Go West: Move to fast track rapid rail line to Bagerys Creek
EXCLUSIVE: Negotiation between governments have started over plans to fast track a Western Sydney rapid rail line to the second airport at Badgerys Creek.
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NEGOTIATIONS between the state and federal governments have started over plans to fast track a Western Sydney rapid rail line to the second airport at Badgerys Creek.
The Daily Telegraph has learned Federal Cities Minister Paul Fletcher and NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance met last week to start work on bringing forward the construction completion time by as much as 15 years.
A discussion paper will be released in July marking options for the corridors, stations and urban development along the routes.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last month asked Mr Fletcher to approach the NSW government about how the project could be accelerated to ensure it was up and running in time for the airport’s opening in 2026.
Initial transport traffic modelling had suggested a rail line to Badgerys Creek airport would not be needed until the mid-2040s.
But the Turnbull government wants the new train service to not only be an airport link but double as a commuter line servicing major western Sydney hubs.
Mr Fletcher told The Daily Telegraph the scoping study was now currently working on potential train routes. It is expected there will be options for an east-west route as well as a north-south corridor.
“We don’t want rail to be just about the airport but also energising development along the route,” Mr Fletcher said.
“Commonwealth and state officials are working together right now on a scoping study, the key questions being, ‘What’s the right route, how will it be funded, when can it be built?’ The Prime Minister in his speech recently said we should ask what would it take for rail to be operational at the airport when it opens, and if not then, how soon afterwards.
“Clearly that statement from the PM is informing the process.”
Mr Fletcher said there were “strongly-held and diverse views about what the route should be”.
“That’s a key issue that the study needs to come to grips with,” he said.
“We’ve got to get right down into the detail. The intention is that the discussion paper and the submissions we receive will play a role in determining what the right route should be.”
Private sector bidders have made submissions to the process, including one backed by a Chinese rail consortium.