Tag: Alexandria

A Glamorous Eastern Suburbs Bus Network Makeover

On May 7, 2021

In the wake of the completion of the Northern Beaches bus network revamp, which I commented on a few months ago, it looks like the Eastern Suburbs are next in line. This makes a lot of sense, since there has only been some minor tinkering with bus routes since the opening of the L2 and L3 light rail lines just over a year ago.

Similarly to the Beaches changes, the focus here seems to be on route clarity, an extensive high frequency (10 minutes or better all day) network, better crosstown connections and the inevitable end of the reign of the one seat ride.

The Map

This announcement is pretty early days. They’ve put out a draft network to community consultation with a planned commencement of service in late 2021. Hence there’s not a huge amount detail on frequency or operating hours.

What they have done is release a beautiful new map. And it is beautiful. At least to my not particularly aesthetically inclined eye.

A screenshot of a proposed bus network map from April 2021, showing the area between South Coogee and Camperdown — Part of the new network map. Check out the whole thing here.

I love how prominent the heavy rail, light rail and ferry routes are. I love the highlighting of the frequent network to be on par with these other modes and how, beyond the inevitable complexity of a bus network map, you can quickly trace out the lines that might be useful for you. This is even more stark on the high frequency only network map that was on the promotional flyer.

A screenshot of a proposed frequent service bus network map from April 2021, showing the area between South Coogee and Camperdown — A similar area showing high frequency (10 minutes all better all day) services only. Super handy for casual visitors to the area.

That said I feel like the frequent and ‘local’ bus colours could be slightly more differentiated and I’m missing something that matches the yellow B1 on the Beaches map. It’s all a bit blue once you get away from the CBD.

Check out the comparison to the existing map, though!

A screenshot of the 2020 Eastern Suburbs bus network map showing the area between South Coogee and Camperdown — Clutter! Chaos! Confusion! And why isn’t the 418 shown between Kingsford and Sydenham?
You can view the full map in all its glory here.

Aside from simplifying the palette, the big news is that bus routes from adjacent regions have been included on the map! This minor change is actually a huge deal as it sets the map as customer rather than operations focused. It’s showing users what is actually there rather than delineating service by subcontractor, a situation which is unfortunately still prevalent across Greater Sydney.

My particular bug bear, the segregation of the 388 and 389, will no longer be the case! On that note I should also add that the once daily trip for the 388 looks set to survive the changes.

But where’s the B3?

I feel like this network unveiling is the death knell for the B1/BX major bus route numbering system. It’s a shame, it had such promise!

The State Government’s 2013 Sydney’s Bus Future plan set out an elaborate plan for 13 ‘rapid’ ‘turn up and go’ limited stops bus routes. In one way or another, to a greater or lesser extent, quite a few of these have been implemented.

Pretty consistent incremental improvement on the L90/B1, the 333 and the L20/M52/500x have see these corridors grow to almost meet the standards set out in Sydney’s Bus Future. There’s been a lot of increase in service on some of the other 10 rapid routes, mostly through the metrobus project, but they’re still running at closer to a 15 minute frequency and there’s not much in the way of limited stops service or bus priority anywhere in Greater Sydney.

All that to say, when the B-Line was unveiled it seemed like in years to come Sydney would be crisscrossed by high frequency, traffic prioritised buses like the B1.

But then nothing happened. Even the extension to Newport was called off.

Last year when a new network was announced for the Northern Beaches featuring a high frequency limited stops bus between Chatswood and Dee Why I was sure it was going to be the B2. It just seemed sensible. Unfortunately, they went for the much less catchy 160x.

That, and then redoing the Eastern Suburbs network without renaming the 333 to the B3 is definitely a sign of things to come. It just feels weird, we’ve got the T1 through T9, The F1 through F9, now we’ve got the L1 through L3 but the B1 is all alone by itself.

There’s really no obvious difference in operating style between the 333 and the B1. They both run 24 hours, albeit slightly altered at night, they both run limited stops, high frequency and use unique rolling stock. I guess TfNSW want to keep the B-Line stops a bit special with their next service screens and yellow trimmed seats, but if the stop at Neutral Bay meets the standard it surely wouldn’t be that hard to roll them out down Oxford Street.

