Metro Pitt or Metro West?

It looks like trouble is brewing with CityRail and the NSW Property Council arguing against the NSW Government's plan to build the CBD Metro along the reserved 'Metro-Pitt' alignment under the CBD.

Here's a bit of history. In 2002 the Rail Co-ordinator General, Ron Christie, submitted a proposal for the next 50 years of rail expansion in Sydney. In the report he said that a new rail route through the CBD from Redfern to St Leonards would be required by 2011-2015 when other routes will become saturated.

In 2005 NSW Premier Bob Carr announced the Metropolitan Rail Expansion Program, which, taking into account the Christie Report, described a $8b project to build the South West Rail Link (indefinitely deferred in the November 2008 mini-budget), the North West Rail Link (changed to the North West Metro in May 2008 and indefinitely deferred in the November 2008 mini-budget) and the CBD Rail Link (cancelled in favour of the metro network.)

The CBD Rail Link was basically a new rail tunnel running North-South through the CBD from Redfern and under the harbour to St Leonards or Chatswood. In order to build the tunnel Premier Morris Iemma quarantined two routes under the CBD in February 2006. These protected alignments were known as the MetroWest and the MetroPitt alignments (see picture for indicative routes.)

The recent announcement of the CBD Metro clearly places the metro route along the Metro-Pitt alignment as you can see in the official NSW Government picture attached to the news release.

While Ron Christie's predictions of saturation in the other train lines in the next five years is looking increasingly likely, any chance of relieving the congestion with a CBD Rail Link disappears if the CBD Metro goes ahead.

It will be interesting to see how the Government will respond to this issue. If they reassure the people of Sydney that the CBD expansion of the CityRail network isn't necessary, they're hinting at their intention to move people in large numbers off the CityRail trains and onto the Metro as Sydney's preferred mass transit system. Maybe Les Wielinga, CEO of RailCorp, know this too since he has decided to resign from RailCorp to head up the new Sydney Metro Authority.

If the metro does go ahead and the CBD Rail Link issue becomes moot, time will tell if Ron Christie's predictions were correct and the rail network will hit capacity before 2015. Any relief would only come after completion of the Western Metro and no-one has any illusions that it would be before 2015.

Will Sydney's mass transit system survive the 2015 bottleneck?


Correction: Les Wielinga was CEO of the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority immediately before his current role as CEO of Sydney Metro. He was never CEO of RailCorp.

Laneway-gate

With laneways in the CBD being revitalised as pockets of culture and entertainment, the oldest laneways in Paddington are under siege as the neighbouring business owners - who also own title over the laneways  - attempt to gate them off from the public.


More here.


I assume the owners have lodged a development application to Woollhara council for approval of the aforementioned gates.  This will be a tricky one from council as they weigh up the proprietary ownership by the land title holder against the interests and voices of the local community.

Surfing the Commute

According to this article in adelaidenow.com.au the South Australian Government is considering fitting its public transport networks with free wireless internet.

Would the same idea attract commuters onto public transport in Sydney? Hillsbus seems to think so. According to the article selected Hillsbus routes already offer the free service on their buses.

At $1500 per bus I doubt we'll see the NSW Government shelling out half a million dollars to fit the 300+ new buses on order.

I'd like to see some stats on the cost effectiveness of this idea. I like the idea of providing these types of amenities on public transport - good service quality joined with a few special features like wi-fi might be the formula that gets people on board. Of course having the buses and trains run on time, uncrowded, clean and reliable needs to be locked in first. Maybe the Sydney transport system needs a bit more work before we 'log in'.

Traffic Trends

The NSW Audit Office has released the following data about the average speeds for seven major routes between Sydney and the greater metropolitan area for the last five years for the morning and afternoon peaks.  I've graphed the data for easy analysis:

The overall trend is fairly clear and expected - the morning peak shows a general reduction in average speeds, indicating increasing congestion.  The afternoon peaks have generally shown an increase in average speeds.  There is significant improvement along the M2 and, to a lesser extent, the Pacific Highway since the opening of the Lane Cove Tunnel in 2007.

Some other points of interest I noticed:

• Victoria Road is the slowest in both peaks.  I guess this is why the NSW Government is pushing its Victoria Road project through the pipeline so rapidly, especially since the cancellation of the North West Metro.

• Victoria Rd congestion has remained steady in both peaks despite the afternoon being 10km/h faster.  My guess is the number of people using Victoria Road in the morning and afternoon has remained steady but the afternoon peak is more spread out allowing faster average speeds.  

 

• The only route to show a recognisable decrease in average speeds during the afternoon peak is the M5/Eastern Distributor route.  This route has been criticised because it was built too narrow (only two lanes in each direction) and completely underestimated demand.  This still doesn't explain the decline over the last four years because the M5 East opened in late 2001.  Despite its decline, it's still one of the fastest afternoon routes.
  

 

• The Princes Highway sits pretty low on both graphs but we don't seem to hear the same complaints from commuters coming from the south.

 Since the cancellation of the North West Metro, the Government has promised to supply the North West with 100 new buses.  If they will be on routes with no significant bus lanes they will end up sharing the road space with private cars and degrading the morning peak speeds even further.  These stats will really show whether or not the RTA's efforts to alleviate congestion at key 'pinch points' will make any difference.