The Central Coast is predicted to grow by an additional 70,000 people by 2041. It’s time to look at managing the transport network differently to realise the community vision for the region and ensure transport can support growth in a sustainable way.
The draft Central Coast Regional Transport Plan provides a vision for how the Central Coast’s transport network, infrastructure and services will be managed and developed over time to realise community aspirations.
The NSW Government released Future Transport Strategy that builds on Future Transport 2056 (originally released in 2018); a long-term plan for transport in NSW. This draft Transport Plan outlines what this means for the Central Coast Region over the next 20 years.
The development of the draft plan has been guided by formal engagement and workshops with key State and local government stakeholders with representatives from Central Coast Council, Department of Planning and Environment, the Department of Regional NSW and Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council.
By 2041 these improvements described in the draft Transport plan will deliver benefits such as:
- A connected region – increased population within a 30-minute public transport trip of jobs, education and services in Gosford
- An integrated network – that embraces the 15-minute neighbourhood planning principle where people regularly choose to walk, cycle or take public transport to shops, services, schools or work
- Inter-regional connection – that builds on the Mariyung Fleet and road upgrades as well as a potential future Fast Rail connection to improve multimodal connectivity between the Central Coast, the Hunter and Greater Sydney for passengers and freight
- Integrated transport, land use and infrastructure – that reflects balanced movement and place outcomes, contributing to better places and improving public transport attractiveness
- Supporting economic development – through improved networks that support the Somersby to Erina and Tuggerah to Warnervale growth corridors, embrace technology-driven solutions, and address first mile/last mile freight
- Supporting tourism – through improved road networks and public transport services as well as integrated walking and cycling connections allowing visitors to easily explore the region
- Greater productivity – integrated transport infrastructure and services that connect residents with jobs, education, leisure and health ensuring the continued growth and diversification of sectors across the region, with first and last mile solutions tailored to support successful places
- Greater safety – by addressing crash clusters, delivering educational and behavioural campaigns, utilising technology and taking a system wide approach to minimise the impact of human error
- Improved customer experience – by exploiting innovation and advances in technology to enable new and more personalised mobility solutions, inform customer decision-making with more ‘real-time’ information, improve safety, network resilience and freight efficiencies
- A more sustainable region – through uptake of electric vehicles (EV) in the transport fleet, an improved EV fast charging network and supporting the proposed Hunter-Central Coast Renewable Energy Zone (REZ).
- A more resilient region – that builds climate and hazard resilience into the network’s infrastructure supported by adaptive management strategies that maintain emergency access along key routes and bring the network back on-line quickly following planned and unplanned disruption.
Supporting plans
The Plan has been developed together with the Department of Planning and Environment’s (DPE’s) draft Central Coast Regional Plan 2041.
The draft Transport plan and DPE’s draft regional plan are closely aligned with each other and aim to deliver initiatives that will benefit the Central Coast into the future.
The draft Transport plan also responds to the NSW Government’s target of net zero emissions by 2050 and seeks to accelerate the transition of the transport sector to a low emissions future.