Manly Vale B-Line stop and specially built park and ride car park behind it. Source TfNSW

So What’s Changed across the Network

Well, a lot. Too much to go into it all here. The main drive behind the redesign is the reduction of the volume of buses running into the CBD in direct competition with the light rail. Reading between the lines on the brochure it looks like this is a cost neutral network change, so all the extra frequency we’re getting on crosstown routes is basically coming from a reduction in radial CBD services. Given that the L2/L3 are running all day 8 minute frequency and are down to 35 minutes average trip time end to end this strikes me as a great thing!

The focus of the frequency network seems to be on direct(ish) routes, connecting multi-model interchanges and key trip generators as well as enhancing existing popular corridors. The shift to working from home for the professional classes makes the idea that we should have a peak focused CBD centric bus network seem even more irrelevant than it already was. The one seat ride legends should be glad they’ve retained as many Bent Street expresses as they have, I’m sure some of them will be phased out at the next network review in 5 years time. Hopefully we’ll have Maroubra and Coogee light rail extensions by then and an announcement of the Metro West extension to Zetland and beyond which would free up even more bus capacity for local/crosstown frequent routes.

A couple of changes I do like: I’m a big fan of the 353/400 on steroids AKA the BJ to Airport via Coogee 350 which is a totally new connection that I think will be useful for lots of different people.

I also like how the 392 provides a much improved off-peak service to Bunnerong Road and then after connecting to the light rail deviates to (the yet to open) Waterloo Metro and Redfern Station. The detractors will focus on the loss of a direct CBD bus route, but I think the ease with which you can reach a much wider variety of destinations from Matraville is a huge improvement. Plus, you’ve still got your peak hour one seat ride to Bent Street, so all is well.

The other thing that caught my eye is the opening up of the street network around Zetland and the buses being rerouted to benefit. The 304 and 392 cut a much smoother line through the area than their predecessors.

Buses After Dark

I spent far too much of my youth shuttling around the Eastern Suburbs at night and if you weren’t heading outbound, on a Friday or Saturday on a key bus route like the 380 or the 373 you were basically stuffed. It took a lot of hustle and not very much money to stand at a cold, dark bus stop waiting for a once hourly bus in the pre-tracking days, and that was on the few routes that had service. I remember wanting to get to BJ from Randwick at, like, 9:30pm and being like, oh, I guess we’ll just have to walk.

To be fair, things have changed a fair bit in the intervening years but this plan represents a huge departure from those days. The published map includes a nightbus route network which shows where you can pick up a bus at any time of day or night and it’s quite extensive. Unfortunately it’s still mostly set to hourly frequency on weekdays and half hourly on weekends. But, it’s great to see Sydney leaving behind the idea that an absolute skeletor of a public transport network is just fine after midnight.

Some Very Specific Weakpoints (IMHO)

Here I’m going to delve into some of the elements of the plan that I don’t think quite work. If you aren’t as excited about bus routing as I am, it might get a bit tedious and I’ll forgive you skimming through.

Inconsistent CBD-bound routing

I don’t quite understand why the 3 remaining Citybound Anzac Parade/Alison Rd buses are all taking different routes into the CBD. It seems like the planners have just left these routes as they were, only all the other routes have disappeared leaving them sad and alone.

During the day the 374 and 339 will run every 20 minutes and the 396 will run every 10. In the evening they’ll run at about half that frequency. After passing Moore Park the 339 will take Foveaux/Albion, the 374 will run down Cleveland Street and the 396 will take Flinders Street. This kind of makes sense from a coverage point of view, but in context, these streets are all surrounded by important transport corridors. It doesn’t seem likely that many people will stand on Cleveland St waiting fifteen minutes for a bus when they could take a high frequency 304 from Crown, 343 from Chalmers/Elizabeth or the light rail from Surry Hills.

In peak hour there’ll be a bunch of express buses on Albion/Foveaux, but the rest of the day it’ll just be the 339 trundling past occasionally.

It would make sense to run the 339/374 along the same corridor as they share a lot of common catchment in Randwick/Coogee/Clovelly. Combined, they could run down Cleveland OR Albion/Foveaux at a much more respectable 10-minute frequency. Cleveland Street is probably the more logical choice for coverage reasons, I don’t really see anyone catching the 339 to get from Surry Hills to anywhere bar Clovelly. I can see plenty of upside to this plan but I can’t think who would lose out. It just doesn’t seem necessary to run moderate frequency local buses along both corridors.

