Timetable changes: ‘Problem shifted from one line to another’
TRANSPORT for NSW has defended claims southwest Sydney has copped the horrors of the new train timetable kicking in on Sunday.
The Express
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TRANSPORT for NSW has defended claims southwest Sydney has copped the horrors of the new train timetable kicking in on Sunday.
“We’re delivering a huge uplift in the southwest — an area we know is one of the fastest-growing regions in Sydney,” TfNSW’s spokesman told the Canterbury-Bankstown Express.
“We’re adding 160 new services per week on the T5 Cumberland Line, running on weekends and late at night for the first time.
“Customers travelling on the T5 Cumberland Line will also benefit from more modern air-conditioned trains ... and (airport) customers will benefit from more than 200 extra weekly services in non-peak times.”
He said they had renamed the airport line “T8 Airport & South Line” to make it “even easier for locals and tourist to understand what services are going to the airport”. The first train on the line will run half an hour earlier from Sunday.
More Trains, More Services
The line operates between City Circle and Glenfield (where commuters can interchange onto the T2 and T5 Leppington Lines) and then on to Macarthur. There would be 20 per cent more trains stopping at Glenfield Station, TfNSW’s spokesman said.
But Canterbury-Bankstown mayor Khal Asfour said the timetable simply shifted problems from one line to another and called on the government to share the modelling it did to support its decisions.
TfNSW’s spokesman assured the Express all decisions were “evidence-based” and considered “high priority factors like customer feedback and Opal data, which shows us where and when our customers are travelling”.
Data obtained by the Express revealed Sydenham as the ninth-worst railway station for overcrowding on the Sydney Trains network, with 1508 train services from Sydenham recorded as standing-room only for 88 days from November 2016 to February 2017.
TfNSW’s own literature says the Bankstown Line causes one of the biggest bottlenecks on the current Sydney suburban railway because of how it merges with other lines close to the city.
Converting the T3 Bankstown Line, which services stations between Liverpool, Lidcombe and Bankstown, will require a temporary suspension of rail services.
Liverpool councillor Nathan Hagarty, who regularly commutes to work by train from Liverpool, said it made no sense to intentionally funnel customers on to the T3 which, he feels, the new timetable does.
TfNSW’s spokesman said it was true most Liverpool customers currently use the T2 via Granville to travel to the city. From November 26 the T3 via Bankstown would be the “fastest way” to the city, he said.
He maintained it was “vital” to make these changes.
“(They) will help us spread demand more evenly across the network, particularly on the T1 Western Line, and all the lines sharing the western corridor, which are near capacity,” TfNSW’s spokesman told the Express.
Cr Hagarty asked: “What happens when they rip up the Bankstown line for the metro?”
The Express understands a new timetable would be introduced by then.
City of Canterbury Bankstown Council says it will look at expanding its current trial of on-demand bus services in Bankstown while continuing to advocate for improved metro services to Parramatta and south to Hurstville.
The NSW government’s new draft 40-year blueprint Future Transport 2056, released last month, identifies for investigation future rapid bus links servicing Bankstown.
It comes as figures released to the Express through the Government Information Public Access Act show bus routes 348, L28, 428, 490, and 487 among Sydney’s most-complained-about.
Between July 1, 2015, and June 30, 2016, TfNSW received 277, 44, 258, 184 and 112 commuter complaints respectively about each of the following suburbs on the routes: Sydenham, Canterbury (for both routes L28 and 428), Kingsgrove and Belmore.
(Long commutes) eat into family life where people are not seeing kids off to school or tucking them into bed at night — Prof Ann Williamson
An online poll by the Express showed a shortage of commuter carparking was also front-in-mind for locals.
It’s on the radar of the State Government and Liverpool, Fairfield, and Canterbury Bankstown Councils. There is a parliamentary inquiry under way into commuter carparking.
Cr Hagarty said a multi-deck carpark was needed on the Leppington spur.
“People are driving up to Leppington from Wollondilly to catch a train and parking on the nature strip and rangers are billing them,” he said.
