Transport Issues
EcoTransit Sydney is actively pursuing proposals and solutions to many of Sydney's transport problems and issues.
Issues in transport come in all sizes, from the grand to the tiny, but regardless of their size, it should come as no surprise that many issues relate to each other. After all, a transport system is a network, and networks are interactive.
For the most part, this section of the site deals with the grand issues, such as the impact of dealing with climate change and increasing petrol prices. However, you'll also find interesting information about funding for transport and logistics.
Air Quality & Health
In 1996, the NSW government recognised that the key to reducing air pollution and improving air quality is reducing the amount of kilometres travelled in private vehicles. To date this target has not been met and indeed, has recently been removed from the Clean Air Act, presumably because they are unwilling to do what is necessary to get people out of their cars.
Vehicle exhausts containing toxic substances such as Sulphur Dioxide and Nitrogen Dioxide are increasing to troublesome levels. Particulate matter from vehicle exhaust are also indicated in coronary and lung conditions as well as some cancers . This is particularly a problem with vehicles using diesel fuels. EcoTransit Sydney believe that moves to deter private vehicle use and to expand public and active transport initiatives will make a significant dent in health and productivity issues associated with poor air quality.
Motor Vehicle Exhaust Pollutants
Medical studies have consistently shown that this pollution causes heart and lung diseases, especially in the developing foetus (as they are going through critical stages of development), children and the elderly. These diseases include asthma, bronchitis, heart attack and cancer.
According to the CSIRO, Australia's air pollution death toll is now higher than fatalities from road accidents. Each year on average, 2400 deaths are linked to air quality and health issues - much more than the 1700 people who die on our roads. That's an average of one death every four hours, and this number increases if the long-term effects of air toxics that induce cancer are included.
So, what types of pollution are produced by cars and trucks, and what effects do they have?
Nitrogen oxides (NOx) cause respiratory damage, and so increase lower respiratory tract infections, especially in children and the elderly, and result in decreased airway responsiveness in asthmatics.
Particulates are very small particles such as PM10s (particles with a diameter less than 10 millionths of a metre), PM2.5s and PM1s – a human hair is 75 millionths of a metre wide. Pollution monitoring includes only PM10s and sometimes PM2.5s, however PM1s are the most common type of particulate in exhaust. Their surface area is chemically active and damaging. The smaller the particles, the more dangerous they are, since they are inhaled deeply into the lungs where they can stay for a long time, and can even enter the bloodstream. The elderly and children are most at risk, as are people that already have respiratory problems. Particulates irritate the respiratory tract, constrict airways, exacerbate asthma and bronchitis, and increase rates of respiratory infection. They also constrict arteries, promote atherosclerosis, and make the blood more likely to coagulate, increasing the risk of heart attack.
Carbon monoxide interferes with the delivery of oxygen in the blood to the rest of the body. It can impede coordination, worsen cardiovascular conditions, and produce fatigue, headache, weakness, confusion, disorientation, nausea, and dizziness. Very high levels can cause death.
Benzene, dioxins, aldehydes, 1,3-butadiene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, toluene and xylene, are toxic, some also cause cancer, and are linked to a range of serious health problems.
Lead, in leaded petrol, can cause brain damage leading to learning disabilities and behavioural problems. It can also injure the nervous system, red blood cells, and kidneys. Lead poisoning often occurs with no obvious symptoms, and so frequently goes unrecognised. Young and unborn children are particularly at risk because they are growing and developing so rapidly.
Why are children more susceptible to exhaust fumes?
• Children breathe more for their weight than adults
• Children have smaller airways that are more easily blocked
• Children have developing and growing airways and alveoli
• Children have immature host defence mechanisms
• Children spend more time outdoors with play and exercise
More information on Air Quality and Health:
HEALTH EFFECTS OF PM, OZONE AND NITROGEN DIOXIDE
(word doc 36.5KB)
Extracted from HEALTH ASPECTS OF AIR POLLUTION - RESULTS FROM THE WHO PROJECT “SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF HEALTH ASPECTS OF AIR POLLUTION IN EUROPE” available at http://www.euro.who.int/document/E83080.pdf
Health Effects of Air Pollution
Mark Curran, July 2005(word doc 105KB)
Triggering Myocardial Infarction - New England Journal of Medicine
Peter H. Stone MD, October 2004(word doc 134KB)
Literature Review - impact of particulate matter in children and healthy adults
(word doc 27KB)
Particulate Matter: Why does it matter? (word doc 35.5KB)
Particles - Terms and Definitions (word doc 47.5KB)
Pollution Linked to Cancer
By Eric Pianin, Washington Post, Tuesday, March 5, 2002 (word doc 36.5KB)
Climate Change
Transport plays an increasingly larger role in NSW greenhouse gas emissions. With the recognition of climate change as a global issue, and the admission that action must be taken to reduce our contributions of green house gasses, the decisions we make this year about transport are very important.
