The omnipresent election looms and Labor’s at it again. Be it state or federal, they’re tinkering at the edge of transport policy, sadly lacking in any big ideas of their own.
In southern Sydney Luke Foley (mere hours before he, errr, resigned) announced that state Labor won’t go ahead, if elected, with the F6 tunnel linking Kogarah to St Peters.
If the planned freeway seems half baked, it’s because it is. In reality the plan is a Liberal party attempt to get the controversial F6 started by stealth. Once the first section opens to the public they’ll be able to switch to the ‘missing link’ rhetoric so pervasive in Sydney’s transport planning and use that as a mandate to go from there.
It’s good to see the state opposition finally coming out against Sydney’s tangle of tunnels, albeit one election cycle too late. Sadly, and typically however, they lack any real vision of their own. The announcement is focused on what they won’t do, but is lacking in much detail. It all seems far too familiar to the last time we had a state labor government.
The F6 extension EIS is currently on display and open for public comment until December the 14th.
It’s not a real train station if it isn’t ringed with parking
Then on Monday, Anthony Albanese, Federal Opposition Transport Minister, announced that $16m of Labor’s $300m Park and Ride fund would be going to expanding the Leppington Station car park by 300 spaces. Some quick maths reveals that’s over $50,000 per car space to provide enough extra parking for 2 carriages worth of commuters each day. Labor’s focus on Park and Rides is typical of their compromised thinking on public transport. There’s no doubt Albo believes in the cause, but he’s also committed to the dated idea that there’s no way to get to decent public transport except to drive.
It’s unlikely you’ve visited Leppington station, but it’s pretty interesting. It’s a brand new 4 platform behemoth sitting in, what was until quite recently, paddocks.The service is good with a train every 15 minutes on the South Line and every 30 minutes on the Cumberland Line all day. That’s right, even off peak, Leppington sees 6 trains an hour. So what’s there? Well at the moment, basically nothing. The roads are being upgraded, there’s a cafe and a convenience store. No one lives within walking distance yet, although with the station already ringed by asphalt car parks I don’t see strong demand for access on foot in the future.
Asphalt as far as the eye car see. Leppington Station lacks anything much around it except parking. Source: Google maps.
The station is pretty well used. The area is in a construction boom and in the early morning it’s equally busy with tradies heading out as office workers heading in. By some accounts the 800 space car park is full by 8am, forcing commuters to try their luck on the grassy verge. On this issue, Albo had this to say:
“Many local commuters are made to walk along the side of the road back to their cars of an evening, with no footpaths and no lighting, hoping that they do not get hit by a car.”
Seems strange to me that faced with the problem of a lack of pedestrian amenity his best fix is to increase parking and induce more cars into the area. I guess local commuters will just have to continue to hope.
During the day the place quietens down a lot. I mean there’s nothing much there and with no available car parks the only way in or out would be on the bus. And the service is pretty bare bones. Four bus routes visit Leppington, two are throwaways; with a total of 11 daily departures between them (less on weekends). The other two buses head towards the housing estates to the south; the 841 to new subdivisions in Gledswood Hills and Gregory Hills (once an hour) and the 858 to Oran Park roughly every 30-40 minutes. Of course frequency is lower on weekends.
And if you plan on traveling after dark, don’t even bother thinking about using Leppington, unless you’ve driven there. Unlike the abundant late night transport in Albo’s Inner West electorate, the last bus from Leppington on a Saturday night leaves at twenty five past nine. If you’d been out to dinner in the City, you’d have to make sure to be on the platform at Central by 8:20 or you’d be enjoying a long cab ride home. Of course the trains will continue to run until 1am, but that’s only for the car owners enjoying unlimited free parking at the station. As for what the provision of over 1000 car spaces juxtaposed with a total dearth of buses after 9:30pm says about attitudes towards drink driving, well I’ll leave that to you.
It cost $1.8bn to build the Southwest Rail Link to Leppington. I can only imagine how much it costs to keep 6 trains an hour heading there. It’s great that we’re now realising that you can dodge a bullet down the track (pun intended) putting in infrastructure before housing. But failing to provide that last mile connection from the station to home means we’re really not making much use of it.