Work to begin on Northwest Rail Link

The recent state budget allocated $2.5 billion over 4 years for work on the Northwest Rail Link, including $314 million for the current 2011-12 year (mostly for land acquisitions). This will allow preliminary drilling along the proposed alignment, which will determine how and where the underground tunnels will be constructed. The project is still a number of years away from commencement of actual construction (the government is aiming to start on this by the end of 2015), with the final alignment and even the number/location of stations not yet finalised. Geotechnical work like this was done for the Parramatta to Epping Rail Line, Bondi Beach Extension, Northwest Metro, CBD Metro and Western Express, all of which were subsequently deferred (i.e. cancelled). So this is still not an indication that it’s definitely going to happen.

Technically, the final cost estimate has not even been come to yet. And based on previous experience with Sydney’s non-road transport projects, the amount is likely to only get bigger and bigger. In fact, it’s already happened. The Northwest Rail Link was costed at a very reasonable $360 million in 1998, blowing out to $6.7 billion in 2010 and most recently $8 billion in 2011. The 1998 figure was only for Epping to Castle Hill, which is one third the length and has a quarter of the stations of the current proposal, but was also entirely underground (whereas one third of the current route, between Norwest and Cudgegong Road, is above ground). It is also in 1998 dollars and should take inflation into account. But even factoring these things in, based on the 1998 cost estimate, the Northwest Rail Link should have a price tag of around $1.5 billion, not $8 billion.

History of Cityrail: Circular Quay (1956)

John Bradfield’s plan for Sydney’s underground rail lines through the city included a Harbour Crossing, a City Circle line and an Eastern Suburbs line. The first was completed with the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932, but the Great Depression and World War 2 put the others on hold until after Bradfield’s death. The rise of the motor car after World War 2 meant these other two lines were not completed till 1956 and 1979 respectively. The City Circle was actually mostly completed in the early 30s, with Town Hall/Wynyard on the Western end of the CBD and Museum/St James on the Eastern End. Eventually, these were united in 1956 with the construction of Circular Quay Station.

Circular Quay in 1908. (Source: The Sydney Tram - a pictorial review, Howard R. Clark, 1988)

Circular Quay in 1923. (Source: The Sydney Tram - a pictorial review, Howard R. Clark, 1988)

Before this, Circular Quay was a significant interchange between ferries (it was and still is the major ferry terminus in Sydney) and trams. This can be seen in the photos above. The state government had been phasing out trams in the 1940s and 50s, replacing them with buses, the final tram running from Circular Quay down Anzac Parade to La Perouse in 1961, only 5 years after Circular Quay Station was completed. You can see footage of this last tram in the video below. The removal of trams from Sydney’s streets is regretted by many today, particularly by those pushing for their return, but it did have one benefit in this case. Bennelong Point, on the Eastern end of Circular Quay, was used as a tram shed up until 1961. Now a vacant lot, it was decided to build a great cultural icon there in place of the old tram sheds. The result was the Sydney Opera House. Should trams ever return to Sydney, I highly doubt that the Opera House will make way for the tram shed that used to be there.

The Cahill Expressway was later built over Circular Quay Station, allowing cars travelling Southbound on the Harbour Bridge to bypass the CBD when travelling to its Eastern end. There have been proposals to move the Cahill Expressway underground in order to reclaim it as public space (such as this proposal) or a bus interchange (to relieve the struggling Wynyard bus interchange).

Today, Circular Quay is the only station on the Cityrail network (to my knowledge) that provide free wifi. Ironically, the ferries (which are located right next to the station, and whose wifi you could probably connect to from within the station) also have free wifi, and from what I hear provide a much better connection.

Light rail operator: Delay unnecessary

Following the recent government announcement of an 18 month delay to the light rail extension to Dulwich Hill, reports have emerged that the private operator of the light rail, Metro Transport Sydney (MTS), believes that the extension could be completed within a year for less than the government’s estimate of $170 million.

At this rate, the Gold Coast’s planned 13km light rail will be ready before Sydney’s extension. This is despite the Gold Coast project being over twice as long and having to go through existing streets, rather than being entirely on a previous rail line like Sydney. Even their government propaganda is better than what we get in Sydney:

History of Cityrail: Cronulla Line (1939)

Rail to Cronulla dates back to 1911, when a steam tram line between Sutherland and Cronulla opened for passenger service. This single track service operated until 1931.