It is clear that change is needed, and as the Stern report indicated, the earlier we start to make those changes, the more effective (and cheaper!) they will be. Taking action will cost us, but not taking action will cost us more.
Private vehicles make up approximately 25% of greenhouse gas emissions in NSW, a figure that is estimated to rise to 40% as new drivers take to the roads and older drivers continue to drive.
While active transport options, such as cycling and walking, will make significant contributions to reducing emissions for short trips (about a half of all trips in Sydney), public transport will also be an important part of reducing the NSW contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. There are also significant gains to be made by moving as much freight as possible by rail.
Oil Dependence and Geological Decline
NSW is recognised as having an economy that is heavily based on the availability of cheap and abundant oil. Oil dependence is something that continues to be discussed in low tones, in the hopes that 'something/anything' might happen to change the situation.
Despite this knowledge, the only certain change is the price of this material as we come to the end of the largest oil fields'productive life.
Behind the steep rise in petroleum prices now hitting motorists and consumers is a phenomena little-discussed by the mainstream media and for which the state government has done nothing to prepare: peak oil.
Peak oil is a well-established geological characteristic of oil production. Output from any oil- or natural gas field at first increases, reaches a peak, and then declines. The peak typically occurs when 50 per cent of the field’s oil or gas is produced. Adding up all known fields and probable future discoveries, industry experts have shown that global output will peak at some time in the next decade before declining by at least 2 per cent a year. At the same time, world demand is steadily increasing, bringing ruthless international competition for dwindling supplies.
This crisis will affect every aspect of social life and the economy. There will be no easy solutions because state and federal governments have so far refused to acknowledge the reality of peak oil or take any serious steps to prepare for it. Much-hyped substitutes for oil, such as hydrogen, ethanol or shale oil are inherently expensive and require infrastructure that would take decades to build.
Peak oil makes the provision of public transport infrastructure (especially rail and modern light rail) to all parts of our city an absolute priority. The age of abundant and cheap petroleum is drawing to a close.
Oil Sceptics Rebutted
By Matt Mushalik
An EcoTransit Sydney member posted the following article from Britain's Sunday Times to our lively talk list and asked one of our more active peak oil researchers to respond to the criticisms raised by David Smith. Mr. Smith's article is interleaved with responses by Matt Mushalik.
DS: Peak oil is a broad church. To be fair to A Crude Awakening, it is hard to argue too much with the definition on its website. “Peak oil doesn’t mean ‘running out of oil’, but rather ‘running out of cheap and plentiful oil’,” it says. The film is directed mainly at an American audience, profligate in its oil use.
MM: The film "A Crude Awakening" is counterproductive in that it doesn't offer any solutions. That triggers denial mode, e.g. in the author of this article, David Smith
DS:The “peak oil has already happened” argument was partly based on the fact that global oil production, on International Energy Agency figures, had never been higher than the 86.13m barrels a day of July 2006. That, however, is no longer true. World oil output in October was 86.5m barrels a day, 1m more than in October last year and 3m more than in October 2005. It edged up to 86.55m last month.
MM: Correct, but these are short duration spikes, not peaks. A parabolic trend line of all liquids peaks around now. As of September 2007 (73,499 mb/d) , the crude peak of May 2005 (74,287 mb/d) still stands. Although that peak could also be called a spike in relation to lower production on both sides of the peak, it is a turning point in the underlying peaking of a group of countries as can be clearly seen in the attached graph. The latest crude production profile up to September 2007 is attached. BTW, Matthew Simmons is using my graph in his slide shows.
