NSW Government Abandons Metro in Favour of $50 Billion Transport Blueprint

THE New South Wales Government has abandoned plans for its $5.3 billion Metro rail project in favour of a $50.2 billion transport blueprint which will include a $4.5 billion express rail service to Western Sydney, and a $6.7 billion North West rail link from Epping to Rouse Hill.

The government will retain about $120 million worth of Sydney CBD property it has already acquired “so the sites are protected for a future metro.”

This should pacify some vendors who have sold properties, or shaped their leasing decisions, thinking they’d be surrounded by a construction zone.

But it may upset other property owners, who would have imagined the government would buy their sites, to develop the ambitious rail project, which was scrapped last weekend.

City Freeholds was the biggest property owner effected, selling 12 Castlereagh Street to Sydney Metro, and then buying another office at 55 Hunter Street for $106.1 million.

NSW Premier Kristina Keneally said in a statement the government “would put processes in place to assist property owners and tenants who have incurred legal, valuation and other costs relating to property acquisition”.

A new light rail link will be developed at the Barangaroo development, replacing a proposed metro train station.

The new $50.2 million transport plan will also include:

• Expanding the light rail system to include 20 new stations and 10 kilometres of new track;
• A total of $3.1 billion on new trains
• Improved bus services to the tune of $2.9 billion
• A total of $225 million on Sydney ferries and vessels
• More than $400 million on car parks, and $158 million on new cycleways
• The creation of the Sydney Metropolitan Development Authority