Here comes the Sydney Metro at full speed
The NSW Government will not back down on its infrastructure spending nor shy away from plans to build the controversial Sydney metro system. According to NSW Treasurer Eric Roozendaal and Transport Minister David Campbell, the metro is necessary. In a recently held conference on infrastructure, the Treasurer said “Of the major cities around the world, all of them have metro systems. We are one of the 50 biggest cities in the world but we don’t yet have a metro system. That is what the NSW Government is investing in, it is investing in the future.”
A Sydney metro would service the inner suburbs or high-demand corridors from the city to Parramatta and Penrith; it will be more frequent than heavy rail (up to 30 trains an hour), it will have fewer seats, more doors and one level; and it will often run on underground or elevated tracks.
The project which is estimated to cost a staggering $4.8 billion envisages new stations at Rozelle, Pyrmont, Barangaroo-Wynyard, Town Hall Square and Central. A further station may be built at White Bay in the future. It is intended that construction will commence in 2010 with the entire metro operational by the end of 2015.
This year’s State budget has allocated almost $600 million into the CBD metro attracting no funding from the Federal Government. It is interesting to note that the budget does not include funding for construction of the project which gives the NSW Government the option of dumping the project in the middle of 2010.
In recent days, the NSW Government announced the Stage One of the Sydney Metro. The first stage of the metro will be largely duplicating other public transport services, at enormous cost to NSW taxpayers, while doing nothing to solve Sydney’s real transport problems. Sydney traditionally has the highest proportion of journey to work trips made by public transport of any Australian city.
The Preliminary Environmental Assessment for the construction of the CBD metro was released last week. It revealed a series of adverse impacts such as:
• It found that the duration and scale of the excavation work needed to build the seven-kilometre underground line would produce “unavoidable noise and vibration impacts at some locations”.
• Noise levels would exceed government targets at all but one of the construction sites. Sleep disturbance limits were expected to be exceeded by up to 19 decibels in Pyrmont and Rozelle as construction goes on 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• There would be significant noise and traffic impact from the movement of 1.27 million cubic metres of shale and sandstone spoil from tunnelling to landfill sites within and outside the CBD. Some of this spoil – including a proportion of the 500,000 cubic metres coming from the main staging site at White Bay – would be moved by ship and train, but all spoil produced within the CBD would be removed by truck.
• The assessment predicts up to 24 truck movements an hour at the Wynyard, Barangaroo, Rozelle, Pyrmont and Central Station construction sites, which would create traffic chaos in Australia’s largest city.
Richard Allsop, Research Fellow, from the Institute of Public Affairs stated: “A benchmark study undertaken last year found that by retaining train guards and keeping staff at low patronage (CityRail) stations, the NSW Government is paying $130 million more than it should to operate its metropolitan rail system…If the Sydney metro project proceeds, it will just add to the amount of money that has been wasted in the past decade by the nation’s worst performing public transport system.”
Here comes the Sydney Metro at full speed.
References: Linton Besser, Metro plan threatens to derail city, Sydney Morning Herald, 21/01/09; Andrew West, Metro still at the station, Sydney Morning Herald, 16/06/09; Richard Allsop, A tale of two different cities, On Line Opinion, 17/09/09.
