With construction well underway on stage one of the Sydney Metro project, Premier Mike Baird on Monday announced the desired route for the second stage of the line, which will connect Chatswood to Bankstown via a new rail tunnel under the harbour and CBD.
New stations will be built at Crows Nest and Victoria Cross on the northern side of the harbour. These will be followed by new stations at Barangaroo, Martin Place (to be linked with the existing station), Pitt Street and Central (also to be linked with the existing site).
The government is still tossing up whether to connect the line to a new metro station at Waterloo, or the University of Sydney, on the section of metro between Central and Sydneyham.
Click to expand
A State Significant Infrastructure Application will be lodged later this week to confirm the planned route, and the first tunnel boring machine will be in the ground before the end of 2018, Baird said.
“We’re wasting no time delivering Australia’s biggest public transport project,” Baird said.
“Sydney Metro will change Sydney forever – it will help boost capacity of our rail network by 100,000 people every hour, servicing our growing global city for generations to come.”
Baird and transport minister Andrew Constance also on Monday announced investigations will begin into potentially extending the metro rail from Bankstown to Liverpool.
A potential extension of metro rail to Liverpool could cut travel times to the CBD by up to 15 minutes and reduce crowding on the existing T1 Western Line and T2 South Line, the ministers reasoned.
“This new high capacity metro line will be able to move more people across the Harbour in the busiest hour of the peak than the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Harbour Tunnel combined,” Constance said.
“Sydney Metro will deliver ‘turn up and go’ rail services with more than 65 kilometres of new metro rail on a standalone line.”
The planned underground link for Martin Place. Click to expand
Stage one of the Sydney Metro project, already well underway, connects Sydney’s north-west to the existing network at Epping. The existing line between Epping and Chatswood will also be converted to the metro standard, creating a single line from the north west to Chatswood.
Stage 2 of Sydney Metro will involve twin tunnels stretching the entire 15 kilometres from Chatswood to Sydenham, and the proposed new stations. Existing line from Sydneyham to Bankstown will also be converted to the metro standard to create a single line from the north west to Bankstown, through Chatswood, North Sydney and the CBD.
The planned Crows Nest station would be located on the western fringe of Crows Nest village, the ministers explained, with access to the station via the corner of Clarke Street and Hume Street, and the corner of the Pacific Highway and Oxley Street.
The Victoria Cross station would be in the northern section of North Sydney’s CBD. Access would be via the eastern side of Miller Street, between Berry Street and Mount Street.
Barangaroo station would be part of the new development on the north-western corner of the CBD.
The metro development at Martin Place would be integrated with the existing suburban station underground between Castlereagh and Elizabeth streets, the ministers said. “It will include a world-class subterranean rail interchange which means customers won’t need to go to the surface to change trains.”
Pitt Street metro station is proposed below Pitt and Castlereagh streets and north of Park Street, servicing the southern CBD and the George Street and Pitt Street retail precincts.
And an underground station at Central would link to existing intercity and suburban rail services.
“The NSW Government is conducting ongoing investigations into a proposed metro station at either Waterloo or Sydney University,” Transport for NSW explained.
“Transport for NSW has begun contacting affected property owners, the majority of which are commercial tenants in the CBD, North Sydney, Chatswood, Sydenham and Crows Nest.
“The community will have the opportunity to give further feedback as part of the environmental planning assessment process towards the middle of 2016.”
A second industry briefing will be held next month to update the new project scope and proposed delivery method.
No mention of the previously announced stub tunnels at Crows Nest, pointing toward the Northern Beaches. Some public discussion of long-term planning options wouldn’t go astray. It’s just 5km to a possible Bus/Metro Interchage under the Balgowlah Golf Course. There’s lots of travel time savings to be made there (20 min. to the CBD by Metro), and postponement of any Spit Bridge expansion, together with avoidance of Military Road congestion.
Fully agree with Nat’s suggestions below. Development of Crows Nest station is too good an opportunity not to explore stub tunnels to serve any future Northern Beaches metro extension. An alternative would be to explore future interchange opportunities at either Crows Nest or Victoria Cross