Free buses to operate from Monday after yet more delays to Gawler line electrification project

Commuters will be offered free buses from Monday after yet another cost and completion date blowout on the trouble Gawler line.

The troubled Gawler rail line electrification has suffered from yet another completion date delay and a further $60m cost blowout.

Free substitute buses will be made available from Monday as the Transport Department copes with another blowout of the end-of-April completion date to the end of June this year.

The project has been planned for 14 years, first proposed by Labor in 2008, but when finally commenced under the previous government was beset with many delays.

Transport Minister Tom Koutsantonis said substitute buses will be free until the rail line reopens.

He said the opening date the Malinauskas Labor Government will commit to with confidence is June 30, the latest since delays began late last year.

Mr Koutsantonis said the former government was aware of both the time delay risks and the risk of another cost blowout before the election but did not publicly disclose this information.

“Today the new government is making this information public, and in a bid to compensate long-suffering commuters will waive all fares for substitute buses running between Gawler and the city until the line reopens,’’ he said.

Mr Koutsantonis said free buses had been operating, but only private coaches were free, and from Monday all buses would be wave all fares.

“The private coaches being used were not able to make cashless charges because they had no Metrocard systems installed.

Mr Koutsantonis said timetables and the mix of bus types would remain unchanged.

An Opposition spokesman said the latest delay hand been caused by Mr Koutsantonis’ termination of the employment contract of Department ceo Tony Braxton-Smith this week.

A completed A-Class electric rail car for the Seaford line. Picture: Simon Cross

The June deadline is a backflip on that latest claim, made in January to parliament by former Transport department ceo Tony Braxton-Smith that: “The first testing on the Gawler line with electric trains will commence in very late March 2022, following which the transition to operations can commence in late April 2022”.

The cost of the Gawler Rail Electrification Project has blown out by nearly $300m under the former Marshall Liberal Government – from $615m in 2018.

Mr Koutsantonis could not rule out further budget blowouts in the project he had inherited.

Originally the July 2018 Liberal Party revival of the project included the prediction of an opening date of late 2020.

The Gawler rail line closed in December 2020 for works and has remained closed.

Mr Koutsantonis labelled the project a “debacle” which had punished commuters.

“The Malinauskas Labor Government is now determined to do everything we can to complete this project as soon as possible so commuters can get back to catching the train,’’ he said.