I put on my angry (former) local resident hat for this one. The scope of the project can be viewed here for the next 10 days and feedback can be sent to ni@rms.nsw.gov.au.
I came across this road widening project as it affects the immediate vicinity of my proposed metro station Leichhardt North. It’s frustrating to see the state government going in, what I see as, the completely wrong direction. Turning inner city communities over to wider highways and faster roads. Cities around the world are going in a different direction and the Covid-19 pandemic could be our chance to do things better. Unfortunately, this project is probably just about ‘shovel ready’ and so, in a horrible twist of so-Sydney irony, the pandemic might actually justify worse pedestrian amenity.
I encourage anyone affected by this project to make a submission. Here’s mine for inspiration:
I’d like to make a submission regarding the Transport for NSW ‘Haberfield, Ashfield and Leichhardt Local Network Improvements’ project. My objection to this project is that it is focused solely on the movement of vehicles and takes no consideration of pedestrians, cyclists, public transport users or urban amenity.
Part of the justification for the Westconnex project was to reduce the volume of surface traffic and allow surface roads to act as neighbourhood assets rather than high volume, high speed traffic corridors. Given this, why is the City West Link being upgraded to handle ever greater volumes of traffic at the expense of local amenity and less harmful modes of transport? And why does this roughly coincide with the opening of the Westconnex M4 East and Rozelle Interchange projects? Wouldn’t this be the time to look at projects to return surface roads to meet community needs?
The benefits of supporting non-automobile based modes of transport are well documented, but I will touch on them briefly. Active and public transport create healthier and happier communities by reducing the impacts of pollution, encouraging incidental exercise and helping people reconnect with place in their neighbourhoods. Absolutely, through transport is essential in a large city, but a 6 lane toll road that duplicates the City West Link is partially complete already.
The planned developments of this project are particularly problematic because of the nature of accessibility in the area. The Inner West is dense mixed use area and the Bay Run is an extremely popular site of recreation.
The Mortley Ave/Timbrell Drive redesign still fails to feature pedestrian crossings on all 4 roads. Instead, to get from the extremely popular walking and biking route on the Bay Run to Haberfield, one would need to cross the intersection 2-3 times instead of just 1. Yes, the northern side of City West Link is the busiest road in that intersection, however a pedestrian crossing there could be timed with the Timbrell-Mortley movement, with a red left hand turn for the Timbrell traffic if pedestrians are present.
Placing the fast movement of vehicles ahead of all else at this intersection discourages people from enjoying the Bay Run, annexes the recreational spaces from the adjacent residential areas and will lead to frustration for pedestrians and cyclists, dramatically increasing the risk of injury or death to our most vulnerable road users.
This is exactly the kind redesign that goes against the spirit of what Westconnex was supposed to achieve for affected communities. Our harbourside surface roads should be made usable for pedestrians and cyclists as well as cars and trucks.
The planned rebuild of the Norton and James Streets intersection is even more disappointing. The total lack of regard for pedestrians is obvious, as the mapping tool on your consultation portal (https://v2.communityanalytics.com.au/tfnsw/iwlocal/map) showing traffic movements through the new mega-intersection doesn’t even feature pedestrian movements.What is most galling about this is that this isn’t a large remote highway interchange, but is immediately adjacent to a light rail station and several important bus corridors in a walkable neighbourhood.
According to the indicative map a pedestrian trying to simply get from the light rail station to the area around Amato’s bottle shop will need to cross 4 sets of lights, rather than the current 2. Do you honestly expect pedestrians to wait patiently, day in, day out for all these lights to change? People will cross against the lights in frustration at being totally designed out of their neigbourhood and, eventually, someone will be killed.
Waiting on barren concrete traffic islands by large highways is extremely unpleasant and can even feel unsafe at night. This redesign deliberately makes the pedestrian environment much less pleasant and safe and will directly result in less people walking, cycling and using public transport in the immediate area. Thus inducing people to use private vehicles and justifying the sorts of decisions that lead to projects like this in the first place.
