Light rail: the semi-metro concept

Proposals to implement Light Rail transit in Australia have been the subject of considerable debate, particularly in Sydney. The purpose of this paper is inform aspects of this debate by drawing on the reasons that Light Rail was originally developed in Europe as a distinctive „semi-metro‟ rail application in the 1960s and 1970s before its international adoption. The paper has particular focus on using „semi-metro‟ Light Rail as a high quality alternative to Metro rail in an environment of budget constraint, or as a means to enhance service levels of present Light Rail proposals.The paper first presents a typology of transit systems to establish a clear understanding of the several forms of Light Rail. Secondly, it considers pertinent historic background of street tramway closures and the subsequent development and application of a respecified Light Rail Transit mode. Thirdly, the paper provides a high level analysis of the potential Sydney application of Light Rail. There are two key, related, points made in this paper. The first is that there has been a long history of demand for road space for motor vehicles that has been one factor in the removal of trams from the urban transit scene. This perceived conflict persists as a factor in today‟s Light Rail decision-making, despite recognition that streets should support a range of activities other than motorised transit. The second point is that street operation of transit is, in any case, often heavily compromised by motor vehicle congestion. While both of these matters may be managed to a degree by priority treatments, in certain situations the semi-metro concept – the original purpose of Light Rail – may offer advantages

Institutional regimes in transport: case studies of rail and road in NSW and Queensland 1850 - 2000

Institutional regimes in transport: case studies of rail and road in NSW and Queensland 1850 - 2000 This thesis is about institutions and their regimes. It seeks to extend our understanding of how institutional environments and institutional arrangements mould local economic outcomes in different places at different scales. The basic stance of the thesis is that the analysis of institutional arrangements and their regimes provides an appropriate framework for understanding and explaining the trajectories of long historical processes of economic change. The thesis is situated within the ontological institutional turn in economic geography discourse. The institutional perspective is used to shed light on five key questions about land transport policy in NSW and Queensland from 1850 to 2000. What are the main themes of change in institutional arrangements in the management and delivery of land transport by government road and rail agencies? What were the drivers of key changes? How have the different politico-administrative settings of NSW and Queensland shaped similarities and difference? What factors contribute to an understanding of these differences? And, finally, what have been the outcomes for infrastructure governance, service delivery and spatial economic development in regions and cities? Two States were selected as case studies to enable the impact of different geographies to be considered. The thesis finds that these similarities and differences are a result of the emergence of ideas that capture advocacy within policy networks which themselves are part of the institutional structure. The speed and extent of the implementation of these ideas depends on the relative strength of individual actors as agents of policy change. The actual nature of the implementation processes is modified by the relative strength of the policy arena and of the key institutions within it. Hence, institutional architectures, even if they come from the wellspring of global trends, can differ markedly as they are modified by the “local” through the advocacy of interest groups. The overwhelming evidence from the case studies is that geography in its historical context is the critical variable in explaining different responses and outcomes in the road and rail trajectories of NSW and Queensland

Long-term patterns of Australian public transport use

The last few years have seen substantial rises in passenger numbers across many Australian public transit systems, partially due to periods of higher than average fuel prices and to various infrastructure expansions. To properly assess the likely scope for any future changes in patronage levels, across the various urban passenger modes, a sound knowledge of what has happened over time, in urban transport patterns, can be of significant value. This paper presents long-term time-series for the usage patterns of Urban Public Transport (UPT) – compiled for each of the Australian capital cities, and covering a period of more than a century (1900 to 2010). Such long-term historical estimates demonstrate how radically the share of total urban travel due to UPT has changed over time – with public transit dominant through the early part of last century, and still accounting for more than half of total urban passenger-kilometres up till around 1950, before gradually losing market share with the growing popularity of private car travel (resulting in close to 90 per cent of current urban travel being done in light motor vehicles and about 10 per cent by rail, bus and ferry). Long-term trends in patronage levels (both total and per capita) are given for the various UPT modes, along with aggregate modal share patterns across the Australian capital cities

Faith-based charity and professional ambition in the life of Charles Gordon O'Neill (1828-1900)

