Harbour crossing back on track

The plan will reassert the importance of another rail
crossing for the harbour, which has been long talked about but absent from
government policy since 2008.

Several sources have told the Herald a
cross-government committee working on Sydney’s next train plan has agreed it
would not be worth trying to avoid building another harbour crossing by
upgrading technology on the existing rail corridor.

<iframe id=dcAd-1-3 height=250 marginheight=0
src=”http://platform.twitter.com/widgets/hub.html” frameborder=0 width=300
allowTransparency marginwidth=0 scrolling=no>
</iframe>

The Transport Minister, Gladys Berejiklian, is understood to
have accepted the advice and plans for a harbour rail link will form the basis
of the O’Farrell government’s first substantial transport document.

The crossing is needed because of the train system’s natural
patronage growth and the construction of the North West Rail Link, which will
bring tens of thousands of extra commuters and possibly more than eight trains
an hour onto the network.

Agreement on the need for a new crossing would confirm the
death of Labor’s last train plan, which was to build a ”city relief line”
underground from Redfern to Wynyard to provide extra capacity on the Western
Line.

Instead the draft masterplan will reopen a debate about how
another crossing should make its way through the city – either under Sussex
Street or under Pitt Street – and how it should connect to the rest of the
network south of Central – either to the Western Line or the Illawarra Line.

Ms Berejiklian would not say whether a decision had been
made. “As our submission to Infrastructure Australia last year made clear,
a second harbour crossing is one option being considered by Transport for NSW
in order to increase rail capacity into the CBD to 2040 and beyond,” she said.

An urgent need for a second crossing was identified in the
long-term plan of the former NSW rail supremo Ron Christie in 2001. When that
report was leaked in 2002, the transport minister, Carl Scully, agreed the
crossing was needed, but not for two decades.

The crossing remained alive as government policy in Bob
Carr’s 2005 transport plan, but was shelved when his successor as premier,
Morris Iemma, decided to build separate metro-style lines in 2008.

A second crossing was also a central recommendation of the Herald’s independent transport inquiry in 2009 and
2010, but it has been vigorously resisted by elements within NSW Treasury
because of its vast cost.

In their November submission to Infrastructure Australia,
Transport for NSW officials listed seven options for adding capacity to the
city’s train system within the next two decades.

Four included a second harbour rail link, while three
attempted to avoid construction of the extra link by dramatically increasing
capacity across the Harbour Bridge and through the CBD using technological
upgrades and different types of trains.

The options that did not include a second crossing focused
on converting the network to single-deck, higher-frequency trains that took
less time to stop at stations. But these would also require significant
upgrades at CBD stations and, one source said, the potential closure of Wynyard
and Town Hall for between six months and two years.

In a separate development yesterday, a round table into the
potential expansion of light rail from the city into the eastern suburbs heard
it would cost more than $1 billion.

The round table, chaired by the deputy director-general of
Transport for NSW, Chris Lock, included the federal MP Malcolm Turnbull,
business representatives, the University of NSW, the Sydney Cricket and Sports
Ground Trust and local councils. Sources at the discussion said there was
strong support for the expansion of the tram system.

Source: www.smh.com.au/nsw/harbour-crossing-back-on-track-20120601-1zn5c.html