Untangled 2018/04/19 – 08:26

The notion that “(NW-Metro) is going ok” is what is contentious. Many believe the fundamental changes brought in at the last moment by this government will undermine its very operation and attractiveness to those living 40+km out in the Hills district etc. when they discover a lot of them will have to stand all the way and then change trains two-thirds of the way in, on to commuter trains that will already be packed (from elsewhere in Sydney’s northern reaches) where they will have to stand for the remaining 10+km journey. We’ll have to wait and see. (Ironically, the only thing that might save the embarrassment might be that a lot fewer use it, and thus have seats!).

As to the South-East-LRT, just exactly what “massively over-engineered and has lots of bonus shit thrown in compared to a typical tram line” are you referring? Perhaps the wire-free system? Funny enough I was in Bordeaux just after their new tramway was running (thru the middle of the UNESCO zone), and it was the first built with Alstom’s wire-free system. That was more than ten years ago and there are a dozen more (and many more being planned) around the world using it, including Sydney’s existing tramway.

No, though there are many parents of this mess, one of the main indicators of disasters like this is the fact that it is a PPP. Under these wonderful arrangements (in which all of the risk is borne by government, no matter what any “contract” says) the various parties end up having a messy divorce, almost always over the private contractor’s need to milk more money off the public, either through their own incompetence or deliberate commercial strategy.

Oh, and this government also changed the plans at the last moment (long after all the public consultations etc etc) and unilaterally switched it to the west side of the road along Moore Park so that it necessitated removing 600 magnificent 100+ year-old Moreton Bay fig trees in Moore Park. This was done (and probably always planned by those in control and in positions of influence with an LNP government) so as to not interfere with the Sydney Cricket Grounds future development plans on the east side of the road! The SCG is nominally a public body but it has been and is still run by a cabal of the great and good who expect to get their way, and they have plans of serious development (with the single aim of making money for the SCG and their developer buddies; usual Sydney story), even though the public, who nominally own the whole shebang, strenuously object to more of Sydney’s precious green and public space being concreted over.

I’m not against LRT however–putting aside the tree vandalism which IMO is criminal–I remain sceptical that this is the best application: a major radial route thru the heart of the CBD, there are serious questions that it will be able to handle the crowds (and the trams in the middle). It is laudable to create a pedestrian route of half of George street but one wonders how it can work. Really, analytically this looks like a route for a buried Metro. One suspects that the rationale for a surface tramway was entirely about money and nothing else (and now it will cost >$3bn versus the initial $1.2bn; and what if it doesn’t move enough people … expensive at half the cost).