The Genius Plan to Fix (part of) Sydney's Victoria Road (feat.  

Join the letter-writing campaign here: www.kobishetty.org.au/victoria_road_letter Contact the Minister for Roads: office@graham.minister.nsw.gov.au

Victoria Road is the worst, maybe second only to Parramatta Road. I very much despise how the government seem to want to delay renewal of the corridor simply so they can turn around and say “oh, traffic didn’t go down, nothing we can do!” WestConnex was designed to take cars off surface roads and trigger urban renewal, and it is very slimy of politicians to not follow through with this. Thank you for holding them to account, and for letting me be a part of that! (And, of course, thanks for not shooting me this time 😮‍💨)

I would LOVE to see you do one about Military Rd! I know you're more a local to the north but Military is arguably worse and there are no Metro or Light Rail or cycling plans.

I will admit, every single traffic light that asks pedestrians to wait more than 1 minute (theoretically) should be mandated to have a small sunlight shade, or a tree nearby. Because waiting for 2 minutes in the burning sun without any shade, is horrendous (Darling St and Victoria Road intersection). That one time I went to Rozelle was from Taverner's Hill to CBD via Greenway and Bay Run. Idk how I got to Rozelle, but it was searing hot just waiting under the sun, to cross the road. The lack of trees also meant that the cycling trip was pretty bad up the hill. The Rozelle section was by far the worst section of that trip, sorry to say.

I think the design of the bus lane should be more align to evolve into a Tram line

Love it when you and Sharath work together, it just works.

I go to Rozelle via Victoria Road quite frequently for appointments. I used to cycle to Rozelle via the Beam bikes that were available. It was one of the only journeys in Sydney that was actually practical by bike. Beam was bad, but it was better than no bike at all! And they had some infrastructure! Not good ones, but better than the rest of Sydney! But then the bike decided one day to lock randomly in the middle of the road while crossing Victoria Road. They then decided to stop allowing them to go to all of the Inner West so now I’m forced to take buses which often get stuck in traffic and get dangerously overcrowded. A light rail line and cycleway along Victoria Road is desperately needed and would make it significantly safer to use Victoria Road! I’m not the only one who gets terrified of the intersection of Victoria Road & Darling Street! Please also fix up Darling Street as that’s a slightly smaller stroad, but still a 4 lane stroad! But they’ll probably never listen to me… Nether the less, thanks for making this video! You just got a new subscriber!

Another Video could show some of the problems of the existing shared paths, such as the lack of bicycle lights at Robert St, bumpy kerb ramps, unprotected side street crossings, such as Springside St.

Good luck! Today Victoria Road, tomorrow Parramatta Road, King Street, Oxford Street.

I got excited when I saw Victoria Road in the title but you are only referring to a very small section. The bigger issue for me is the lack of transport across the lower northern suburbs. Victoria Road is perfect for a light rail line. To travel from anywhere in the north to Parramatta, you must either take a bus or train down to Strathfield and change to the western line. The light rail could even go the entire length of Victoria Road. It could link up with the Inner West line at one end and the new Parramatta light rail at the other. It's a clear route.

Loved seeing a bit about what is going on in Australia! Hello from Canada 🇨🇦 👋

Super creative video, great ideas. Love it

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the new detour thing a toll road? Does that mean Victoria remains the main toll-frre road? I can see why they're hesitant to reduce it to 1 lane if that's the case.

1:36 Wow! that's cool that they moved the bike path from the side of the busy roadside, and onto the footpath. Normally, I hate riders weaving in and out of us pedestrians. But in this instance, it's a proper shared path. And it's safe. I'm good with that.

You know what sucks about westconnex tunnel though? it's crazy expensive! So people will continue to want to avoid it if there are other options as well which means that we'll still be seeing a lot of cars on both Parra road and Vic road.

I would hate this road to be shrunk. Getting in & out of the city now is a nightmare. The journey from Ryde in is a car park. While you may talk of public transport that only helps if you are going where the majority are going. But if you work in Mascot, Alexandria or Port Botany, Bussing into the city & back out again has added an extra hour to your journey. Each way.

Funnily enough, that same shop location (now gong cha) got rammed into by a car recently too 😂 (laughing at the repeat occurrence not at the new shops owners misfortune)

Will they send busses through the new road tunnel? Perhaps routes the inner routes such as 501, 503, 504, 505 remain on the surface and 500x, 502, 504x, 506 and 507 bypass through the new tunnel. This would make public transport more competitive with cars

“Predict and provide” planning is destroying any chance Australian cities have of significantly reducing car usage, the constant need to ensure private vehicle capacity in planning holds so many good projects back and allows so many bad ones to get the green light

Personally I think Hume Hwy between Casula and Warwick Fa4m is up there too. I battle this every day.

LRT on Vic Rd east of Eastwood is also desperately needed - and it shouldn't be done the way Randwick has approached it. The buses always seem to be mostly full when I use them during peak hours (though I will admit that I don't really use them frequently).

You should do a video about the Hume Highway through Liverpool. What a disaster that has no hope of improvement?

