Greater Macarthur Land Release – many questions but few answers

Posted on 24 September, 2015 by Alex

The recent announcement by the State Government of the release of 7,700-hectares of land south of Campbelltown at Menangle Park, Mount Gilead and Wilton Junction with up to 35,000 new homes is surprisingly short on detail. A five-page preliminary land release strategy has been released along with a land use and infrastructure analysis, but neither provides much information about any government planning for employment, education, health, transport or other infrastructure for the three identified centres. The overall process is described as an “investigation” which suggests that much of this detail is yet to be worked out.

The limited information that has been provided raises a lot more questions than answers, while hinting at the challenges involved. One example is proved by the table and map showing distances and travel times by car from Wilton in the south of the Greater Macarthur Land Release Investigation Area (GMLRIA) to other major centres which are reproduced below.

Travel time from Wilton - map (from GMLRIA Land Use and Infrastructure Analysis)

Travel time from Wilton map (from GMLRIA Preliminary Land Release Strategy)

Travel Time from Wilton 2

Travel Time from Wilton – table (from GMLRIA Land Use and Infrastructure Analysis)

These underscore the distances involved and the consequent need to develop employment opportunities in a region which several commentators have noted has struggled to create jobs. Wollongong to the south east is actually closer than Parramatta or even Liverpool. Other centres like Sydney’s CBD and Macquarie Park are even more distant at 85 kilometres and a rather optimistic assessment of 60-90 minutes travel time.

The strategy is comparatively silent on this issue. What information there is available is largely summed up in the map released as part of the land release investigation. This identifies the location of employment lands and sketches some transport options; rather disturbingly, there is more detail on road plans than public transport ones. While proximity of both the Hume Highway and the main south rail line has obviously influenced the choice of these sites, there appears to be little in the way of plans to build on the latter, apart from a suggested bus priority corridor and a proposal to extend electrification of the rail line from Macarthur station only as far as the most northern centre, Menangle Park.

Preliminary Strategy and Action Plan (from GMLRIA Preliminary Land Release Strategy)

Preliminary Strategy and Action Plan (from GMLRIA Preliminary Land Release Strategy)

The provision of public transport infrastructure in the North West and South West Growth Centres involved the expenditure of billions of dollars on building metro and heavy rail lines. The North West is an object lesson in how expensive it is to retrofit dedicated transport corridors; while this was avoided in the construction of the south west rail link as far as Leppington, the piecemeal multi-front development of this growth centre and the failure to identify and resource a corridor beforehand means that the extension of this link will impact on recently-established communities around Oran Park and Harrington Park.

I will return to other aspects of the GMLRIA announcement in later posts, but let’s stay with public transport for the moment. First it’s important to provide good transport infrastructure despite the (as yet undeveloped) plans to maximise local employment. Even if these are successful, local traffic to and between employment nodes in the three planned centres and Campbelltown will put considerable pressure on the Hume Highway and the local road network, while a significant proportion of the workforce will still need to travel further afield.

The decision to investigate a release area in close proximity to the existing rail line is a good start in responding to these issues. While this means that the sort of telephone-number dollars that are being expended in the northwest to retrofit the metro can be avoided, it does not let the government off the hook in terms of upgrading and expanding this asset well before development starts – and this must involve a lot more than the current proposed partial electrification of the rail line. Here are some suggestions:

  1. Extend electrification of the rail line at least as far as Maldon (near the proposed major centre at Wilton) and preferably to Picton. This is a no-brainer – irrespective of any plans to regard Milton Junction as a self-contained city, integration into the suburban rail network is essential to provide reliable links to other centres.
  2. Use part of the uncompleted Maldon to Dombarton rail freight corridor to provide an electrified rail link between Maldon and the proposed major centre at Wilton. This section is only around two kilometres and could be integrated with the freight line if this is ever built, but in the interim a rail link to the largest proposed centre in the release area seems to be another no-brainer.
  3. Consider upgrading and further electrification of the main rail line to Goulburn. The rail line could provide a spine for the modest development of other centres in this corridor which could link to and leverage the opportunities provided by the GMLRIA and in particular the infrastructure and services that would be associated with the major centre at Wilton.
  4. Plan a set of dedicated bus corridors in both the Menangle Park/Mount Gilead and the Wilton release areas. At this stage only one such corridor has been identified, to link Mount Gilead to Menangle.
  5. Ensure that any plans to extend the south west rail line southwards involve a link to the GMLRIA. While the route is yet to be finalised, the information released to date suggests that it will be extended only as far as Narellan. Extending it further would provide direct access from the investigation area to proposed employment areas near the planned airport site.

The extension of the south west rail line to the main south line to connect to the GMLRIA would provide a significant addition to Sydney’s orbital public transport corridors. I’ll consider the increasing importance of these in my next post.

Posted in Employment, Infrastructure, Public Transport, Sydney metro area, Transport, Western Sydney | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Hazelbrook Station – “beautification” over accessibility

Posted on 7 September, 2015 by Alex

In my last post I looked at the “bridges to nowhere” on the Blue Mountains railway line –  the new pedestrian bridges built as part of the recently completed widening of the Great Western Highway, especially in the mid-mountains. These have all been built with disabled-friendly ramps but rely on connections to older pedestrian bridges at railway stations without any disabled access to the platforms, or in some cases even to the other side of the railway line. It seems that access policies and targets can be met by providing wheelchair (and pram, stroller and shopping trolley) facilities, but not any actual access to where people might want to go.

Since writing this I’ve had a chance to look at the recently-completed “beautification” work at Hazelbrook station, the busiest mid-mountains station, to which a new pedestrian bridge over the highway was recently added. As I described in my last post the new bridge provides great disabled access across the highway and the railway but stairs are still the only way to access the platform. This is one station however where this problem could be easily fixed by adding a single lift.

Instead Hazelbrook now exemplifies the problem. Not only has a lift not been provided, the powers that be seem determined to get across the message that this is not going to happen anytime soon. The first thing to go up were the high wire mesh barriers to stop objects being thrown at trains or onto the tracks. While this is a laudable aim and it would cost little to remove a section to construct a lift, decorative metal screens have now been added to the mesh fencing, the design of which has clearly not considered the future incorporation of a lift. Then, to top it all, heavy concrete planter boxes and low walls have been added in directly front of all the possible locations for a lift.

Hazelbrook Station

Recent “improvements” at Hazelbrook Station (author’s photo)

Now I have nothing against beautification, or planter boxes, and the added seating is a good idea. However the underlying message seems to be “this is as good as it gets” at Hazelbrook station and by implication the mid-mountains – despite expensive access upgrades elsewhere in the upper mountains, mid-mountains residents with access issues should instead rejoice at their planter boxes and decorative screens.

Posted in Public Transport, Transport | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The Blue Mountains’ “bridges to nowhere”

Posted on 1 September, 2015 by Alex

Imagine for a moment that you are able-bodied and healthy person out for a walk and you encounter a major barrier on your trip. Luckily there is an impressive-looking new bridge nearby. You can access and walk over it easily, but when you get to the other side you find that it ends abruptly just before your destination. To finish the last part of your journey you have to scrabble down a rope ladder – and climb back up the same ladder to make the return trip.

This, or something very similar to it, is the situation which people with a disability face at 162 out of the 311 railway stations in NSW, according to a recent ABC news report. For anyone in a wheelchair stations without ramps or lifts are virtually inaccessible, but people with walking frames or sticks or those with prams and strollers can also find station stairs to be an insurmountable obstacle.

The situation in some sections of the rail network such as my local Blue Mountains line is even worse. Of the 21 stations on the line from Lapstone to Lithgow, only four have full wheelchair access – in other words, over 75% of the stations on this line are disabled-unfriendly.

For decades the railway line and the Great Western Highway which runs parallel to it for much of the way have been the main corridors of connection for the dozens of Mountains townships they pass through – but in many places they also act as major barriers, splitting towns in two. This problem has been exacerbated by the recently completed widening of the highway to dual carriageway all the way to Katoomba.

