The two transport documents for Newcastle’s city centre released by the state Labor government last week are the latest evidence of how far NSW Labor has lost its way on public transport and urban revitalisation in this city.
The long awaited scoping study for cutting the Newcastle rail line and building a new Wickham terminus confirms that it would cost between $375 and $505 million, not including a long list of identified but excluded matters.
The long awaited scoping study for cutting the Newcastle rail line and building a new Wickham terminus confirms that it would cost between $375 and $505 million, not including a long list of identified but excluded matters.
The most significant cost exclusion (not even on the study’s list) is the cost of any system to replace the lost rail service. No costings for any interchange facilities for passengers forced to get off at Wickham, as suggested in the discredited Hunter Development Corporation (HDC) report, nor for any light rail system, as suggested by the NSW Premier earlier this year.
This is a plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of public money to cut public transport infrastructure, services and patronage.
The other document, the Transport Management and Access Plan (TMAP) outlines uncosted public transport proposals that – if introduced - would still fall well short of the state government’s own public transport target for Newcastle.
It’s a plan that aims for failure.
In the accompanying media release, the NSW Minister for Transport , John Robertson, said that the state government remains “focussed on a rail based solution for Newcastle”. The only rail based proposal in either document is the Wickham terminus and the cutting of the Newcastle rail line.
The TMAP proposes axing the highly successful fare-free zone that applies to every public bus in the CBD area, and replacing it with a city loop service that will circle the periphery of the city.
Even if this service proves operationally and financially viable, it would mean that passengers forced off the trains terminating at Wickham and wanting to use one of the current bus services into the city would have to walk from the railway terminus to Hunter St, and pay another fare for a bus that is currently free.
The study doesn’t outline any special services that will make this forced interchange any easier for passengers with disabilities, prams, luggage, surfboards or other bulky items.
The scoping study cites estimates that cutting the rail line would reduce local rail patronage by between 7.4% and 23.7% a year.
The extra cars that this will put on the road will increase traffic congestion on Stewart Avenue, which will also receive the spill created by the closure of the Railway St level crossing.
This is a plan for a car-clogged city.
The traffic impact of the study’s proposal to close the Beaumont St level crossing is entirely unexplored.
The potential commercial impact of cutting Beaumont St in this way (including the option of a Beaumont St overpass) is also unexplored. No wonder the Beaumont St traders are up in arms, because this looks like a plan to kill the goose that has layed the golden egg of one of Newcastle’s most successful commercial strips.
This is well on the way to being Newcastle’s version of Sydney’s Metro debacle.
Let’s get to a genuine rail based solution for Newcastle, and build a public transport system that provides the basis for a sustainable revitalisation of our citycentre, and has a real chance of achieving vital federal funding assistance.
