicle and non-motor traffic is actively deprioritised. Hans Monderman called this the "traffic zone".

The other is streets, which is local areas for people to walk, children to play, businesses to thrive. Streets will usually have some car traffic, but cars are not the dominant mode of transport here and should be travelling slowly (particularly in dense inner-city areas where there's not far to go anyway before you hit another turn, or a pet or child running out across the road, or have to park at your destination). Hans Monderman called this the "social zone" and Engwicht called it the "outdoor living room".

How fast should cars go on a street while still being safe for pedestrians and cyclists? Luckily there's an easy answer, thanks to research: 30 kmph. 

Image: Cities Safer by Design and ADAC Tempo 30 Pro Contra

So why does TfNSW set school zones and "high pedestrian activity areas" by default to 40kmph instead of 30? This is a legacy speed setting and should have been updated in line with the research more than a decade ago. 

Why does the TfNSW road safety action plan keep talking about 40kmph for safety instead of 30kmph in urban areas? 

Are they really aiming for zero road trauma, or just the bare minimum lip service to it while largely continuing the status quo?

Further reading:

Bicycle NSW's 30kmph campaign page https://bicyclensw.org.au/advocacy/campaign-updates/safe-speed-limits/

30 Please Australia-wide campaign for 30kmph https://30please.org/

WestConnex was a disaster. There was supposed to be a bunch of active transport infrastructure put in place as a condition of consent for WestConnex, and yet somehow TfNSW decided these mandatory components were merely optional. 

There's a list in Hansard here by Cate Faehrmann MP  https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/Hansard/Pages/HansardResult.aspx#/docid/HANSARD-1820781676-97448

The committee received damning evidence on active transport, especially because much of what the community was promised in relation to active transport infrastructure was just not delivered. That included separated cycleways along Victoria Road from City West Link to the Iron Cove Bridge as well as along the full length of Lilyfield Road from Victoria Road to the northern end of GreenWay and the Bay Run. Inner West Bicycle Coalition collated pictures of the problems with the active transport infrastructure provision for committee members, including one that showed no protection from vehicles that might mount the curb. Another showed that the Victoria Road shared path east of Terry Street still has totally inadequate room to accommodate cyclists and bus patrons. Another showed that Victoria Road has a shared path at the Darling Street, Rozelle bus stop, which is way too narrow, including allowing only a one-way cycle traffic, which is just ridiculous. Another showed that the newly constructed shared path adjacent to James Craig Road is narrow and is not complying with Austroads specifications, noting that the adjacent motor traffic lanes are five metres wide. There were many others.

In response to criticism from active transport advocates and cyclists, John Holland and CPB Contractors advised the committee that, at all times, the joint venture attempted to find solutions to the concerns along and around the site, particularly throughout the delivery of the project. That is not what the committee heard from the stakeholders. Another recommendation in relation to active transport, recommendation 4, was that Transport for NSW ensure that the existing active transport links along Lilyfield Road and Victoria Road meet the needs of active transport users, particularly cyclists, by addressing any gaps and concerns raised by active transport advocates, including delivering safe, separated cycleways for those routes. Again, it would be interesting to see if any of that has taken place yet.

Recommendation 13 was that Transport for NSW work with cycling advocates to undertake an urgent safety and usability assessment of cycling infrastructure in areas impacted by the Rozelle interchange, including Victoria Road, Lilyfield Road and surrounding local streets, and commit to a plan to improve and upgrade that cycling infrastructure to best standard. Recommendation 15 was that the New South Wales Government ensure that all future road-based projects prioritise the inclusion of safe and accessible active transport infrastructure. That is just not happening in this State. This road project was an opportunity, as the community was promised, to put world‑class active transport and cycling infrastructure in place. Instead, the Rozelle interchange actually made things worse than what was there in the first place. Again, that is completely unacceptable given the scale of spending involved and the disruption to the local communities. Recommendation 2 of the report says that the New South Wales Government reject any further privatisation of the State's roads and any major new road-based infrastructure projects that do not align with government strategy and are not in the public interest.

On 20th November 2024, Jenny Leong MP asked the following questions in Parliament to TfNSW regarding the appalling unannounced downgrade of the Sydney Park Junction designs:

https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/la/papers/pages/qanda-tracking-details.aspx?pk=101985

(1) Regarding the revision of plans for Sydney Park Junction:

(a) What is the updated timeframe for revising the plans?

(b) What is the expected delivery date?

(c) Are any elements of the project still being considered for removal by Transport for NSW?

(d) Is the revision happening due to funding shortfalls as stated by Transport for NSW and, if so, how much additional funding is needed to complete the plans as they were exhibited in 2021?