To overcome this divide (and to keep the highway traffic flowing with as few sets of traffic lights as possible) new pedestrian bridges have been connected to the existing and much older pedestrian bridges and underpasses at railway stations. It is obviously sensible to use the existing infrastructure in this way to provide safer pedestrian access to these stations and to the town centres often associated with them, but the new crossings also play an equally important practical and psychological role in linking the separated halves of these communities.

Linking them that is, for people without disabilities – and who are also unencumbered with prams, strollers or shopping trolleys. Most of the old pedestrian bridges over the railway were built without any form of wheelchair or other disabled access. The new road crossings have been built to modern disability access standards, usually with ramps, but in most cases these have not been retrofitted to the existing pedestrian rail crossings they link to. This has led to the strange structures I described above, bridges with expensive and extensive ramps on one side of the highway but with steep staircases on the other side of the railway, or with ramps at either end but no disabled access to the railway station platforms underneath them.

These are truly bridges to nowhere for the mobility-impaired. They really beg the question about how comprehensive and well-intended disability access policies and plans can produce these sorts of “solutions”, especially in an area like the Blue Mountains which has a larger percentage of people aged over 50 than the Sydney average.

It’s unclear whether this is a failure of coordination, a lack of funding or just sheer incompetence, but seven out of the 17 Mountains stations without disabled access have received this “treatment”. The mid-mountains (Linden to Bullaburra) is the worst-affected area; none of the five stations in this section have disabled access despite the fact that four of them have been connected to new disabled accessible pedestrian bridges (or in the case of Lawson, an underpass) over the highway (and to declare an interest I live in the mid-mountains).

Of these four stations, two (Hazelbrook and Lawson) at least have disabled access from one side of the combined divide of the railway and highway to the other, though none to the station platforms. The other two (Bullaburra and Woodford) don’t even have that. Disabled access has been provided at considerable cost from one side of the highway to the other and to the entrance of the station, but you have to be able to use the stairs both to reach the station platforms and to cross the railway lines. To make matters worse neither of the stations immediately east and west of this section, Faulconbridge and Wentworth Falls, have disabled access (though the latter is about to receive a disability access upgrade).

The highway widening is now substantially complete, so sadly the community has lost any opportunity to leverage better outcomes at these stations as part of the road upgrade. The legacy of these “half-built” crossings does however provide the potential to finish the job at a significantly reduced cost. This is because at some of these new stations the new highway overbridges mean that only one lift or ramp is now required to provide full accessibility. Some stations would require two lifts or ramps, but this is still cheaper to provide than the three lifts required at stations like Wentworth Falls. I’ll briefly discuss some examples in the mid-mountains.

  • Hazelbrook is the seventh-busiest station on the Blue Mountains line (based on 2014 station barrier counts), the busiest in the mid-mountains and also is an express stop. The new pedestrian bridge over the highway at Hazelbrook links the shopping centre on the north side to an older pedestrian bridge over the station which is at road level on the south side. This (a former road bridge) provides an excellent connection between the two halves of the township for the mobility impaired but there are only stairs down to the platforms. The installation of a single lift from the overbridge to the platform would resolve the station’s access problems, though to compound the failure to provide access in the first place large concrete planter boxes and other examples of “beautification” are currently being added to the station overbridge just where the lift should go.

    Hazelbrook station has a new pedestrian bridge providing disabled access over the highway and railway, but none to the station.

    Hazelbrook station has a new pedestrian bridge providing disabled access over the highway and railway, but none to the station.

  • Lawson is the tenth-busiest station overall and the second-busiest in the mid-mountains. Unusually, pedestrian access to the station was provided by an underpass instead of a bridge; this has ramps at either end, but stairs up to the platforms. As part of the highway upgrade the pedestrian subway was extended under the road to connect to the shops on the other side with ramps at either end, but nothing was done about the platform stairs. This means however that like Hazelbrook a single lift is all that is required to provide access.
  • Woodford station has been the subject of a strong community campaign to have wheelchair access installed. Despite this, both it and Bullaburra station rank below Hazelbrook and Lawson based on station patronage. They have a further disadvantage however; although they have been provided with new accessible pedestrian bridges over the highway, both stations lack disabled access not only to the platforms but also across the railway line. If anything Bullaburra is in a worse position than Woodford as there is no alternative road or pedestrian crossing of the railway nearby. Both stations would require two lifts to provide full disabled access.

    Bullaburra's "bridge to nowhere". This new bridge over the widened highway has ramps, but none were provided to access the station to the left of the photo or to cross the railway line.

    Bullaburra’s “bridge to nowhere”. This new bridge over the widened highway has ramps, but none were provided to access the station to the left of the photo or to cross the railway line.

While there is an argument for the current plans to provide disabled access at Wentworth Falls station based on its passenger numbers, the lack of disability access in the mid-mountains combined with the comparatively low cost involved in providing a lift each at the two busiest stations in this section is a strong justification for both these stations to be upgraded. At the very least Hazelbrook station’s “unfinished” bridge to nowhere should be next on the list to be completed as an urgent priority with the provision of a lift to the platform.

Posted in Public Transport, Transport | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Sydney Metro City and Southwest options: submissions close soon

Posted on 15 July, 2015 by Alex

A reminder that the closing date for submissions on the City and Southwest second stage of the Sydney Metro is this coming Friday 17 July 2015. While the Sydney Metro website explicitly seeks feedback about the alignment and options for station locations, the project website also makes it clear that submissions can “relate to any aspect of the plans for Stage Two of Sydney Metro”.

This raises a basic question: is it worthwhile revisiting the debate about the appropriateness of a metro in this corridor (particularly in the driverless, single-deck privatised form adopted for the first stage Northwest Metro)? Alternatively with construction of the first stage well underway, do we just accept that stage 2 will be built as an extension of the metro and therefore just concentrate the alignment and station options as well other practical issues relating to the project’s implementation?

I’m contemplating responding to both sets of issues but will probably spend more time on the practicalities. Whatever people may think about the metro concept, after winning the election and its success in the upper house on the leasing of the electricity assets the government has certainly made it clear that it will proceed with the second stage as planned. In doing so it is highly likely to sign the construction contracts and seek to commence the project by middle of this term, thus ensuring that it will be quite irreversible by the next election. This is the same strategy it used for the Northwest Metro.

In effect the government is using the proceeds of one privatisation (the leasing of electricity assets) to facilitate another privatisation (the construction and operation of the metro). Indeed as the Greens transport spokesperson Dr Mehreen Faruqi  recently pointed out (as I also did a little while ago) the Sydney Metro project looks increasingly like the precursor to the eventual privatisation of the whole rail network. To be fair to the government it hasn’t explicitly stated this is its policy and in any case as I noted in another post, the previous Labor government’s failure to develop and implement a coherent public transport strategy provided a policy vacuum for the incoming Coalition to fill with its own agenda.

As I reiterated in  recent post however, while the metro will greatly increase rail network its contributions to increasing rail network coverage are comparatively modest. This is mainly because two sections of publicly owned rail infrastructure (the Epping to Chatswood and Bankstown lines) will be handed to the private operator of the metro for both operational and financial reasons. The upshot is that only a comparatively limited number of new stations will be constructed in new areas.

In relation to the Southwest Metro, I noted in my earlier post that the government has put forward two options – north of the existing line with a station at the University of Sydney, or south, with a station at Waterloo. I outlined the case for alternatives to the Government’s “either/or” strategy in relation to the alignment and station options it is proposing for the metro stage 2 route between Central and Sydenham stations, along with options for increasing the coverage of the metro network. I’ve done some more work on developing these options which will form part of my submission on Stage 2 and the modified versions are summarised below. It should be noted that these are indicative proposals which I don’t have the resources to scope in detail in terms of practicality or cost-benefit.

First however is diagram with an approximate representation of the two options proposed by the Government. As I noted in my earlier post, I favour the Sydney University option over Waterloo for a station between Central and Sydenham, ideally with an additional station between the uni and Sydenham, but I don’t believe we have to make this either/or choice. I also said that to increase network coverage an additional line south of the Harbour needs to be considered and my preference was for a Western Metro Along Parramatta Road as far as Parramatta and either North Parramatta and/or Westmead. I have incorporated this in the modified options.