The Greater Sydney Commission’s Draft Greater Sydney Region Plan 2017 and Transport for NSW’s Draft Future Transport Strategy 2056 both feature investigation plans for a transit corridor between Parramatta and the new Western Sydney Airport at Badgerys Creek.
“My concern however is that the plans give no indication of when this transit corridor will be approved and operational,” Fairfield mayor Frank Carbone said.
Transport for NSW’s Draft Future Transport Strategy 2056 also includes transport improvements to the T2 and T5 train lines (0-10 years for investigation) through existing stations at Cabramatta, Canley Vale, Fairfield and Yennora; additional capacity on the Southern Sydney Freight Line (10-20 years for investigation) at Villawood; and a new western Sydney freight line from Yennora to Western Sydney Airport (10-20 years for investigation).
THE COUNCILS WEIGH IN
Canterbury Bankstown
Canterbury Bankstown Council’s spokeswoman said council’s citywide Transport Strategy will explore options to deliver “appropriately located” commuter parking.
She said analysis showed most Canterbury-Bankstown area workers were not in their cars long, “averaging seven kilometres or 10 minutes”. Sixty per cent of residents were within 800 metres of a railway station.
While acknowledging the Sydenham to Bankstown Metro Service would connect the local community to jobs opportunities across metropolitan Sydney and in the CBD, she said new transport links to the booming Parramatta CBD and Olympic Park were needed.
Fairfield
Fairfield mayor Frank Carbone said the council had written to the Minister for Transport
and Infrastructure, Andrew Constance, lobbying for a fast train to connect the airport along the M7 and M4 corridors through Fairfield City to Parramatta.
The mayor has also lobbied for a light rail along the T-way from Liverpool to Parramatta, which could be extended to meet the M12 to the airport in the future.
Liverpool
Liverpool Council’s spokeswoman said recent announcements from the NSW Government “again overlook our residents”.
“Proposed changes to the train timetable will increase the journey from Liverpool to the City via Granville by approximately 10 minutes,” she said.
“The proposed M5 toll extension would see residents continuing to pay the toll for decades, despite the cost of the road being paid by 2026.
“Council is continually lobbying the NSW Government for more efficient train services, a new Metro line from Bankstown to Liverpool and an extension of the South West rail link to the new Western Sydney Airport.”
Future Transport 2056
Burning issues
* Shortage of commuter carparking
* Train and bus overcrowding and delays
* Need for more train services
Solutions
* More train and bus services from November 26, including direct access to popular Inner West Stations for the first time via the T2 Inner West
* A total of 160 new services per week on the T5 Cumberland Line running on weekends, as well as late at night for the first time
* More morning and afternoon weekday peak services on bus route 914 between Greenacre and Strathfield
* Metro rail to be extended in 2024 under Sydney Harbour, through the CBD to Bankstown
Source: Transport for NSW
COMMUTER CASE STUDY
ROYDON Ng feels for the poor sods who spend nearly as much time changing platforms as riding trains to work.
“Four trains is the worst-case scenario for someone going to Homebush from Sefton: Change once at Birrong, change again at Lidcombe and change again at Strathfield,” Mr Ng, who continues to campaign to bring back the Inner West Line, said.
He said before 2013, when the last timetable was kicked in, it took just 16 minutes to travel by train from Homebush to Sefton. Now it takes 53 minutes.
Mr Ng can empathise. His commuting journey begins in Berala at 8.12am.
“I’m in walkable distance, 10-15 minutes. Besides, there’s nowhere to park anyway,” he said.
“The train goes to Lidcombe platform 5, then I go up and across to platform 3 or 1 to catch a by then already-full train to the city at 8.26am, arriving at Wynyard at 8.53am.
“There are no seats from Lidcombe. I then walk 3-5 minutes from the station to work.”
He said he never drives to work, explaining the closest parking station charges $15 an hour, “way too much”. “There’s no buses from the Berala area; you’d have to catch it at Auburn or Bankstown,” Mr Ng said, adding “there’s no improvement under the new timetable.
“On the T1 Western Line Burwood, Lidcombe, Auburn, Clyde, Granville and Harris Park lose fast trains and have much slower trains on the T2 Line to the city.
