A GOVERNMENT plan to make Macquarie Park the fourth-largest CBD in Australia, behind Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, may be undermined by the NSW cabinet's decision to dump the North West Rail Link.
Billions of dollars are being spent in turning the growing area into Australia's answer to Silicon Valley, with technology businesses setting up next door to an expanding Macquarie University.
The key to the corridor's development is the Epping to Chatswood Rail Line, which will offer 30-minute train journeys into the Sydney CBD.
But only four trains an hour will service the $2.3 billion train line in the foreseeable future because the Government dumped its promised CityRail extension to Rouse Hill, converting it into an independent metro line.
A masterplan for the area just released by Ryde City Council shows it had expected to shift 40 per cent of local journeys on to public transport.
"The Epping to Chatswood Rail Line, which will have two stations within Macquarie Park … will have the capacity to carry some 23,400 commuters in the one hour peak (subject to the completion of the North West Rail Link from Epping to Rouse Hill and the CBD Rail Link from Chatswood to Epping)," the document reads.
But now there will only be enough trains to transport a combined 8000 commuters in both directions in the one-hour peak.
It could be a particularly pressing problem for the Transport Minister, John Watkins, because the business and technology area is within his own electorate of Ryde.
Yesterday he told the Herald that more trains would be added as needed.
While there is capacity for up to 20 trains an hour through Macquarie Park, there is insufficient room on the network to send more than four trains an hour down the new line from Hornsby.
Under the Government's former rail plan the extra trains would have come from Rouse Hill via the North West Rail Link, boosting the number of trains to as many as 16 an hour.
Since 2002, Ryde council has been planning for growth because the State Government had placed Macquarie Park at the heart of its employment strategy.
"If the anticipated growth in Macquarie Park is achieved, it will become the fourth-largest business district in Australia by the mid-21st century, larger than the CBDs of Adelaide or Perth," the masterplan reads.
Macquarie University is also pressing ahead with a large-scale campus expansion.
"The rail mode is expected to attract between 21 and 23 per cent of the trips depending on the time of day," says the university's concept plan.
"There will be up to eight trains an hour servicing the stations in the Macquarie Park area. This has the potential to be increased further if the North West Rail Link from Epping to Castle Hill and Rouse Hill is constructed.
"This link will increase the service frequency at Macquarie Park stations by running trains direct from Rouse Hill to Sydney CBD via Macquarie Park."
Optus has moved 6000 of its 10,000-strong national workforce to the suburb, with plans for 40 per cent of its employees to travel by public transport.
This equates to almost 2500 people, most of whom will be travelling in the morning peak. If just half of these people switch to the train when the line opens next year, it could soak up 25 per cent of the line's citybound capacity.
Mr Watkins said extra services would be added as required.
-Linton Besser Transport Reporter
Showing posts with label North West Metro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label North West Metro. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Macquarie Park rail links don't add up
From the SMH 17/6/2008:
Friday, May 16, 2008
Town Hall station cops some flack.
From SMH on Tues 13 May:
It's hell down here, and the devil has a microphone
I heard him before I saw him - a young man with hands on his ears standing still amid the churning, lurching chaos that is platform one at Town Hall station. "Can you please just shut up. Christ. Just shut up."
It turned out I was not the only one being driven mad by the lecturing, hectoring voice on the platform speakers, the latest horror to confront commuters.
Town Hall at peak hour is a dirty, dangerously overcrowded, stifling hot environment that looks and feels like an accident waiting to happen. But now, in what is presumably an effort to give the impression that something is being done, the captive commuters squashed on the platforms are lectured on safety, crowding, and train-travel etiquette by some insufferable Big Brother.
"Can that man sitting on the steps please move," the invisible voice booms.
Then louder. "That man on the steps who is blocking the way. Please move."
Then, infuriated: "You, that man in the brown overcoat, there's no reason to block the steps. You are holding up people who want to use the stairs."
Finally, the tired commuter who has been held up to us all as the cause of our mutual subterranean unhappiness, realises he has been made the scapegoat. The woes of Town Hall station are all his fault. He slinks off to join the other miserable but upright commuters.
It does not stop there. "The all-stations train to Bankstown is now at Circular Quay … the train should be here in about two minutes. So just be patient," the voice booms. We know that. It says so on the board.
"Can passengers please stay behind the yellow line while the train approaches." I would gladly do so if a three-person deep crowd was not exploding behind me.