This picture shows one of the Sutherland to Cronulla steam trams, taken in the 1920s in Sutherland. (Source: Wikipedia)

Construction on the current heavy rail line began in 1936 and was completed in 1939. As with all new suburban lines since electrification was begun, this line was electric from day 1. Like the tram line before it, this was also a single track line, with passing loops at Gymea and Caringbah. It would eventually be extended to dual track, first between Gymea and Caringbah in 1985, and then the rest of the line in 2010 as part of Cityrail’s Clearways project.

Interestingly, Cronulla station itself retains only a single platform, but one that has capacity for 2 trains. One half of the platform is designated as platform 1 and the other half designated as platform 2. It is designed so that trains can arrive and depart from each of these two “platforms” independently of each other. This is unique to Cronulla station in the suburban cityrail network.

New transport plan for Sydney

The new Liberal government recently announced that they would be reviewing the state transport plan. It’s probably worth quickly going over the existing transport plan and those that preceded it. The previous Labor government produced transport plans in 1998 (Action for Transport 2010), 2005 (City of Cities: A Plan for Sydney’s Future) and 2010 (Connecting the City of Cities). The first was a 12 year plan (with proposals for 3 train lines post-2010), while the next two were 25 year plans.

The NSW Government released this plan in 1998. All the road proposals were constructed, yet only a third of the public transport ones were. (Source: NSW Government)

The plans themselves were actually quite good, particularly the first in 1998. The problem was implementing them. For example, the first plan in 1998 had 16 proposals for public transport and 5 for new freeways. Of those 21 goals, it achieved 2.5/7 busways (the Parramatta to Liverpool T-Way, theParramatta to Rouse Hill T-Way, and half the Blacktown to Castle Hill T-Way), 1.5/8 rail lines (the Airport Line and half the Parramatta to Chatswood Line), 1/1 light rail lines (the extension to Lilyfield) but 5/5 new freeways (the Eastern Distributor, M2, Cross City Tunnel, Lane Cove Tunnel, and M7). In other words, it built as many road projects as public transport ones, despite proposing over 3 times as many public transport projects as road ones.

By 2010, the government’s transport plan looked like this. (Source: NSW Government)

As I mentioned in my post on the Dulwich Hill Light Rail update, the RTA and NSW Treasury have jointly worked to torpedo many of these projects in the past. They have done this by over-inflating the price and focusing on roads at the expense of public transport.

Going back to the new transport plan. The key thing here is not how many or even how good the government’s transport plan is. The 1998 plan was a good one, and even the plan to build an independent network of metros which the Iemma and Rees governments briefly considered would be better than what we have now. As long as something is actually delivered at the end of it all, not just a plan. The new Liberal government has eliminated the RTA, which will hopefully get rid of one road block to improved public transport (no pun intended). But I’m still not holding my breath on this.

History of Cityrail: Rosehill Electrification (1936)

The bulk of the Cityrail suburban network had been electrified by the time the Harbour Bridge was opened in 1932.  However, complete electrification would take a further 59 years (edit: thanks to Jim for pointing out my typo), occurring in bits an pieces with about one line being electrified every 10 years.

The two tracks just North of the Rosehill Station can be seen here. The track on the left continues North to Camellia Station, just past the bridge. The track on the right veers right and continues East, parallel to the bridge that can be seen here. (Source: Author)

The next line to be electrified was the Carlingford Line. However, this happened in two stages: Clyde to Rosehill in 1936, then Rosehill to Carlingford (and Rosehill to Sandown) in 1959. I will cover the rest of the Carlingford Line as part of the 1959 electrification post. The line has dual tracks between Clyde and Rosehill, after which a single track continued North to Carlingford and another went East to Sandown through the industrial park. The first stage of electrification allowed electric trains to be run up to Rosehill station, which is adjacent to the Rosehill Racecourse, rather than having passengers have to take a steam train.

The Sandown Line and its 4 stations, used mostly by the workers along Grand Avenue in Camellia, would eventually be closed to passenger trains in 1990. Today it is used as a freight line, serving the warehouses and distribution centres. This portion of track has a level crossing, and there is usually a freight train that goes through there daily at around 6PM. If you happen to be driving along there at that hour, you can get stuck for about 20 minutes waiting for the freight train to pass. I know this from personal experience.