Microsoft PowerPoint - Sydney Metro options v3 1

State Government current Sydney Metro options

My modified options are as follows:

1. Connect both Sydney Uni and Waterloo. As I noted earlier, apart from connecting both centres this option would also have the potential to provide bus-metro interchanges for both inner west and south bus services. The Sydney University station could become an interchange station for a future Western Metro as shown in the modified diagram.

Microsoft PowerPoint - Sydney Metro options v3 2

Alternative 1: Connect both stations (with provision with the Western Metro).

2a and 2b: Adopt the Sydney Uni corridor and build a deviation on the Airport Line to connect to Waterloo. In my last post I proposed construction of a few hundred metres of track complete with a new station at Waterloo as an isolated project which is connected to the existing line only when construction has been completed. The metro line would then go via Sydney University.

The modified diagrams show how a Western Metro could be incorporated into this option. Option 2a proposes the most direct route to Sydenham with the University station as a potential interchange to a Western Metro and a second station in the Newtown/St Peters area.

Option 2b is an additional modification in which the line follows a wider arc along Parramatta Road to a second station which would act as the interchange for a future Western Metro. The Southwest Metro line would then swing south via a potential Newtown/St Peters station to Sydenham. This option would provide the opportunity for a separate bus-metro interchange on Parramatta Road away from the congested university location.

Microsoft PowerPoint - Sydney Metro options v3 3

Alternative 2a: Build a deviation on the Airport Line combined with the SW metro and a potential Western Metro interchange at Sydney Uni.

Microsoft PowerPoint - Sydney Metro options v3 4

Alternative 2b: Build a deviation on the Airport Line combined with the SW metro and a second Parramatta Road station with a potential Western Metro interchange.

3. Commit to building the Western Metro. The metro line would divide after Central with the Southwest Metro going to Sydenham with a station at Waterloo and the Western Metro line going via Sydney University.

Microsoft PowerPoint - Sydney Metro options v3 5

Alternative 3: Build the West Metro as well as the Southwest Metro

I would encourage anyone who’s interested to put in a submission – and in doing so to look a little beyond just choosing between the Sydney University and Waterloo options.

Posted in Planning, Public Transport, Sydney metro area, Transport | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Sydney’s new light rail: not the world’s most expensive after all

Posted on 29 June, 2015 by Alex

With a total construction cost of $2.1 billion, Sydney’s planned CBD and Eastern Suburbs Light Rail (CESLR), it is not surprising that the project has been dubbed as the world’s most expensive light rail line. As my series of articles on Australian light rail projects demonstrated, at $175 million a kilometre it will certainly be Australia’s most expensive. On the world stage however, claims that the CESLR has this dubious honour have just been well and truly demolished.

While we await confirmation from a higher authority (Guinness World Records?), the new world “champion” of expensive light rail projects is almost certain to be Boston’s Green Line extension. Before I discuss the dollars involved, a little background: while the Green Line runs underground through the city’s CBD and is referred to in Boston as part of the city’s subway system, it is actually a light rail line which runs on the surface outside the CBD, either in on-street reservations, in dedicated corridors (mainly converted heavy rail lines) or even in mixed traffic.

The underground section is North America’s oldest subsurface urban rail line. It opened in 1897 and was originally constructed to reduce streetcar (tram) congestion in Boston’s CBD. Some other US cities also constructed underground lines for similar reasons. Decades later when the mass closure of streetcar systems occurred swept across the US, Australia and other countries around the world, most of these underground sections were also abandoned or in a few cases (and as happened elsewhere in Boston) converted into heavy-rail subways.

Boston Green Line underground station

Boston Green Line underground station (author’s photograph)

A small number of cities like Boston and San Francisco retained key underground sections, along with some of the surface lines connected to them, as light rail and tram lines. In the case of the Green Line the extent of the underground section and the level of general traffic congestion made it difficult to replace with buses; it also avoided conversion to a full subway because the underground section has a number of tight curves and the stations are in some cases only a few hundred metres apart, factors which made it easier to continue the light rail service.

Today the system has four above-ground branches starting in the city’s west and south west which join together to form a single underground line running eastwards and then north. The line has nine underground stations including North Station at the north east edge of the CBD, where it surfaces before crossing the Charles River on a bridge. The line terminates over the river at Lechmere station, just south of the densely populated Somerville and Medford areas.

Boston Green Line station in a street reservation

Boston Green Line station in an above-ground street reservation (author’s photograph)

The planned extension involves 6.9 km of new track including a 5.5 km main branch with five stations within the existing Lowell Line commuter rail right-of-way, running north west from a rebuilt Lechmere Station to the Tufts University campus at Medford. A 1.4 km second branch will follow the existing Fitchburg Line commuter rail right-of-way westwards to a single station at Union Square. The light rail would run on its own track within the commuter rights-of-way as the existing heavy rail lines and services to North Station will be preserved (a more detailed map is available here).

Green Line Extension Map

Green Line Extension Map (from Wikipedia)

Towards the end of 2014 (around the time the $2.1 billion estimate for Sydney’s light rail was released) it was announced that the Green Line project is to be jointly funded by the Federal Government with a grant of US$996 million and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which will provide the balance of the project’s total US$2.29 billion cost. In Australian terms this translates to a rather mind-boggling AU$2.99 billion, or nearly $900 million more than the CESLR.

I have not been able to track down an economic analysis for the line but even if the estimated ridership on the extension of around 37,900 a day (roughly 18 million annually) is correct, it is hard to see that a project this expensive would have a great cost-benefit ratio. In the context of Boston’s rather convoluted transport and environmental politics, however, it does make some sense.

To cut a very long story short, although commuter rail corridors run through Somerville and Medford, only the periphery of the area is now served by rail (ironically there once were several stations on the commuter lines in this area but these are now closed).  To settle a lawsuit brought by an environmental law group seeking the implementation of measures to mitigate the environmental impacts resulting from The Big Dig (an ambitious program of motorway tunnel construction in inner Boston), the Massachusetts government agreed to extend the Green Line north into Somerville and Medford. Thus the rationale for the line is legal and political as much as it is environmental and economic.

Neither this nor inclusions such as stabling facilities and 24 new light rail vehicles (LRVs) explain why the project will cost a staggering A$433 million per kilometre to build. This is despite it being constructed in existing commuter rail corridors, which means that there will be minimal land acquisitions. This compares to a relatively modest $175 million per kilometre to build Sydney’s 12 km CESLR project which also includes stabling facilities and 30 LRVs (and which also has minimal land acquisition costs).

In other words, Boston’s Green Line extension will cost almost two-and-a-half times more per kilometre than Sydney ‘s CESLR. It will also carry fewer passengers than the CESLR, though to be fair the level of utilisation on a per-kilometre basis is likely to be similar, given the Green Line extension’s shorter length.

The anticipated high levels of usage on both systems will also test other public transport infrastructure and connecting services in their respective cities. In the case of Boston the extension will feed into the busy CBD section of the Green Line (which is the busiest light rail system in the US), while in Sydney the line will have interchanges for buses at its eastern termini, with yet another bus interchange to be located on the edge of the CBD at Rawson Place where inner west bus passengers will be transferred to already-crowded trams (I will have more say on international patronage comparisons in a future post).

To an Australian observer the first thought on seeing the Green Line extension plans is that it would be much simpler and cheaper to convert part or all of the existing diesel commuter line to electric suburban operation and construct extra stations through the Medford-Somerville area. Part of the reason this approach wasn’t adopted may be that electrified suburban rail services are a comparative rarity in the States. Many cities have high-frequency subways servicing the CBD and inner suburbs but few have electric suburban and inter-urban services (New York’s Long Island Railroad is a notable exception).

Most US commuter rail systems are like Boston’s – diesel loco-hauled, low-frequency services which are geared largely to the morning and evening commute. Many cities don’t have any commuter rail services at all. This contrasts with Australia where most mainland state capitals have reasonably frequent and relatively modern electric suburban services  (on the other side of the ledger, no Australian city at present has a dedicated subway/metro).