I used to live in Rozelle and cycle commute to Talavera road in north ryde. It was hell. not sure if cycling will take off, unless more folk get e-bikes.

I am really frustrated by the lack of commitment to public transport and livability by the current government. Why did we bother?

How do commercial vehicles get around. Longer travel times mean higher costs at the shops.

It's a shame this project only covers the Rozelle section of Victoria Road, it sucks when you ride across the Gladesville bridge and you have to do those swirls on both ends. Also I appreciate the backdrop of the abandoned Balmain Leagues club, hopefully something can be done about that with all this renewal going on + the bays metro station being somewhat nearby (fingers crossed it isn't cancelled)

You just got yourself a subscription

Unfortunately Sydney is stuck with tight roads. Pity we can't do a Melbourne and have sets of roads with a main carriage way for 'intra-urban' travel with side 'collector' roads for local access. The idea of change to both Victoria and Parramatta roads is good, but relying on walking and public transport won't get you there. No one wants to walk on hot summer days or in strong winds. Public transport is slow and restrictive and means you have to carefully plan your day, usually resulting in fewer trips and fewer things getting done, inconvenient to carry luggage (and not everyone wants to or is able to wear a back-pack). It all sounds great when you are young, but many of my older clients would find it impossible to maintain their quality of life without driving everywhere.

department of incompetence (planning & environment) at it again

Sadly, I think the plan is to allow the road to fill up and then add a toll to the tunnel. If you would like to bet on that, I’ll take it paying $9 on a toll in the tunnel by 2025.

I think this is very interesting, but I'm a bit confused. From what I've seen they're only building a tunnel on one small section in Rozelle, but Victoria Road goes on for miles west of that with similar problems. Is there any plan for those sections or are they only fixing this small one? Anyways I think a tunnel is too costly to fix these sorts of problems, especially on such a long stretch of road. The biggest problem is that the road has too many access points. This creates conflict between fast moving through traffic and local street life which includes cars from the feeder roads. I would dramatically cut the access points and concentrate them at a few roundabouts. Then you would have a much safer, higher capacity through road and you could still remove lanes, because a single well planned lane can carry the same capacity as multiple "stroad-lanes". There would still be a lot of traffic, but at least you would have the space to build street trees, bike lanes and maybe a tram route. Again, not a local, but I think a tram route branching off at John St. Square and then running along Victoria Road to the West Ryde train station looks very promising too. Just my 2 cents on this, maybe stuff like that is already planned, would love to know more about it :)

While some regeneration would be nice. Why would you want bike lanes up that steep road for and do you really think wildlife will return to what will still be a road.

Locals want this- but people who need to drive (e.g. tradies) don't want this

WEF 15 minuet cities coming to every suburbs.

I was born in Sydney but thankfully I live in another Aussie city way out west. Sydney has always had horrible roads. I can remember as a kid in the Eighties how awful Parramatta and Canterbury roads were. Seems like nothing changes. Anyway enjoy your expensive toll roads in Sydney. Please don't complain because you Sydney siders voted for your horrific traffic congestion and expensive toll roads.

Good video Chris, but I just want to suggest that people go to Labor party branch meetings and make these views heard there! No where would be as effective at forcing change than making the views known within the governing party. All the best!

Hi

Yes, Victoria Road is crap, but forcing drivers onto yet another toll road is not the solution & only lines the coffers further. It also further financially punishes those who can't afford to live nearer the city, or forces them to rat run through suburban roads to avoid the traffic & toll. Cycling & public transport doesn't work for everyone either. Plus it doesn't address most of Victoria Road, with Gladesville & beyond seeing no change. What's needed is a more holistic approach & not just more cycle ways & public transport. Cutting the current tax breaks for large Utes & SUV's while financially incentivize switching to the use of small cars & motorcycles would go a long way to reduce congestion. A recent UK study found that if 10% of road users switched to Motorcycles congestion would drop by 40% and we'd likely see a similar drop here in Sydney. It would also increase overall safety for all road users. Trust me, motorcyclists don't want to hit anyone or anything & small car drivers generally don't have the invincibility complex that large vehicle drivers seem to have. Once we get the traffic congestion down we can look at converting lanes to cycle-ways & bus lanes if needed.

this is all good in theory but it didnt work so well for epping road lane cove. i dont know if they plan to toll the tunnel under victoria road, but it will create the same problems as lane cove, that is taking away 90% of the roads capacity but only funnelling 10% of the traffic into the tunnel due to tolls. so heres hoping the tunnel under victoria road is toll free, because if not, plans like this are doomed to failure.

first

Sorry, your utopian wishes are just NOT in the best interests of the vast majority of commuters. Restricting Epping highway was a disaster - it would be 10 times worse at Rozelle.

Victoria Rd is a major connecting road. For an arterial road such as that, traffic evaporation is a myth. The cars that lose Vic Rd will just use rat runs or other ways of getting through that part of town. Travel from West Pyrmont to Gladesville and beyond will simply move onto Parra Rd or Pacific Hwy, causing greater congestion there. You've got to accept some roads are 6 lanes because they need to be. And as for fumes and pollution, how relevant will that be in 10 years time when over half of all traffic will be electric.