Skip to main content

Traffic in Sydney is hell

The thing I hated most about Sydney remains the same... the traffic and transport is a shithouse nightmare. Even worse than my worst nightmare.

Trains and light rail (trams) are good but buses are shit and driving is equally shit. Took me 20min to drive 2 km this morning. Utter nightmare. The thing I hate about Australia the most (like the US) is that it's so car dependent. It's not sustainable, pollutes the environment, not exactly great for our health and stress levels either, parking is expensive as hell.

Dumbass middle-aged white male car-loving politicians think building more roads, more lanes, more freeways, bridges, tunnels, multi storey carparks will solve the problem... until they run out of space again and then what? Build 10 lane roads, 4 layers of overpasses and 20 level carparks (that cost $100/day to park in)?

Meanwhile trains are efficient, don't jam, are easy to use and get people around easily.

Public transport is so much better in Europe and Asia ( and more affordable too) and people do use it. In the 30 odd years I've been visiting Taipei, Taiwan there are less cars on the road than before (due to the extremely efficient and user friendly metro they built) whereas Sydney seems to have 10x more cars than what I remember during my childhood.

I get the feeling that Sydneysiders (and many ppl around the world) enjoy sitting in traffic because catching public transport is 'below' them and being comfortable (ie not having to walk 5 or 10min to a bus/train stop especially if it's raining) is the most important criteria .... then they complain about the traffic while adding to the problem themselves. It's selfish.

Btw I'm not saying that people should never drive, I'm talking about Mon- Fri commutes... esp. if you're going into the city.

I know that most people don't care about this issue which is rather sad... it's only going to get worse. The bloody developers keep building new apartments but not enough garages and never think about how all these new residents are going to add heaps more traffic to the area and how they're going to get around...

While I really applaud Sydney transport in bringing back trams to the city (best thing they ever did and I wish they'd done it while I was uni as taking buses down George st (again, 20min for 2km) was hell)..they need to do more for the outer suburbs.

And about Geneva- and all those dumb (as always, middle aged white male) politicians who think that building a tunnel under the lake will solve the traffic problems it won't. Take a lesson from Sydney. The Sydney Harbour tunnel did initially ease traffic from the bridge until it too became congested.... building more roads, lanes, tunnels and shit does not solve the problem dumbasses. Getting ppl out of their cars and having less cars on the road does.

And make more bloody park and ride facilities. Switzerland and France do that well. Sydney is shit for that. Ugh.

Rant over.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why doesn't Bondi Beach have a train station?

Because Australians hate public transport! Because the selfish NIMBYs who live near the beach hate public transport! When I'm in Sydney I rarely go to the Eastern suburbs but yes, those buses around Bondi and Coogee are an absolute nightmare. Always crowded and jam packed, a nightmare if there's a pram or wheelchair, of course no signs or anything so you have no idea where the fuck you are, because you can't see other the window.. You'd better hope you have a copy of the app on your phone because the driver will be useless too (not that you can even speak to him or her with the 50 people between you).. I will say, however, that the bus interchange at Bondi Junction is amazing. I love how there are so many seats to sit on while you wait, and it's nice and clean and well lit and you don't have to breathe in fumes while you wait for buses. And it's conveniently located right where the train station is too. Read this very interesting article here  http:/...

Driving for the first time in Melbourne

So I drove for the first time in Melbourne yesterday... After suffering serious stress from dealing with the hell-on-earth traffic in the eastern suburbs/CBD of Sydney.. it wasn't much better in Melbourne.  When we were driving to Canberra and trying to get to the Harbour tunnel we had to pass a HUGE amount of traffic (on a Saturday) with like 10 lanes not moving (hello Los Angeles?!) just due to ONE accident on the Cahill expressway... I thank the Gods we were taking the tunnel and not the harbour bridge which meant we might've been stuck there for 2 hours... WTF is up with this shit? Traffic is a nightmare. Why are there constant accidents? Why are people such bad drivers? They should seriously raise the age to 21 I reckon, and make those over 60 or 70 re-take the exam because people here seriously cannot drive! And everyone is so anti-public transport.. ugh... so they have to drive absolutely everywhere, even 500m down the road... So my GPS and Google maps told ...

Sydney's buses suck too

Hello Sydney! Hello suburbia and car lovers and shit transport! So I think Sydney's public transport is better than Melbourne's. And it is but only if you compare trains... when you live in the middle of a forest with no transport except fucking shit house buses it's equally shit. It's been 40 mins since I left home and I'm still waiting for a bus. It's 4pm so it's almost peak hour so there should be lots of them. There are no seats, no shade. It's fucking boiling hot and there is a jackhammer across the road going. A bus finally comes and it can't pick anyone up because it's full of school kids. FFS if you want to send your kid to a school 10km from home YOU arrange the transport. It's not a fucking school bus. So then another bus comes along shortly after and there is a driver changeover! Now to take at least 45mins to travel 10km bc your entire suburb has been turned into a fucking gigantic construction zone... So in...