This intersection redesign will likely ease congestion on City West Link and in the immediate vicinity, however it will induce extra traffic onto all of the affected roads. None of these roads can handle this. Darling Street in Rozelle is extremely congested, particularly on weekends. Norton Street is a low speed shopping street and bus corridor, not a through road for private vehicles. Darley Street leads to congestion hot spots at Parramatta Road and in Lewisham.
I am not a traffic engineer, however it strikes me that reducing the variety of movements through the intersection could relieve traffic somewhat. Norton Street is an asset to the community and a greater focus should be placed on turning this into a bus, cycling and pedestrian route, as well as maintaining local vehicle access.
Perhaps removing the right turn option from City West Link heading south could free up space in the intersection? Cars and trucks could still use Ramsey Street or turn left onto James and then loop onto Balmain Road. Similarly there is a right turn off City West Link heading north, why does this need to be available? There is already a right hand turn at Balmain Road.
It seems to me the most important movements through the intersection are people continuing on City West Link, traffic heading from Darley citybound on City West Link and vice versa, traffic movements from Darley north to James and vice versa, buses on Norton St and pedestrians coming to and from the light rail station. Let’s think creatively about how we can facilitate all these important movements without marginalising people from the space entirely and further ripping this suburb in two.
We cannot build our way out of traffic congestion in the inner west. The last 50 years of road building is a testament to that. How many communities recreational and other transportation needs must be sacrificed in this pursuit?
I hope that the RMS is able to see beyond a blind desire to increase vehicle movements through this intersection to understand the impacts that successive projects of this nature have on the health, accessibility and livelihoods of the affected communities. Please go back to the drawing board on this project and figure out how Westconnex can be used as an opportunity to return surface roads to the neighbourhoods within which they exist.
The Sydney Metro West Environmental Impact Statement was released this morning. It outlines the planned approach to construction of the line between Westmead and White Bay including the proposed station locations. The EIS summary document can be accessed here and public submissions on the proposal can be given until June 26th.
I’m going to focus on the proposed station locations which were announced in October last year and confirmed in this EIS.
The 6 westerly stations; Westmead, Parramatta, Olympic Park, North Strathfield, Burwood North and Five Dock, are well placed to meet the travel needs of a growing Sydney.
The proposed route of the Metro West. Notice the huge gaps between Bays and Five Dock and between Olympic Park and Parramatta. Image source : NSW Government
It is difficult to consider how the most easterly station in the EIS, The Bays, will interact with the surrounding neighbourhoods, as no solid plans have been released by the State Government as to how The Bays Precinct will evolve. The area is without doubt a planning challenge, given the competing interests of existing residents, demands for new inner city harbourside housing, existing industrial uses, a proposed cruise ship terminal, the heritage value of White Bay power station and of course the fact that the area is of enormous transport importance, being the site of what will be Sydney’s largest motorway interchange.
For that reason I’ll leave The Bays station and hope that the eventual urban plan for the precinct is sympathetic to the surrounding established neighbourhoods and facilitates good active and public transport connections through the area. We can only hope!
The EIS has nothing to say east of The Bays, but we know a proposed station is being considered for Pyrmont and there will be a station in the vicinity of Hunter Street in the CBD, between Wynyard and Martin Place stations (and hopefully providing a seamless interchange to both). Beyond that is anyone’s guess, although it seems the line could be extended southeast to Zetland at some stage.
Within the scope of the EIS I believe that for Metro West, as with existing Sydney Metro projects, lengthy station spacing is leading to missed opportunities for improving public transport connectivity more broadly.
This comes about because of the two competing demands on any metro proposal: travel time and network coverage.
The twin costs of more stations
The argument against additional stations is two-fold, and will be familiar to anyone involved in the push to have a station at Alexandria included in the Metro City and Southwest.
Dollars
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the cost of each new station on the City and Southwest Metro was between $200m and $630m, not including excavation works. Ouch!
