Light Rail Ruled Out in the CBD

This except comes from the NSW State Government's Urban Transport Statement

Chapter 4 - page 56

The Government has explored a number of options – including light rail – for improving transport services into and within the CBD. While light rail has attractive features which may be applicable in certainlimited areas of Sydney (for example, Barangaroo to Wynyard), the Government has concluded that it will not deliver real benefits within the main CBD routes – and in fact may run the risk of increasing transport congestion in the future. This is because light rail in the CBD would necessarily be required to operate within certain constraints which would have an impact on existing traffi c and passenger movements into and within the CBD.

For example:

  • light rail would only take about 20% of the buses off the streets of our city;
  • the two currently proposed CBD light rail corridors (George and Castlereagh Streets) would operate in mixed traffic with relatively low operating speeds of approximately seven kilometres to nine kilometres per hour;
  • strict quarantining of CBD streets from general traffic would be required to improve running times; – for example, if both George and Castlereagh Streets were used, our main north-south corridors would be quarantined for light rail with a resultant impact on general traffic;
  • light rail would rely on the transfer of significant numbers of bus passengers at the CBD periphery to the light rail system – patronage studies have shown that commuters are reluctant to use public transport once an interchange is imposed;
  • surveys suggest that up to as many as 89% of bus commuters want a direct trip into and out of the city – not an interchange onto another
    transport mode;
  • in order to meet the forecast 2021 demand, 45 second frequencies onthe two light rail corridors proposed inthe CBD is required, whereas evidence suggests that a 2.5 minute frequency is the maximum attainable for a reliable system;
  • future capacity expansion would require a doubling of light rail vehicle length, which is not practicable in central Sydney and would create further congestion problems;
  • the lead time and construction requirements to implement a light rail system are signifi cant, disruptive and costly;

Consequently light rail should not be used for our main CBD routes.

See our forums for discussions of transport modes.
See the complete Transport Statement.