Queensland’s premier, Anna Bligh, has indicated a new underground Metro for Brisbane and surrounding suburbs could be built by 2030.

Not to be outdone by Sydney’s CBD Metro fiasco, the premier has launched a vision for an underground light rail project linking Toowong, West End, the CBD, Newstead, Bowen Hills, Bulimba and Bowen Hills by 2030.

Queensland Rail is already midway through a $20 million feasibility study for an underground rail tunnel to replace the Merivale Rail Bridge at South Brisbane, which would allow extra trains to connect some new CBD underground stations by 2016.

But Ms Bligh said Brisbane’s Rapid Metro is beyond the cross river rail link – which is all heavy rail. She is talking about an underground metro system like you see in some of the great cities in the world, such as London.

She states that Brisbane needs an entirely new metro system just to support the CBD and will run completely separate from the heavy rail system already in place with further expansions in the pipeline.

“This is a new way of thinking about Brisbane that takes us to 2030.”

The rationale behind the vision is the indication that twice as many people will be trying to access the Brisbane CBD in the next 25 years with employment in the area expected to double from 200,000 to 400,000.

A prediction / forecast like this can cost any city an enormous amount of money, especially if it is wrong. I think we need to consider how we are going to be working in 25 years time. With the advancements in technology and with businesses looking for cheaper accommodation to house their businesses, the growth in CBD employment is unlikely to be anywhere near what it has been in the past. If anything, it may even remain stable. We are already seeing a number of high profile businesses moving their staff to middle ring and outer ring business parks where rent is cheaper and travel times are reduced for many of the staff.

We also need to factor in the possibilities that businesses, due to technology development, may not need to house all their staff in one location with the possibilities of business hubs being created along with the option that many of us may be working from home.

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Why can’t the NSW State Government get their act together and start making some decisions that are going to benefit the people of Sydney rather than cause more chaos? They just can’t seem to get their transport agenda right. First let’s look at the new CBD Metro which they wish to build under the city… they bring in the experts and they make recommendations and then our Government doesn’t seem to follow them. Does this Government have any idea? They want to spend a small $5.3 billion (now rumoured to be over $7 billion) but don’t get it right the first time and they don’t listen to the real experts on the job to determine the best solution for Sydney’s crippling transport problems.
Transport around Sydney (and any other major city for that matter) is one of the city’s most important elements and has a direct impact on the value of property in surrounding and outlying areas.

Before we look at the Sydney CBD Metro, let’s understand exactly what a “metro” is. A ‘metro’ is a fast single deck passenger train with more doors than traditional heavy rail (CityRail). They are lighter than modern double-deck trains and can accelerate faster and handle steeper gradients. As they have more doors they can also load and unload passengers at a faster rate. Therefore, they can move more passengers than traditional heavy trains as they can provide a more frequent service and thus a more efficient people-mover solution over the short-medium distances. This, however, only really works for distances of 10km or less and the city needs to have a highly dense inner city population. This isn’t something that Sydney really has compared to most other major cities around the world that use the ‘Metro’ style transport system. For example, London’s population is close to 8m, New York have a population of 19.5m and Paris with a population of almost 2.5m, although the density of Paris is about 5 times higher than Sydney.

So what is the CBD Metro…

…it is expensive, it covers a short distance and only a few people will actually use it. This all sounds bad… but what’s even worse is the impact it will have on any vital CityRail expansion plans… IT WILL BLOCK THEM. CityRail has the ability to increase capacity by up to 50% meaning more services to the 250 stations currently in the network. They can do this by using a vital corridor under Pitt Street, however the new proposed metro will block the partial use of this tunnel in the future.

It seems everyone is against the development of the CBD Metro except the NSW government… so why won’t they listen? They didn’t listen when they built the Cross City Tunnel, which is hardly used, very expensive and has cost the state millions of dollars.

The most recent transport debacle has just occurred with the introduction of the new CityRail timetable on the 11th October 09. The NSW State Government has identified the Ku-ring-gai region as a major population growth corridor pushing for population growth of 25 -33% with an increase in housing density, which explains the number of new developments that are occurring in the area. Thousands more people have now moved into the newly completed developments and were all looking forward to extra transport
services… but the Government did the complete opposite by cutting 10% of the train services to the very suburbs where they were planning big population growth. I’m not sure if I am missing something in not understanding the lack of logic.

The new timetable – introduced to accommodate the Epping to Chatswood line – means more trains to the lower north shore, but fewer services from Waitara to Roseville, where up to 18,000 new homes are planned.

I really think the NSW State Government needs to sort themselves out and start looking out for all of us that live in the state and are subjected (on a daily basis) to their poor management of what is already a basket case situation. Instead, it seems their focus is more on their political positions.

I look forward to the time where our state infrastructure is capable and efficient enough to cope with the with the increasing population.

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