The NSW Government has announced that work will start on the second stage of the Sydney Metro before the end of 2018.
Premier Mike Baird confirmed the locations of five proposed stations between Chatswood and Central and announced investigations will begin into potentially extending the line to Liverpool in Sydney’s south west.
“Sydney Metro will change Sydney forever,” he said. “It will help boost capacity of our rail network by 100,000 people every hour, servicing our growing global city for generations to come.”
The first stage of the metro line is currently under construction connecting Rouse Hill in the city’s north west with Epping from where it will join an existing line running to the commercial centre Chatswood in the north. Stage 2 will involve twin tunnels stretching 15 kilometres from Chatswood to Sydenham south of the city. There the line will connect with an existing line to Bankstown in the south west.
The five new stations will be Crows Nest, southeast of St Leonards station; Victoria Cross, just north of North Sydney station; Barangaroo, in the north west corner of the Sydney CBD; Martin Place, where a direct link will connect to the existing Martin Place station; and Pitt St, just east of Town Hall station. From there the line will travel to new underground platforms at Central Station. The route from Central to Sydenham is still to be determined with two options under consideration: an eastern alignment via Waterloo, and a western alignment via Sydney University.
NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance said the first tunnel boring machine will be in the ground in 2018 before Stage 1 starts running passenger services in 2019. The Stage 2 extension is expected to open in 2024.
“This new high capacity metro line will be able to move more people across the Harbour in the busiest hour of the peak than the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Harbour Tunnel combined,” Constance said.
“Sydney Metro will deliver ‘turn up and go’ rail services with more than 65 km of new metro rail on a standalone line.”
An illustration of the proposed Martin Place station indicates it will run underneath the existing station and the two tunnels will be spaced more widely apart. Image: Sydney Metro.