Additional stations on the Metro West corridor would likely fall at the lower end, or even below, this range, as those high prices came about from building under high rise in the CBD and North Sydney. Nonetheless, additional metro stations are no doubt expensive; even if they’re a drop in the bucket of a project with a total cost leaning towards between $20 and $25 billion.
Travel time
The big claim of Metro West is an “around” 20 minute journey between the Sydney CBD and Parramatta. That is significantly quicker than the 30 (timetabled) minutes it takes between Parramatta and Town Hall on an express train today. With a tentative length of 22km between the as yet unfinalised Sydney CBD station and Parramatta, trains would need to run at an average speed (including stops) of over 60km/h to meet the time target.
With a maximum operating speed of 100km/h, there’s a limit to the number of times the metro train can stop along the way and still meet the time goal. The original proposal included an optional station at Rydalmere which involved a significant deviation of the alignment. This has subsequently been removed and it is likely that because of this there is sufficient slack to allow an additional stop or two whilst still keeping the service timely.
One way to avoid this conundrum altogether would be by building quad tunnels with 4 tracks for an express and all stations stopping pattern. Much more expensive to build but ‘future proofed’ against surging demand and able to simultaneously meet both coverage and travel time objectives. This additional capacity would become particularly handy once the Metro West is extended towards Western Sydney Airport.
I assume such a plan is well beyond the budget of the NSW State Government, especially given recent cost blowouts on the Sydney Light Rail and City and Southwest Metro vastly overshadowed the $1 billion shaved off the Northwest Metro.
The project’s stated goal of integrating with existing transport networks is not being fulfilled due to a missing interchanging with the existing L1 Inner West Light Rail line between Dulwich Hill and Central. Rozelle Bay Light Rail Station is only 700m from The Bays station. Close, but far too far for a convenient interchange.
The L1 Inner West Light Rail Line follows the alignment of the old Goods Line. This has led to a massive bend in the route in Pyrmont that slows the train so much you can get off at Wentworth Park, walk to Exhibition and get back on the same train you alighted. Source: Wikimedia
The L1 line is currently highly congested in peak hours (well, not right now, but usually) and does not adequately perform as a useful service to access the Central Station area from much of its route. This is because of long travel times associated with the winding route alignment through Pyrmont. The lack of a connection to the CBD also limits its usefulness. There could’ve been one at Lewisham West, but that would’ve involved moving Lewisham Station.
A light rail-metro interchange at Pyrmont would go some way to changing this, however it would likely increase congestion on the already crowded Glebe stretch of the line and further induce inbound travel demand by routing passengers bound for Parramatta through Pyrmont.
Metro for Leichhardt North
A better alternative would be a new metro station at Leichhardt North to interchange with the light rail. The current Dan Murphy’s site is immediately adjacent to the existing light rail station and would be perfect for a new metro station. It is nestled in a medium density mixed use neighbourhood that lacks good, direct public transport access to Sydney CBD or Western Sydney. A station here would dramatically increase the utility of the L1 by bringing the urban renewal neighbourhoods in Lewisham and Dulwich Hill into the Parramatta and CBD 30 minute cities. It would relieve congestion on the light rail line and increase capacity as eastbound passengers disembarking at Leichhardt North would free up room for those boarding at Lilyfield, Rozelle Bay, Jubilee Park and Glebe.
In terms of increasing catchment area for the metro, no location is better situated than Leichhardt North. The light rail connects to a variety of mixed use, medium and high density neighbourhoods that are otherwise generally poorly served by fast transport options to Sydney’s major employment centres.
Leichhardt North has an abundance of active and public transport connections, lacks any sort of nearby heavy rail station and is close to the current planned alignment of the Metro West. Source: Google Maps
Major Bus Connections
As well as the light rail connection, Leichhardt North is an important bus node. The 440, M10 and, most importantly, the 445 all operate past the station connecting with Balmain, Rozelle, Leichhardt and Petersham. A short extension would allow the 470 to easily connect Annandale and Forest Lodge to the new station.
