The planned opening of a $21 billion driverless metro line under Sydney’s city centre has been thrown into chaos because regulators have yet to approve the start of passenger services.
The final piece of Sydney’s metro network – Australia’s largest public transport project – was due to open on Sunday but NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen said more time was needed for safety approval.
“The target date was always a target date, unfortunately we are not going to achieve it, but we are very close,” he said when announcing the delay on Tuesday.
The Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator has yet to give the go-ahead for the route to begin carrying passengers from Chatswood in Sydney’s north-west, under the harbour and into the city centre.
Outside the entrance to Martin Place train station, two men in blue Sydney Metro T-shirts encouraged the public to ask them about the line as news of its delayed opening spread.
But even the Minister of Transport cannot answer the question that everyone wants to know: when will it open?
“Our absolute priority is a safe and reliable route,” Ms Haylen said.
She declined to name a new date.
The final piece of Sydney’s metro network – Australia’s largest public transport project – was due to open on Sunday but NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen said more time was needed for safety approval.
The trains have been tested, the operator is ready to run them and changes have been made to bus timetables to bring commuters onto the network, Ms Haylen said.
The changes to bus schedules will begin on Sunday, despite the delay in the opening of the metro.
“We’ll make sure that those journeys are seamless… but also that there are other services that they can connect to,” Haylen said.
Multiple factors contributed to the delay.
“One of them, of course, is the incident that happened in the North West, as well as the industrial strike,” Haylen said.
The north-west section of the line, which starts at Tallawong, near Blacktown, left passengers stranded for hours in early July.
The Fire Brigade Employees Union also imposed a ban, since lifted, on emergency management exercises amid a dispute over funding.
Secretary of State Leighton Drury said the job of firefighters was to plan for worst-case scenarios.
“But if we don’t have what we need to do that job, then things get complicated quickly,” he said.
“Industrial action by our members is not the cause of the delay in this case.”
The Transport Minister’s announcement took reporters to an underground platform at the inaccessible Martin Place station to confirm it would remain closed to the public for longer.
Opposition leader Mark Speakman was locked out like everyone else when he told reporters the tube had been planned and designed by the previous coalition government.
“Now the Labour Party cannot even get the opening date right,” he said.
The rail safety regulator said on Monday it was considering opening the line extension as quickly as possible.
“There are still several critically important activities to be completed this week, such as emergency and evacuation exercises,” he added.