( http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/research.aspx?Type=msspeeches e.g. in the Bermuda talk and the Offshore Safety Conference)
DS: Production in many oil-producing countries is constrained, not by geology but by politics. Iraq is producing only two-thirds what it did on the eve of the first Gulf war in 1990. That was no golden age, production running below potential because of weak investment during the Saddam era."
MM: One of the reasons Saddam took Kuwait was the issue of horizontal wells allegedly drilled by his neighbour, in itself a sign of maturing oil fields. Dr. Bakhtiari calculated Iraqi production could have been 5.5 mb/d by 2010 if everything had gone according to the Bush plan. It is clear the oil geological peak would be higher. BUT the underlying geological peaking - which is a process rather than an event - creates geo-political feed back loops which limit production, thus putting a cap on the geological peak. The best example is Iraq itself which was and is the only country in the ME with pre-peak oil. Bush and Cheney are oil men and knew about the approaching peak. They got Matt Simmon's assessment of giant oil fields when he was a member of Dick Cheney's energy taskforce in 2001 BEFORE 9/11. So they invaded Iraq to get extra barrels to push the peak a couple of years into the future. Our naive Howard either did not understand peak oil or he did not publicly admit it because of the oil war issue. Brendon Nelson called it energy security and he was immediately called back by Howard.
DS: Iran is producing well below potential.
MM: Dr. Bakhtiari calculated that oil exports from Iran will end sometime in the middle of the next decade. Iran has introduced petrol rationing, not really supporting the notion of having a lot of oil left.
DS: The most important reason for rejecting the “peak oil is here” argument, however, is that current production reflects investment decisions taken years ago, when prices were much lower. It was only just over three years ago that oil rose above $40 a barrel. A few years earlier it was $10-$11. Higher prices will bring more output on stream.
MM: This is an untested assumption. There is another negative feed back loop. Higher oil prices make exploration and oil field development more expensive, albeit exacerbated by the Chinese demand boom for steel. Many oil companies have invested their oil revenues outside the oil&gas sector and I guess that some of that money has been burnt up and is still being burnt up in the US subprime crisis. 80-90% of oil is from national oil companies who are obliged to work to the agenda of governments. We know what the have in mind: subsidies, election gifts, provision of services etc.
DS: A new study by Germany’s Energy Watch Group, which said the peak was in 2006, makes the astonishing admission that it took no account of prices.
MM: Because the laws of fluid mechanics control the flow of oil not wishful thinking of economists and journos.
DS: There is a long history of crying wolf on peak oil, dating back to the 1920s. The patron saint of peak oil, the geophysicist M King Hubbert, predicted in 1956 that oil output from the lower 48 states in America would peak around 1970 and he was right. He also predicted global production would peak in about 1990 and he was wrong.
MM: In a 1976 interview he said that a symmetrical global peak would be in 1995 (at 40 Gb/year) but that because of OPEC's "curtailment" in the 70s the peak would be shifted into the future ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImV1voi41YY and also http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/ )
DS: Colin Campbell, founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, first called the oil peak in 1990 and then at regular intervals. His view today is that a peak remains imminent.
MM: The first really public warning was in 1998 in the Scientific American: http://dieoff.org/page140.htm with peaking between 2000 and 2010, albeit at lower levels. Even if the predictions were on the safe side (=earlier), to prepare for peak oil 10-20 years in advance (according to the Hirsch report) would do us no harm. A later peak is no comfort as declines after that peak will be steeper. If earlier predictions have not materialized then this does not mean the peak will not happen. In fact it means the peak is overdue.
And why does the author of the article not do his own estimate if he thinks he can do it better than Colin?
Yes, the crying wolf story is indeed a problem. But no one in government is listening anyway. So it is futile to discuss this. Matt Simmons is right that we'll see peak oil only in the rear mirror and that is what my job is all about: to lift the fog around that mirror. The US governmnet was in denial over its own 1970/71 peak even in the late 70s!
DS: Peak-oil people get excited about the giant Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia because it is apparently producing water rather than oil. The Ghawar “water cut” has reached 30% and bestselling books have been written on its imminent eclipse. But, as Michael Lynch, peak-oil sceptic and president of the consultancy Strategic Energy & Economic Research, points out in a paper, Crop Circles in the Desert, this is a low figure. The average water cut throughout the industry is much higher, at 75%. The Ghawar cut rises and falls but the field still churns out 5m barrels a day, even at the age of 50.
