Sydney Rail Projects - Here, there or anywhere?

In the past week we have seen a couple of salvos fired back and forth between former NSW Treasurer Michael Costa and Curtin University Professor Peter Newman on the topic of public transport projects in Sydney.

Costa, in his article published in The Australian on October 24, claims that Newman's 'green' way of thinking clouds his judgement when it comes to choosing the right form of mass public transport.  He specifically criticises what he calls the "field of dreams" approach to urban planning - if you build it they will come.

Costa implies it's incorrect to assume that you can build a transit line - be it rail, bus or something else - through a low to medium density residential region and expect density to increase.  This is not surprising considering his long-time advocacy of the Western Fastrail.  The Fastrail project is not without its merits, but it has been soundly and economically analysed and rejected by the NSW Government on a number of occasions.  I still struggle to understand how the NSW Treasurer justified his advocacy of the project when it was shown to be economically unsound.

In essence the Western Fastrail would duplicate the western CityRail line by running express trains from the CBD to Parramatta and beyond.  This project puts additional capacity on the city's most congested corridor, thereby easing commuter pressure and increasing reliability.  It is a concept at odds with the idea of the North West Metro - a project that puts a new high-capacity, independent line through a medium density area with no current public transport corridors at all.  Oh, by the way, Costa was vigorously opposed to the NW Metro.

Newman responded to Costa in an article published on October 30.  He reaffirms the benefits of high-speed rail networks and says of Costa's field of dreams remark,

"There will always be an element of risk in building public transport infrastructure: they may not come. But if you don't provide it, they certainly won't come."

He also responds to Costa's comment that the new 'green politics' is a symptom of the 'global warming religion' by saying,

"According to Costa, financial resources are limited, but not natural resources, such as oil and the climate system."

The North West Metro is a project designed to bring mass public transit to an area that currently has none.  It route has been strategically chosen to run through a highly car-dependant area (see map) and is designed to be a 'field of dreams' in that it will encourage high density growth along its route.

Costa believes density will not grow along a newly constructed train line.  I say, you be the judge.  Here is a picture of Sydney showing population density.  I have overlain the existing rail network and the proposed NW Metro route (Only approximate, I'm not an artist!)  I think the correlation between population density and rail access is clear.