Excitement builds about the Roads Act review

The business-as-usual approach transport planning leads to a lot of space for cars and a very inhospitable environment for people walking and cycling. This is the intersection of Sunnyholt Road and the M7 in Blacktown, seen from a safe distance. (Image: Google Maps)

As an example of how the current Act fails vulnerable road users, ‘bicycles’ are referred to only once! This is part of the definition of a ‘footway’ which may also be used by ‘bicycle traffic’. 

The Roads Act needs to be fair and equitable. It must recognise that 40% of the population does not drive. It must enable convenient and safe access to roads and streets for everyone, whether walking, resting, driving, cycling or using public transport. 

A bit of background on the regulation of roads in NSW

The 19th century colonial government first enacted legislation to manage roads in 1858. Today, three separate but intersecting Acts govern the planning, use and management of the NSW road network:

Roads Act 1993 addresses two main principles: the public’s right of passage along public roads, and the right of access between public roads and adjacent property. The Act sets out how roads are to be opened and closed, and who constitutes a roads authority for each public road, and what powers they have.

Road Transport Act 2013 aims for a uniform national approach to licencing drivers, registering vehicles, and the regulation of the use of vehicles via the Road Rules.

Transport Administration Act 1988 places obligations on government transport entities to provide for the efficient provision of transport services in NSW, by integrating the planning, delivery, and resourcing of the different modes of transport services and transport infrastructure.

Under these Acts are a tangle of regulations, delegations, policies, procedures, standards, and guidance documents which complicate every change to our most significant public space. 

The review will focus on the Roads Act but the other acts and regulations may also be updated.

The status quo delivers a very poor environment for everyone - including Bicycle NSW CEO Peter McLean - on Oxford Street in Paddington (Image: SMH / Dion Georgopoulos)

There has been some progress on making better streets

The NSW Government has published some excellent strategies and policies to prioritise walking and cycling in transport and land use planning over the last few years.

These include: 

• The Movement and Place framework
• Providing for Walking and Cycling in Transport Projects policy
• Road User Space Allocation policy and the accompanying Road User Space Allocation Procedure
• The revised Future Transport Strategy
• The ground-breaking Active Transport Strategy
• The exciting Strategic Cycleway Corridors program
• The new Design of Roads and Streets manual

Then there is the TfNSW Cycleway Design Toolbox which clearly sets out the physical requirements of bike infrastructure. The Walking Space Guide guides the design of pedestrian infrastructure.

Castlereagh Street in Sydney’s CBD has benefited from a Movement and Place approach to the design the space between the buildings. There are now safe and attractive spaces for people to sit, walk and cycle. And there is still plenty of room to drive and park cars! (Image: Bicycle NSW)

NSW Government definitely ‘gets’ the urgent need to improve our streets and roads to create liveable and loveable towns and cities – with all the side benefits for physical and mental wellbeing, safety, the health of the economy and environmental sustainability.  

But serious issues persist

In our advocacy work at Bicycle NSW, we constantly come up against many frustrations:

• Road authorities, both councils and Transport for NSW, do not follow their own policies, strategies and design standards.
• Active transport outcomes are not thought about from the first stages of the design process and then become too hard to incorporate. 
• Public consultation often feels like an afterthought, with inadequate consideration given to the needs of people walking and riding.
• In many cases, cycling facilities that are supposedly mandated under Conditions of Consent relating to are sidelined or cut from scope without oversight.
• Even worse, projects do not always deliver DDA-compliant walking infrastructure. 
• Traffic signals in NSW make people outside vehicles wait too long to cross roads. This encourages people to take risks and reduces the appeal of walking and cycling trips.
• Councils manage approximately 90% of all streets, yet have limited powers to change local streets, and no power to control speed limits.
• Many local councils have strong active transport strategies but struggle to implement projects due to lack of funding, lack of capacity, poor community engagement and indifferent political leadership. 
• Local Traffic Committees are not fit for purpose. Two-thirds of voting members have no technical expertise, and the focus is on signs and lines missing opportunities to steward good urban design.
• The NSW Road Rules have not been reviewed since 2014. Meanwhile, other states have done great work to clarify the rules for bicycle and e-mobility device riders and prioritise their safety. 

Dive into our archive of articles and submissions for some sorry tales of projects that have failed active transport. The Warringah Freeway Upgrade,  Rozelle Interchange,  Sydney Park Junction, Epping Bridge widening, Western Distributor Improvements and Memorial Avenue in Kellyville all provide pertinent and recent examples of where things have gone wrong.

And to illustrate the lack of progress in changing the status quo, 1300 people died on Australia’s roads in 2024, the worst year since 2012. Meanwhile, there has been no progress on reducing transport emissions. Instead, vehicles are the second largest and fastest growing contributor to emissions.

Although all stakeholders are fully aware that more road capacity always induces more driving, more road trauma and more emissions, the pipeline of eye-wateringly expensive road projects continues to be stoked.

The Bicycle NSW Healthy Streets Bill

In 2024, we wrote a discussion paper for a Healthy Streets Bill. This proposed to legislate policies and laws to elevate active transport across NSW. We argued that active transport should be a business-as-usual consideration, as integral to infrastructure projects and developments as environmental impact assessment and health and safety compliance.

Changes to the Roads Act, with necessary and accompanying amendments to the other acts, could achieve many of the outcomes we hoped to achieve with the Healthy Streets Bill.

What is the plan for this review?

The review process will stretch over several months. The first step was the exhibition of a detailed Issues Paper for stakeholder feedback in March 2025.

Bicycle NSW wrote a submission outlining 16 high-level priorities that we want the reforms to address. 

Central to this is a new set of Objects of the Act. The Objects should align with existing government targets, such as halving deaths and reducing serious injuries by 30% on NSW roads by 2030, and achieving a 40% urban tree canopy cover across Greater Sydney by 2036.

Once the Objects are clearly stated, changes will flow to achieve the desired outcomes.

Our other focus is on embedding the Movement and Place framework, and its supporting policies such the Road User Space Allocation policy, into legislation. 

The 16 Bicycle NSW priorities. For much more detail on each of these, please dive into our preliminary submission to the Roads Act review (Image: Bicycle NSW)

The next step is a series of workshops and forums.

Last week, Bicycle NSW CEO Peter McLean attended a workshop with the Peer Review Advisory Group, a group of 20 representatives from peak bodies, councils and transport organisations. 

Stakeholders from 20 local government, transport and advocacy organisations at the first Peer Review Advisory Group workshop in Sydney on 28 March 2025 (Image: Transport for NSW)

“We had a very productive and positive discussion,” reports Peter. “Ideas were flowing and everyone was very enthusiastic about the transformation this review could bring.  However, before proceeding, I think we need to push the ministers to clarify what is and isn’t on the table for reform.”