MM: The water cut in vertical onshore wells can be 90% and they still produce oil over many years. The limit will be the cost of pumping and other methods of enhanced oil recovery. 500,000 wells in the US produce an average of 10 barrels a day. But Saudi Arabia uses now high capacity horizontal wells. When they water up they do so quickly and when that happens they have to be shut. We don't know exactly how much Ghawar produces as Saudi Arabia will not publish field by field production rates. That's why Matt Simmons demands a 3rd party audit of field records. Stuart Staniford from TheOIldrum has written many articles about Ghawar. If Lynch is so keen on OPEC reserves he should get a bank guarantee from a Saudi bank according to SEC rules.
DS: Lynch is dismissive of another argument, that no big oilfields are being discovered. That, he said, is the nature of the industry – big fields are easier to find and smaller satellite fields around them come later. Large areas with the oil potential of, for example, Saudi, have not yet been fully explored.
MM: If Lynch knows where they are why doesn't he invest in oil exploration in those areas? The total amount of oil discovered every year is definitely going down, now around 7 Gb/a compared to 31 Gb annual production.
DS: There is, then, plenty of oil in the tank.
MM: It is definitely not in any easy-to-tap tank, it is in the rock, in trillions of pores. Oil is not oil. There is easy pre-peak oil, which is basically gone. And there is other oil, but in smaller fields harder to get, often with more sulfur and heavier. The energy profit ratio will go down. It was 1:40 in the golden days, is now around 1:15 and will decline in future (more energy needed to get the oil out of the ground). We can have a lot of oil but once the ratio is 1:1 oil production will cease for the purpose of gaining energy, no matter what the price of oil is. Oil may still be produced, using other input energy, but for other purposes e.g. greasing the rotor blades of our wind turbines, not gas guzzling around in cities.
DS: Opec says additions to recoverable reserves since the early 1980s have been three times cumulative output over the period.
MM: These are the so-called OPEC paper barrels. Read what the IEA has to say about it in WEO 2004 (attached). A former Aramco boss, Sadad Al Husseini, showed a table at a recent oil&money conference in London, where he had crossed out 300 Gb reserves as being resources. You have to be stupid not to see this as a hidden message on OPEC's paper reserves. It is equivalent to 30 years OPEC production.
DS: So why are prices so high?
MM: Because production can't follow demand. The US is printing money to pay for more expensive oil but that game is coming to an end. Cheap Chinese consumer goods kept inflation low but not for much longer as China is reaching its internal growth limits and inflation there is rising.
DS: Oil is expensive because of geopolitical uncertainty...
MM: Because of oil wars and geo-political feed back loops as described above
DS:...strong demand from the global economic boom of the past few years and speculative investment. Opec, which has most of the reserves, is happy to extract money from consumers to fund spending programmes.
MM: They are doing a life experiment with the world's economy if their earlier production cuts were voluntary.
DS: Most oil is in places we would not want it to be.
MM: Exactly. But for the oil market it does not matter whether we have a pure geological or a geological plus geopolitical peak. Less oil is less oil.
DS: Demand has responded to higher prices, but not enough.
MM: That is indeed a big worry. We are basically on a bumpy production plateau, with crude declining slightly and the price rises have been very high to bring demand down to supply levels.
DS: The International Energy Agency’s worry is not that oil has reached a peak – it expects a 50% rise by 2030 – but that demand will rise faster than supply. We will see how much impact next year’s economic slowdown has.
MM: The messages from the IEA are contradictory and reflect the internal conflicts in this organisation. At present it seems they don't believe in their own embellished WEOs anymore. It is the same story as with the IPCC. Governments force political editing and you have to read between the lines.
DS: How will the oil age end? In a speech to mark the bicentenary of the Geological Society, “Peak Oil – a metaphor for anxiety”, BP’s Michael Daly predicted that we would be debating when the oil might run out in 100 years’ time. Long before then, thanks to high prices, alternative energy sources, climate concerns and technological advances, we will have probably passed the peak – but for oil demand rather than supply.
david.smith@sunday-times.co.uk
MM: The author apparently thinks money can make energy. He should calculate how much fossil fuels are needed to build up clean, alternative sources of energy and how long that will take. The big drama unfolding now is that at the very moment we realize we are sliding into that global warming emergency that projects to reduce CO2 emissions will get stuck in diesel shortages. I predict that when that happens we'll see really drastic fuel rationing to SAVE oil for these projects. What will be more important: to transport solar panels to their desert location or to take your car to the cinema?
