This is the fifth in a series of essays by journalist Bradley Perrett on long-term planning ideas to provide for a better future for the people of Greater Newcastle and Hunter Region.
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Are you ready to have your pinch points addressed? You can think about that next time you find yourself waiting in traffic.
That's because addressing pinch points is almost the only substantial plan that the state government has for improving the road network of Greater Newcastle - ever.
This means that as our population rises, our suburbs densify and our roads become clogged, the government makes no promises about building new high-capacity roads, even those that were formerly planned and given land reservations.
Instead it will try a nip and tuck: a new traffic signal here, a no-right-turn sign there and, maybe, throwing caution to the wind, some widening.
The actual sentence in the Greater Newcastle transport plan for 2017-2056 is: "We will work towards ... addressing pinch points in the road network and informing the program of road network optimisation improvements."
The bit about "informing" the optimisation program could mean anything. Or nothing.
What a contrast there is between this blather and the splendid system of arterial roads that, decades ago, the former Department of Main Roads planned for Newcastle, drew as clear lines on maps and prepared for with reservations. These were the major routes we have now and others we did not get, including some at the northern end of Lake Macquarie, others on its eastern side and one from Wallsend to Mayfield.
The DMR did not want to smother Novocastrians in traffic. Far from it. The old planners intended us to enjoy faster, smoother travel on purpose-designed arterial roads that, as far as possible, were to be separated from residences and shops.
They drew up a transportation network somewhat like the one that Canberra actually got.
No one in Canberra complains that the national capital has too many roads. Not even Greens complain. Instead everyone there whizzes around quickly and conveniently - in a way that we can enjoy only on our best roads.
We think of the Newcastle Inner City Bypass as excellent; in Canberra, it would be just one good road among many.
This series of articles about the long-term outlook for Greater Newcastle is not calling for any particular road to be built now. Rather, it calls for definite planning for the future system and, above all, reservation of land to ensure that, when there is enough demand and money, roads can be built.
Our aim should be to preserve the convenience of car travel for as long as possible, pushing back the day when Novocastrians are forced into the time-consuming hassle of public transport.
We often hear the complaint that building more and better roads just encourages more driving. It does, but that isn't a bad thing: people get value out of every trip they make.
Officials measuring road usage and seeing more traffic shouldn't think: "Oh, the problem's getting worse." They should think: "That's an increase in easy travel that our roads are making available to the people."
Or at least that's what they should think if the roads are adequate and the people are in fact travelling easily.
But let's also confront the unpleasant side of car usage: the trip that one person makes in a car is an imposition on others. The driver makes the decision to go, gets the benefit of the trip, whatever that is, and pays with time and money. But other people, who didn't get a say in the decision, hear the noise, breathe in the fumes and are impeded in crossing the street.
Those costs to others are all reduced by building major roads at a distance from where large numbers of people live and shop.
These Hunter Essay articles began four weeks ago by urging the state government to revive an old plan for a high-capacity road between Merewether Heights and Bennetts Green; the DMR intended this to be just the northern part of a road that would continue to the Pacific Highway at Belmont South.
The southern section, beginning at Bennetts Green, should also be revived, as the Belmont Bypass.
Asked about this, Lake Macquarie Council's manager for integrated planning, Wes Hain, notes that the whole route from Merewether Heights to Belmont South "is no longer identified in any contemporary state or local government long-term strategic land use or transport plans."
But none of the land for the Belmont Bypass section has been built on, so reviving the reservation requires only political courage. If the road were built, it would take traffic away from Belmont town centre and what will be a growing number of residences and businesses along the Pacific Highway.
It would also add traffic capacity that future generations will need, provide a much faster route than the highway and connect with main roads north and south.
But there is a big problem: it would run through the Belmont Wetlands State Park. That's a pretty big no-no for a road, but I still think a future generation may want to build it.
First, consider that even a major motorway is not very wide. With three travelling lanes in each direction, the bypass would not be wider than about 35 metres. That's only 3-4 per cent of the width of the park.
The park is already scarred by the Fernleigh Track (a former railway) and dirt roads. A fire trail that follows the likely path of the future motorway has a 15-metre-wide clearing between trees.
Actually, future generations might be a lot kinder to the park with their motorway than we are with our 4WDs and trail bikes, because the road could be built as a continuous viaduct, with nature undivided beneath it. The viaduct could probably be constructed with barely any environmental damage by hoisting each span out from the previous one.
It could indeed tiptoe through the wetland. (That might be set to music.)
Anyway, how and whether it's done is for later generations to decide, decades from now. We just need to keep their options open.
Another problem is how to handle the extra traffic that the bypass would generate to its south, on what is now the Pacific Highway to and through Swansea.
North of the Swansea Channel, the highway would probably have to be upgraded to motorway standard, dividing the community at Blacksmiths and Pelican. On the other hand, that community is already pretty well divided by the highway.
Then at Blacksmiths we meet one of those Hunter perennials: what to do about the crossing the channel. And, beyond the crossing, all the cars would be running through Swansea town centre, worsening the problem there that had been solved in Belmont.
The likely answer is digging a tunnel under the channel and Swansea. My guess is that our successors would build the bypass when they could also afford the tunnel.
For now, we should just plan the road and reserve the land for them.