"Those people crowding the train doors - you are a danger to yourselves as well as to others." No, the real danger here is that nothing has been done to upgrade this station to cater for today's crowds. But on it goes. The voice is relentless, monotonous and narky.
"We all want to get home, and pushing and shoving won't make things happen more quickly."
We don't know what's good for us, is the message, and CityRail is going to make sure we understand. If there was any real concern about overcrowding at Town Hall station, designed in 1916, then new exits would be created. It can take an eternity in peak hour just to get on the escalator from the bowels of the station. A fire down there would be … well, it's not worth thinking about.
If there was any concern about the risk of commuters falling from platforms the station would be redesigned so those waiting were not forced on top of one another. And if there was any thought at all about commuter comfort there would be more than just token seating (I, too, have had to sit on the stairs - when eight months' pregnant) and a real attempt to fix the stifling conditions.
In 2005, when RailCorp announced a multi-million-dollar plan to upgrade Town Hall, the tender package warned that the station was a serious danger to the public. Last month the Herald revealed that a report by Parsons Brinckerhoff found the station "cannot currently be fully evacuated in the morning and evening peaks within times stipulated by [the fire safety standard]".
RailCorp said a widening of the main concourse and ticket barrier expansion had improved access, but the projected commuter growth remained unaccounted for. Within eight years 168,000 people would pass through the station each day, up from about 140,000 now. By 2021 there will be 178,000.
For more than 10 years I have used the station to get to work, but it is only this year that have had to do so in peak hour. In that time I have had trouble breathing in sauna-like conditions; had to tiptoe around pools of blood and been caught on overcrowded trains where people were forced to travel to the next stop while jammed helplessly against the doors. Many times I have thought how easy it would be to fall off the narrow platforms, or to be accidentally pushed off. Just one person losing their footing would do it or - perhaps more likely - just one person losing their mind.
If there was any concern about the risk of commuters falling from platforms the station would be redesigned so those waiting were not forced on top of one another. And if there was any thought at all about commuter comfort there would be more than just token seating (I, too, have had to sit on the stairs - when eight months' pregnant) and a real attempt to fix the stifling conditions.
In 2005, when RailCorp announced a multi-million-dollar plan to upgrade Town Hall, the tender package warned that the station was a serious danger to the public. Last month the Herald revealed that a report by Parsons Brinckerhoff found the station "cannot currently be fully evacuated in the morning and evening peaks within times stipulated by [the fire safety standard]".
RailCorp said a widening of the main concourse and ticket barrier expansion had improved access, but the projected commuter growth remained unaccounted for. Within eight years 168,000 people would pass through the station each day, up from about 140,000 now. By 2021 there will be 178,000.
For more than 10 years I have used the station to get to work, but it is only this year that have had to do so in peak hour. In that time I have had trouble breathing in sauna-like conditions; had to tiptoe around pools of blood and been caught on overcrowded trains where people were forced to travel to the next stop while jammed helplessly against the doors. Many times I have thought how easy it would be to fall off the narrow platforms, or to be accidentally pushed off. Just one person losing their footing would do it or - perhaps more likely - just one person losing their mind.
.
Summarises the situation pretty well. The previously proposed 2nd harbour crossing and the new line between Chatswood and Redfern, with its new station at Park/Pitt St near Town Hall is desperately needed. All of this has now been cancelled and replaced with a metro from the North West to St James via Wynyard, which probably won't do a lot to relieve Town Hall.
It's hell down here, and the devil has a microphone
I heard him before I saw him - a young man with hands on his ears standing still amid the churning, lurching chaos that is platform one at Town Hall station. "Can you please just shut up. Christ. Just shut up."
It turned out I was not the only one being driven mad by the lecturing, hectoring voice on the platform speakers, the latest horror to confront commuters.
Town Hall at peak hour is a dirty, dangerously overcrowded, stifling hot environment that looks and feels like an accident waiting to happen. But now, in what is presumably an effort to give the impression that something is being done, the captive commuters squashed on the platforms are lectured on safety, crowding, and train-travel etiquette by some insufferable Big Brother.
"Can that man sitting on the steps please move," the invisible voice booms.
Then louder. "That man on the steps who is blocking the way. Please move."
Then, infuriated: "You, that man in the brown overcoat, there's no reason to block the steps. You are holding up people who want to use the stairs."
Finally, the tired commuter who has been held up to us all as the cause of our mutual subterranean unhappiness, realises he has been made the scapegoat. The woes of Town Hall station are all his fault. He slinks off to join the other miserable but upright commuters.
