Second, projects must be transparent - both in reality and in the public's perception. For instance, one of the drivers behind the initial failure of Sydney's Cross-City Tunnel was that the project's proponents paid little heed to local community concerns. Conspiracy theories abound in the absence of real information.113 The CCT proponents compounded their errors by altering the configuration of surface streets above the project in a manner that many local residents took to be a patent attempt to force vehicles into the tunnel, or, as more cynical critics observed, to funnel the hard-working Sydney motorist's money into the hands of private contractors.
Transparency is critical at the outset of a PPP venture, as once public suspicion is aroused and incendiary rhetoric is thrown about, the proponents often lose credibility regardless of the underlying logic of their arguments and the support and justification for the project can become potentially compromised.
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113 Of course, some critics are simply dead-set against a project for their own reasons - logical or illogical - and noamount of community involvement will placate them.