Tunnel vision and it's last stop, Rozelle
October 25, 2008
A $4 BILLION underground metro line with stations at Central, Town Hall, Pyrmont and Rozelle could be built with federal funds but the state budget crisis has forced the Rees Government to put the more ambitious $12 billion North West Metro on hold.
The Premier, Nathan Rees, announced plans for the seven-kilometre line yesterday but refused to guarantee the future of the 38-kilometre North West Metro to Macquarie Park and Epping. However, this could be built later as an extension to the Rozelle line. Construction could start within two years.
The Premier wants the Federal Government's Infrastructure Australia to pay for the $4 billion project.
"What this line does is embed in future planning of public transport in NSW those options for metro links to the north-west, the south-west and the west," Mr Rees said.
"If we get the tick from the feds to do this, it means that heavy rail won't be the way of the future, metro will be."
Despite this, it appears metro lines to the north-west and west of Sydney will be delayed indefinitely, with plans for the new line showing an extension from Rozelle to Macquarie Park and Epping as a second phase of the network. The west metro is listed as an alternative second phase.
A government source said the decision to pursue the smaller metro was made because "the north-west was unaffordable - we had to start somewhere".
Construction would start in 2010, a year before the next state election. Rozelle is in the marginal Balmain electorate of the Education Minister, Verity Firth.
Mr Rees refused to guarantee the future of the North West Metro before next month's mini-budget. He said he would release more details of when that line might proceed then.
When Mr Rees made the announcement with his infrastructure chief , David Richmond, they were unable to reveal the cost of the Rozelle metro, despite having just presented the proposal to bureaucrats at Infrastructure Australia.
The Premier's office later revealed the line would cost about $4 billion but Mr Rees would not be drawn on whether it would go ahead without federal funding.
"Let's put the acid on them in the first instance," Mr Rees said, adding that the new line would immediately relieve bottlenecks in the city's most congested stations.
"The simple fact is that the worst congestion on our rail line starts when you get to the CBD.
"People converge on Central from all over Sydney - six lines meet at this station but we only have three lines to take them through, so obviously this causes a bottleneck, putting pressure on Town Hall and Wynyard."
A spokesman for the federal Transport and Infrastructure Minister, Anthony Albanese, said Infrastructure Australia would provide an interim list of what it sees as the most crucial projects to the Government before the end of the year. The Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell, said the latest plan was an insult to desperate commuters in the city's outer suburbs.
"This is a confused premier … making it up as he goes along, and all he is doing is rubbing salt into the wounds of people across this city who want better transport infrastructure, but who have no hope of it being delivered," Mr O'Farrell said.
"We're happy with any addition to Sydney's public transport system, but Mr Rees is again making it up as he goes along, scribbling notes on the back of lemon-squash coasters and presenting that as some hope for the public of NSW."
The Greens MP, Lee Rhiannon, said the Government should have finished existing heavy rail projects and extended the light rail network rather than devising a new plan it could not afford. "This is a mini-plan from a mini-premier," she said.