The tracks on the old Sandown Line cross Grand Avenue from North to South. The Shell oil refinery can be seen in the distance, as can some rail cars on the left used for transporting oil. I have been stuck behind a slow moving freight train using this crossing on more than one occasion. (Source: Author)

Post Script: Jim points out two things in the comments below. One is that Richmond was not electrified until 1991, making the period 59 year. I made a calculation error in working out the number of years between 1932 to 1991 and wrote down 49 years by mistake. This has now been corrected. The other is that as of 2010, freight trains no longer use the Sandown Line. I’ll have to take Jim at his word, though I will say that the last time I saw one on it was in mid 2009, which is consistent with what he says.

Light rail extension delayed till 2014

The 5.5km extension of Sydney’s existing light rail line from the current terminus at Lilyfield to Dulwich Hill was originally announced by the former Labor government in early 2010. With planning approval received in February 2011, it was expected to be completed in 18 months, which meant roughly by the end of 2012, and at a cost of $120m. The extension was announced after plans to build the CBD-Rozelle Metro (a shortened version of the originally proposed Northwest Metro) were abandoned.

This extension would go along the disused goods line between Lilyfield and Dulwich Hill, and require new tracks (which have by now already been laid), overhead wires, signaling and platforms, but otherwise the entire path was already reserved and ready to go. As far as transport projects go, this should be a piece of cake.

The existing light rail line is shown in dark green, with the proposed extension in light green. Also shown (in blue) is an early planned route for a CBD extension between Central and Circular Quay via Barangaroo. Source: Sydney Architecture

However, recent news indicates that the timetable has doubled to 3 years (i.e. 2014) and the cost ballooned to $176m, almost one and a half times the original estimate. In fact, that means that the cost per kilometer for this project is now $32m.

For something where there are no land purchases and no tunneling, it is beyond outrageous that it would take this long and cost that much. Yet these sorts of cost and timetable blowouts for transport projects have become so common in NSW that they are almost to be expected. Gavin Gatenby of Eco Transit wrote an article for Crickey in 2009 in which he explained why rail projects in NSW cost 3 times more than they should.

To give you a comparison, the Mandurah Line in Perth (a 72km long heavy rail line) cost $1.22bn or less than $17m/km. That’s almost half what NSW will be paying for light rail. Not only that, but Perth’s Mandurah Line took less than 4 years to build (despite delays of its own), which means construction at a rate of over 1.5km/month, compared to the 150m/month for the light rail. That is 10 times slower!

I’m not certain as to why this delay and cost blow-out has occurred. Perhaps it’s due to the reorganisation of the transport department or maybe because these new figures came from the state treasury. Both the treasury and RTA have been known to discourage public transport projects in the past, preferring the government to focus on roads instead. If this was the reason again this time, I would not be surprised.

For more on recent transport construction projects in Australia over the last decade, Transport Textbook did a great piece on the 10 most expensive projects which I highly recommend.

History of Cityrail: Introduction (1855-1932)

I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the Cityrail network recently, as part of my research on planned future extensions. I also got to see it all as part of my Cityrail Challenge. In doing so, I started learning a bit about the history of the Cityrail network and have decided to start an ongoing series entitled the “History of Cityrail”.

Today I will provide a brief introduction through to the completion of the Harbour Bridge in 1932, and then every second post will sequentially detail the changes to the nextwork through to the present day.

You can see the two rail tracks on the right which connected Central to North Sydney across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The two lanes on the left (one is now a bus lane) were initially tram lanes that were eventually be converted to heavy rail to take trains to the Northern Beaches. This line never eventuated, so when the tram lines were removed, they were converted to car lanes. (Source: Wikipedia)

The history of Cityrail dates back to 1855, when the line between Sydney (now between Central and Redfern stations) and Parramatta (now Granville) opened, today part of the Western Line. Over the following 70 years, additional lines were built going West from Granville to Penrith and Richmond (the Western Line), South from Granville to Campbelltown (the South Line), North from Strathfield to Hornsby (the Northern Line) and back South to North Sydney (the North Shore Line), South from Sydney to Sutherland (the Illawarra Line), and West from Sydney to Bankstown (the Bankstown Line).