(2) Has the Road User Space Allocation Policy been corrected applied at the intersection of Sydney Park Road with Mitchell Road and what was the process of checking the compliance of the de-scoped project with other Transport for NSW strategies including the Walking Space Guide, the NSW Movement and Place Framework and the Cycleway Design Toolbox?

(3) Can you confirm if existing road space will be reallocated for the cycleway linking Sydney Park Road and Mitchell Road, rather than using the grass verge which would require the removal of a large number of mature trees?

(4) Is the Government still intending to deliver all elements of the approved project scope including:

(a) New bus stop at Sydney Park Rd/Mitchell Rd intersection?

(b) Pedestrian crossing on western arm of the Sydney Park Rd/Mitchell Rd intersection?

(c) Dynamic community space for parklets on both sides of Princes Highway?

(d) Landscaped buildouts on Sydney Park Road and Princes Highway?

(e) 50+ new trees?

(f) Reducing the design speed in the project area to 40 km/h or below?

(g) Removing the slip lane at Sydney Park Rd/Princes Highway intersection?

(h) New mid-block pedestrian crossing on Princes Highway north of Short Street?

(i) New mid-block pedestrian and cyclist crossing on Princes Highway between May Street and Goodsell Street?

(j) Separated cycleway on the western side of King Street between May Street and St Peters square?

(k) Separated cycleway on the southern side of Sydney Park Road between Princes Highway and Mitchell Road?

(l) Separated cycleway on the western side of Mitchell Road between Sydney Park Road and existing cycleway?

(5) Does the Sydney Park Junction plan prioritise cars over other methods of transport?

(a) If so, why?

(b) What is Transport for NSW doing to consider alternate methods of travel?

These are eminently reasonable questions that try to understand the details of the project changes, right? Now let's see how TfNSW answered an entire month later:

I am advised

Transport for NSW is committed to delivering the Sydney Park Junction project to provide better safety and connectivity for people walking and bike riding in the Sydney Park area.

While there are some changes to the design being considered, following feedback received during the display of the Review of Environmental Factors and by councils, key features of the project remain and will be delivered.

Transport for NSW is liaising with City of Sydney and Inner West Council to finalise the design for the project, which includes the delivery of a new cycle path connection between Sydney Park Road and the Mitchell Road cycleway, as well as a pedestrian crossing on the western leg of the Sydney Park Road intersection. This work considers all relevant policies and guidelines.

The Sydney Park Junction project will be delivered in stages, and Transport for NSW will keep the community updated.

Transport for NSW has already redirected freight traffic and reduced speeds to 40 km/h on the Princes Highway to King Street and Sydney Park Road corridors. This has reduced traffic volumes and improved safety for people walking and bike riding on the Princes Highway, while allowing safer access to Sydney Park.

Information about the Sydney Park Junction project is available on the Transport for NSW website: https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/projects/current-projects/sydney-park-junction.

Let's be frank here: If I had answered such individual, targeted questions from a teacher at school like this, I would have got a big fat ZERO on that assignment. If I had answered questions from my boss at work in such a dismissive manner, I would be well on the way to being FIRED.

How dare TfNSW merely deflect instead of providing actual answers on such huge policy decisions they tried to make in secret and hide from the public? WHERE IS THE ACCOUNTABILITY???

Why was a member of the public forced to spend money on a FOI submission to get answers? See more detail at Jake Coppinger's blog: https://jakecoppinger.com/2025/05/not-enough-funding-for-sydney-park-junction-addendum-ref-to-cut-scope/ 

From an engineering perspective, cycleways give a much higher throughput of traffic in urban areas than a general traffic lane of the same size choked by cars. They are cheap to implement and have a huge return on investment for local businesses, because cyclists can easily stop at businesses with very little parking space and no turning space needed.  

Everywhere around the world a proper cycleway network is built, the benefits are obvious - make it easy for people who don't need a car to move themselves around on a bicycle, and suddenly oodles of road and parking space is freed up for everyone who DOES need a car.

So why does TfNSW refuse to build cycleways where they are obviously needed? 

Why is it taking them years to figure out a tiny <100m stretch of cycleway to join up Wilson St to King St? 

Why do they only allocate a measly 0.2% of the transport budget to all walking and cycling projects (less than 1% of what is recommended by the UN!!) 

Why are there examples of trying to defund and destroy them even when they are legally obliged to put them in place as part of approval for a larger project (Sydney Park Project)? 

And why, even when they do build them, do we regularly see failure to follow Austroads standards, resulting in dangerously hazardous cycleways that are failing our citizens every day?

https://bicyclensw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/240919-Bicycle-NSW-to-TfNSW-SCC-EHC.pdf

https://bicyclensw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/241125-Josh-Murray-to-Bicycle-NSW-Sydney-Illawarra-projects.pdf 

Officially, TfNSW is meant to look after ALL transport - foot traffic included!