Then there’s the 396 which, out of peak, will be the only Anzac Pde bus running down Flinders Street. That means there’ll only be a bus every 10 minutes turning right out of Oxford onto Flinders, down from every 5 or so minutes today.

It’s a popular transport corridor so hopefully this level of service will cut it. I’m more concerned about evenings when I suspect lots of people will be trying to get from Darlinghurst back home with their only option being the 396 running every 20 to 30 minutes.

Unfortunately there’s not even an obvious interchange to make. I suppose if you’re heading to Coogee you could go via Bondi Junction and then take the 350. I’m not sure this is time competitive. Alternatively, you could walk half a dozen blocks to the Surry Hills light rail stop, but if you’re coming from the Cross, St Vincents or anywhere in Darlinghurst really, just getting to Taylor Square is probably enough of a walk.

I’m not really sure what the fix is here without running more buses alongside the light rail. Given that the light rail provides plenty of access to Central, another option would be to route the 339/374/396 all via Flinders Street for a 5 minute day time frequency and every 10 to 15 minutes in the evening.

The oft overlooked Grand Parade connection

The 303 extension down the Grand Parade is pretty useless at the best of times. It only runs hourly, doesn’t run at night and doesn’t really serve any especially useful interchange points before it reaches UNSW. I am probably one of the few people that has ever used it to get from South of the Cooks River to the Zetland area, so cutting it at UNSW makes sense.

My concern is that the 303 now covers the old 301 deviation through every other backstreet in Mascot which will mean that it’s no longer really a bus you would choose to catch. It feels like the 303 is predominately now a catchment service for the residents of Eastlakes, which begs the question, why extend it to Brighton-Le-Sands at all?

With the strong demand for the 420 and the 478 I think that promoting a decent service connecting the medium to high density neighbourhoods at Brighton and Ramsgate with the South Eastern suburbs is obvious. I reckon there’s enough latent demand to justify combining the 478, 479 and 303 into an every fifteen minute directish bus from Rockdale to UNSW via Brighton and Kingsford.

Unfortunately, the proposed new network makes this connection somehow even worse than it was.

No matter what you do, the 370 will always be a weakness

The 370. Obviously the reliability of the 370 has been a huge problem since forever and the improving frequency, while welcome, probably hasn’t helped greatly with the reliability. Cutting it at Sydney University seems like an okay way to deal with it, although you’ve now got the 370 and the 369 both laying over in Darlington which will might cause some congestion there. It seems like a missed opportunity to actually change the bus routes for the better.

The key issue here is that we’re getting the large volumes of students travelling between the UNSW and USyd areas to their destination via quite a roundabout route through St Peters.

From the heart of USyd on City Road to Erskineville Oval is a 2.2km walk, 22 minutes for a brisk trotting student. It’s much less as the crow flies, but we don’t have a pedestrian bridge over the Eveleigh railyards…yet. The 370 takes 15 minutes at the best of times to cover that distance. When you add in waiting time and the possibility for delays, it’s safe to say it’s quicker to walk for most.

I’d say that the vast majority of the passengers on the 370 heading down Mitchell Street are heading to Newtown Station, Broadway or somewhere in between. If the 370 was diverted down Erskineville Road it would shave 5 minutes off the journey, which isn’t insignificant.

Of course this isn’t a perfect fix and would definitely raise other problems, but I guess my point is that the 370 will always be a challenge for good bus network design. There is a strong need for reliable and frequent crosstown connections from the Inner West to the East but I’m not sure that leaving the 370 more or less as-is is the best approach here.

So much for Sydenham

While we’re on the topic of crosstown buses…what happened to the 418? As with the 400, the Burwood to Bondi Junction run was a bit long, but it can’t have been more than a few years ago it was cut off at Kingsford to resolve this very issue.

It looks like the 418 has now been cut off at Sydenham with the Eastern part of the route replaced with the 358 to Randwick.

With the increasing importance of Sydenham Station this doesn’t much matter as most passengers will be changing to trains or the metro. What will be important is the frequency of the 358.

The 418 is currently running every 30 minutes between Sydenham and Kingsford, but I don’t think this is adequate at all. Gardeners Road is the southern crosstown route and should be supporting a decent connection from Mascot and Sydenham Stations to UNSW and Prince of Wales. The new proposal suggests a 20 minute frequency which is an improvement, but inadequate to connect with the 10 minutes or better train services at Sydenham and Mascot.

