Transportation Planning Casebook/Sydney Metro (CBD and Southwest)

Summary

Video Link - Introduction to Sydney Metro

Sydney metro is an automated rapid transit system and is Australia’s biggest public transport project. It is broken into 3 stages of construction;


 * Stage 1: Northwest ($8.3 billion)
 * Stage 2: CBD and Southwest ($11.5-12.5 billion)
 * Stage 3: West (estimated $10 billion)

This wikibooks page will focus on stage 2.

The CBD and Southwest Metro involves 30 km of metro rail starting from Chatswood in the Northshore, under the Sydney Harbour to Sydenham in the CBD, finishing out southwest in Bankstown. New metro stations will be created between Chatswood and Sydenham, while the 11 existing stations between Sydenham and Bankstown will be upgraded to account for the new metro. The metro is expected to clear the public transport bottleneck by increasing the number of trains per hour from 120 to 200, which can account for 100,000 additional passengers. In regards to the Southwest, this equates to 15 trains per hour for Bankstown station or 1 train every 4 minutes during peak hour.

Annotated List of Actors Sydney Metro which was created by and is owned by Transport for NSW to manage the procurement, planning and delivery of the Sydney Metro network.

Other Actors include:


 * Community residents along the Sydney Metro corridor
 * Local councils located along the Sydney Metro corridor

Detailed List of Actors

WSP


 * Geophysical Testing
 * Marine borehole investigations
 * Mapped seabed levels using echo sounding/bathymetric data
 * Mapped seabed features using scan sonar
 * Mapped subsurface layers and assessed geological conditions using seismic reflection profiling
 * Mapped subsurface seismic velocity distribution to confirm depth of rock

CPB, John Holland and Ghella


 * Excavation of 15.5 km of twin tunnels using 5 TBMs
 * Construction of 57 cross passages between tunnels
 * Excavation of 6 underground metro stations
 * 1 crossover cavern to allow trains to cross from one track to another
 * Design and construct precast concrete segments to line the tunnels
 * Demolition and removal of existing buildings

Timeline of Events

Maps of Locations

Map of Sydney Metro (as a whole) and 3 stages;


 * Stage 1: Northwest
 * Stage 2: CBD and Southwest
 * Stage 3: West

(This wikibooks page focuses on the CBD and Southwest)

Comparison of depth of Sydney Metro (CBD and Southwest) line beneath Sydney Harbour and other tunnels in Sydney

Clear Identification of Policy Issues

There was significant backlash from Sydney's West, in particular the suburbs north of Bankstown, such as Berala, Regents Park and Chester Hill, which were some of the 9 stations that will lose direct trains towards the city, and would result in passengers having to interchange at Lidcombe/Bankstown. A submission report for the Sydenham - Bankstown metro indicated that 91% of submissions to the project opposed the metro. A 'Restore Inner West Line' protest rally for Public Transport was conducted on the 20th of October between 10-11am at Regents Park station where they stated they did not want the metro and wanted faster trains along the existing line instead.

The Labour party wanted to cancel the Southwest Metro, and instead focus on improving the existing Sydney Trains line by adding another $3 billion. They also wanted to focus fast-track construction of the West Metro by spending $8 billion. The Sydenham to Bankstown metro has been largely criticised by the unions who stated that it was "effectively privatising a state asset" since the metro would be privately operated.

Another issue for the community was how people would be transported during the 3–6 months of testing of the Southwest Metro. As of date, the proposed solution consists of providing commuters with 3 options;


 * 1) Temporary bus route stopping at all 11 affected stations
 * 2) Express bus route stopping at limited number of stations
 * 3) Buses from closed stations to T1 or T2 lines

Sydney Metro are currently undecided and require further feedback from the rest of community on what they prefer.

Other actions taken by Sydney Metro in order to increase community-metro communications involved the following;


 * Visited properties affected next to stations
 * Online surveys to gain feedback on alternative transport arrangements during construction period
 * Conducted community information displays and meetings with local councils, key stakeholders and government agencies
 * Talked to customers at stations and handed out flyers
 * Informed 70,000 properties of project updates

Additional Issues:

Noise and vibration is the most common issue from the communities, below is the noise and vibration monitoring results and analysis (listing from most severe to least severe)

Conclusion

The Sydney Metro was designed to combat the issue of maximum public transport capacity which was expected to be reached over the next few years. As of date the NSW government has won another term in government, and the project is expected to go ahead as planned. The government has initiated a lot of communication with community to minimise the negative feedbacks for the project. Overall it is going to address the increase in population and hence increase in public transport use. Therefore, this project is beneficial to the community.

Discussion Questions


 * 1) Do you think the 3 options of bus replacement is a good solution to the 6 months of metro testing? What other solutions are there?
 * 2) Why do you think the metro tracks were designed to be steeper and trains one story instead of two story?
 * 3) How else could Sydney Metro have approached the union problem?
 * 4) What alternatives are there to a metro?

Complete References of Cited (primary and secondary) Documents