A more practical objection to electrification of the Fitchburg and Lowell commuter lines is that passengers would still have to change at Boston’s North Station to access subway services to travel further into the CBD, a situation not unlike that in Sydney were passengers have to change from interurban trains at Central Station. Nonetheless electrification would appear to the outside observer to be much more cost-effective than the light rail extension and the money saved could be used to electrify additional commuter lines and provide extra stations throughout the network. Alternatively any spare funds could go towards providing the missing direct rail connection between Boston’s North and South Stations, ideally with an intermediate underground station which electrified commuter trains could use.

Of course there are other options that could be considered for Medford and Somerville such as using tram-trains on the commuter lines or even constructing a heavy-rail subway line, but as an outsider it is probably unwise to attempt to provide detailed advice on overseas urban transport plans unless one knows the cities very well. It is equally unwise to make superficial comparisons between cities as these often mask major differences.

It is probably fair to say however that while Boston’s Green Line extension and Sydney’s new light rail line are both good projects that will bring rail access to some middle and inner-ring suburbs with high population densities currently reliant on crowded buses and congested roads, they are approaching the limits of light rail both in terms of cost and passenger capacity. While both projects are now underway and I believe they should be supported, the future assessment of similar light rail proposals at these limits should include consideration of whether extra investment in heavy rail or metro/subway infrastructure would be more appropriate, especially in terms of catering for future growth in demand.

 

Posted in Infrastructure, Public Transport, Sydney metro area, Transport | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

Sydney Metro: where to, south (and north) of the Harbour?

Posted on 25 June, 2015 by Alex

Barangaroo and the Other Proposed Stations

While the 2015 NSW budget released earlier this week has confirmed that an additional station will be built as part of the planned Sydney Metro at Barangaroo to service new commercial and residential development there, a number of other station locations north and south of the harbour remain undecided. It also appears that while it will make a significant contribution to increasing capacity, Metro’s role in expanding rail network coverage will remain limited largely confined to the north side of the Harbour, the CBD and southern central Sydney, at least in the medium term.

The budget confirmed pre-budget speculation that such a station would be built, confirming its likely route through the CBD. In addition to Barangaroo, stations will be built at St Leonards-Crows Nest and Victoria Cross north of the harbour and Martin Place, Pitt Street and Central in the CBD. The Sydney Morning Herald article also claimed that the station at Barangaroo would need to be built north of the current commercial development to allow the line to swing across the CBD to an interchange with the Eastern Suburbs Railway at Martin Place.

Still undecided is where exactly a station will be built in the St Leonards-Crows Nest area and whether one will be provided in the Artarmon industrial area north of the Harbour. On the southern side and to the south of the CBD there is a wider choice, one which will determine which corridor the line will take until it joins the Bankstown line at Sydenham. The line will either swing north of the current rail line with a station at Sydney University, possibly near the Seymour Centre and City Road, or swing south where UrbanGrowth NSW wants a station in Waterloo to service new residential development.

Either choice and in particular the option involving a station at Sydney University would still leave a significant gap between that station and Sydenham, an issue I was asked to comment on for a Herald article about the prospects for new inner-city stations. I also noted my support for the university station and suggested some scenarios in which both a station here and one at Waterloo could be accommodated (more on this in a moment), though my comments on these issues weren’t published.

Capacity v. Coverage

Part of my response which did get a mention was a point also made by transport expert Garry Glazebrook that the project ought to do a lot more south of the harbour to improve the rail network’s reach other than connecting to the Bankstown line and converting it to metro operation, a point reiterated in an article today. This brings us to the wider issue of the metro’s role in relation to capacity and coverage.

There is no doubt that for all its criticism (mine included) the metro line will greatly increase capacity in the rail network. The most obvious way is by providing a new train path through the most congested part of the system – from North Sydney, under the harbour and most critically through the CBD. The line will add four major stations in the CBD and while some of this capacity will obviously be soaked up by new passengers these stations will also relieve congestion on existing lines and stations, particularly Town Hall and Wynyard.

The line will also add capacity indirectly through the conversion of the Bankstown line. This means that these trains will be replaced by metro services and will no longer run through the existing City Circle. This leaves these CBD train paths to be taken up by trains from other lines, for example the Western and Airport lines.

So far so good. But we do, literally, pay a price for this which isn’t just the cost of constructing the new line. Two sections of existing publicly-owned rail infrastructure and services will also be handed to the private operators of the metro for conversion to form part of that system’s infrastructure which will be incompatible with the existing network. One section, the Epping to Chatswood Rail Link (ECRL), was opened only six years ago as the very expensive first stage of a project originally intended to run to Parramatta. The second, the Bankstown line, is an established major suburban railway line.

Undoubtedly services on these converted lines will be faster and more frequent, even if a much higher percentage of passengers will have to stand during peak hour, but in both cases the decision to hand over these lines was much more about making the metro a commercially viable project. In the case of ECRL the line was essential in providing a link from the new line in the north west to the lower North Shore and eventually to the CBD. In the case of the Bankstown line the decision appears in part an attempt to provide an income stream for the metro operators for the cost of converting a line rather than building a new one.

The other price we pay is that by adopting this approach the new line as it stands will extend the coverage of fixed rail in Sydney only to the catchments of the eight new stations in the north west, the two or three stations on the lower north shore and the station at either Sydney University of Waterloo. Barangaroo will provide some additional coverage in the CBD but while the other three stations will increase capacity they are too close to existing CBD stations to be counted as increasing network coverage.

Obviously any increase in network coverage is beneficial but this approach means that for all the expense involved (ultimately, in the order of $20+ billion) there will be only 12 or 13 new stations which significantly expand the reach of the rail network. This is an interesting contrast to the previous government’s discarded metro plan, which despite its faults was a largely independent system, predicated on the assumption that the metro should complement the existing rail network by significantly increasing coverage, rather than take over sections of it.

To be fair, construction of a new rail tunnel under the Harbour and through the CBD was never going to be cheap. The government has also indicated that this section of the line will form the core of a new metro system and that eventually other lines will be built. These may be stand-alone lines, but given the huge expense and complexity that will be involved in building this first line there is the potential for additional lines to be integrated into the first link.

Indeed, as the Herald points out the high frequency planned for services through the CBD section of the metro provides the potential to operate two branches north and south, each with lower frequencies. The Herald’s suggestion that a possible extension in the north could run under Military Road through Neutral Bay and Cremorne and possibly as far as the Spit (or even further) seems logical and indeed there are few other options this side of the Harbour.

Increasing Rail Coverage South of the Harbour

South of the Harbour however the story is a bit more concerning. The government originally proposed not a new additional line but instead the partial conversion of a third existing line, the Illawarra, as far as Hurstville. In affect this means that while the metro could end up adding a second new line to the north, it would do nothing at all to expand heavy rail coverage south of the CBD (and the Sydney Uni/Waterloo station) – hence the call from me, Garry and others for a new line to be built as the second southern branch. It is encouraging that today’s press coverage claims the government is now reconsidering its options.

One possible route for a new line would have been to the southeast to service the University of NSW and the surrounding suburbs which rely on bus services, but this option has been closed off with the government’s commitment to construct the CBD and South East Light Rail. There is another alternative, however – the construction of a Western Metro Along Parramatta Road as far as Parramatta and, ideally, either North Parramatta and/or Westmead.

This has been floated on numerous occasions and in many different forms. While it may seem very close to the existing rail line such a metro would actually service a distinctive market – the increasing residential and commercial development along this strip which is already occurring and which is set to accelerate under the government’s WestConnex plans.

Stations could be spaced so that they were not overly close to existing ones on the Western line, with the exception of stations like Strathfield, Parramatta and possibly Olympic Park where interchanges to the suburban rail network and buses could be provided. Of course proposals to build a light rail line from Parramatta to Olympic Park complicate matters, but the two projects could be designed so that they complemented rather than duplicated each other.