The late 1920s to early 1930s saw an expansion of Sydney’s rail network in 2 significant ways. First, it began to be electrified, with electric trains replacing steam engines, allowing them to enter underground subway portions of track. This was critical for the second addition: a CBD subway system that would also link up Central Station on the Southern end of Sydney’s CBD to North Sydney on the North Shore Line via a new bridge over Sydney Harbour. During this time a rail line to the East Hills was also built, the first electric line to be built as electric from the start rather than converted.

In charge of this was engineer Dr John Bradfield, who is today famous for overseeing the design and construction of the Harbour Bridge and is considered as the father of Sydney’s modern rail system. The Great Depression and Second World War brought an end to his plans to continue building the network, which also included an Eastern Suburbs Railway (a shortened version of which eventually opened in 1979), a rail line going West through Rozelle before roughly following Parramatta Road and a rail line to the Northern Beaches that would use the 2 Eastern Lanes on the Harbour Bridge that were initially used by trams.

For anyone interested in historical maps of the Cityrail network, I highly recommend the Netzplan website. It has old maps of the network, both as originally designed and as they would look in today’s design.

Next time: the Clyde to Rosehill electrification.

How Car Share works

Despite having a car, I take public transport or walk for most of my journeys, using my car perhaps once or twice a week. Even then, about half of those trips could just as easily be made on public transport. I also have my car just in case I need convenient access to a vehicle for when I need to get to somewhere out of the way or at a strange hour when public transport is thin.

The problem is that my car costs me about $3,000 in fixed costs each year (rego, insurance, roadside assistance, maintenance, depreciation, finance, etc) before I even turn the ignition key. At $250 per month, that’s a big price to pay “just in case”. And this is before petrol!

The circle represents the area within a 10 minute walk and contains 7 cars. (Source: GoGet)

People in this situation have been turning to car share schemes as a solution. Sydney has GoGet and Melbourne has Flexicar, with Green Share Car as the third player. They have cars parked around the CBD and inner city which you hire by the hour, then return to where you got them. You can book one ahead of time, or you can just walk up and hire one that’s sitting there. Around my area in Randwick, there are 7 parked within a 10 minute walk of where I live. In busy areas, there are parking bays reserved specifically for shared cars, meaning you always know where it will be because they get priority.

Cost is around $5-$10 per hour, with petrol included. There are also sometimes additional costs per kilometre (30c to 35c) and a monthly subscription fee ($10-$30). For the occasional car user, like myself, this ends up being much cheaper than owning a car outright that sits there unused for 95% of the time.

By allowing multiple people to effectively just own and share the same vehicle, valuable on-street or garaged parking is conserved. The City of Sydney has now mandated that any new residential apartment buildings contain a certain number of parking spaces for share cars within the building’s parking lot. The City of Sydney estimates that it has kept 800 cars off the streets, either because people have deferred a car purchase or sold their existing car.

It’s also useful for a family that has a car and wants to buy a second car (one for mum and one for dad), when really all they need is occasional access to a second car.

GoGet cars are identifiable by the orange driver’s side rear view mirror. Each has a name, to make them easily identified, this one is called “Liliana”. (Source: author)

However, these car share schemes aren’t charities, they are for profit companies. And this has led to some controversy recently as they tend to receive free reserved parking bays from local councils in which to park their cars. In Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, a Waverly Council counsellor has called for GoGet to be charged for these spaces, arguing that the company should not be profiting from the council. While I can empathise with this point of view, I would argue that the benefit of widespread car share schemes in reducing on-street parking and encouraging public transport instead of driving mean that the costs do outweigh the benefits for rate payers.

So what do you think? Should share cars get free parking spaces to maximise benefit to residents or is it just inflating the profits of private companies that would otherwise have paid?

Point to point vs zonal ticketing

Sydney may be introducing integrated ticketing with its long awaited electronic ticketing system, but that’s a different concept to integrated fares. Integrated ticketing means that you can travel everywhere, on different modes of transport, with only a single ticket. Integrated fares is when you pay the same amount for traveling from A to B, regardless of how many modes of transport you use to do it.