In practice, anytime there's a critical safety issue for pedestrians, TfNSW sleeps on it for literal years. Apparently citizens are only valuable and worth protecting when they're enclosed inside a motorised metal box, or if TfNSW can justify putting in a fence or staircases or traffic lights that make walking even harder, to discourage people from walking and put them into a motorised metal box.

In the 1980s, 75% of kids walked or rode to school. But after four decades of car-centric urban planning, that proportion has plummeted to 14.5%.

TfNSW need to be held accountable for the damage done to our children's health and independence through their short-sighted car-first approach. Remember, at least 40% of the population does not drive due to being too young, too old, having medical conditions, not being able to afford it, or simply not wanting to! It is totally unreasonable to expect 40% of the population to be unable to transport themselves around their state and city without asking for family/friends or paying for a stranger to be their private chauffeur. Proper infrastructure for non-car modes of travel is critical to the economic functioning of our state.

All roads are placed into two categories: either it's a "local" road (council manages it and pays for repairs) or it's a "state" road (TfNSW manages it, council aren't allowed to make changes).

In many cases, a road can be a "state" road for only a section and not the whole thing, making it very confusing for citizens as to why upgrades and fixes stop halfway (the answer: because TfNSW are sitting on their hands and refusing to work on their section of the road).  

There are many roads which look like they should be a quiet, local shopping street going through the centre of a local village, but because it's marked on TfNSW's map as a "state road" they won't allow the council to implement traffic calming measures, reduce speed limits, reduce or change vehicle lanes etc. even where these changes are sorely needed. The resistance is usually because they would have to change the programming of the traffic lights, and they REALLY hate improving the traffic light system. 

to be filled - Bicycle NSW

https://bicyclensw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/250523-SWATL-Letter-to-Secretary-DPHI.pdf

https://bicyclensw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/250416-SWATL-Letter-to-Minister-for-Transport.pdf

Constant failure of planning:

• piecemeal approach to roads and intersections instead of having a larger network view
• network considerations only taken into account for cars and not all other modes of transport 
• failure to implement own policies and guidelines when planning
• even when TfNSW manage to present a rare good design, they then immediately fuck it up by not building it properly anyway (see No Accountability)

Why did the Hunter & Tablelands Integrated Transport Strategies

• not mention speed limits?
• not mention design of streets manuals?

An entire bypass was built, in order to take car traffic out of the town centre. 

So why is there ZERO plan to improve the town centre as a result???

We know there will be less fast car traffic, which means more space can be allocated to trees, cycleways, wider footpaths, seating, art - all very important elements of a local village streetscape which would make it pleasant to hang around in and make the local economy thrive?

Apparently TfNSW built the bypass just for fun because they like spending money on new roads and doesn't want anything to actually think about how to improve things for anyone not currently in a car travelling at highway speeds, yet again. 

Green Square is a total shitshow. TfNSW have taken a brand new set of streets and intersections in one of the most dense suburbs in the southern hemisphere, and made it as hostile to walking and cycling as possible - even though there isn't even any car traffic to try and justify it. The streets are basically EMPTY of cars! 

When will they fix the traffic lights to stop giving pedestrians a red signal for 90% of the time when there aren't even any cars on the road?

https://bicyclensw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/230830-Letter-to-Minister-Graham-Victoria-Road.pdf

TfNSW are going ahead with a raft of insane changes to shovel more cars into the CBD and destroy safety for pedestrians and cyclists

https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/projects/current-projects/western-distributor-road-network-improvements

https://bicyclensw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/221027-Western-Distributor-Road-Network-Improvements-Bicycle-NSW-submission.pdf

Here's what Gardeners Rd in Mascot, just east of Bourke Rd, looked like in 2017:

6 lanes for cars. That north side footpath is somewhat narrow, but plenty of grass on either side. It's actually a shared path (you can see the blue line) so that people can travel east/west between Eastlakes/Kensington and Bourke St cycleway. And plenty of trees for shade.

Here's what it looks like today:

TfNSW decided in their infinite wisdom to add yet another lane for cars... and by doing so removed all the trees, made the footpath even narrower, removed all shared path signage, and removed the nature strips so pedestrians are forced to walk mere centimetres away from fast trucks. To add insult to injury, they didn't even notify City of Sydney that they were going to vandalise the shared path this way! City of Sydney maps still show it as a shared path, the way it's supposed to be, instead of this glaring unsafe gap in the cycling network. 

This decision was a disgrace and TfNSW should hang their heads in shame.