Sydney Uni or Waterloo – or Both?

As I noted earlier, I favour the Sydney University option over Waterloo for a station between Central and Sydenham, ideally with an additional station between the uni and Sydenham. As well as being next to a substantial traffic generator in the form of the university, this station would serve a significant residential catchment and also provide the opportunity for a bus-metro interchange which could reduce the number of inner west buses coming into the CBD.

State Government current Sydney Metro options

State Government current Sydney Metro options

On the other hand the Waterloo option would provide a catalyst for major redevelopment proposed for this area. Before these competing merits are debated however, it’s important to examine whether this really is an either/or option. I can think of at least three ways in which both stations could be constructed:

1. Connect both Sydney Uni and Waterloo. Although this has been ruled out because the circuitous route involved would add to travel times, I don’t think it is such a silly idea. While metro lines like most transport corridors generally take the most direct route, they can and do make deviations because of geological, environmental or heritage constraints or to connect to significant destinations. Apart from connecting both centres this option would also have the potential to provide bus-metro interchanges for both inner west and south bus services.

Alternative 1: Connect both stations

Alternative 1: Connect both stations

2: Adopt the Sydney Uni corridor and build a deviation on the Airport Line to connect to Waterloo. I understand that adding a station to the current Airport Line at Waterloo has been ruled out because of the major disruption involved in retrofitting a station to an existing line and also because the line does not provide ideal location options as it passes under Waterloo. It may be possible however to construct a few hundred metres of track complete with a new station in a more suitable location as an isolated project which is connected to the existing line only when construction has been completed. There would still be some disruption but this would be minimised. The main difficulty with this option however may not be technical but rather the limited spare capacity on the Airport Line.

Alternative 2: Build deviation on the Airport Line

Alternative 2: Build deviation on the Airport Line

3. Commit to building the Western Metro. The metro line would divide south of Central with one branch forming the line to Bankstown via Sydenham with a station at Waterloo while the other would be the Western metro line suggested earlier wih a station at Sydney University.

Alternative 3: Build the West Metro as well as the Southwest Metro

Alternative 3: Build the West Metro as well as the Southwest Metro

This alternative would be the most expensive and would have to be a longer-term commitment but it is the most attractive for the reasons outlined earlier. Apart from solving the Sydney Uni/Waterloo conundrum, it would leverage the Metro’s capacity in Western Sydney as well as potentially providing a high-speed link between the CBD and Parramatta.

Posted in Growth, Infrastructure, Planning, Public Transport, Sydney metro area, Transport, Uncategorized, Western Sydney | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

A tale of three light rail lines (and two to come) – clarification on CESLR travel times

Posted on 23 June, 2015 by Alex

A response to the final article in my three part series on Australia’s new light rail systems raised some issues regarding the travel times for Sydney’s planned CBD and South East Light Rail (CSELR) project.

I had stated in the post that this would be the slowest of any of the currently operating or planned systems with an average speed of only 13.8kph, based on a trip duration of 39 minutes end-to-end for each branch of the system, these both being nine km long. Dudley’s comment pointed out that Transport for NSW may have got the times wrong and had also made contradictory estimates of the journey times in the mid-thirty minute range. He also noted that there was some expert opinion that even these travel times were somewhat conservative.

As I noted in my reply to Dudley’s thoughtful comment, the 39-minute estimate came from several sources including a community information document released in September 2013. This stated that journeys would take 15 minutes from Circular Quay to Central and “a maximum of 24 minutes” from Randwick and Kensington to Central. However the business case released only two months later claimed that services will take 15 minutes from Central to Circular Quay, 15 minutes from Randwick to Central (ie a total of 30 minutes), 18 minutes from Kingsford to Central (a total of 33 minutes) – but from the other end, 34 minutes from Circular Quay to Randwick or Kingsford.

Therefore in the space of a few months these publication provided four journey time estimates – 30, 33, 34 and 39 minutes. It is also unclear if these are estimates of the duration for off-peak or peak trips, but even if we disregard the 39-minute duration the average speed is still comparatively slow.  The quickest estimated trip duration (30 minutes) would see LR vehicles complete the trip from Randwick to Circular Quay at an average 18kph, while the average of the three fastest times provides a speed of 16.7kph.

These speeds would move the CESLR off the bottom of the speed league table, but not by much. They would make the planned line the second-slowest in Australia – slightly faster than the Adelaide-Glenelg tram but still slower than Sydney’s existing Dulwich Hill LR line and noticeably slower than either the Gold Coast G:Link or Canberra’s planned Capital Metro. It is also concerning that we still don’t appear to have a definitive estimate of speed or trip duration for the CESLR.

I’ll have a bit more to say about the CESLR in the near future.

Posted in Infrastructure, Public Transport, Transport | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

A tale of three light rail lines (and two to come) – part 3: performance, expansion and concluding comments

Posted on 16 June, 2015 by Alex

What are the key performance characteristics of Australia’s current and planned light rail systems and what are the prospects for their future expansion, as well as for the development of new lines and systems?

This is the focus of this final post in a three-part series on Australia’s current light rail systems in Adelaide (Glenelg Tram), Sydney’s inner west (Dulwich Hill line) and the Gold Coast, along with the second line planned for Sydney (CBD and Eastern Suburbs Light Rail – CESLR) and the line planned for Canberra. I have not included Melbourne’s tram system in these discussions because that system’s sheer size and the fact that it is based predominantly on street-running tramlines rather than separated light rail corridors make comparisons difficult.

In the first of this series I introduced the light rail systems and compared their history and current status, while in the second I looked at their technical features and construction costs. In this post I’ll discuss aspects of their performance such as speed, capacity and patronage, outline any proposals for expansion and provide some concluding comments regarding the future of light rail. A lot of the statistical material in all three posts I have also summarised in this table, which is also available in a printable A4 2-page version.

Sydney Light Rail (Dulwich Hill Line and proposed CESLR Line)

Sydney Light Rail – Dulwich Hill (Inner West) Line and proposed CESLR Line

Average trip speed: The average trip speed for the current systems is based on an examination of their timetables, and for the purpose of comparison I have used morning peak trip times for the current systems. For the planned systems I have used the estimates provided in relevant planning documents of end-to-end trip times divided by the length of the line.

The number and spacing of stops is likely to affect speed so out of the current lines it is no surprise that the Adelaide system is the slowest at 16.4kph, given it has the most frequent stops. It is followed by Sydney’s Dulwich Hill line (19.7kph) while the Gold Coast line, which has the most widely-spaced stops, is the fastest at 23.6kph. What is more interesting is the range in the anticipated trip speeds provided by the two planned lines in comparison to the current lines and each other. Sydney’s CESLR will be the slowest of any of the systems with an average speed of only 13.8kph, while the proposed Canberra line will be the fastest at 28.8kph – more than twice the speed of the CESLR.

Adelaide Glenelg Tram Line

Adelaide Glenelg Tram Line map

There are several explanations for this discrepancy. One is that the stops on the planned Sydney line are 667m apart while those on the proposed Canberra line are the furthest apart of any system at an average of 1,000 metres. Perhaps more significantly the Sydney line is planned to have much greater utilisation than the other lines (this will be discussed later) which means that dwell times at stops are likely to be longer. This line will also have a shared pedestrian section one kilometre long through which maximum speeds will be limited.

Service frequency: Two measures have been used here – average daytime off-peak frequencies and those in the peak period. To derive these I have used a mix of stated frequencies and my own estimates based on published timetables.

Three systems – the Adelaide line, Sydney’s Dulwich Hill line and the proposed line in Canberra – have (or will have) average daytime hourly off-peak 15-minute frequencies, or four vehicles an hour. The Gold Coast line has twice this frequency at 7.5 minutes, or eight vehicles per hour, while Sydney’s planned CESLR line will have five minute off-peak frequencies, or 12 vehicles an hour.

