Commuters face bus pain as journey times blow out for Bankstown rail shutdown

Thousands of commuters will have their daily journey times more than double to almost an hour on a one-way trip along a 13-kilometre rail corridor in Sydney’s south when buses replace trains for 12 months.

Dubbed “Southwest Link”, a mix of all-stops and express buses will serve three core routes between Bankstown and Sydenham from as early as July when the T3 Bankstown rail line closes for conversion to run driverless metro trains.

Bankstown line passengers will be forced to catch replacement buses along congested roads.Credit: Edwina Pickles

Under the plans, buses will run every two to four minutes in peak periods on some routes for up to 60,000 commuters a day who will be disrupted by the rail line’s shutdown.

For much of the rest of the day, a mix of all-stops and limited-stop services will run at least every 10 minutes and at least every 15 minutes late at night.

The high-frequency bus service will have three dedicated routes, SW1, SW2 and SW3, which will require about 100 buses and 200 drivers.

The SW1 Sydenham-to-Bankstown service will be an all-stops bus service, while the SW2 will be a limited service stopping at Sydenham, Belmore, Lakemba, Wiley Park, Punchbowl, Bankstown, and return. The SW3 service will stop at Sydenham, Canterbury and Campsie, and return.

Under Transport for NSW’s latest forecasts, an all-stops bus service between Sydenham and Bankstown will take 58 minutes in the evening peak, compared with 24 minutes by train. An all-stops bus in the morning peak will take 54 minutes, and a limited-stop trip up to 42 minutes.

Many of the forecasts for travel times are longer than those predicted in earlier internal modelling by Transport for NSW.

The agency had previously forecast a 49-minute trip in the evening peak for an all-stops bus service from Sydenham to Bankstown and 43 minutes in the opposite direction in the morning peak.

Amid a chronic shortage of bus drivers across Sydney, the railway between Bankstown and Sydenham will be converted to driverless train standards as part of the final section of the $21.6 billion Metro City and Southwest line.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen said the 12-month conversion would be disruptive and inconvenient for passengers.

“The services that we’re putting on will get you to where you need to be, but they’re not going to be at the same standard as the T3 line. Travel times are going to get longer for everybody, and for some passengers, they will more than double,” she said.

She said the government had worked to deliver as many alternative public transport services as possible, including high-frequency buses with multiple routes.

“We’ve spent months planning Southwest Link, so passengers can get a head start on planning their journey to decide which mode, route and service works best for them,” she said.

A shuttle train service will operate between Lidcombe and Bankstown during the shutdown. Regents Park will be the main interchange point for passengers travelling to Bankstown, Liverpool and the Sydney CBD.

For commuters west of Bankstown, trains now running between Liverpool and the City Circle via Bankstown will instead operate to the CBD via Regents Park and Lidcombe.

A new Sydney rail timetable will be introduced within months to support the Bankstown line closure and incorporate the main sections of the Metro City and Southwest lines into the system.

The looming disruption comes as an upper house inquiry recommended in a final report that the government prioritise the public transport needs of existing and approved, but not yet built, areas in Sydney’s outer fringes before approving more housing development.

The inquiry into western Sydney’s future public transport also urged the government to commit to two extra stations on the $25 billion Metro West line between the CBD and Parramatta.

Haylen said the government was focused on the possibility of a station at Rosehill but had “not ruled out other opportunities” between Sydney Olympic Park and Parramatta.

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