“Many Bankstown Line stations will have to wait 25 minutes for trains as the timetable has uneven stopping patterns, especially between Liverpool and Bankstown, and Fairfield is largely left with a slow train to the city via Granville/Inner West.”
He argued the timetabling decisions were politically-motivated.
“The state government has taken trains away from Labor areas in 2013, and given it to a Liberal area (Parramatta) in 2018 hoping people have forgotten the line used to go to the southwest,” Mr Ng said.
BRING BACK OUR TRAINS
FOUR hundred commuters have signed a petition to reverse train cuts at Padstow, Riverwood and Kingsgrove railway stations.
Anticipating pushback from frustrated commuters just like him, Padstow resident Adam Tran started Change.org petition “Bring back the trains” a little over a week ago where he calls on the NSW Government to rethink its new timetable.
Padstow and Riverwood will go from 110 weekday express services to eight in the new timetable rolling out on Sunday, and from 75 weekend express services to zero. Kingsgrove will also have no weekend express train services.
Mr Tran said those customers will instead be catching trains with Narwee, Beverly Hills, Bexley North, Bardwell Park and Turella customers, “making them even more packed”.
The 30-year-old currently catches an express service from Padstow to Central for work but from Monday he will have to interchange at Revesby to catch an express service, or he can catch one of the “less-frequent all-stations trains” on the new T8 South line.
“We’re going from eight express and all-stations trains an hour in the peak to four all-stations trains,” Mr Tran, who works as a clinical analyst, lamented.
“We want our old timetable back, or at least give us one express service in the peak.”
Transport for NSW’s spokesman said changing trains was “commonplace in an expanding train system and is similar to the way other major rail networks around the world operate, like in London, Hong Kong, Paris and New York”.
He said more than 420,000 people had jumped on TfNSW’s “More Trains, More Services” website since the campaign started in mid-October and in that time only about 230 complaints had been received by customers.
WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY
EXPERTS say the long commutes are having huge detrimental impacts on our health and wellbeing.
“(They) eat into family life where people are not seeing kids off to school or tucking them into bed at night,” Prof Ann Williamson, a world-renowned authority on transport safety from the University of NSW, said. “People get used to it, but over time it affects the state of mind. People just function on autopilot.”
Prof Williamson and her team of researchers at the Transport and Road Safety Research Centre have just completed a study on commuter fatigue which showed drivers were most at risk of crashing on their way to work.
“We tested 60 people over several months in a simulator and found people performed worst on mornings during a 30-minute commute behind the wheel due to the negative effects of long commuting,” she said.
“This is sleep inertia. When we first get up, it takes a while to get going — and it’s even worse after a run of long days. Truck drivers, nurses and doctors — those who have worked through the night — are very vulnerable to this.”
Neuroscientist Rohan Walker said there is a “core trio of events” which causes commuter stress. “These include threatening, controlling and unpredictable events,” Dr Walker, an associate professor at University of Newcastle, said.
“Traffic and public transport in general are both unpredictable and often uncontrollable, and the threat is that if we don’t get to work on time, it will cause problems.
“Commuting does cause extra stress. There’s an inevitability that this extra stress over time will lead to serious problems.”
Latest Census data indicated 57.2 per cent of residents in the City of Canterbury-Bankstown drives to work. That’s 79,112 locals behind the wheel, trying to earn an honest buck, potentially losing their cool on our roads. Or, much worse, having an accident.
It is much worse for Liverpool and Fairfield LGAs with 65 and 63.9 per cent of residents, respectively — that’s another 100,504 commuters experiencing commuter stress.
Research findings
* The average speed of trains in Sydney is 24km/h, buses are even slower at 14km/h and cars average 33km/h
* People perform worst on mornings during a 30-minute commute behind the wheel due to the negative effects of long commuting
New bus services
WHAT’S CHANGED?
The latest Census data reveals the following national car changes from 2016-11 by LGA:
1. Brisbane: 28,809
2. Gold Coast: 23,997
3. Parramatta: 15,802
4. Moreton Bay: 14,603
5. Casey: 14,296
9. Blacktown: 11,016
13. Camden: 8,299
17. Liverpool: 6,825
18. Cardinia: 6,753
19. Penrith: 6,656
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics
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