Gold Coast Light Rail Line

Gold Coast Light Rail Line route map

Peak hour frequencies are closer together. The Dulwich Hill line in Sydney has 10-minute frequencies (six vehicles an hour) while the Adelaide line has frequencies of between five to 10 minutes (6-12 vehicles per hour). The Gold Coast line currently has 7.5 minute frequencies (eight vehicles) while the Canberra line is planned to have six-minute frequencies (10 vehicles). As with off-peak frequencies, Sydney’s CESLR line will have the most frequent peak hour service at four minutes or 15 vehicles an hour.

Peak hour capacity: There are a number of different ways of measuring this, but probably the most critical is maximum capacity during the peak period. In turn there are several ways this can be defined, but one approach is to determine the maximum capacity over one hour in the morning peak period in the direction with the greatest frequency of services.

In some cases the frequency may be the same in both directions while in others services running towards the CBD will have the greatest frequency. This calculation is therefore based on the number of vehicles per hour in the chosen direction, multiplied by the average maximum capacity of the vehicles in each light rail fleet. Because of the range of variables involved the results are somewhat arbitrary I have not included them in the table referenced earlier.

Bearing this in mind, the results are illuminating. Sydney’s Dulwich Hill line has the lowest maximum capacity at 1,200 passengers (plans to increase this appear to have been postponed). Adelaide has a maximum of 2,160 passengers (based on five-minute frequencies) and the Gold Coast slightly more at 2,400 passengers per hour. The LR vehicle type to be used in Canberra is yet to be finalised but based on the options available the maximum capacity is likely to be in the range 2,000 to 3,000 passengers per hour.

Sydney’s planned line is significantly different however, with a maximum of 6,750 passengers per hour, more than double that of any other line. This is not only because the CESLR line will have the highest peak hour frequency of all the systems but also because the services will be provided by vehicles running in pairs carrying up to 450 passengers between them. Thus Sydney will be home to the lines with the greatest and least capacity.

Patronage: While patronage figures have been included in the table they are also subject to some qualification. The Adelaide figures appear to include original boardings only and not transfers. In the case of the Dulwich Hill line only three months of operation of the most recent extension is included in the most recent annual patronage figures; similarly the Gold Coast line annual estimates are based on only nine months’ operation. In addition the increases in passenger numbers since the new infrastructure was opened in both Sydney and the Gold Coast have exceeded the figures forecast in the relevant planning documents. Of course the figures for the planned lines in Sydney and Canberra are estimates.

Two figures are quoted in the table – the most recent annual patronage total (or forecast, in the case of the planned systems) and the average per day. The latter is calculated simply by dividing the former by 365 days and does not take into consideration any variation between weekdays, weekends or public holidays.

Canberra proposed Capital Metro Light Rail Line map

Canberra proposed Capital Metro Light Rail Line map

On this basis, Adelaide has the lowest passenger numbers (2.3 million annually or an average of 6,300 per day) followed by Sydney’s current Dulwich Hill line (3.9 million or 10,700 per day), the estimate for Canberra (5.5 million or 15,000 per day) and the Gold Coast (6.3 million or 17,300 per day). By far the biggest number however is the patronage projected for Sydney’s CESLR line, which is estimated will be 31.4 million or 84,900 per day). This is five times the annual estimate of the line which currently has the greatest levels of utilisation, the Gold Coast light rail (the CESLR patronage estimates will be the subject of a separate article).

Utilisation: Another way to look at passenger use is to calculate the number of hours of operation at peak capacity it would take to move the daily patronage total (or estimate) in one direction. The result is a highly artificial figure (which is why it is not included in the table) as obviously usage is spread unevenly throughout the day with trips in both directions, but it does provide some useful insights into system utilisation.

Adelaide’s system is comparatively modestly utilised as it would require only three hours at current peak hour capacity levels to move the daily total of passengers. The planned Canberra line would need between five and 7.5 hours, the Gold Coast line just over seven hours and Sydney’s Dulwich Hill line nearly nine hours. The planned Sydney CESLR is again the outlier, requiring over 12.5 hours of running at maximum capacity (in one direction) to move a day’s worth of passengers.

Extension and expansion options: There are a number of expansion plans for all of these lines, though some would seem to have more support than others. The line with the best prospects of extension in the near future is the Gold Coast line where the need to connect the line to the heavy rail network has been recognised as a high priority. There are long-term plans to extend the Adelaide line to the north-east as part of the long-term development of an ambitious light rail network but these are as yet unfunded.

Extensions have also been proposed for the yet-to-be-built Sydney CESLR and Canberra lines, though these are obviously contingent on the completion of the lines themselves. While the Dulwich Hill line in Sydney is unlikely to be extended and there are no definite plans for its expansion there is a suggestion that a spur line could be constructed as part of a large residential redevelopment.

Concluding comments: After decades in which the only light rail or tram line outside Melbourne was a solitary line in Adelaide running 1920s rolling stock, the revival of light rail in Australian cities was slow to start but gathered momentum over the last five to 10 years, drawing on the increase in passenger numbers and the other positive outcomes of each successive project. The question now is whether this momentum can be maintained.

In the short term the outlook appears positive with two ambitious projects on the drawing board. The first and by far the biggest is Sydney’s CBD and Eastern Suburbs Light Rail line which as noted earlier will carry an estimated 31.4 million passengers annually, displacing hundreds of buses which currently fill Sydney’s CBD in peak hour. The second would be Canberra’s first LR line, Capital Metro.

Both these lines have received major criticism however, partly because of their position at different ends of the light rail scale. I have discussed some of these issues in relation to Sydney’s CESLR and will return to this in a later post, but it is clear that for much of the day this line will need to run at close to maximum capacity and indeed close to the maximum that light rail can carry. On the other hand while Canberra’s line has reasonable if significantly more modest passenger projections, the argument has been made that the city’s dispersed settlement and low density development might be better suited to a bus rapid transit network.

As a result, while the fact that a contract has been signed for the CESLR in Sydney means this line is therefore almost certain to proceed, the prospects for Canberra’s Capital Metro are much more precarious. They depend largely on the outcome of the next ACT elections due next year, with the opposition vowing to scrap the project if elected.

The success of the existing lines has also led to proposals for a number of other projects around Australia, though as they have not yet been committed to by various governments and/or are at the early planning stage they were not considered in this series of posts. Of these the lines proposed as the heavy rail replacement in the centre of Newcastle in NSW and to improve transport around Parramatta, also in NSW, seem the most likely to proceed.

The story with the lines proposed in other states is much more mixed. The Northern Suburbs Railway in Hobart appears to have no formal political support while the MAX network proposal in Perth and the light rail extensions in Adelaide have stalled due to funding issues. It may be that the nascent “boom” in light rail projects will end with the CESLR and other potential lines in NSW.

The funding of light rail infrastructure is a crucial issue, especially with current Federal Government’s decision to withdraw from providing financial support to urban public transport. The previous government’s contribution was critical to the construction of Gold Coast light rail, as it was in relation to heavy rail projects elsewhere. At this stage it appears that despite the apparent success of light rail only NSW appears prepared to go it alone with new projects in the absence of Federal funding support, at least in the short term.

 

Posted in Growth, Infrastructure, Public Transport, Sydney metro area, Transport | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

A tale of three light rail lines (and two to come) – part 2: technical features and construction costs

Posted on 11 June, 2015 by Alex

This is the second in a series of articles regarding the recent growth of interest in light rail in Australian cities which has led to the extension of lines in Adelaide and Sydney, the development of a completely new line in the Gold Coast as well as firm plans for an additional line in Sydney and a new line in Canberra. In the first post in this series I outlined some of the key features of these lines and provided a table comparing them which is also available here in a more printer-friendly A4 version.

I’m continuing the discussion in this post by looking at some of the key technical features of the current and proposed systems as well as their cost, again referencing in the statistics in this table. As noted in my last post I haven’t included the extensive Melbourne tram system in this comparison, which specifically looks at light rail lines (as opposed to street-running tram systems) which have been extended or opened since 2010 or which are planned to open within the next five years.