I guess realistically people on the East Hills Line and the Bankstown Metro will probably just stay onboard until Waterloo/Green Square and change for the high frequency 370 there, or even go to Central and take the light rail. This seems a shame as it increases demand at already overcrowded CBD stations quite unnecessarily. I feel like there’s latent demand for a much better crosstown Gardeners Pde bus route which will only grow when Sydenham metrofies.

The 358 between Sydenham and UNSW is my pick for the next frequent bus route.

Connecting to the (Marrickville) Metro

The 307 extension is pretty funny to me. It’s great to see a bus service using the new Campbell Road connection over the Alexandria Canal, but I can’t help wondering who will actually use it. Marrickville Metro isn’t exactly a crash hot destination and the 307 doesn’t make any particularly useful interchanges either. It doesn’t quite go to St Peters Station, it picks up the 422 to Newtown, but you wouldn’t want to get stuck waiting on the Princes Hwy for 15 minutes for the next one.

I’m thinking it would be most useful as a way to connect the high density residential area at Mascot Station to the Inner West, but like I said, it doesn’t really go to any of the parts of the Inner West people would have cause to visit.

According to the summary of route changes most 307s will continue as route 352 from Marrickville Metro, so you can stay on board to reach Newtown. This is a bit confusing because it will likely compromise the reliability of the 352 which is now effectively running from Bondi Junction to Eastgardens via Marrickville Metro along some of Sydney’s most congested streets. It’s also strange because it’s only sometimes. I guess you have to try and pair the two timetables together and figure out if the 307 you’re getting on is one that continues as the 352 or not.

I’m putting money on this extension getting canned/altered pretty quickly.

Closing Thoughts

I think the key point here is that the frequency network is a huge improvement for accessibility, but once you get away from those core routes, you’re pretty much still stuck dealing with the same sorts of problems that have plagued Sydney bus users forever. Physical infrastructure is poor and bus priority is non-existent.

On the other hand, creating and highlighting a frequent network dramatically expands the reach of Sydney’s legible public transport system and will hopefully make more people feel like they can readily navigate to places on these routes, as they would with trains, the light rail, ferries or the B-Line.

It’s a pretty impressive frequent network given that there’s no increase in rolling stock or labour. It’s all coming from removing redundancy. Some will argue that this means forcing people onto the light rail, but if it’s running 35 minutes end to end it’s hard to see that that’s a bad thing. The residents of South East Sydney, and particularly the Labor members that represent them, might not be ready to let go of their CBD-centric peak focused network, but they’re going to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21^st century anyway. And they’ll be the better for it.

The Proposed South East Bus Changes are open for community consultation until June 18th. You can find out more information and give your feedback here.

Erskineville Station to be twice as accessible with new southern concourse

By Jed C

On March 24, 2021

In Submissions, Sydney Transport

After years of lobbying from local residents, particularly the Friends of Erko group, it looks like Erskineville Station is finally getting a southern entrance! This is an exciting example of a transport project that punches above its weight. Station upgrades over the last decade have too often focused on accessibility upgrades for lower use suburban and regional stations (perhaps in more marginal seats?) or exorbitantly expensive car parks.

This has left highly congested stations, particularly in the Inner West, with a certain grungy 20th century aesthetic. This no doubt makes train travel more atmospheric, which is very important, but I think most commuters would agree: efficiency > vibe.

What’s so good about a second entrance anyway?

A second entrance is so valuable because it can dramatically increase the size of the walking catchment of the station. A train platform is roughly 200m long. Building a new entrance is like opening a new station for the people that live past the far end of the platform. At stations like Erskineville and Redfern a new concourse can bring the station minutes closer to 100s or even 1000s of extra residents and workers.

It’s a simple idea and not especially glamorous (hello Sydney Metro, helllllllo Westconnex), but it is a great example of the sorts of small improvements that have done more to improve public transport in Sydney in the past decade than all the megaprojects rolled together. But don’t trust me, trust the academics!

Erskineville On Exhibition

The plan for the upgrade of Erskineville is currently on exhibition and can be found here.

There is also a more minor accessibility upgrade planned for Erskineville’s sister station (familial in the sense that they’re both being annexed to the Illawarra Line by Sydney Metro), St Peters. This is on exhibition here.