An Active Transport Junction
The station is also directly between two important recreational spaces and associated cycling corridors. The enormously popular Bay Run is 400m from the Leichhardt North site, compared to 1.3km from Five Dock, the closest proposed station. This would make the station accessible by bike and on foot, along completely off-road shared paths from as far afield as Birkenhead Point and Balmain High School.
To the south, the station would provide a direct, completely off-road, metro to cycling connection to Haberfield and Lewisham down the Inner West Greenway. If existing council plans to partner with the State Government come to fruition, the path would be extended south all the way to the Cooks River.
To the East, the surface works associated with the Westconnex Rozelle Interchange will allow the creation of an entirely off-road cycling and walking connection through the new parklands alongside City West Link towards Rozelle Bay.
The perfect place for a new station
A metro station at this location has the potential to dramatically alter accessibility across much of the Inner West. Leichhardt North is uniquely situated at the junction of a light rail line, 4 high frequency bus routes and an extensive active transport network connecting schools, universities, employment, recreation facilities and countless medium density neighbourhoods.
As per the Metro West EIS, a station at Leichhardt North is 800m south of the current proposed alignment. It is 2.4km as the crow flies from both Five Dock and The Bays; the exact midpoint of the two stations. The straight-line distance between Five Dock and The Bays is 4.6km, compared to 4.8km via Leichhardt North. Adding a new station here would require a relatively minor change to the total length of the route.
Metro for Silverwater
The other noteworthy area that is served by the metro alignment but not by a station is in Silverwater.
Silverwater is a primarily light industrial suburb located between Auburn and the Parramatta River, just west of Olympic Park. It’s a big centre of employment, being prime light industrial land with great road access to much of Sydney.
Unfortunately, it has terrible public transport. None of the businesses that make up the industrial core of the neighbourhood are within 1.6km (a 20 minute walk) of the nearest train stations at Auburn or Olympic Park. The only decent bus service in the suburb is the 30 minute frequency 525 that skirts the northern edge of the suburb connecting the adjacent suburb of Newington and the Silverwater Jail to Olympic Park, Strathfield and Parramatta. The two bus routes that pass through the core of the suburb, the 540 and 544, are definitely buses we wouldn’t chose to catch, winding through backstreets and running infrequently. The 544 runs hourly with a few additional peak services and the 540 runs just 11 times a day. The chosen alignment for the proposed Stage 2 of the Parramatta Light Rail connecting to Olympic Park goes nowhere near the suburb.
Silverwater is in dire need of better public transport options. A station at the planned ventilation point on the corner of Silverwater Road and Derby Street would be within a 20 minute walk of the entire suburb and the vast majority of Newington, too. Source: Google Maps
A station at Silverwater would require no alteration to the metro alignment as planned. In fact there’s a ventilation and emergency exit point included in the EIS on the corner of Silverwater Road and Derby Street that could be expanded to include a new station. This would meet the objectives of the Metro West and significantly enhance transport options in a completely car dependent part of Sydney.
Jobs and Growth
Silverwater is a major employment hub. In 2016-17 the ABS recorded over 16,000 jobs in the Homebush-Silverwater Statistical Area. I would estimate that in excess of half of these are based in Silverwater. This employment is generated by the large number of small to medium light industrial businesses as well as the jail in the north of the suburb.
The suburb of Newington would fall on the edge of the Silverwater Metro Station catchment, providing a fast connection to a medium density neighbourhood that lacks adequate public transport.
A station at Silverwater would allow the development of a frequent bus service along Silverwater Road, connecting Auburn Station, Silverwater Station, Ermington Light Rail (proposed), Carlingford Light Rail (under construction) and beyond.
The industrial neighbourhoods of Sydney often have appalling public transport options. This belies their importance as places of employment for many people, particularly those that may lack access to private transport.
Silverwater is extremely traffic choked in peak hour, even by Sydney standards, and despite its central location, is all but inaccessible by public transport. The proposed location of the new station is 1.8km as the crow flies from the closest train station at Auburn, 2.3km from the train and planned metro stations at Olympic Park and 4.7km from the next metro station to the west at Parramatta.
