With transport set to be Australia’s top-emitting sector by 2030, officials have recognised the need to invest
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t Penrith, a suburb on Sydney’s rural fringe 50km (30 miles) west of the central business district, you can catch a train to the city every four to eight minutes during the morning peak, and roughly every 10 to 15 minutes during off-peak hours before midnight.
On an express service, it takes 52 minutes to Sydney’s Central station, comparable to the journey by car, without factoring in the morning traffic on a tolled motorway.
This might seem unremarkable to people living in and around European cities, but Sydney, with its population of more than 5 million, ranks highly among world cities in terms of the number of transit vehicles per person. Its 181 vehicles per 100,000 people is higher than in Hong Kong and well above London or Paris, while big US cities languish at the bottom of the global rankings.
