LIGHT///RAIL//EXTENSION

Here's a letter I got from the Ministry of Transport in response to my query about the extension of the light rail line.


The light rail line stops in Lilyfield but the track continues as a freight line through Leichhardt, Summer Hill and Dulwich Hill.  Until recently, the line serviced freight to and from the Summer Hill flour mill.  Since the mill's closure the freight line has been unused.

A local community group called EcoTransit has been lobbying to convert the disused track into an extension of the light rail passenger line.  They argue this would put more inner west residents onto a dedicated local line to the city and ease pressure off the heavy rail network and it would only cost around $60m.


The MOT has put a couple of good cases forward for not developing the line yet... and they are the North West Metro and the Western Metro.


They make a good point about haulage but it all starts to fall apart when they say it has to be "considered in the context of... the West Metro feasibility study."  How could a surface north-south light rail line affect an underground east-west metro line?  Perhaps they're waiting to decide on a Western Metro alignment so they can coordinate the stations.


With the North West Metro under as much existential threat as its masters, the light rail extension may turn out to be the jewel in Sydney's transport crown.


Food for thought.