Sydney will soon be getting a “world-class” metro rail system to take commuters under Sydney Harbour, with NSW Premier Mike Baird yesterday revealing the six proposed metro stations. The first tunnel boring machine will be heading under the harbour before the end of 2018, aiming to help ease congestion on the Harbour Bridge and Harbour Tunnel during peak times.
So first off you’ll probably want to know if Stage 2 of the Sydney Metro project will take it near your house or workplace, so here are the six new stations that have been confirmed:
• Crows Nest located on the western fringe of Crows Nest village with access to the station via the corner of Clarke Street and Hume Street, and the corner of Pacific Highway and Oxley Street;
• Victoria Cross located in the northern section of North Sydney’s CBD. Access to the station would be via the eastern side of Miller Street between Berry Street and Mount Street;
• Barangaroo station will combine Sydney’s world-class metro rail system with the city’s new global business hub. It will be located at Barangaroo Central;
• Martin Place will be integrated with the existing suburban station underground between Castlereagh and Elizabeth streets. It will include a world-class subterranean rail interchange which means customers won’t need to go to the surface to change trains; and
• Pitt Street metro station will be located below Pitt and Castlereagh streets and north of Park St, servicing the southern CBD and the George St and Pitt St retail precincts.
• An underground station at Central linking to existing intercity and suburban rail services.
The NSW Government is also considering a metro station for either Waterloo or Sydney University, and a possible extension of the metro rail from Bankstown to Liverpool, cutting travel times and crowding on the existing Western Line and the South Line. This is added to the existing Stage 1 — the $8.3 billion Sydney Metro Northwest — which is currently under construction and already more than half-complete, with the first services expected to run in 2019.
“We’re wasting no time delivering Australia’s biggest public transport project,” Mr Baird said. “Sydney Metro will change Sydney forever – it will help boost capacity of our rail network by 100,000 people every hour, servicing our growing global city for generations to come.”
The Minister for Transport and Infrastructure Andrew Constance had this to add on the new project: “This new high capacity metro line will be able to move more people across the Harbour in the busiest hour of the peak than the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Harbour Tunnel combined,” he said. “Sydney Metro will deliver ‘turn up and go’ rail services with more than 65 kilometres of new metro rail on a standalone line.”
If your house is in the affected area then you will be contacted by Transport for NSW, with the community also having the opportunity to give their feedback on the metro plan towards the middle of next year. Stage 2 of Sydney Metro in the City and Southwest is expected to open in 2024.