Action for Public Transport (N.S.W.) Inc.

Increasing the capacity of the western railway

posted Friday 2 September 2016

Action for Public Transport has written to the New South Wales Minister for Transport as follows:

Action for Public Transport (NSW) is an organisation which campaigns for transit improvements in New South Wales. We refer to recent publicity about overcrowding on western line suburban trains. Regardless of the cause(s) of this patronage surge and regardless of the precise rate that patronage may climb at in the future, we think it imperative to start allowing for it now.
An obvious bottleneck which could be eased is at the Illawarra Junction crossovers east of Macdonaldtown station. Replacing these with flyovers would provide a useful boost to capacity. However, there will be no room for construction of crossovers in the future if the Carriageworks site is allowed to develop as presently envisaged by UrbanGrowth NSW under the name North Eveleigh.
We therefore suggest that land should be reserved now for construction of flyovers at that point. A design should be prepared for suitable flyovers and the land required should be excised from the Carriageworks development land.

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