For example, Sydney currently has integrated fares within the Cityrail train network. If I want to travel from Parramatta to Liverpool, then I pay the same price for a ticket, regardless of whether I take a direct train, or if I take a train to Granville and then change there for a train to Liverpool. But if it’s 2 buses, or a train and a bus, then currently I pay for the privilege of being inconvenienced. Not only that, but the cost of getting from one place to another is different depending on whether I catch a train, bus or ferry.

Integrated fares solve this problem. There are two basic types of integrated fare systems, distance and zonal.

Point to Point
Passengers pay a fare based on the total distance travelled, i.e. The distance between A and B. The mode of transport and the number of modes does not matter, only the distance. This is conceptually simple, and fits in easily with Sydney’s current fare system, which is primarily a distance based one.

Sydney Buses uses a point to point system for determining fares. Each route is broken down into sections, and the number of sections you travel through determines the fare. (Source: TransportInfo)

Tagging off from one leg and then tagging on to another one within a short period (say within one hour) would be considered a continuation of the same journey. Transport interchanges in some cities, such as Perth or Zurich, have bus stops located within train station gated areas, thus speeding up the time it takes to change from one mode of transport to another. This is possible as journeys there are considered continuous, regardless of the number of modes used.

The challenge comes from measuring the distance. With an electronic ticketing system, passengers must “tag on” at the start of each leg of their trip and “tag off” at the end. This already happens with trains where there are ticket gates, and at the start of bus trips. But if a passenger forgets to tag off, then they are charged the maximum fare. On buses, it can also cause delays from passengers having to tag off as they disembark. This is less of a problem at the terminus location of a bus, where the bulk of passengers tend to get off, as they would be charged the same whether they tagged off or not (it being the maximum fare already).

Recent newspaper reports suggest that this is the reason the previous government abandoned it’s T-Card project, as the bad press from passengers forgetting to tag off and being charged extra would bode poorly for them politically. This remains a problem, particularly since you could be charged extra and not even notice, given the electronic nature of the payment.

Zonal

The myMulti tickets are currently based on 3 zones in Sydney, radiating outwards from the CBD. A myMulti ticket allows unlimited travel within the zones it covers on all modes of transport. (Source: TransportInfo)

Sydney currently uses a very limited zonal fare system for its myMulti tickets. Sydney is split up into 3 different zones, with unlimited travel allowed in certain areas depending on which ticket you purchase.

It’s currently far from perfect, for two main reasons. First, you cannot buy a ticket covering a single zone unless it also covers any other zones closer to the CBD. This is fine if you want just a myMulti1 to travel thorough the inner city or a myMulti2 if you want to travel from say Epping to the Easter Suburbs. But if you wanted to go from Castle Hill to Liverpool via Parramatta (all within Zone 2), then you must buy a myMulti2 (which covers both zones 1 and 2), despite the fact that you are remaining in a single zone. Second, myMulti tickets are only available as weeklies or longer. There is technically a daily myMulti ticket, but it is only available for all three zones and at $20 is quite expensive.

Melbourne currently uses a zonal system, using 2 zones, one for the CBD and inner city, the other for the outer suburbs. There is a buffer zone inbetween, so anyone travelling a short distance that would otherwise cross the zonal boundary doesn’t cop a big hit. Commuters pay either for Zone 1, Zone 2 or Zones 1+2.  You have 2 hours of unlimited travel (or 3 hours for Zones 1+2), the equivalent of a single. Instead of a return, you receive unlimited travel for the full day.

Melbourne’s train map showing the two zones. Yellow is Zone 1, blue is Zone 2. The bit between the two that contains both blue and yellow is the buffer zone where both Zone 1 and Zone 2 tickets are valid. The tram network is contained entirely within Zone 1. (Source: Metlink Melbourne)

The easiest way to implement a zonal system in Sydney would be to use the 3 zones currently in place. Commuters remaining in a single zone would only need to pay for a single zone, with buffer areas between zones to avoid the problems raised in the previous paragraph. The big losers would be users of short bus trips, as the shortest trip would be an entire zone. However, as most people who take short trips are doing so on the back of another trip (which means the second, shorter trip would already be paid for) or are making a quick return trip (in which case the return journey could be made before the 2 hours expire).

It appears that the current plan is a point to point method for calculating fares. While both the point to point and zonal methods have problems, either would be better than the antiquated system currently in place.