Pedestrian Pitfalls: Stop putting cars before people!

Urbanism in the 21st century demands that we prioritise public transport and pedestrians over the motor car, the latter of which is quite simply an inefficient means of transportation. For commuters to get between public transport and their destination, active transport links are required. Active transport links are those that primarily rely upon physical activity as a means of transport, including travel by foot, bicycle and other non-motorised vehicles. Increasingly, city planners are trying to build cities for people, not for cars. However, unfortunately the car-centric planning ideals of last century continue to pervade all over our urban landscape, and we can see this all too clearly in Sydney. Footpaths that end in the middle of nowhere, illogically-located pedestrian bridges, bus stops that are dangerous to get to, and even signs that command pedestrians to "consider motorists and cross in groups". In this video, we'll explore the many pedestrian pitfalls that exist all over Sydney, and the vicious cycle that has allowed these pitfalls to keep being built.

Links:

Music:
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- Lost On The Freeway by HoliznaCC0
- Red Lipstick by PantheonMusic
- VHS Dreams by Shane Ivers

[thecrazygainerguy]

Another forgotten feature of footpaths is shade. Walking in the direct sun on a hot summers day is something no one wants to do. Tree lined paths give shade and help counter the island heat effect.

[FollowTheSunAustralia]

I contacted council about a walking path that just ended, 2 years later I noticed it had been cemented, I was pretty proud of myself but would encourage anyone to do it

[terrygleeson]

As a user of a powered mobility device and at times, a manual wheelchair, I can’t stress enough how important the existence and then the maintenance of pathways and cutaways is. In my local are at Dural, the nearest pathway to me is over a kilometre away. More content on this matter would be appreciated. Keep up the good work.

[TFFox]

As someone who works at NSW DPIE (Department of planning) I couldnt agree more and thank you for making these videos! I wish that i alone could make these improvments haha, they will take time and alot of people, but the fact you're bringing so much attention to this is exactly what is needed! Thank you!

[AheadMatthewawsome]

Hi Sharath, thank you so much for featuring my submission on the state of the Pacific Highway at Turramurra! It really means a lot to me. The current situation with pedestrian infrastructure makes people either drive to the station, increasing local congestion. Or they just take the car the whole way worsening congestion in general and causes even though we have a train line that has services of every 3 minutes during the peak, only 40% take the train, 45% drive, and 5% by other forms of transport. If I could drive to the station, I probably would!

There are plans to do up Turramurra within the next 15 years as apart of “Activate Turramurra” by Kur-ing-gai Council. Although it will help with other mistakes that were made to the area back in the 60s, they want to widen the road to 8 lanes! 6 for driving, 2 for turning. I don’t know how they’d be able to build it without pedestrians being wiped out all together, worsening the current divide between the North and the South. It probably deserves an episode in itself!

Ryde Road is also similarly horrible. Especially the intersection between the two! I often go to appointments at a nearby office building, and it’s just impossible to use that intersection as a pedestrian nor cyclist safely. You can only cross it in one go if you run, which is not possible for a lot of people around here that are often quite elderly. And if you’re trying to go the other way to cross the road heading towards Ryde Road, it is impossible to do it without getting killed!

On the Pacific Highway, there’s also long distances of often more than a km between crossings. Forcing people to jaywalk and risk getting killed by the b doubles that roll on through at 60km/h so that they skip the toll for the NorthConnex, and the fine for using Pennant Hills Road.

Please keep doing what you’re doing! You’ve been amazing!

[Azzy_]

I can’t believe that my submission actually made it in, thank you so much Sharath from Building Beautifully.

[ChrisTopher_Urbanism]

Glad to see you going over this super import topic! And I also now know where the third Canberra bus stop (out of four) that was sent to Sydney is - Wakehurst Parkway. The other two are near a park in Epping, now I only have one more to find...

[KhanPiesseONE]

Brisbane, Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast have thousands of examples similar to the ones shown in this video. Especially suburban Gold Coast which sometimes feels like the hardest place to walk around in Australia. It's not getting much better, we are building a new motorway! So yay! It can get even worse! I am so happy ...

