<span class="" id="parent-fieldname-description"> Back in October, my column focussed on the ad hoc and inconsistent approach to public transport planning in New South Wales, exemplified by the âon again, off againâ North West rail link and planning for a Sydney City Metro no one seemed to want. </span> <p>By Mark Carter</p><p>Five months on and NSW has yet another new premier the City Metro is now history and you wouldn’t have guessed, but NSW has yet another transport plan.<br />Sydney’s brief flirtation with a Metro, or Underground, started back in March 2008 under then premier Morris Iemma who proposed a $12bn mainly underground railway linking Rouse Hill and the CBD as the alternative to the planned North West heavy rail link.<br />The latter had been originally announced in 1998, but with delays, construction had not started and completion had already been put back to 2017. Iemma also started floating the idea of a West Metro linking Parramatta and the CBD to relieve pressure on the existing Cityrail line.<br />Iemma departed just a few months later, and incoming premier Nathan Rees quickly abandoned plans for a North West Metro, replacing them with the proposed $5bn, 7km City Metro linking the CBD and Rozelle.<br />The West Metro remained on the table and although unfunded, the Federal Government announced in December 2008 a contribution of up to $91m as part of its Nation Building program for pre-construction works for the 25 km route.<br />Despite plenty of criticism from the NSW Opposition and numerous other parties, Rees ploughed on ahead with his Metro plans.<br />Last October two consortia were shortlisted to bid for the Integrated Metro Operations contract for the City Metro project. The successful bidders were the Kujika consortium (comprising Bovis Lend Lease, Downer EDI, Keolis, McConnell Dowell, Thales and financial advisor Plenary Group) along with Met One (Serco, Bombardier Transportation, Laing O’Rourke and Hastings Management) with the contract due to be awarded late 2010.<br />November saw three consortia shortlisted to bid for the Permanent Route Infrastructure contract to submit tenders: Line 1(McConnell Dowell Corp, Abigroup and Obayashi Corp), MetroPrimo (Leighton Contractors and SELI Spa) and a Thiess /John Holland joint venture. Construction was expected to start in mid-2010.<br />How quickly things change. Rees was replaced as premier after just 15 months by Kristina Keneally, and as Rees did with Iemma, premier Keneally wasted no time in reversing the decisions of her predecessor and last weekend she announced the Metro projects would not go ahead.<br />In a press release outlining likely compensation to those affected by the scrapping of the project she gave very little detail behind the decision other than to say, “We’ve listened to the community and made a tough decision".<br />The government says that the resources and funding intended for the City Metro project will now be used on the range of other transport projects announced at the same time.<br /><em>The Metropolitan Transport Plan: Connecting the City of Cities </em>comprises $50.2bn in transport spending which Keneally claims is backed up by a 10-year funding guarantee. The list of alternative projects is impressive, but as is so often the case in NSW, it is hard to see many of them progressing beyond the initial planning stage.<br />The $6.7bn North West heavy rail link is reinstated, but construction is unlikely to start before 2017 – which is at least two elections away – while the $500m price tag for just 10 km of light rail extensions to Dulwich Hill and Circular Quay is considered by some to be highly inflated.<br />The $4.53bn Western Express Cityrail Service will see the main west Cityrail tracks, which currently terminate at Central, extended into new underground platforms at Redfern, Central, Town Hall and Wynyard freeing up capacity on other parts of the network.<br />First of the block is likely to be the previously delayed South West rail link worth $2.1bn and involving the construction of more than 11 km of new twin track from Glenfield to Leppington – scheduled now for completion in 2016.<br />New trains will also be ordered to complement the 626 new carriages currently on order and expand the fleet, with an additional $3.1bn allocated over the next ten years for new rolling stock.<br />Urban planner Dr Garry Glazebrook from the University of Technology, Sydney told <em>Rail Express</em> that the new plan does have some good points, such as scrapping the CBD Metro, which he believes was not a cost effective project, making a start on light rail, and recognising the need to expand the heavy rail network.<br />“However, it is only a 10 year transport plan to match a 25 year land use plan – so there is no clear picture of how Sydney’s transport will develop to match growth in population and employment,” Glazebrook said.<br />“With regard to the specific projects in the plan, the major rail projects won’t commence for five to seven years. And even when finished some time after 2024, we still won’t have the additional rail crossing across the harbour which was promised by 2017 in the Metropolitan Strategy.<br />“Unless Sydney gets more serious about planning, funding and implementing its public transport plans it will fall behind our competitor cities.”<br />While avoiding comment on the merits or otherwise of the City Metro project, Infrastructure Partnerships Australia (IPA) was scathing in its criticism of the NSW Government’s decision to scrap the project, saying it will damage Australia’s international reputation as a place to do business.<br />“The private sector has invested many tens of millions bidding this project and the government needs to make full restitution of all losses immediately," IPA exectuive director Brendan Lyon said.<br />"The government has generally recognised the need for compensation, but much greater detail about the level of restitution is required."<br />At the time of going to press the final figure was still being calculated, but some estimates suggest it could go as high as $50m including the handing back of $85m of the $91m from Canberra’s contribution to the Metro West pre-construction works.<br />As I have suggested in previous articles, the NSW Government has serious credibility issues when it comes to transport policy and with some serious population growth predicted, for Australia’s Premier city this simply is just not good enough. <br />The debacle of the City Metro project has to be the very last straw. Given the government’s track record on transport planning it is almost impossible to take seriously much of the newly announced Metropolitan Transport Plan.<br />There have to be a much greater, fundamental changes made in the way Sydney’s long-term transport needs are addressed, rather than the current range of poorly thought out, stop-start, band-aid solutions. Some new initiatives that could be pursued have been highlighted in the recent Independent Public Inquiry, Long-Term Public Transport Plan for Sydney, sponsored by the Sydney Morning Herald and others, which I hope to review in a subsequent column.<br /> </p>
