Tens of thousands of Sydney commuters face at least a year of travel delays and replacement buses as the New South Wales government forges ahead with the final stage of the Metro City and Southwest rail project.
Labor will continue with the conversion of the T3 line to Bankstown into a metro line that can carry new driverless trains. It says the project will be completed by October 2025 despite the cost blowing out to more than $20bn.
Tuesday’s announcement comes after weeks of speculation over the future of Metro West – a separate underground line planned to connect the CBD with Parramatta –which the government has refused to confirm will be built, despite tunnel boring already commencing.
The premier, Chris Minns, and the transport minister, Jo Haylen, said on Tuesday that the Metro City and Southwest – which will run from Chatswood to Bankstown – would be built with a promise of train services every four minutes during peak times once the line is completed.
Minns said the conversion would cost an additional $1.1bn that the government would pull from the existing transport budget. It was too soon to say what other projects or services would miss out, he said.
Haylen said construction would take place in two stages. The first stage is the current work extending the metro from Chatswood – where the Metro Northwest line from Tallawong terminates – to Central via a new harbour tunnel and undergound city stations, and then on to Sydenham. It will be completed and opened between July and October next year, the government says.
Once metro services are running to Sydenham, the conversion of the more than 100-year-old T3 line to Bankstown will be carried out over the following 12 months.
A fleet of about 100 buses will be deployed during this period but the government conceded it was struggling with a shortage of bus drivers and it can’t say how long the travel delays will be.
“We don’t want to sugarcoat this – it is going to be disruptive for passengers along the Sydenham to Bankstown line for about 12 months,” Haylen said on Tuesday. “Those communities have been dealing with this disruption for several years now. They want to see the service delivered.”
The government has separately received the interim report from an independent review into Sydney’s metro projects including Metro West.
The fate of the Metro West project is expected to be revealed later this year once the review is complete, with Minns on Tuesday again refusing to rule out cancelling or amending it.
“We have to be responsible. I would urge everybody, don’t listen to the crowd that just tell you the to sign the cheques, close your eyes and don’t worry about the cost,” the premier said.
The planned Metro West project is a 24km rail line that would move up to 40,000 people an hour in each direction from the newly built Hunter Street station in the CBD through Parramatta, Olympic Park and to Westmead, and has been touted as a way to alleviate pressure on the existing western line of the city’s train network.
In addition to the prospect of axing the Metro West project, Minns has also entertained the idea of creating additional stations, which would deliver greater value for money but slow down the trip time from Parramatta to the city.
The interim report also raises the idea of a “potential eastern extension” to the line. The previous Coalition government had explored extending the line to the east with stations potentially at Randwick and Maroubra.
The NSW opposition leader, Mark Speakman, said Tuesday’s news was a re-announcement of the previous Coalition government’s policy.
The opposition also used question time to attack Minns over his hesitance to commit to Metro West.
“This Labor government has made a big song and dance out of honouring an election commitment and delivering an infrastructure project that was planned, funded and under way by the previous government,” Speakman said.
