Here are 10 points from the Canterbury Greens submission to the NSW Upper House Committee Inquiry (chaired by AbigailBoyd MLC) into the Sydenham-Bankstown T3 Line Conversion from heavy rail to metro.
- It makes more sense to increase the capacity of the Bankstown T3 line with digital signalling than to replace the existing heavy rail double-deck line with a single-deck metro. It would cost far less and years of disruption would be avoided.
- The conversion of the existing double-decker train line to the single-deck metro will involve at least five years of line closures. This will be incredibly disruptive to passengers on the Bankstown T3 line. Buses will replace trains, huge number of buses will be needed, adding to the already chockablock road congestion. To avoid taking the train-replacement buses, many commuters will drive to stations on the East Hills line and the Inner West line, which will increase the congestion in the already-full roads in the area.
- Any new system should add value by adding capacity, NOT by taking away part of the existing network, but with the metro, each weekday 19,000 commuters from stations west of Bankstown will have to break their journey to change trains (many twice) when they don’t have to do it now.
As well as the 9 stations west of Bankstown – Yagoona, Birrong, Regents Park, Berala, Sefton, Chester Hill, Leightonfield, Villawood and Carramar – the following stations will also no longer be on the Bankstown line: Redfern, St Peters, Erskineville, Town Hall, Wynyard, Circular Quay, St James, Museum. That means that people traveling from west of Bankstown to Sydney University or to many workplaces in the city will have to break their journey and change trains twice. They don’t have to do this at all now.
- Building public transport is undoubtedly a good thing, but it should be built where people don’t have it already. If the metro is to be extended from Sydenham, it should extend to the east or south-east, possibly along the F6 corridor. (Heavy rail would be even better.
- If rail transport was introduced to areas without a train line, it could be a real contributor in reducing road congestion. But replacing the heavy rail T3 Bankstown line with a metro won’t take a single car off the road.
- In other cities of the world where metro systems are in use, they are used for short journeys. They are designed for commuters walking on, standing for a short time and then walking off.
They are, in effect, ‘horizontal elevators’. But in Sydney the routes are long, and without adequate seating and hand-grips, the metro experience for the less mobile, the elderly, short people and children is inconvenient, uncomfortable, tiring and sometimes dangerous especially as the intention is to have the metros driverless and conductor-less.
- Without doubt, the NSW Lib-Nat gov intends to privatise the metro just as it has privatised everything it can from inner-west buses to the lands title registry. But we know from the electricity sector that privatisation means less maintenance, less reliability & higher prices.
- In the months before plans were released, the proportion of modern trains on the T3 line was decreased while the proportion of older trains (no air conditioning) was increased so that the additional discomfort would help persuade passengers of the need for the “modern metro”.
- Why rip up the T3 Bankstown line and replace it with a less accessible, less convenient line? Because the metro will increase opportunities for property development. The company behind the metro is a Hong Kong-based property development company and the government sees the Sydenham-Bankstown corridor as having huge potential for residential development (for private developers). Public opposition caused the massive rezoning of land to be put on hold until after the election, but the intention to put overdevelopment there remains.
- The metro itself will be a property developer. Government legislation allows it “to carry out, finance, manage… residential, retail, commercial, industrial, mixed-use development… on land in the locality of metro stations, depots and stabling yards.” There is an inherent conflict of interest in the company standing to gain windfall profits from land speculation and development. The result will be more people crammed in, without services such as schools, greenspace, emergency services etc.