According to the TfNSW website, feedback for the St Peters upgrade will close on Friday March 26th, while the Erskineville upgrade will close on Friday March 29th. Your guess is as good as mine but I suggest you get in quick!

If you need inspiration, I attach my submission for the two plans below.

One particularly insightful opinion on the upgrades

Regarding the St Peters Station Upgrade:

Proposed key features of the St Peters Station Upgrade map — The 2021 St Peters Station Upgrade design plan courtesy of TfNSW

I am pleased to see this busy and growing station receiving a much needed freshen up. There are a few changes I would suggest to better meet the goals of the upgrade:

1. Expand and include undercover, or even secure, bike parking. Bike hoops are one step on the bike parking hierarchy up from an incidental metal pole. St Peters station has a large catchment that is not within easy walking distance. This area has a high rate of bicycle use. Secure bike parking and an undercover bike parking area at St Peters would be an asset to the community and well used. There is room to build such a facility in the small plaza adjacent to King Street.

2. I’m curious as to why Platforms 1 and 2 have not received any significant increase in covered space compared to Platforms 3 and 4. I understand that only 2 platforms at St Peters station are regularly utilised, and I assume that the final service arrangement after the opening of Sydney Metro Southwest will make Platforms 3 and 4 the most used. However, if money can be spent providing lift service to Platforms 1 and 2 it is clear they will still be used and thus it seems shortsighted to not improve canopy cover in line with this.

3. I notice in the Environmental Factors Review the off-peak bus frequencies are not correctly listed. The 370 and 422 run at an off peak frequency of 15 minutes more often than the stated 30 minute frequency. While most users of St Peters reach the station on foot, some do use the bus interchanges and misrepresenting service frequency in this way could lead planners to neglect to facilitate these important connections. The 370 in particular is a frequent and important crosstown bus route and good connection facilities such as bus stop infrastructure, lighting and wayfinding are important at St Peters.

Regarding the Erskineville Station Upgrade:

Proposed key features of the Erskineville Station Upgrade map — The 2021 Erskineville Station Upgrade design plan courtesy of TfNSW

I am especially pleased to see the hard work from WalkSydney and Friends of Erko has paid off in calling for a southern concourse at Erskineville Station. In dense neighbourhoods such as Erskineville the impact on accessibility of having only a single station entrance at one end of the platform is significant. Placing two station entrances can dramatically increase the walking catchment of a station making it more useful to more members of the communities it is intended to serve. I hope that this knowledge will inform future upgrades and new station footprints for Sydney Trains and Sydney Metro.

There are a few changes I would suggest to better meet the goals of the upgrade:

1. The obvious omission from your proposal is the lack of a connection from the Southern Concourse to George Street. Not only would this provide access for local residents to the station but also facilitate access for kids to Erskineville primary school without needing to travel along busy Swanson Street.

I do not believe that putting a small at-grade concourse entrance would result in a significant loss of green space. Instead, it would result in more people travelling through the park and facilitate greater incidental use. There would remain a large number of pocket parks and larger green spaces throughout the neighbourhood.

2. I am unsure as to why your plan has included the construction of a lift between Platform 1 and the Northern Concourse. As per my feedback at St Peters, I assume that Platform 1 is not likely to be regularly used once Metro Southwest opens. Building this lift would add significantly to the cost of the project. I assume that outside of trackwork and special events the primary function of the lift would be to facilitate access from the shopping strip on Swanson Street to the accessible Southern Concourse. I contend that this access could be provided more cheaply and effectively by upgrading the pedestrian amenity and accessibility of Bridge Street. This would mean that passengers requiring accessible entrance could travel down Bridge Street and up the lift at the Southern concourse, rather than needing to go down the lift onto Platform 1 and back up the lift to the Southern Concourse. This would mean one less lift movement for less mobile passengers. If there is a different reason for the installation of the lift at the northern end of Platform 1, it is not made clear in the proposal. I would then be curious as to why lifts are not being installed at the Northern end of Platforms 2,3 and 4.

3.The placement of the vehicle drop off zone at the dead end of Bridge Street will mean a lot of unnecessary vehicle kilometres travelled along Bridge St, contributing to congestion. A driver dropping a passenger on their way elsewhere will need to travel into and then leave Bridge Street after using the drop off zone. Drop off zones work much more effectively when placed on through routes. I would urge you to consider placing drop off zones on Swanson Street near the intersection of Henderson Street instead. There are ample car parking spaces on both sides of the road that could be changed to no-parking drop off zones. The dead end of Bridge Street could be retained as accessible only parking.