It does not stop there. "The all-stations train to Bankstown is now at Circular Quay … the train should be here in about two minutes. So just be patient," the voice booms. We know that. It says so on the board.
"Can passengers please stay behind the yellow line while the train approaches." I would gladly do so if a three-person deep crowd was not exploding behind me.
"Those people crowding the train doors - you are a danger to yourselves as well as to others." No, the real danger here is that nothing has been done to upgrade this station to cater for today's crowds. But on it goes. The voice is relentless, monotonous and narky.
"We all want to get home, and pushing and shoving won't make things happen more quickly."
We don't know what's good for us, is the message, and CityRail is going to make sure we understand. If there was any real concern about overcrowding at Town Hall station, designed in 1916, then new exits would be created. It can take an eternity in peak hour just to get on the escalator from the bowels of the station. A fire down there would be … well, it's not worth thinking about.
If there was any concern about the risk of commuters falling from platforms the station would be redesigned so those waiting were not forced on top of one another. And if there was any thought at all about commuter comfort there would be more than just token seating (I, too, have had to sit on the stairs - when eight months' pregnant) and a real attempt to fix the stifling conditions.
In 2005, when RailCorp announced a multi-million-dollar plan to upgrade Town Hall, the tender package warned that the station was a serious danger to the public. Last month the Herald revealed that a report by Parsons Brinckerhoff found the station "cannot currently be fully evacuated in the morning and evening peaks within times stipulated by [the fire safety standard]".
RailCorp said a widening of the main concourse and ticket barrier expansion had improved access, but the projected commuter growth remained unaccounted for. Within eight years 168,000 people would pass through the station each day, up from about 140,000 now. By 2021 there will be 178,000.
For more than 10 years I have used the station to get to work, but it is only this year that have had to do so in peak hour. In that time I have had trouble breathing in sauna-like conditions; had to tiptoe around pools of blood and been caught on overcrowded trains where people were forced to travel to the next stop while jammed helplessly against the doors. Many times I have thought how easy it would be to fall off the narrow platforms, or to be accidentally pushed off. Just one person losing their footing would do it or - perhaps more likely - just one person losing their mind.
If there was any concern about the risk of commuters falling from platforms the station would be redesigned so those waiting were not forced on top of one another. And if there was any thought at all about commuter comfort there would be more than just token seating (I, too, have had to sit on the stairs - when eight months' pregnant) and a real attempt to fix the stifling conditions.
In 2005, when RailCorp announced a multi-million-dollar plan to upgrade Town Hall, the tender package warned that the station was a serious danger to the public. Last month the Herald revealed that a report by Parsons Brinckerhoff found the station "cannot currently be fully evacuated in the morning and evening peaks within times stipulated by [the fire safety standard]".
RailCorp said a widening of the main concourse and ticket barrier expansion had improved access, but the projected commuter growth remained unaccounted for. Within eight years 168,000 people would pass through the station each day, up from about 140,000 now. By 2021 there will be 178,000.
For more than 10 years I have used the station to get to work, but it is only this year that have had to do so in peak hour. In that time I have had trouble breathing in sauna-like conditions; had to tiptoe around pools of blood and been caught on overcrowded trains where people were forced to travel to the next stop while jammed helplessly against the doors. Many times I have thought how easy it would be to fall off the narrow platforms, or to be accidentally pushed off. Just one person losing their footing would do it or - perhaps more likely - just one person losing their mind.
.
Summarises the situation pretty well. The previously proposed 2nd harbour crossing and the new line between Chatswood and Redfern, with its new station at Park/Pitt St near Town Hall is desperately needed. All of this has now been cancelled and replaced with a metro from the North West to St James via Wynyard, which probably won't do a lot to relieve Town Hall.
Quakers Hill- Vineyard duplication
The Transport Infrastructure Development Corporation (TIDC) invited expressions of interest for the work associated with this duplication of part of the Richmond Line, as part of the Clearways programme. An industry briefing on 28 February outlined more details of the proposal, due to be completed in 2012. It looks as though Schofields and Vineyard will be completely rebuilt, with the provision of 3 platforms at Vineyard. Interestingly this was to be the point where the North West Rail Link (NWRL) was to perhaps join the Richmond Line at some future date, although with the NWRL morphing into the North West Metro, it seems unlikely that this will ever happen. Is 3 platforms at Vineyard now something of an overkill? Are they really going to terminate services at Vineyard? Anyway, the full briefing is at http://www.tidc.nsw.gov.au/ViewSite.aspx?PageID=392, with line maps and some site photos.
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