Striking the right balance
Existing Sydney Metro projects have gone ahead with extremely long gaps between adjacent stations. This reflects the uncertainty over whether the Metro is being built as an express service, quickly linking far flung suburbs with business districts and interchange stations, or a local service, connecting nearby neighbourhoods and creating genuine 30 minute cities. It is clear as the Metro experiment manifests, that the project seeks to be something between the two.
As our state government pushes harder and harder to raise the profile of Western Sydney, a train that rapidly links our two CBDs, the state’s largest health precinct at Westmead, our most important events hub at Homebush and the state’s soon to be second international airport at Badgerys Creek, is obviously important. But it’s important to provide people and businesses along the way with access to all these facilities, too.
Nods to this balance have been made with the number of confirmed stations growing from just five when it was announced in 2016 (Parramatta, Olympic Park, an unspecified Northern line connection, The Bays Precinct and Sydney CBD) to the current 8 confirmed stations, with a possible bonus 9th at Pyrmont.
However, it is my belief that the current proposal doesn’t quite get the balance right. Hopefully the lost opportunities of the first two phases of the Sydney Metro can be avoided this time around.
Last month I explored the idea of a bus route typology; sorting buses into either buses we choose to catch or buses we have to catch. Sydney is rife with places where this antagonism plays out in weird and wonderful ways, but my personal favourite is in the checkered history of the 445 through Leichhardt.
The history of the ‘Balmain to Canterbury line’, as it was once known, is intrinsically tied in to the history of trams in Sydney. The service commenced as a tram in the 1920s until it was closed and replaced by the 445 bus on the 21st of November 1954. The service continued to operate, albeit on rubber instead of steel, for another 46 years until the return of trams to Sydney’s streets precipitated a change to the service.
In August 2000 the light rail was extended to a new terminus at Lilyfield and the 445 was diverted, for the first time in its history, to provide an interchange. This diversion substantially slowed the bus route and made it a much less attractive option for users. So painful was the detour that in the late-2000s a facebook group celebrating the infamous ‘Loop’ appeared, in much the same vein as ‘The universe would cease to exist if the 370 bus came on time‘. The page has since disappeared and if anyone has knowledge of its whereabouts, I’d love to know!
Then, in 2009, realising that the diversion made the 445 all but useless and no one was interchanging to the light rail anyway, State Transit proposed to restore the direct bus route. Obviously something went awry in the community consultation phase (you may recall the days when we had these) because when the bus changes were implemented the deviation continued. Only now it was supplemented with an additional deviation to Marketplace, and a new direct route 444. Both routes were extended to Campsie.
In 2014 the extension of the light rail saw a new station open at Leichhardt North that provided an interchange with the 444, thus completely negating the original justification for the route deviation back in 2000.
Curious as to why the deviation was still in place four years later, I contacted Transport for NSW in September 2018 who advised me that “the route path taken by Route 445 was retained to provide Lilyfield residents continuing direct access to shopping at Leichhardt Market Place and Norton Street, as well as provide interchange opportunities with the Light Rail.”
It seems that the deviation now had a small but vocal constituency who were loathe to have their service taken away. Who can blame them? On the other hand the suggestion that the 445 somehow provided a better light rail connection than the 444 by driving one kilometre down the road is nonsense.
A transport agency that doesn’t know what it wants
When I first started this article in September (I know…) it was business as usual. The 444 and 445 were operating different routes at different times of day as they had since 2009.
In an effort to provide an efficient through service as per the original tram (and then bus) route, as well as please local users of the modified 445, Transport for NSW had opted to run both services, but at different times of day.
Basically, the 445 ran through Leichhardt in ‘shopping hours’, between roughly 9am and 4pm, 7 days a week. The 444 operated everyday before and after this period.
Travel times vary a lot due to traffic conditions, but you were looking at least an additional 8 minutes travel time by taking the 445. Not to mention exposure to some serious traffic congestion and delays turning on and off City West Link.
