Sydney: No more Northwest rail link (on again/off again)?

[Red Car]

We are much better off without the NW Rail links. I take the T-Way bus everyday and find it very convenient to travel to city either (a) directly or (b) to parramatta and then hop on a train. It still gets me in within an hour - so I cant complain. If we had more buses running on the transitway, in both peak and off-peak times, it should work exceptionally well.

With the trains running in the Hills district, I guess Castle Hill will become another Blacktown, People will leave, and prices will drop in my humble opinion. Look at Bankstown or Auburn, have prices gone up just because there is a train line??

This is a very strange post. Do prices in North Sydney, Chatswood, Hornsby or Epping drop because there is a train line there? Having an area with efficent Rail Infrastructure is one of the best ways to increase the value of your property and as time goes on it will become much more important. I wont invest in any property that is not close to or has direct access to a rail line. I was looking to buy in the hills but I have stopped looking there all togeather because of their lack of rail and little chance of it happening soon. This is why I take a great interest in what Sydney does with its rail system.

 

[Peter Parker]

Economics of Park & Ride don't work

The biggest mistake i know they will make with the NW rail line is building train stations with little or no parking available. Labor is bound to make that mistake, as they will assume everyone will catch a bus to the station.

Railway stations can't live on park & ride alone and an attempt to do so makes the project more expensive and presents an opportunity cost.

Let's look at the expense first. let's assume land is valued at $500/m2 (very cheap!) and an annual return of 10% from that land is required. A parking space (including access) might require 20 m2, or about $10k worth of land per parking spot.

Full cost recovery requires recouping about $1k per year per passenger. $1k pa is almost what they'd be paying in fares. Hence to pay for park & ride you'd need to almost double fares to generate sufficient returns or, alternatively, require a higher public subsidy.

The numbers get even scarier when considered for the line as a whole. Assuming the line carries 30 000 passengers in the peak time and 2/3 park & ride, then that requires 20 000 spots at a cost of $200 million (resuming houses & businesses anyone?)! Way too much!

Then there's the opportunity cost, which with commuter parking is very high. While some land right near railways isn't suitable for businesses or housing, a lot is. Using parking space for economically productive homes and businesses would generate income rather than inpose a cost. And patronage would likely be higher as people near transport use it more than those not near it.

In those cases where parking is the best use for railway land the type of parking is very important. Long-term park&ride type of parking is used by one absent occupant per day and this does not benefit local businesses. Whereas short-stay parking means that many people can use the spot per day and thus generate extra traffic for nearby businesses.

So having established that park & ride is expensive and there's better uses for the land are there alternatives?

While Sydney has not had the smarts to do this, where there are integrated fares and timed bus connections a lot of train passengers do take feeder buses. Even in cities comparable to Sydney.

Eg in Toronto the figure is something like 80% of train passengers arrive by bus. Perth (which is less pushed for land than Sydney) achieves 60% on its new Mandurah line. Both have proper integrated train and bus systems that Sydney lacks.

Except for semi-rural areas, it's generally cheaper to add extra passengers by improving bus services than to build park & ride due to the costs mentioned above. Also unlike Park & Ride, improved buses also allow for more intensive development near stations (which park & ride discourages) and benefits local passengers (who might not necessarily be taking the train).

 

[Jacque]

The endless rhetoric that we Hills residents have had to endure over the last two decades about the on/off again rail link is simply unbelievable. We don't take anything the Labor govt says about transport out our way with a grain of salt any longer. We're drowning in a sea of it, and everyone is fed up to the teeth with the lies this govt constantly churns out. They're a farce.

 

[Witzl]

The endless rhetoric that we Hills residents have had to endure over the last two decades about the on/off again rail link is simply unbelievable. We don't take anything the Labor govt says about transport out our way with a grain of salt any longer. We're drowning in a sea of it, and everyone is fed up to the teeth with the lies this govt constantly churns out. They're a farce.

That's putting it lightly!
I've lived in castle hill for 23 years now... and i havent seen much in the way of transport infrastructure spending. Even Showground road is still a bloody 1-lane-each-way mess.

I rekon transport was better back in the 1920s when they had a tram line!!

So what are they proposing now?
100 busses.
Yep, just 100 busses.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national...-despite-demand/2008/11/03/1225560738023.html


Next the NSW govt will start suggesting everyone use the "IT" bike from Southpark... see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entity_(South_Park)

 

[CHISEL]

Just saw this http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/08/2440669.htm

" Rees expecting metro dollars in infrastructure funding
Posted 38 minutes ago

The New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees says he expects his government will receive some federal funding for a new metro rail line in Sydney from the Commonwealth's new infrastructure fund.

Recipients of money from the Infrastructure Australia fund are expected to be announced within the next fortnight.

Mr Rees has come under pressure from the Opposition to go ahead with the scrapped north-west Metro project, after a report by an expert panel suggested it could proceed if it gets federal funding.

But Mr Rees says the government must be realistic about what it bids for.

"The Infrastructure Australia fund is around $20 billion and I think there's already a trillion dollars worth of projects put forward by the states," he said.

"When the music stops not every project is going to get a chair."

An expert panel commissioned to examine the project had endorsed it before it was scrapped in last month's mini-Budget, and is recommending that the government proceed.

In its final report, the panel described the Metro as the "optimal solution" to Sydney's transport problems.

But Mr Rees says the government is at now at its borrowing limit and would be incapable of carrying out other projects if it went ahead.

He says federal government funding for the project was never guaranteed.

"It was predicated on a large number of ifs," he said.

"If there's federal funding for it, if there's private sector involvement - if if if. And that's not the way to run a large scale project like that.

We have consisently said that we would rather see metro west be at the front of the federal government's thinking with regard infrastructure Australia contrinutions."

The New South Wales Opposition leader Barry O'Farrell says he can't believe the State Government scrapped the Metro project before it received advice from an expert panel it commissioned to investigate it.

Mr O'Farrell is calling the decision "a victory for stupidity over common sense."

CHISEL

 

[Witzl]

We have consisently said that we would rather see metro west be at the front of the federal government's thinking with regard infrastructure Australia contrinutions."

This part gives me rage.
Typical labor, only serving labor voting regions.

i sincerely hope that both state and federal labor govts come to their senses. But i severly doubt it.

*shakes head and walks away*

 

[ziggy2214]

This part gives me rage.
Typical labor, only serving labor voting regions.
i sincerely hope that both state and federal labor govts come to their senses. But i severly doubt it.

*shakes head and walks away*

That's half the reason, the other half is mismanagement
They can't even spend our surplus in a logical manner.
The way it is distributed many people get nothing and others get a lot.
The worst part is that many of the people who are getting the money are not particularly big spenders so they are not going to spend it....

 

[Witzl]

did you notice that the NSW govt was advised that they could build both the metro west AND the northwest metro.... but they supressed the advice and still canned the whole NW metro.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national...-still-be-built/2008/12/07/1228584656029.html

I cant believe these guys. They commissioned this panel to get this expert advice, and then GO AGAINST the advice that they commissioned!!

ITS LUNACY!

I think this part sums it up perfectly.

There is a strong risk, however, that the Federal Government will want to tie its funding to the $9 billion West Metro to Parramatta as it services voters in key federal seats.

In October the Herald revealed the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, told a meeting with the former premier, Morris Iemma, that the North West Metro, which travelled into blue-ribbon Liberal seats, should not be placed on the NSW list of projects it sent to Canberra for funding.