Once again, thankyou for working on these important projects and I hope that listening to the voices of the community through this consultation process will result in even better outcomes.

Alexandria – Missing out on the metro

By Jed C

On November 6, 2018

In Sydney Transport

“Sydney Metro Northwest and Sydney Metro City and Southwest combined will deliver 31 metro railway stations and more than 65 kilometres of world–class metro rail.” So claims Andrew Constance, NSW Minister for Transport, in his opening to the Sydney Metro Environmental Impact Statement Summary for the Chatswood to Sydenham portion of the project.

It sounds good. It sounds city-changing. And while a pedant (definitely not me) could rightly argue it is, in fact, true, it is also without doubt misleading. To understand what we’re actually getting, let’s have a closer look at the Sydney Metro and its four distinct parts:

The new Northwest Metro from Tallawong (formerly Cudgegong Rd) to Epping, due to open in 2019
The existing Epping to Chatswood Rail Link that opened in 2009 and was closed this year for metro conversion
The new 16.5km metro tunnel from Chatswood to Sydenham via the CBD, and
The existing Bankstown Line from Sydenham to Bankstown that will be closed in the near future to be converted to metro service

A map showing the route of the Sydney Metro from Cudgegong Rd (now Tallawong) Station in the Northwest to Bankstown in the Southwest via Sydney CBD.

The four distinct component parts of the 65km Sydney Metro line.
Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The 31 station claim sits somewhere between hyperbolic and an outright lie when you consider that 18 of these ‘new’ stations are existing Sydney Trains stations that are being upgraded for metro service. In fact, aside from the Northwest Metro, the project barely provides any new coverage to areas not already served by Sydney Trains.

It’s not that I dispute the merit of the project. Network constraints in the CBD mean that in peak hours Sydney Trains are running more or less at capacity. A second harbour rail crossing was flagged as necessary as early as 2001.

The way the metro is being executed, however, has raised more than a few eyebrows. There’s been complaints about lengthy station closures (which the state government was hoping to soothe with a Lee Lin Chin branded ad campaign) and the ‘developers vs the rest of us’ David and Goliath battle over routing the line via Sydney University or Waterloo. A battle that inevitably ended with a station being placed immediately under a large tract of State Government owned land.

In fact, while the then Premier made sure that Waterloo got a brand new station, not many other places did. The Chatswood to Sydenham ‘CBD’ portion of the metro runs under one of the most densely populated parts of the country, yet it will only include 9 stations. That’s an average of over 2 km between each one.

To better understand what this means in practice, I want to unpack an important (but not particularly glamorous) transport planning concept: walking catchment.

Walking Catchment – how far would you go?

Walking catchment refers to the distance that transport planners assume an average person is willing to travel to access public transport. Thanks to the (often hidden) importance of the imperial system in our society, these distances are given at 400m for a bus service and 800m for a train station. These catchment areas attempt to simplify extremely complex human behaviour into an easy to apply metric. For those interested, Daniels and Mulley do a great job of considering how well they work in practice in Sydney. The concept still holds considerable currency in transport planning and so for my purposes I will stick with the walking catchment area of a station being 800m radius.

Thus, for a line providing continuous local service along its length, stations should be spaced roughly 1.5km apart. We see this across much of Sydney. The North Shore Line, Inner West Line, Illawarra Line and the portion of the Bankstown Line that will be converted into metro all have stations spaced roughly this far apart. On a suburban or express line, where users take a feeder bus or drive to a station, greater spacing is typical as this allows trains to reach faster speeds.

For the Sydney Metro from Chatswood to Sydenham this means that with average spacing of over 2km, even if you live directly above the new metro tunnel, there’s a good chance you will live too far from a station for it to be of much use to you. From this it seems that the motivation for the metro is to provide a fast service connecting the CBD to the suburbs rather than to provide a traditional urban metro service with closely spaced stations in walkable neighbourhoods.

