In big news for Sydney’s commuters, the projected opening for Sydney Metro – the largest public transport project in Australia – has been stopped in its tracks (ahem). After years of underground construction, the super-fast train line running from Chatswood to Bankstown reached a major milestone back in June – with Transport for NSW bookmarking Sunday, August 4 (that’s this Sunday) as the opening date. The understanding was that – subject to approval by the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator and successful completion of all the pre-opening tests and trials – all six stations on the City and Southwest line would start welcoming passengers this coming weekend. As of today, that’s not the case; the NSW government has announced that the opening date has been shelved, with a new projected date yet to be announced.
The announcement of the delayed opening comes just after the fences came down around one of the new stations – a shiny new waterfront transport hub at Barangaroo, which will take Sydneysiders under the harbour to North Sydney's new Victoria Cross Station in just three minutes, and to the mega metro superhub at Martin Place in two minutes. Unfortunately, Barangaroo commuters will need to wait to have access to those super-fast journey times, with Transport Minister Jo Haylen explaining “it will be worth it when passengers can jump on board but we do need a little longer to work through our processes”.
The processes the Minister is referring to include safety tests and trial scenarios on the 45 trains set to run beneath the city. According to Transport for NSW, more than 11,000 hours of testing has already been carried out across the new subterranean train line, but the speedy system isn’t quite safe enough to start welcoming the public aboard.
At a doorstop at Martin Place today, Transport Minister Jo Haylen explained, “We do need a little more time for the safety regulator to give us the final tick of approval. I’ve always said that safety and reliability comes first. And I’m not in the business of putting additional pressure on the national safety regulator.”
Once the safety approvals are received, the government will nominate a new opening date, with Transport Minister Jo Haylen saying “it won’t be long”.
Although there’s no new date for the opening at this stage, the other changes to Sydney’s transport network that were planned to coincide with the Metro launch will go ahead from Sunday – you can learn more about those over here.
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