Sydney Slashes Rail Plan, More Roading Money

New South Wales new Premier. Kristina Keneally.has dumped her predecessor’s big public transport plans and in her 10 year plan allocated three times as much money to roads as trains, saying this is about re-allocating spending to where it is needed.

She has axed the $5b plans for stage one of the CBD Metro rail (planning has already cost $200m and properties have been bought) and her plan features yet another Sydney road tunnel – a new $4.5 billion, five kilometre road tunnel from the west to the city.
Rail is far from ignored – but road gets the big attention and the decision to dump the CBD rail plan will dismay city commuters.
She explains that decision with an argument I can see being used in Auckland to build more motorways.
“Sydney is no longer one city. “Sydney is a series of regional cities – Parramatta, Liverpool and Penrith – and accessible centres like Blacktown, Chatswood and Bondi Junction. “This is about responding to the challenges of Sydney’s growing population.”
Her plan does suggest that by 2016, 28 per cent of all trips to work will be taken by public transport.
The main features of her plan:

• The $4.5 billion Western Express CityRail Service to slash travelling times from western Sydney to the city. It will achieve faster and more frequent services with a goal of up to 50 per cent more services and 17 per cent more passengers on the CityRail network on an average weekday. This will occur through: Separating a dedicated track from all other traffic;
• Construction of a new five kilometre priority tunnel –City Relief Line – will be built from 2015 in the city to separate western services from inner-city trains to provide shorter journey times;
• Construction of eight new platforms to increase capacity at Redfern, Central, Town Hall and Wynyard to relieve congestion;
• New express train services will be introduced for the Blue Mountains, Richmond, Penrith, Blacktown and Parramatta; and Increase CityRail’s capacity on all lines and allow the introduction of express rail services to western Sydney.
• Start of work on the $6.7 billion North West rail link from Epping to Rouse Hill with six stations at Franklin Road, Castle Hill, Hills Centre, Norwest, Burns Road and Rouse Hill in 2017;
• A $500 million expansion of the current light rail system – bringing its total length to 16.9 kilometres with up to 20 new stations and almost 10 kilometres of new track – a more than doubling of the distance of the existing route.

The $500 million comprises: Road works and infrastructure; 4.1 kilometres of light rail from Circular Quay via Barangaroo to Haymarket; and 5.6 kilometres of light rail from Lilyfield to Dulwich Hill.

• Improvements to bus services – costing $2.9 billion – which includes: Roll out of 1,000 new buses in Strategic Bus Corridors in Sydney, Newcastle, Wollongong and the Central Coast;
• Bus priority measures such as GPS traffic light priority; and New STA and private bus depots.
• Over the next 10 years, $3.1 billion for new trains and this is in addition to the 626 carriages on order;
• Creation of the new Sydney Metropolitan Development Authority to drive future transit-oriented development and urban renewal. Authority will be similar to the highly successful Redfern Waterloo Authority and Barangaroo Delivery Authority. It will be responsible for implementing the integrated metropolitan land use strategy and will report to the Minister for Roads and Transport and the Minister for Planning with its own board with a Federal Government representative.);

A number of other transport related measures including:

• $158 million in cycleways – completing many of the city’s high priority missing links;
• More than $400 million in commuter car parks;
• $57 million Commuter Infrastructure Fund for local transport partnerships – such as improved and easy access for people with disabilities and more awnings and shelters at rail stations;
• $225 million over 10 years for Sydney ferries, including six vessels; $536 million for motorway planning, transit corridor reservations and land acquisiti n for future projects;
• $483 million from State and Federal Governments to deliver important freight works in Sydney, including a NSW Freight Plan to increase productivity and secure jobs;
• State Government will continue to deliver $21.9 billion of joint State and Federal funded road projects;
• An historic partnership with the City of Sydney to develop a memorandum of understanding on public transport;
• movement on laneways and streets and planning issues such as pedestrian friendly areas and civic spaces.

Her plan is here

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