This translocational biography provides an interpretation of the life of Catholic philanthropist, colonial parliamentarian and civil engineer Charles Gordon O’Neill (1828-1900). Focusing on the two most significant elements in his life, commitment to faith-based charity and professional ambition in pursuit of an empire career in civil engineering, it also examines the balance between O’Neill’s Irish Catholic and British identities. Covering O’Neill’s life in Victorian Scotland (1828-1863), colonial New Zealand (1864-1880) and pre-Federation New South Wales (1881-1900), the biography traces the sequence and patterns of these two respective elements through a broadly chronological theme-based historiography. This biography analyses O’Neill’s greatest professional achievements, particularly in New Zealand in such endeavours as town planning, and railways and tramways development. It also reveals his prescient environmental concerns, through his promotion of forest conservation and the advocacy of global forest-climate connection in the New Zealand Parliament between 1868 and 1874. Of more enduring memory was O’Neill’s commitment to faith-based charity through his pioneering of the St Vincent de Paul Society in all three societies. The defining moment of his life was to embrace a faith-based mission to the Australian colonies beginning in 1880, leading to the establishment of the St Vincent de Paul Society in New South Wales. The growth of the Society’s outdoor relief for the poor in Sydney owed much to the expertise O’Neill gained previously in Glasgow and Wellington. The thesis explains the Catholic religious influences that transformed O’Neill into a pioneer of non-intrusive charity during the 1880s. A key theme, examining three cycles of the vicissitudes of O’Neill’s life, reveals the pattern of fusion and fragmentation of the two elements of commitment to faith-based charity and professional ambition. The thesis concludes with a brief thanatography and analysis of subsequent hagiographic interpretations of O’Neill’s life that had ended with a final submission in faith

Managing labour: UK and Australian employers in comparative perspective, 1900-50

The exceptionalism of Australian industrial relations has long been asserted. In particular, the Australian system of industrial arbitration has been argued to contrast markedly with other countries, such as Britain, which developed a more 'voluntarist' model of industrial regulation. However this distinction relies upon limited historical research of workplace-level developments. In this paper, we focus on a comparative analysis of employer practice in British and Australian workplaces during the first half of the twentieth century. While we find some differences in the nature and extent of management control between the British and Australian experience, what is more striking are the strong similarities in employer practice in work organisation, employment and industrial relations. While economic and institutional factors explain differences in employer practice, fundamental similarities appear to relate to the close economic and social linkages between British and Australian business

Malmsbury bluestone and quarries : Finding holes in history and heritage

Malmsbury bluestone was used widely from 1856 in buildings in Victoria, throughout Australia, and in New Zealand. It features in many structures listed on heritage registers, yet its presence is barely recognised. This largely results from the stone quarries, buildings and the men who laboured with it being absent from modern Australian historiography. The fame previously associated with the stone was lost when stone use for structural purposes, and the associated stone skills, declined; a situation exacerbated by poor recognition of the stone industry’s role in building our nation through heritage citations of structures. Inspired by E. P. Thompson, this thesis uses Critical Inquiry though microhistory and landscape analysis to regain the stone’s fame and rescue stoneworkers from the condescension of history. A detailed analysis of quarries, structures, the bluestone industry, and a rarely-attempted total reconstitution of the lives of 194 vital stoneworkers, reveals a valuable cultural heritage currently undervalued and at risk. Malmsbury stoneworkers came from diverse backgrounds but worked co-operatively to promote and sustain a local industry which supplied a nationally-vital building material, despite the absence of a regulatory framework to protect their lives and rights. Scientific methods document the geological properties of the stone and demonstrate how, in the absence of science, skilled stoneworkers nevertheless identified and worked a valuable resource. Modern science could however be used to test building stones in a non-destructive manner to determine the sources of currently unidentified building stones. This thesis significantly contributes to the limited discourse on the history and heritage of Australian stone use through the perspectives of cultural landscapes, labour history and built and cultural heritage. Malmsbury bluestone truly was the standard of excellence and, along with stoneworkers, warrants more extensive recognition in Australia’s Heritage registers.Doctor of Philosoph

La mobilisation et les espaces de résistance : à propos de la politique de l’espace dans les ateliers ferroviaires d’Eveleigh (Sydney) des années 1920 aux années 1960

