The CBD Metro 2: the counter-production

There was no explanation given when the Keneally government abandoned the original CBD metro. There were rumours that the estimated cost had blown out from $2 billion to more than $7 billion. Published cost/benefit studies had revealed that the metro would be running at 13% capacity during the morning peak when it opened and at only 24% in 2031. This was assuming Victoria Road buses would transfer passengers to the metro in Rozelle and there would be a rail or tram service along the goods line through Lilyfield.

End of the line: Balmain-West Tigers league club

The plan was to ultimately extend the metro under Victoria Road to Epping station.

Now Baird is claiming that redirecting the metro to St Leonards and thence Chatswood under the deepest part of the Harbour would cost no more than $7 billion, albeit this eliminates the station connecting to Wynyard station. Since the project has not been designed let alone costed he can claim anything he wants.

You cannot fight Town Hall station

Town Hall Station

When the Town Hall station was built by cut and cover to complete the Bradford loop rail and the Sydney Harbour Bridge rail line there were two unused platforms on the lower level which were planned for a line under Parramatta road. When the Eastern Suburbs railway was built it was directed to the unused platforms. This was unfortunate: to transfer from a Harbour Bridge service to the Eastern Suburbs line a commuter must take an escalator up to the entry plaza under George Street then an escalator down to the lower level. The transfer does not require the commuter exit the station but it clearly overloads the stairs and escalators at Town Hall station.

Passengers using the metro as originally planned would have had to exit at the station under Pitt Street and use a series of escalators and a concourse under the site presently occupied by the Woolworths store and buildings to the east, which would be demolished, to reach the pedestrian plaza under George Street then enter the Town Hall rail station and escalate down to the lowest level to transfer to the eastern Suburbs rail service. The metro did nothing to relieve congestion at Town Hall station in fact it exacerbated the congestion. The CIA coined the phrase counterproductive to describe the saturation bombing of Hanoi. The Metro is counterproductive.

The original metro dog-legged from Castlereagh to Pitt Street under Centre Point presumably in the hope that some commuters would leave the metro at Martin Place,  ascend god knows how many banks of escalators, traipse up Martin Place and board the Eastern Suburbs railway at the station under Sydney Hospital. If it is still possible for the Metro tunnels to pass under the Westfield site the stations will be so deep this would be a forlorn hope. If it is not physically possible and still pass the metro station over the Bathurst Street Cross City tunnel then passengers are even less likely to transfer from a Martin Place station under Pitt Street.

The North Shore redirection

Redirecting the metro to the North Shore makes these questions no longer moot. Commuters from the North West metro line heading for destinations west of Central will transfer to double-decker Central Coast train services at Epping station transferring to western line services at Stratsfield as was previously mooted. Passengers headed for destinations in the Eastern Suburbs will transfer to double-decker trains at Chatswood or St Leonards stations (across the platform as planned for stage one) then transfer to the Eastern Suburbs trains at Town Hall station without breaking their trip and paying for another trip. The only passengers still on the driverless metro trains when they pull out of St Leonards station will be people who are as intellectually challenged as the Public Servants appointed to Transport for NSW by North Shore rump politicians, that is to say, hardly anyone.

Passengers alighting from the metro at Martin Place will not be able to catch the George Street trams to reach destinations to the north as there is no tram stop at Martin Place - the only stop to the north is at Wynyard. Why would they not transfer to a train passing through Wynyard? The only passengers on the metro under Sydney Harbour will be commuters that live in the dormitory suburbs to the north west and work in the immediate vicinity of the Martin Place and Town Hall stations. North Shore politicians chant implausibly that driverless single-deck trains can run more closely together since passengers alight and board the carriages more quickly. This turns out to be true since almost no-one will be leaving and entering the carriages at the few and far between stations.

The return of the living dead

Rodd Staples

So what happens to a Public Servant whose incompetence results in the loss of around half a billion dollars of taxpayer's money? Bear in mind that no public servant has ever been sacked for incompetence. They become one of the living dead, unable to get a position in the private sector, waiting for a politician silly enough to resurrect them. The Liberal Party in opposition had described the Metro project as reckless and mismanaged but Berejiklian appointed the man in charge of the Metro Rodd Stapples to head the North-West rail link project, with a Liberal Party adviser Johnstone-Donnet as chief of staff. Ms Berejiklian stated that the North-West rail line would carry double-deck trains. That all changed with Staples on board. Now the plans he was working on when one of the living dead of handing over established rail lines payed for by the taxpayer to a private monopoly running driverless single-deck trains has been cited by Baird as the main reason for privatising the electricity distribution network.

Only a Royal Commission into Transport for NSW will uncover the reasons why the original Metro was abandoned without explanation. The romantic view is that a voice piped up in the department: "This is crazy". In reality it was probably the fact the when potential private/public partners (PPPPs) were approached they laughed in their face. You can imagine the hysterical reaction Baird would have provoked when he, as Treasurer, tried to interest PPPPs in building a metro rail tunnel from St Leonards to Sydenham that would not be used by rational human beings ever.

The plan presented to PPPPs would have handed over half the capacity of the Erkinville rail link to the single-deck trains but this would have been scrapped in favour of a tunnel to avoid alienating Malcolm Turnbull's fan base when Baird came up with Plan B: taxpayer assets are sold off to fund the whole project at any cost and then the metro is handed over to a private monopoly.