The Sunday Times will get an email from me to stop such mis-information and I'll basically copy this.
Regards
Matt
Transport Funding
Funding
It is our preference for such important projects to remain above issues of profitability. For this reason, we believe a government bond system whereby members of the public, and private companies, can invest in the project is the model to follow for infrastructure. We believe that this provides the maximum guarantee that the infrastructure will perform to specifications for use and integration with other public infrastructure. Another mechanism that we are willing to support are land value capture models of funding, in which development costs include contributions to the transport network.
Fares
EcoTransit Sydney believe that public transport makes an important contribution to reducing air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and the productivity costs of traffic congestion. People who use public transport also tend to walk or ride more than those who use their cars for most trips, putting less strain on our hospital infrastructure and our healthcare dollar. For these reasons, we advocate a privileged position for public transport users and a system of fares that recognises the good that their choice of transport achieves for everyone - including motorists!
Transport Modes
Modes are transport planner speak for 'types' of transport. Trains are one mode, buses are another, private cars are also a mode of transport (but one of the least efficient in most cases). Each mode has a set of circumstances in which it will be the most useful or efficient, so its never a case of choosing one mode over all the others for every situation. It is more of a 'horses for courses' approach that should be used if we are going to get the best use of our transport network.
One of the largest issues for Sydney is that we are not able to choose the best mode for any situation because at least one is deliberately being left out of the equation - Light Rail. The NSW Government has specifically stated that they will not even contemplate light rail, despite the fact that many cities around the world are installing such systems as fast as they can. Even the great oil state of Texas in the United States is jumping on the bandwagon!
The other big issue is that most of the NSW Governments current transport planning is dominated by the mode of private cars and motorised freight vehicles. Trains and Buses have their own problems too, but they are also largely affected by the decisions that are being made regarding other modes. Money that we spend on more road infrastructure is money that we don't spend on trains or buses or light rail. Unless we have a government that adopts an open-minded and best-fit approach to planning transport there is little chance to improve our transport networks failings.
Light Rail
Light Rail Vehicles(LRV) and Light Rail Transit (LRT) are the new names for what we used to refer to as 'trams'. NSW used to have the third largest system in the world until the early 1950s.
The History of Tramways and Evolution of Light Rail by Michael Taplin, provides an overview of how electric trams were developed and their evolution to LRT.
Click on the links below to find out more about this mode, including the technical details and strategic uses of this mode.
Costs and Effectiveness of Light Rail
Check out these links on the costs and effectiveness of light rail.
Transit Capital Investment Per Route Mile
From Light Rail Now!
http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_00002.htm
Transport Planning Details On Light Rail
KonSULT, the Knowledgebase on Sustainable Urban Land use and Transport, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds.
Taxonomy and description
First Principles Assessment
Evidence on Performace
Contribution to objectives and problems
Complementary instruments
Light Rail Capacity
From TramForward by the Light Rail Transit Association of Great Britain
http://www.lrta.info/tramforward/Topic5TFs.pdf
Light Rail Ruled Out in the CBD
This except comes from the NSW State Government's Urban Transport Statement
Chapter 4 - page 56
The Government has explored a number of options – including light rail – for improving transport services into and within the CBD. While light rail has attractive features which may be applicable in certainlimited areas of Sydney (for example, Barangaroo to Wynyard), the Government has concluded that it will not deliver real benefits within the main CBD routes – and in fact may run the risk of increasing transport congestion in the future. This is because light rail in the CBD would necessarily be required to operate within certain constraints which would have an impact on existing traffi c and passenger movements into and within the CBD.