16 minutes onto your daily commute is significant. But more than that, sitting on the bus while it leaves the usual route to wind around in back streets and sit at traffic lights is extremely frustrating. It makes passengers aware of the fact that this service is not designed to get them anywhere quickly.
Where are we now?
Then, in November 2018, Transport for NSW announced a round of minor network changes starting on December 2nd. These occurred without the community consultation we saw in 2009. The 444 turned out to be short lived (vale 444), the 445 detour to Lilyfield light rail station was removed (they must have gotten my memo), the detour to Marketplace was retained, the service was annexed at Gladstone Park instead of Balmain East Wharf and a new bus route 447 between Lilyfield and Marketplace was introduced.
An easy interchange between Norton Street and Marion Street services to get to Marketplace (on the corner of Marion and Flood). Not featured on this map: the 370 from Coogee to Marketplace that is operated by State Transit rather than Transit Systems.
All in all, it’s not the worst compromise. The loss of the ferry interchange is disappointing, but I suspect it was poorly used anyway. Through Leichhardt, peak hour and evening riders will suffer a 3 minute penalty due to the loss of the 444. Daytime riders will enjoy a 5 minute quicker journey thanks to the removal of ‘the loop’. The thing is though, everyone could enjoy a quicker journey by removing the unnecessary deviation to Marketplace. A high frequency bus corridor down Marion Street already connects Marketplace to Norton St and the light rail. All someone wanting to get from the 445 route on Norton Street to Marketplace would have to do is get off at Leichhardt Town Hall and take a 370, 436, 438 or 439 down the hill.
Perhaps it’s a gesture to Sydneysiders’ disinclination towards interchanging. It harks back to a less reliable age; a time of costly double dipping of traveltens, a time before metrobuses, opal cards and real time bus tracking.
The inclusion of the 447 is an interesting one and I’ll be keen to see how it goes. The route has an extremely limited function, taking residents of a small part of Lilyfield to Marketplace. It seems that the same residents that managed to keep the 445 deviation in 2009 have secured themselves a direct hourly service. At least now it operates in its own ecosystem and doesn’t impact on the operation of the 445.
With hourly frequency and operating only in daylight hours the 447 isn’t exactly a bus we choose to take. Then again with the 370, 445 and light rail all running frequent nearby services, it’s not a bus that anyone will have to take either. As far as pleasing constituents while minimising the impact on the rest of the transport system, I guess it does the job.
For older and less mobile people one seat rides from home to local destinations are going to be favourable. But at what price? Clearly we can’t have frequent services connecting everyone’s house to everywhere they might need to go. On-demand transport has a role to play here, and Transport for NSW are experimenting enthusiastically.
Interestingly the December 2nd timetable changes largely sought to encourage interchanging in the southern suburbs, so why not in Leichhardt?
Navigating Norton Street
The new 445 timetable simplifies operation by providing a single bus route that runs at a decent frequency all day with service continuing at night. Unfortunately it seems that Transport for NSW lack the confidence in riders’ willingness to interchange and so it suffers an unnecessary 3 minute detour.
Imagine you were trying to get from somewhere on the Inner West Line, say Ashfield, to Rozelle. The sad fact of the matter is that you’d probably just end up taking the train to Town Hall and taking a bus from there. This increases demand for busy CBD-bound services by funneling people unnecessarily through the city. A problem we’re currently in the process of building our way out of, at great expense. If you were driving or cycling on this route there’s no way you would go anywhere near the CBD.
Until our cross-town bus services run with the frequency, reliability and directness that our radial CBD services do; detouring to Central, Town Hall or Wynyard for a cross-town trip will remain de rigeur.
The Canterbury-Balmain corridor has been an important cross-town link for almost 100 years. It connects 2 train lines, 2 high frequency bus corridors, countless local bus routes, 2 light rail stations, a ferry wharf, two hospitals and an almost continual stream of shopping strips. The most recent timetable changes are an improvement in regards to ease of use and frequency, but adding a deviation for morning and evening riders is a step in the wrong direction. In order to be a bus we choose catch the 445 needs to be not only frequent, reliable and easy to use, but also direct.
