Dr Garry Glazebrook proposes extending a new line direct from Bankstown to Liverpool through Bankstown Airport. Credit:Dean Osland These are just some of the projections being made upon the new metro rail project in Sydney, designed to link Chatswood station in the city's north with Sydenham in the inner south. Public submissions on the project closed last week, though interest groups, landowners and government agencies will continue to try to influence the route and design of the new line for months and probably years to come. Liverpool Council is pushing for the metro line, which will take over Sydney's existing Bankstown Line to Bankstown Station, to be extended to Liverpool. The NSW government has never explained what it intends to do for those stations west of Bankstown on the Bankstown Line, such as Sefton, Chester Hill and Villawood.

But Liverpool Council's push marries with a submission by associate professor Garry Glazebrook from the University of Technology, Sydney. Dr Glazebrook proposes extending the metro service on the Bankstown Line – which involves driverless trains operating at a potentially higher frequency – on a new rail line directly from Bankstown to Liverpool through the existing Bankstown Airport. This would represent a more direct and quicker route from Liverpool to the city, Dr Glazebrook's submission argues. North of the harbour, Dr Glazebrook suggests a new station at North Sydney built above the Gore Hill expressway could provide a convenient interchange point for buses coming from the northern suburbs. Sydney University, meanwhile, has yet to put in its formal submission on the project but has shifted its thinking on where it would like to put a station – if the government chose to route the line through the university.

The university had been considering proposing a station near the Seymour Centre at the corner of Cleveland Street and City Road, but is now pushing for a station further south, between its Wentworth Building and its Cadigal Green parkland. One of the benefits of a station at Sydney University, the institution argues, is that Sydney Metro would be able to dig a station box at no cost to the government. But the university would then be able to develop over the top of the station, where it has already gained approval for large-scale educational, residential and retail buildings. Advocacy group Action for Public Transport is also pushing for a station at the university, as opposed to an alternative location at Waterloo. But the group says an extra station could be dug near Waterloo on the existing Airport Line. The government is set to make a decision about station locations later this year.