Let’s take a closer look at the project. Of the 9 ‘new’ metro stations between Chatswood and Sydenham there are:

The 16.5km Sydney CBD Metro line. Source: Sydney Metro

4 existing Sydney Trains stations (Chatswood, Martin Place, Central & Sydenham)
Crows Nest (600m from St Leonards)
Victoria Cross (400m from North Sydney)
Barangaroo (500m from Wynyard)
Pitt Street (100m from Town Hall)
Waterloo (600m from Redfern)

Our brand new 16.5km metro includes no stations that are not already within the walking catchment of an existing train station. With so much of the city under-served by reliable public transport, spending over $12 billion on an urban rail project that will increase coverage so insignificantly seems questionable.

The forgotten 32nd metro station

There is hope, however. The line includes a 4 kilometre long station-less stretch between Waterloo and Sydenham. This stretch of track runs under one of the most economically significant, high density, traffic choked and poorly served by public transport parts of the city. It represents the perfect opportunity to adjust the Sydney Metro plan to include a new station. Alexandria Station would provide much needed rail coverage to an area that is a centre of employment and housing, and is already suffering from extreme traffic congestion that is slated to only get worse upon the completion of Westconnex.

A station near the corner of Euston Road and Maddox Street in Alexandria would be 1.3km from Waterloo and 900m from the closest Sydney Trains station at Erskineville. If built, it would be the only new metro station between Bankstown and Epping that is not within walking distance of an existing train station. It’s also right on the tunnel corridor, so no realignment would be required.

In fact the case to build a station at Alexandria is so compelling I decided to dig further and try and figure out why it wasn’t included in the current plan.

This map shows the potential station sites that were investigated between Central and Sydenham for the 2015 Infrastructure Report. Despite the plethora of investigated locations, the Alexandria station site wasn’t considered at the time.

A map showing station options considered in the Sydney Metro planning process between Sydenham and Central.

Station locations between Sydenham and Central that were investigated as part of the Sydney Metro planning process. The final choice was for one intermediate station at Waterloo. Source: Sydney Metro.

In May 2016 the EIS was released stating that the chosen alignment would run from Central to a new station near the corner of Botany Road and Raglan Street in Waterloo, and then on to Sydenham. The response to the lack of a station in Alexandria was clear. Unlike many of Sydney’s current infrastructure projects, such as Westconnex, the residents of the area affected by a new Alexandria Station are strongly in favour of it. Members of the Alexandria Residents Action Group have been lobbying government for the past two years to include such a station. But it’s not just residents, elected officials have had this to say:

From the City of Sydney’s submission to the Chatswood to Sydenham EIS:

“The City also recommends that an additional station is included in the alignment between Waterloo and Sydenham to service the growing Erskineville and St Peters area. The stop should be developed under Mitchell Road or McEvoy Street.”

From the Inner West Council’s submission to the Chatswood to Sydenham EIS:

“Council encourages the addition of an extra new station be included as part of the project, located between Waterloo and Sydenham Stations. The Alexandria/Ashmore areas continue to experience significant employment and residential growth; an additional Sydney Metro Station in this vicinity would allow access to increased employment opportunities in the Southern Sydney employment area and provide much needed public transport connectivity for residential growth already occurring in this precinct.”

From the Member for Heffron Ron Hoenig’s speech to parliament:

“I have previously made representations requesting that the Government consider a metro rail station at Alexandria, but they were rejected out of hand. Alexandria is a rapidly growing suburb. It is at the fringe of the mammoth Green Square project and the Ashmore Estate project. Alexandria is smack bang in the middle of the “global economic corridor” from Sydney’s central business district through to Sydney Airport and Port Botany. It is also in the heart of the City of Sydney’s southern employment lands, a significant segment of industrial land still remaining in close proximity to the CBD. Put simply, Alexandria is one of the most important suburbs in the most economically significant precinct in the country, and this Government will not connect it to its city-shaping metro project.”

Transport for NSW’s full response to these submissions and many others regarding an additional station between Waterloo and Sydenham can be found here, on pages 330-333. In regards to station site selection, they had this to say:

“where there is an existing rail station, or the potential station location is within close proximity to an existing station there would be limited increase in rail catchment, limited change to public transport from private vehicles and no significant relief to existing public transport services.”

With this response they refute the need for a new station at Alexandria due to its proximity to existing stations. Bizarrely, it could be even more obviously applied to Crows Nest, Waterloo, Barangaroo or any other station on the route, which are all much closer to existing stations than Alexandria would be. I can only assume the irony of this is lost on the authors of the paper.

The response goes on to outline, in reasonable detail, why a station in the area isn’t in line with the project’s goals. It reads as a justification for a decision already made rather than an investigation into a legitimate concern. What I can’t understand is why the State Government has taken such a firm stance against a station in Alexandria.

