New mobility for a gridlocked neighbourhood
The now-disused freight rail line through the Inner West has many features that make it the obvious candidate for extending the popular light rail service to boost public transport capacity for a growing population. As the line has been in service until recently, the condition of the track structure hasn’t deteriorated through disuse, and relatively lightweight trams would have less impact than the heavy freight trains and locomotives it was built to carry.
A bonus is the electrification installed back in the 1960s for export coal trains. It is mostly intact, in good repair and is compatible with the trams when connected to 750v power supply in place of heavy rail’s 1500v supply. Metro Light Rail, operator of the Central to Lilyfield service, even has sufficient trams on hand to operate the service, at least as far as Lewisham. Only the signals need to be replaced.
The route intersects with bus services at Norton St, Marion St Leichhardt, and Parramatta Rd Lewisham. It passes between western Leichhardt and Haberfield, an area poorly served by buses, and under the main western railway near Lewisham station. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that a stop at this location could be linked by walkway or even moving footway to Lewisham station, providing an important point of interchange with the Western rail line.
The 413 bus to Campsie crosses at Old Canterbury Rd, there are more bus routes at New Canterbury Rd, and the potential terminus at Dulwich Hill is alongside the railway station, requiring only a bridge for an easy transfer to rail services to Bankstown and Liverpool. The 412 City to Campsie bus route also passes Dulwich Hill station. That’s seven points where the new line would interconnect with existing services.
These connections would greatly improve cross-suburban public transport access. From Lilyfield, likely stop locations would be Norton St / James St, Allen St and Marion St in Leichhardt, with the same stop serving Haberfield. Then Kegworth St, Longport St, Old Canterbury Rd, Davis St and Constitution Rd / New Canterbury Rd for Lewisham, Summer Hill, Abergeldie Estate and Dulwich Hill, with the terminus at Dulwich Hill Station near the end of Macarthur Pde. No doubt many users of the bus routes crossed would transfer to the trams (if a transfer ticket were available) to cut their journey time to the city.
As at Darling Harbour, the traffic once handled at Rozelle and White Bay has been moved out of inner Sydney leaving large areas of railway and industrial land ripe for urban renewal. Already, many former industrial sites once served by rail freight along the line from Dulwich Hill to Ultimo have medium to high density housing, and like the old Waratah flour mill, the Mungo Scott mill at Summer Hill will soon become a housing development.
It has been reliably estimated that the cost of this extension is less than $30 million. As an estimate of construction time needed, consider the Ultimo-Lilyfield extension. It was commenced in October 1999 and opened for service in August 2000, the work including the erection of overhead wire – already largely in place in the Lilyfield – Dulwich Hill section. So the Dulwich Hill connection could, and should, be in use within a year of a go-ahead being granted. This is an easily affordable and achievable project with substantial public benefit vastly outweighing its cost.
Compared to all the hot air and consultants’ fees expended on overpriced and over-engineered rail proposals that are unlikely ever to be built – for example the “metro rail” proposals now being hyped by the government’s advisors – this light rail extension is a quickly implementable solution with a proven track record. Its success is assured. It is endorsed by Metro Light Rail as the obvious next step. It can be paid for without selling the power industry and built without demolition of the surrounding area. It won’t need huge amounts of concrete poured, holes dug, or fuel expended during construction. The only obstacle is official stupidity.
Once we’ve got the Lilyfield to Dulwich Hill Light Rail extension sorted, the community can push for another extension back through the Rozelle rail yard site, under Victoria Rd to White Bay and Camerons Cove in Balmain. Here too, the rails are in place and they need to be used if we aren’t to lose them. If they’re lost we’ll never get them back. The prize is the community’s to claim.