For example:
- light rail would only take about 20% of the buses off the streets of our city;
- the two currently proposed CBD light rail corridors (George and Castlereagh Streets) would operate in mixed traffic with relatively low operating speeds of approximately seven kilometres to nine kilometres per hour;
- strict quarantining of CBD streets from general traffic would be required to improve running times; – for example, if both George and Castlereagh Streets were used, our main north-south corridors would be quarantined for light rail with a resultant impact on general traffic;
- light rail would rely on the transfer of significant numbers of bus passengers at the CBD periphery to the light rail system – patronage studies have shown that commuters are reluctant to use public transport once an interchange is imposed;
- surveys suggest that up to as many as 89% of bus commuters want a direct trip into and out of the city – not an interchange onto another
transport mode; - in order to meet the forecast 2021 demand, 45 second frequencies onthe two light rail corridors proposed inthe CBD is required, whereas evidence suggests that a 2.5 minute frequency is the maximum attainable for a reliable system;
- future capacity expansion would require a doubling of light rail vehicle length, which is not practicable in central Sydney and would create further congestion problems;
- the lead time and construction requirements to implement a light rail system are signifi cant, disruptive and costly;
Consequently light rail should not be used for our main CBD routes.
See our forums for discussions of transport modes.
See the complete Transport Statement.
Sydney's Tram Network
When anyone says that Sydney was built around the car, you know that they are up to no good. Sydney was built around the pedestrian, the horse and cart, the tram....anything but the car.
This image is a slightly reduced view of the tram system in Sydney just before it was dismantled.
Note the extensive coverage of the CBD, lines to the main beaches and areas of the North Shore.
To get an idea of just how world class our old system was, take a look at our occasional paper series Letters of Transit.
The tramways were the key to the remarkably efficient people-moving systems that then existed. They had a loading capacity midway between buses and heavy rail, but with a dense coverage of the then-existing metropolitan area and the ability to run at much greater frequency than heavy rail. When required, they could be operated almost nose-to-tail as a ‘moving footway’.
In view of the current problems transporting the public to special events at the Cricket Ground and Fox Studios (formerly the Showground) there is a special irony in the ease with which 175,000 people could be simultaneously transported to and from these two venues during the interwar years. Today it is considered impressive when buses deliver 8,000 people to a sporting event – equivalent to about 10 minutes of tramway operation.
Impressive, eh?
Motor Vehicles
Motor vehicles are included in sustainable transport, in a very particular way, using very narrow criteria.
One, they must be very fuel efficient - preferably powered by electricity, so that they can be switched over to renewable sources as quickly as possible.
Two, they must not be 'single-occupant' vehicles. They can only reach the levels of efficiency that public transport provides if there are two or more people in the vehicle. So, we are really talking about taxis, and car share, as the future of small motorised vehicles.
This report on car sharing is a useful reference for this issue.
http://www.environment.gov.au/settlements/transport/publications/pubs/ca...
Transport Planning
Forewarned is Forearmed - Planning Is The Key
EcoTransit Sydney believe that there should be no reason to delay initiatives to immunise NSW's transport system against the likely effects of green house gas reduction strategies and the volatility of oil prices. Planning is the key to making a seamless transition to a system based on renewable energy sources. Planning will also achieve good outcomes regarding other foreseeable changes to the transport equation.
Issues such as:
· Increasing numbers of public transport patrons who have impaired mobility as the population ages
· Increasing numbers of public transport patrons as the affordability of fossil-fueled private vehicles declines
· Increasing numbers of active transport users who choose to address climate change, oil volatility and health issues by walking or cycling.
EcoTransit Sydney is very concerned at the absence of planning for these events. This absence of planning translates into an absence of funding, and indicates a failure to develop initiatives in a timely and efficient manner.
Infrastructure
There are many improvements that can be made at the level of changing current processes and priorities, however, we believe that it is also vitally important to begin any major infrastructure changes now, as they will take time to develop and implement.
Consolidation of planning and approvals for transport and land use
Any government of NSW must commit to planning that is coherent across all sectors of transport and land use. For this reason we believe that it is imperative to consolidate all planning and approval powers within a single organisation that will have responsibility for the coordinated and integrated planning of all infrastructure and development.
Currently the Roads and Traffic Authority makes decisions that derive from road transport planning devised in the late 1940’s, rather than taking part in the more recent planning initiatives developed as part of the Metropolitan Strategy. The Metropolitan Strategy has extensive transport and land use planning that applies to all development EXCEPT those currently on the RTA’s list of projects. A single Transport Planning Authority is necessary to create a coherent and sustainable transport network.