[oufukubinta]

In Japan there are so many elevated walkways across roads, and it's nothing fancy at all - just very cheaply built and minimalistic bridges but you see them everywhere and they're heavily used. Sometimes they even connect to a building like a shopping center

[mattweller]

Thank you for all that you do for the residents of Sydney!

[volkan]

World needs more people like you my friend.

As a regular shopper at Marsden Park business centre I have to drive between all the shops because it is unsafe and there are no actual crossings lanes or lights.

Pedestrians are disregarded from day one of the design of the suburb.

Multimillion dollar business in the area has no care in the world too.

Disappointing

[Craigbn]

Good video! A couple of other points about footpaths, almost every local street in the Blacktown area (and I think close by areas too) only have footpaths on one side. It’s a real bad look for western Sydney when they can’t have a proper footpath on each side of every street. Plus a problem that happens all over Sydney - motorists parking across driveways blocking footpaths for everyone, in particular persons in wheelchairs, persons with strollers etc

[Flarel]

Outside central station I feel like theres some room for improvement.
- The crossing opposite the woolies metro on Elizabeth street is often so packed at peak hour (because crossing times are so slow) that people spill out onto the streets or move further up the road to cross
- A bicycle lane just randomly ends where all the pedestrians are, so people on bikes just crash into other people waiting to cross the road. Then the bikelane comes back for 50 meters, then it goes away, and then it comes back again 😵

My 2c, we shouldn't have highways ripping right through the city, it's not as bad as USA, but it's pretty bad.

[papa_gowon]

I noticed the other day the pedestrian signals have been changed near Green Square station so now pedestrians can no longer cross 2 roads during 1 signal, now having to wait in the middle island for a long time. It sounds minor and it is, but this along with the Dunning Ave Rosebery cycleway being removed (which I used every day, take that NIMBYs) has been getting me down. This video makes me feel like I'm not alone.

[PatSmashYT]

I like that you still see cars as important while also praising public transit unlike the other transit channels who think cars are the second coming of satan

[charlielloyd]

The viability of any public transport service depends on passengers having easy access to stops. Sydney has a very long way to go in order to provide adequate pedestrian access. In the Netherlands the rail system depends on good cycle links, about 55% of journeys involve a cycle link at one or both ends.
Here in the UK things are improving slowly. I travel 165 km each way about once a week. Train + bike is faster, cheaper and much more enjoyable than driving. I ride about 8 km through fields and forest at one end. Next 90-100 minutes by train, watching Youtube and writing comments. Then about 6 km through the centre of London on tracks or roads with restricted motor traffic. I am so lucky compared to people trying to make similar journeys in the Sydney area.

[rakeau]

Few things that pop out to me right away:

- The reason the footpath likely ends where it does on Richmond Rd is because that's largely where the road upgrades / duplication started (or ended). I guess they did some duplication work a little beyond there but it largely joins up to the original road. Also, there seems to be some issues with the road's proximity to the properties that back onto the road.

- The reason the Boundary Rd probably lacks a footpath is because the road is also unchanged. A lot of the roads around there are. They're the intact roads that are exactly as they were "in the sticks" before all the urbanization around them. The footpaths probably don't exist because no work has been done to the road itself either. Whenever upgrades do happen, I'd imagine they'll probably do road and footpaths both at the same time.

- I drove along Doonside Rd past Bungaribee Park earlier this afternoon and I did notice the bus stop there had some seating installed ... in the form of a milk crate 🤣 I wonder if that was put there by Blacktown council?

- I always get a kick out of recognising so many of these locations 😁

[dtcmmie]

The long crossing waits is something I have to deal with daily with my commute into Woolloomooloo, it can sometimes take 3+ minutes just to wait for crossing to go green which is absolutely insane to me.

[philipbyrne]

Thanks so much Sharath and community for providing so many egregious examples of active transport infrastructure in Sydney. There were a disturbing number of sites where I have risked my life on a bicycle! Hopefully your community can become an active voice for greater Sydney given your recent exposure in mainstream media.❤

[dominicgalvin]

Wentworth Ave Mascot “cyclists to dismount” sign on a shared path. I’ve ignored that too many times!