Next stop, Dulwich Hill
Let’s extend the light rail service now!
Sydney is crying out for more public transport capacity and the Rozelle goods line is just sitting there, waiting to be used.
It’s a no-brainer really. If the NSW Government consented to extension of the current light rail service to Dulwich Hill, the communities of Leichhardt, Haberfield, Summer Hill, Lewisham and Dulwich Hill would get an additional six kilometres of fast, reliable, public transport that’s immune to soaring petrol prices and never gets stuck in traffic.
The streets of the Inner West were designed for light vehicular traffic, pedestrians, bicycles and trams, not for thousands of cars. Under the Carr and Iemma governments, public transport has been neglected, motorway development has been favoured, and, as a result, traffic congestion and air pollution have increased. We now have an opportunity to redress this situation and it can be done quickly, with little expense, and without the need to bulldoze heritage suburbs.
The light rail extension to Lilyfield was completed in less than a year. Extending to Dulwich Hill could be completed just as quickly. The line is already in place and having been built to carry heavy freight, requires only inexpensive, easily-constructed stops and minor alterations to signals and overhead wiring. Metro Light Rail already has enough rolling stock to provide services as far as Lewisham. With a guaranteed future, investment in more rolling stock could proceed quickly.
Clearing choked local roads
Extending the light rail would have the added benefit of providing interchanges with the Western Sydney rail line at Lewisham and the Bankstown line at Dulwich Hill. In the absence of this direct link, most people travelling from the Inner West to job centres like Parramatta, Bankstown and Liverpool are driving their cars – one reason why local roads are choked during peak periods. A further light rail extension into Balmain would greatly enhance this network effect.
The alternative motorway plans on offer from the NSW Government are the worst possible direction for the local community and a world struggling to deal with the double burden of climate change and relentlessly rising petrol prices.
Light rail can make a positive contribution to tackling climate change because it can be powered by electricity generated from carbon-neutral renewable sources.
The existing light rail service was partly funded by the Hawke and Keating governments’ Better Cities Program. The Rudd Government should reintroduce an urban public transport program to make our cities more sustainable. With this in mind, delegates to the 2020 Summit acknowledged the need to encourage public transport use relative to other modes. To do this, public transport must be provided in unserviced and underserviced areas so that people have a real choice.
The Rozelle line is no longer used for freight from the Mungo Scott flour mill, which is likely to be redeveloped for much-needed inner city housing. With as many as 200 new dwellings and commercial office space, more public transport services will be essential.
Light rail or an M4 East feeder?
With so much going for it, just what might stand in the way of the extension? While light rail is obviously the best, most sustainable, use for the Rozelle line, there are lobby groups that have other agendas in mind. The so-called Friends of Greater Sydney – a group headed up by Ken Dobinson, a retired senior RTA officer – has earmarked the corridor for a surface motorway to connect the RTA’s proposed M4 East with other proposed motorways and tunnels to the south.
The estimated cost of the M4 East has risen to $12 billion. Originally, the NSW Government proposed to raise this outrageously large sum from the sale of the State’s power stations. Hopefully this plan will be defeated by the ALP rank-and-file. The only remaining option is for the Federal Government to kick in around eight billion towards another private tollway but after the embarrassing financial collapse of the Cross City and Lane Cove tunnels, it is to be hoped that the Rudd Government will show some common sense and refuse.
At an estimated cost below $50 million – less than half of one per cent of the RTA’s proposed motorways – an extended light rail service with parallel cycleway would provide an additional six kilometres of high quality public transport. Now that’s extraordinary value for money!