Total route length: One thing these lines have in common is that they all have similar route lengths of between 12 and 15 kilometres. The proposed CBD and Eastern Suburbs Light Rail (CESLR) in Sydney is actually only nine kilometres long from the city terminal at Circular Quay to the ends of its two branches (this is the only line with branches) but it has a total route length of 12 kilometres. The longest line at 15 kilometres is the Glenelg tram in Adelaide.

Both Adelaide’s Glenelg and Sydney’s Dulwich Hill lines happen to be based on the conversion of existing rail corridors that were both about 12 kilometres long, but the consistency in route length isn’t entirely coincidental. This distance seems to suit light rail; shorter distance routes (especially those with more frequent stops) are probably better suited to buses or street-running trams, while heavy rail is more appropriate for longer corridors with higher speeds and less frequent stops.

The economics involved in securing land and the upfront costs involved in the infrastructure for new fixed rail corridors also tend to favour heavy rail over longer distances. That said, there is plenty of overlap in terms of the corridor lengths for bus, tram, light rail and heavy rail routes. In addition extensions planned for some of these lines may take them past the 15 kilometre “limit” of the current systems.

Sydney's Dulwich Hill Light Rail

Sydney’s Dulwich Hill Light Rail (author’s photo)

Number of stations/stops and the distance between them: As well as being the longest and oldest system, Adelaide’s light rail line has the most stops (28) and the shortest average distance between them (556 metres). Both the current and planned lines in Sydney are roughly similar in stop spacing to Adelaide (23 stops at an average 582 metres apart and 19 stops 667 metres apart, respectively).

The Gold Coast line and the one planned for Canberra have distinctly different stopping patterns compared to the other three lines. The Gold Coast system has 16 stops an average of 867 metres apart, while the planned Capital Metro will have only 13 stops an average 1,000 metres apart.

It should be noted however that both these systems have long stretches without any stops, which is one of the reasons that any comparisons based on average distances between stops need to be treated with some caution. Nonetheless the number of stops and the average distance between them obviously has an impact on trip speeds and journey times. Consequently there seems to be an overall trend towards fewer, more widely spaced stops in newer systems partly to reduce journey times (which will be considered in the next post), though this has interesting ramifications for station catchments.

Interchanges: All current and planned lines have multiple interchanges with buses, while only the planned CESLR in Sydney will have a ferry interchange. The Adelaide line has one rail interchange while Sydney’s Dulwich Hill line has two (one at each end). Each of these lines also has another stop which is not formally regarded as an interchange but which is a few hundred metres away from a railway station. The planned CESLR in Sydney will have four rail interchanges but these will be all along the CBD section where the line runs close to the City Circle railway corridor.

There are no rail interchanges currently on the Gold Coast line, though most of the extension options proposed involve making such a connection. Canberra has no heavy rail services apart from the interstate line. When Sydney’s CESLR is completed there will be the only light rail to light rail interchange where this line crosses the Dulwich Hill line in Sydney’s CBD.

Fleet statistics: Apart from the heritage trams in Adelaide and the Variotrams being phased out in Sydney, the entire Australian light rail fleet is less than 10 years old. Three manufacturers – Alstom, Bombardier and CAF – have supplied all the vehicles, which are wholly or predominantly low-floor. The capacity of each LR vehicle ranges from around 180 passengers in Adelaide to 300 on the Gold Coast, though these figures have to treated with some caution because of the different ways in which manufacturers and system operators handle the calculation of standing passenger numbers.

The planned CESLR in Sydney will have the highest capacity in terms of passenger numbers per service as the LR vehicles there will be run in coupled pairs which will be able to carry a total of around 450 people. This line will also have the largest fleet, with 30 LR vehicles.

Costs: The table shows the total cost and the cost per kilometre for lines and sections of lines opened since January 2010. Any comparison of these figures has to be made with some caution as it is difficult to establish a consistent approach regarding what infrastructure and other components are included and excluded.

Broadly speaking however, there are two sets of comparisons that can be made. The first is between the extensions to existing lines (the Dulwich Hill line in Sydney and Adelaide’s Glenelg line) and the second is between the brand new systems recently constructed in the Gold Coast and planned for Sydney and Canberra.

In relation to the systems that have been extended, the cost per kilometre is broadly similar, at $31.4 million and $33.6 million in Sydney and Adelaide respectively. While this makes the Sydney extension the cheapest it had the advantage of utilising an existing rail corridor and heavy rail infrastructure, while the Adelaide extensions have involved laying new track on busy CBD roads.

All the new lines current and proposed are considerably more expensive both in total and on a per-kilometre basis. This is not surprising as the total cost of a new line is likely to include rolling stock, depots and other supporting infrastructure not required for extensions, though as noted earlier it is difficult to know which specific items are actually included. This is a particular issue in projects such as Sydney’s CESLR where there are associated works such as converting CBD streets to pedestrian malls.

Another issue is that as only one of the new systems, the Gold Coast line, has actually been constructed the other costs quoted in the table for Sydney’s CESLR and the Capital Metro in Canberra are still estimates. Bearing this in mind, there is still a very wide range in the costings. The Gold Coast line cost a total of $1.6 billion and $123 million per kilometre to build. Sydney’s planned CESLR will be the most expensive line at an estimated $2.1 billion or $175 million per kilometre while the planned line in Canberra will be the cheapest at an estimated $823 million or $68.6 million per kilometre.

There are a number of factors which are likely to have contributed to these cost differences. For example, it is not surprising that Sydney’s system will be the most expensive to construct, given the complexities of building light rail through the narrow and congested streets of the city’s CBD and the additional features involved in this build, including the cost of converting George Street to a pedestrian mall in which the light rail line will be wire-free and the construction of a short tunnel segment.

This system will also have the biggest vehicle fleet, though it is still somewhat surprising that this system will cost $52 million a kilometre more than the Gold Coast line. The cost differential between the construction cost of the Gold Coast line and the estimate for the propsed Canberra line which is nearly 50% cheaper per kilometre is also hard to explain, though it would appear that the Canberra system will present fewer technical challenges given wide roadways and median strips along the planned route.

Cost benefit: The cost-benefit ratio (CBR) is the ratio of a project’s actual or estimated costs to the value of its benefits. A CBR of 1.0 indicates that the costs and benefits are equal while a number larger than 1.0 suggests that the benefits will outweigh the costs.

There are a number of different ways of calculating the CBR of a project which will also vary as it progresses and estimates of costs and benefits change. I have used published CBRs (none was available for Adelaide) but have adjusted these where the cost estimates have subsequently varied or where the final actual project cost was different to that used in the CBR calculation. It has not been possible however to account for variations in the level of benefit, for example in situations where patronage numbers vary from initial forecasts.

On this basis the lines with the lowest CBR are the Dulwich Hill line in Sydney (a CBR of 1.0) and the line planned for Canberra (1.2). The Gold Coast line has a CBR of 1.65 while the proposed CESLR line in Sydney has a ratio of 1.9. It should be noted however that passenger numbers on all the existing lines have exceeded forecasts so it is likely that the actual CBRs are more favourable for these projects.

In the final post in this series I will review the actual and planned performance of these lines, outline the options for their expansion and provide some comments about these systems and light rail development in Australia generally.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Infrastructure, Public Transport, Sydney metro area, Transport | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Sydney Metro – the new poles and wires, and where to for Labor’s transport policies?

Posted on 5 June, 2015 by Alex

For better or for worse, the State Government’s recent victory on power assets means it has both the power and the financial resources to fundamentally reshape Sydney’s public transport infrastructure for the next 30 to 50 years. So instead of continuing my series on Australia’s light rail revival I’m going to take a short break to look at the implications of the government’s announcement that it will now uses some of the proceeds from the leasing of power assets to proceed as quickly as possible with the completion of the rapid transit network.

The ability of the government to get the power assets legislation through parliament and therefore fund its transport plans has obvious implications for the state opposition, so I’ll also have a look at the NSW Labor response to the government’s announcement of its transport priorities as well as to other transport issues such as the debate on the route of the proposed light rail line.