Les ateliers d’Eveleigh, ouverts en 1887 à Sydney, constituent au premier XXe siècle une implantation ferroviaire à la fois centrale et emblématique pour le pays. En effet, outre sa taille considérable (3 000 ouvriers entre 1907 et 1950) il était dirigé par l’État et localisé au plus près du Parlement, au sein d’un espace public de premier plan. Eveleigh joua ainsi un rôle décisif lors de la grande grève générale de 1917, aboutissant à une écrasante défaite ouvrière qui marqua pour des décennies les travailleurs australiens. Ces ateliers ferroviaires constituent ainsi un observatoire privilégié pour comprendre comment l’espace peut à la fois être un enjeu et un moyen de la mobilisation ouvrière. Mettant en œuvre la problématique des pratiques spatiales, cet article analyse la confrontation entre ouvriers et dirigeants autour du processus du travail et du droit des ouvriers à s’organiser collectivement sur leur lieu de travail. L’étude particulière des espaces met à jour, d’une part, la manière dont l’encadrement a essayé de contrôler les déplacements des ouvriers. D’autre part, elle révèle comment ceux-ci se sont battus afin d’occuper des lieux stratégiques et de contrecarrer la direction dans sa volonté de mettre en place des frontières. Il s’agissait aussi d’accroître leur maîtrise du processus du travail et leur autonomie vis-à-vis de l’encadrement et de la bureaucratie, enfin de définir et de défendre différentes façons de travailler et de vivre. De telles pratiques permirent aux ouvriers d’Eveleigh de retravailler l’espace à leurs propres fins et, en somme, elles ont été essentielles pour la mise en place de la politique du lieu et la transformation du statut des ateliers, ces avant-postes de la lutte qui sont devenus les enjeux mêmes de la victoire. En raison de leurs situations sur ce sol contesté, divers lieux sont abordés, notamment la « place rouge » et les portails d’entrée qui avaient acquis un statut d’autonomie relative dont les ouvriers se servirent pour faire échouer les mesures qui leur étaient imposées pendant le cours de leur travail et qui les privaient de liberté.The Eveleigh railway workshops opened in 1887 in Sydney. It can be considered during the first half of the 20th Century as a central rail establishment strongly emblematic for the country. Indeed, in addition to its considerable size (3 000 workers between 1907 and 1950) he was led by the State and located closer to the Parliament, within a public space of foreground. Eveleigh thus played a decisive role in the great general strike of 1917, resulting in an overwhelming labour defeat that marked for decades Australian workers. These railway workshops represent a privileged observatory to understand how the space can both be a challenge and a mean for the working-class. Implementing the problem of spatial practices, this article analyses the confrontation between workers and leaders around the process of labour and the right of workers to organize collectively at their place of work. The study of spaces in particular enlightens, on the one hand, the manner in which managers tried to control the movement of workers. On the other hand, it reveals how the latter fought to occupy strategic places, thwart the direction in its willingness to establish borders. It was also to increase their control of the labour process and their autonomy from the coaching of bureaucracy, finally to define and defend different ways of working and living. Such practices helped workers of Eveleigh to rework the space for their own purpose. In short, they were essential for the implementation of a space policy and the transformation of the status of the workshops, these outposts of the fight which became stakes of victory. By their situations on this disputed soil, various locations are studied, including "red square" and the entrance portals, which had acquired a status of relative autonomy whose workers used to frustrate the measures that were imposed on them during the course of their work and who deprived them of freedom

Law Briefs: torts

This text provides an overview of the most significant torts. after an introductory chapter, which defines trots and traces their historical development, the book is divided into three main parts. The first section covers intentional torts, trespass to the person, goods and land and considers how torts may provide protection from an invasion of privacy. The second and largest part of the book deals with the tort of negligence including duty of care, breach of duty, causation, defences to negligence and damages. In the final section a number of miscellaneous torts are dealt with including nuisance, breach of statutory duty and defamation. Mind maps are provided at the end of each chapter to provide a visual explanation of the topics discussed

Sydney's Transport

Over its history, Sydney transport has moved from purely human-powered, through water-based transport, horse-powered transport, railways, trams, buses and cars. The compromises that created Sydney’s transport network had to take into account the restrictions of physical geography, the changing economic and social needs of the population, the limitations of technology, ideas about funding and ownership, and political feasibility or expediency

The role of the rail system in the Sydney journey to work – a geospatial analysis

This paper presents a baseline analysis of the relationship between Sydney’s rail network, commuter belt journey to work travel patterns and Sydney’s urban development from historic, current and future perspectives, and examines how the rail links mooted in the Metropolitan Transport Plan relate to planned development. It reports part of a program of urban planning research that will lead to an understanding of the physical and economic sustainability impact of deferral of public transport infrastructure investment in a growing metropolis. The analysis draws largely on the 2006 Census data and State Government data, using geospatial mapping. It examines patterns of urbanisation in relation to the development of the rail network and the present urban planning paradigm. The paper shows that the rail network continues to be a key factor in Sydney’s development despite Sydney’s car dependency, but that it is falling further behind as the metropolis grows. Examination of the Metropolitan Transport Plan rail proposals in this framework underlines the disconnect between Sydney’s metropolitan growth, development of its transit infrastructure and the claim that its planning integrates the two