Alexandria: a city on the grow

In an effort to summarise the arguments as to why a new station on the existing metro alignment is a no-brainer, I’ve come up with four transport challenges facing the area that would be addressed by building Alexandria Station.

It is in the heart of an earmarked growth area for employment and immediately adjacent to multiple high density housing projects.

Alexandria is no longer a light industrial backwater, it is fast becoming a centre for medium and high density residential and commercial uses. Its light industrial history and unique zoning so close to the CBD makes visiting Alexandria a frequent occurrence for residents and businesses in the inner suburbs seeking to access “essential industrial services”, according to the City of Sydney Employment Lands Planning Proposal.

The City of Sydney Southern Employment Lands is a study area covering the predominantly light industrial parts of Southern Sydney, stretching from McEvoy Road and Wyndham Street in the north to Gardeners Road in the south. In 2015 new planning codes were adopted for the area that will lead to an increase in more valuable and denser land uses.

In the area in which a new Alexandria metro station would be located, the City of Sydney forecasts job density almost doubling from 76 jobs/ha in 2015 to 120 jobs/ha in 2031. Roughly speaking, 5,000 people could be employed within walking distance of the new station by 2031. This is without any of the sort of land uses changes that have been used to justify a station at Waterloo.

In terms of residential population, the station would be immediately adjacent to the existing historical Alexandria neighbourhood that consists of terraces, townhouses and small blocks of flats. It would be within walking distance of existing high density apartment complexes at Sydney Park Village. It would also be the closest train station for much of the under construction Ashmore Precinct that, when complete, will be home to some 6,000 people. Also within walking distance is the ‘East McEvoy Investigation Area’ that is slated for high density mixed use development in the future.

This map shows 2016 residential population density in the area, the three marked development sites (in pink) are under-construction or planned development sites. These areas will probably end up shaded dark blue, for high density, in future renditions of this map. The areas with no population are mostly light industrial and commercial uses.

A map showing existing Sydney Trains stations, Under construction Sydney Metro Stations and the proposed Alexandria Metro Station on top of a map of population density in and around Alexandria

Population density and residential growth areas accessible to a new Alexandria Metro Station. Sources: ABS, Esri.

Traffic congestion is terrible and is only going to get much, much worse.

Given the state of Sydney’s roads, it would be a bold claim to say that Alexandria experiences the worst traffic in Sydney, but there’s no doubt traffic in the area is extremely problematic. There’s much concern as to how gridlocked roads will deal with the completion of the Westconnex New M5 that will see a six lane freeway funnel directly onto McEvoy Street.

This congestion makes bus services through the area inherently unreliable, as regular users of the 370 will attest. It also means that a bus-based solution to traffic in the area is never going to be successful. Currently 75% of commuters to the Southern Employment Lands commute by car, and the City of Sydney have made it clear that that the area can only sustain an increase in density if mode share use changes drastically in favour of public and active transport.

The three nearest rail stations are already over capacity and construction of new housing continues apace.

The justification for the new metro is to free up capacity for heavy rail services running into the CBD. The three stations nearest to Alexandria (Green Square, Erskineville and St Peters) are all over capacity in the AM peak. This is only going to get worse with the completion of large apartment complexes in the vicinity of all three stations. The additional services on the Airport and East Hills Line that may become available upon completion of the metro will hopefully lead to decongestion of Green Square, however what will happen once St Peters and Erskineville become stations on the already crowded Illawarra Line?

A new station at the periphery of all three catchment areas will provide a direct service to employment centres in Barangaroo, North Sydney and North Ryde and relieve strain on the existing stations.

Much of Alexandria’s workforce commute from the Bankstown region and would benefit from the direct link.

The City of Sydney’s Employment Lands Transport and Access Report shows that 9% of the commuters to the Southern Employment Lands come from the Canterbury-Bankstown region. Without a station at Alexandria, reliable public transport connecting the Bankstown Line to this area will not exist, leaving a trip by private vehicle (or an arduous multimodal commute for those without) as the only option.

From where I stand it’s sad to see the metro going ahead in its current form when a minor change could make it so much better. I do hope at some point in the near future the plan is reconsidered and adjusted to include a new station at Alexandria. Until then I suppose I’ll just have to stick to the 370.