Sydney Metro: The State Premier Mike Baird claimed that with the adoption of the power assets legislation the government had “secured last night a green light” for its rapid transit plans, “so that the project is well and truly underway.” While the overall route is the same as previously indicated, running from the Chatswood terminus of the northwest section currently being constructed under the harbour and CBD to connect to a converted Bankstown line, a number of details were either revealed for the first time in the announcement by the Premier and NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance, or reconfirmed on the project’s revamped website:

  • The single-deck, driverless system will now be rebranded as “Sydney Metro”, instead of “Sydney Rapid Transit”;
  • The project is divided into two components – the 36 km Sydney Metro Northwest (formerly known as the North West Rail Link) which is currently under construction, and the 30km Sydney Metro City and Southwest, which is the section to funded in part by the partial electricity privatisation;
  • The previously-announced completion dates of 2019 for Metro Northwest and 2024 for Metro City and Southwest have been confirmed but the NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance also said tunnel boring machines would commence work for the latter section as early as 2017;
  • In addition to the provsion of four new stations at Central, Pitt Street, Martin Place and Victoria Cross (North Sydney), a station will be provided at either St Leonards or Crows Nest;
  • Additional metro stations are also being investigated at Barangaroo, the Artarmon Industrial Area and either the University of Sydney or Waterloo;
  • Community feedback is being sought about the Metro City and Southwest section, with submissions due by Friday 17th July 2015. Online forums have also been created for less formal input about the project and specifically the station location options mentioned above. Community and industry forums are also planned.
  • Train frequencies have been confirmed as every four minutes in the peak for Metro Northwest but Metro City and Southwest will have the capacity to run a train every two minutes. It is unclear whether this frequency will be maintained over its whole length or just in the CBD/Chatswood section;
  • Although it is the shorter of the two sections, Metro City and Southwest will be the more expensive project costing $9.6 to $11 billion, compared to $8.3 billion for Metro Northwest. It is not clear whether this is due to cost indexation, the complexities of boring under the harbour and through a CBD with many existing tunnels or the costs involved in constructing new stations in the CBD;
  • This means the total cost of the project will be close to $20 billion, making it easily one of Australia’s most expensive public transport projects.
Schematic map Sydney Metro route and time savings

Schematic map Sydney Metro route and time savings. Source: Sydney Metro website

While this news did not feature in the announcements regarding Sydney Metro, a recent SMH article revealed that the seven-month closure of the Epping Chatswood link to allow for its conversion will be preceded by a period of four months during which the line will be disconnected at both ends and run as a shuttle service. The same article confirmed that the contract signed with the operator, a consortium including Hong Kong’s MTR and UGL, specifies that “30 per cent of the capacity of the trains needs to be for seated passengers”, noting that when Sydney’s existing trains are full, “about 75 per cent of passengers are seated”.

State Labor responses: According to media reports, the NSW Opposition Leader Luke Foley conceded that the ALP had lost the power assets battle and that it was time to move on. He said that the party would not maintain “an obsessive focus on this one issue” and wouldn’t be “fighting the last war”, though he would “wait and see” if the lease of the assets secures the $20 billion being sought. He also promised to hold the Baird government to account on the delivery of these “very grand promises”.

This would appear to indicate if not support, then at least a decision by Labor not to oppose  the Sydney Metro concept outright. If this is the case then NSW Labor has also moved on from its March 2015 election commitment to defer commencement of the second Harbour crossing until 2024 and only after the completion of a “rigorous cost-benefit analysis and business case”.

In contrast Labor has taken the opposite approach with the CBD and South East Light Rail (CESLR). After explicitly supporting completion of the project at the last election, the Labor leader has now said he now supports construction only as far as Central and would oppose the CBD section, accusing the government of delivering a “Berlin Wall down the central spine of Sydney, dividing the CBD into east and west”. This is despite the contract for construction of the whole project having already been let.

Mr Foley claimed that not only would George Street be “plunged into chaos” during construction but will also become a “permanent congestion nightmare”. He went further, claiming that the government “should listen to Nick Greiner – who made it clear that light rail in the Sydney CBD will increase congestion and grind this city to halt”, referring to the former NSW Liberal Premier who in his time as the Chair of Infrastructure NSW openly favoured bus over light rail public transport options.

Shadow transport minister Ryan Park went further saying that Labor had changed its position after stakeholder discussions and reading a number of reports including the 2012 Infrastructure NSW Report, indicating that Labor had come to the conclusion “that the best way forward is to terminate [the light rail] at Central and to start to have a serious look at the bus rapid transport that was proposed in the Infrastructure NSW report.”

Comment: While the details are yet to be finalised the government will argue that it has the mandate and now the resources to complete its program of public transport infrastructure investment. One project, the Northwest Metro is already underway, while another, the CESLR, has a signed contract with construction about to commence. The third project, the City and Southwest Metro, is well advanced in planning and now has a funding commitment.

As I have outlined in several previous posts I think that all these projects have some serious shortcomings. These include the incompatibility of Sydney Metro with the existing rail system, the fact that the metro also requires the effective transfer of public rail corridors to the private operator and in relation to the CESL the limitations of trying to do too much within one project and in particular the capacity issues.

This isn’t to say that these are bad projects – all of them certainly offer better alternatives than doing nothing – but rather that there may have been much better ways in which to implement them or alternatives that would have offered superior results and/or better value for money. In addition the choices of mode for specific corridors appears to have been made in an isolated, ad hoc and at times even an ideological way, with little thought to the overall coherence of the transport system.

The current State Government is however able to make one strong and valid claim in its favour – that unlike its predecessor at least it is making substantial investments in public transport. And this is Labor’s dilemma; the party’s record in office on public transport infrastructure was frankly a shambles. While there were some achievements especially in aspects of service delivery it failed on the crucial test of investment in critically-needed major public transport infrastructure projects, chopping and changing between various metro-style and heavy rail proposals to the point where any announcement it did make lacked any credibility.

As today’s Sydney Morning Herald’s editorial puts it, Labor was “never confident enough in what it believed, continually shifted its transport priorities and therefore continually failed to deliver on them.” The lack of any solid commitment or practical action not only contributed to Sydney’s congestion problems but also left a completely open field for the incoming Coalition government to implement its own somewhat more ideologically driven investment agenda.

This government can hardly be blamed for cleverly locking in various contracts to ensure that this agenda will be implemented even if it were to lose office at the next election in 2019. Two of these projects, the Northwest Metro and the CESLR, are scheduled to be completed before the next election while the third, the City and Southwest Metro, will be well underway. These projects (and, potentially, the recently-announced preferred Parramatta-Olympic Park-Strathfield option for Western Sydney light rail) will irrevocably establish a new city’s public transport framework as well as the priorities for the location and types of additional infrastructure projects for decades to come.

Labor seems to have accepted that it has lost the battle in relation to its opposition to the electricity assets issue and that by implication the government can and will proceed with the rail projects. It has decided instead to adopt a strategy of holding the government to account in terms of project funding and implementation. This makes its decision to oppose the CBD component of the CESLR all the more puzzling, given that a contract has been signed and the fact that it had previously supported the project. To quote the SMH again, “Luke Foley’s criticisms would have more currency if he had offered them three months ago, when he stood for premier.”

The SMH also points out that in his sudden conversion to the option of a bus tunnel because of the disruption associated with its construction, the Labor leader has overlooked the considerably greater disruption a bus tunnel would be likely to cause – and indeed the road closures and diversions and other associated problems that would result from the construction of any new transport infrastructure in the CBD. There is also the fundamental illogicality of supporting the light rail only as far as Central, meaning that many passengers would be forced to transfer from a bus to a tram at Kingsford and Randwick and then again from the tram to a bus or train at Central.

It is difficult to see what the Opposition will achieve by this new stance, given the government’s political and contractual commitments to completing the CESLR mean it will be completed by the next election. A more logical approach would be have been to have noted that while there may have been better alternatives to this project the government has signed up to it and therefore just as with Sydney Metro the opposition was now going to hold the government to account over its implementation. This would still be a fertile field for the opposition to pursue, with many questions regarding issues such as the project’s inherent capacity limitations and the strategies to manage CBD traffic and bus arrangements yet to be resolved.

 

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