Sydney has a shameful name-Oceania's most congested city-and Sydney has seven of the 10 slowest roads on either side of the Tasman Sea, according to a report from Australian road transport agency Ausroads.
Signs of vehicle pressure caused by population inflation suggest that the average speed of Sydney's road network is 72.5 kilometers per hour, including highways such as the M7 and M2, which is even slower than in New York.
The report showed that Sydney's congestion was lower on all indicators than Melbourne, including delays in driving and the extra hours of traffic required during peak hours.
If Sydney's average speed is lower than that of San Francisco, Boston and Philadelphia, the average speed in Sydney is between 79 and 86 kilometers, and Sydney is only a tiny bit better than Seattle, compared to similar cities in the United States, where the average speed is lower than that of San Francisco, Boston and Philadelphia.
Sydney's size falls short of New York's, and its average speed is less than 76.6 kilometers, the report said, possibly because of its high-speed rail transit.
In response to the deterioration in traffic in Sydney and Melbourne, the report says Australian cities can learn from Boston's planning, allowing vehicles to easily bypass the city, despite its coastal zone.
"there are a series of semi-concentric roads around the city and high-speed roads across the city center," the report said.
Oceania's slowest road is Adelaide's King William Street, Sydney inner city of Pymont's Harris Street, with vehicles crawling at an average speed of 14.5 kilometers an hour.
Sydney's Cleveland Street between Dalington and Moore Park ranks fifth on Turtle Road at 17.1 km / h, followed by Stacey Street, on Moore Park's South Dowling,Bankstown and Military and Lane Cove on Sydney's north shore.
Parramatta's Church Street picked up the 10th title of Turtle Speed Road.
It is Oceania's third fastest Hume Highway, average speed of 98 kilometers per hour to save a little face on Sydney Road.
Sydney has seven of the 10 most congested roads in Oceania, according to the Austroads report. Melbourne's Burke Road is top of the list, with Centenary Drive in Homebush, West Sydney, second.
Sydney's other top 10 roads in the project are: Lane Cove Road, Epping Road, Homebush Bay Drive, the Eastern Distributor and Cahill Expressway..
New state goverment spent 169 billion of the WestConnex project will gradually open over the next six years. Critics, however, worry that the new tolls will send more vehicles to the outskirts of the city and to the roads of CBD.
Geoffery Clifton, a lecturer in the transport department at Sydney's Business School, said WestConnex and other road projects would help, but not enough to cope with the projected increase of 1 million people in Sydney over the next 10 years.
"in the long run, I can't foresee an improvement in congestion. I can only see it getting worse and worse," he said. "We can expect traffic to be more congested in non-traditional time periods, such as noon or weekends," he said.
Clifton said Australia will eventually have to face a shift from a controversial road fee to a "better road use allocation".
The Austroad report analyzed Google Maps's 600km of road data for each major city in the two months to the end of 2015. Overall, Sydney is at the same level as its international counterparts in other indicators, such as delay in traffic time, reliability of roads during rush hour and so on, according to the report.
Sydney is also the city with the highest proportion of people using public transport, bicycles and walking to work, accounting for 26%. The New Zealand capital, Wellington, is 23%, and Melbourne 19%.