THE NEWSLETTER OF THE SYDNEY DIVISION OF ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA
Sydney Division Key Sponsors
JUNE 2011
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
The Road Ahead I love living in Sydney. I love how it’s an urban sprawl of pockets of micro-cities which are culturally dense, and where you can go for any type of culinary delight. But, simply put, the traffic is driving me crazy. Every day I commute to work along one of Sydney’s busiest roads. I travel from the north to the eastern suburbs, and to tell you the truth, I avoid the Harbour Tunnel like the plague. I think the tunnel is a significant engineering achievement. However, I do personally believe that it probably should have been built with more than just two lanes heading each way – a slight oversight I guess on the population growth in Sydney (construction on the tunnel commenced in 1988). But as a result, as I travel to work I think about the state’s infrastructure. The new state government recently announced the formation of Infrastructure NSW, which is headed by the former State Premier – Nick Greiner. I definitely think that he has a tough road ahead. If you think about it, infrastructure includes everything from roads and rail to schools, hospitals, shopping centres, airports, and electricity. It is intertwined with the social studies of population growth and movement, industrial and urban development, and city planning. The fact is, in order to get our infrastructure back on track, this will be a team effort with people from many different professions working together to make it happen. And it will require significant investment from both state and federal levels, as well as bipartisan support. But what I think it needs, is a visionary. Someone to look at not only Sydney, but also the state, in a big-picture sort of way. As a starting point, I hope that Infrastructure NSW looks at the
Infrastructure Report Card which Engineers Australia published last year. The report card found that the state’s infrastructure is generally in average to poor condition, and reviewed transport, water, and energy, and listed recommendations for the consideration of the public and the state (you can see the report card here: http://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/ircnsw/). I also hope that we look into and push innovative solutions to the problems that exist. I recently saw an article which showed a Chinese innovation of a bus which allows cars to pas underneath. We only need to look at our Asian neighbours and their train networks to realise the potential of what can be achieved with respect to transport, and yet still push beyond that as our needs, population distribution, and landscape are significantly different. We also need to make sure that the plan encompasses the growth of the state and the country as a whole, and that it is a plan which reaches well beyond just a few years and far into this century. In the meantime, I’ll go back to battling Sydney traffic. Twitter: @EASyd_President Maryam Khajeh Sydney Division President