We don’t need the City of Sydney to promote walking – we need the City of Sydney to take a small number of major steps to make walking safer.

The City of Sydney needs to take a leadership position to transform Sydney from one of the worst cities in the world for pedestrians to be the best in the world.

This won’t be achieved through a likely multi-million dollar bureaucratic action plan. A plan that is as tiring as a song on an endless loop and tries to convince us of what we already know, that walking is good for us. We simply need to put pedestrians first; the rest takes care of itself.

92% of transport movements in the City of Sydney are by foot and 2% are by bike. Yet the city spends 92% of its efforts on building and promoting unnecessary cycleways.

Driving a car in the CBD ought to be privilege and not a right at the expense of pedestrians, which face speeding cars and buses coupled with unacceptable wait times at traffic lights (some up to two minutes).

Most, if not all, pedestrian traffic light buttons are deactivated during business hours. They are there to make pedestrians feel good.

It doesn’t take 56 pages to put pedestrians first. It takes some simple steps like:

1. Reduce the speed limit in the CBD to 30km/h to lessen the risk of fatalities
2. Blanket cover traffic lights with red light and speed cameras to ensure consistent safe speeds
3. Install wait timers on traffic lights showing when a green walk sign will appear to ensure people wait rather than undertake a risky cross
4. Install countdown timers to ensure people get safely across the road
5. Remove all the CBD cycleways which are dangerous to everyone as they won’t be needed at a safe and consistent speed of 30km/h – cyclists will be delighted

56 pages of Government telling you to walk is like your mother telling you to get your hair cut or eat your vegetables. I fell asleep twice trying to read it.