Sydney Metro works, in theory

Kellyville Station, part of Sydney Metro’s Northwest alignment. Picture: Supplied

“Nah man, the trains aren’t running.”

Those are hardly the words you want to hear from a fellow commuter at 4.40am.

But that was my reality yesterday morning, when a trip into work via the new Sydney Metro never eventuated.

Opened in May to much fanfare, it was hailed as a “game-changer” by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian. The growing northwest Sydney region — previously serviced by express buses and starved of a train line — was finally given direct rail access to Chatswood. The line is being extended to run to Bankstown via the CBD, due to open in 2024.

Stretching from Rouse Hill through Norwest Business Park and North Ryde, the driverless trains run every four minutes during peak hour. In theory, at least.

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The $7.3 billion service works well — when it’s working. Seldom packed there’s generally a seat available, or at least a place to stand. Gone are the days of express city buses driving past full, or a long queue to wait in before being crammed onto a bus that’s close to exceeding capacity. And there’s a time saving too — around 15 minutes for my peak hour commute, no doubt more for others.

Adrian McMurray at Central Station. Picture: John Feder

That’s all fine but the reality can be vastly different. Take yesterday morning, for example. Services weren’t running at all until after 7am due to a system fault. Passengers at stations prior to 5am were told to wait for buses that were yet to arrive. A power failure and fire alarm cut part of the line during the morning peak in May. “Human error” saw commuters left stranded for over an hour late last month. Each time, buses are called in to fill the void.

Doors have slammed shut on passengers and “door opening” announcements and alarms have sounded while trains are in motion. Talk to anyone who uses the service semi-regularly, and they’ll have their own Metro horror story to share.

The ongoing issues have caught the ire of broadcaster Ray Hadley, who took Sydney Metro chief Jon Lamonte to task on his 2GB radio show yesterday.

According to Mr Lamonte, the issue could have been avoided had a technician been present at the time of the fault when the system was first started. The technician arrived after some 45 minutes.

“We’ve had these few incidents that have been poor, we’ve got to do better,” Mr Lamonte told Hadley.

The issues aren’t confined to technical faults either. Parking before 5am at my usual station Kellyville is never an issue — but the usual trip to Central was a station too far with the entire line down.

All 1360 car parks at Kellyville Station are usually full by around 8am on a weekday. It’s no doubt a similar story at the other smaller parking stations dotted throughout the line.

Can’t get a park? A short drive to a bus stop is your best bet. The bus car park at least offers a place to leave your car: it’s now a ghost town. Why? Five bus services into the CBD have been cut following the Metro’s opening, a further eight routes to other parts of the city scrapped. Services however have been re-routed throughout the area, with additional services to link commuters to Metro stations.

A bus bound for Parramatta will then take you either to a Metro station or another bus stop, where the direct city routes now begin. A commute that should involve a short drive, Metro train, and T1 train from Chatswood into the CBD can blow out to a drive to a bus stop, short bus trip, a second longer bus trip and a train on the city circle.

That means commute times can balloon out to well over 90 minutes one way. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

The NSW government will point to a trial of an Uber-style on-demand bus service, MetroConnect, that commuters can book to take them from an “agreed point” near their home to a station. But is that really a workable, long-term solution?

Anecdotally some of the cancelled express CBD bus services could be up to 30 minutes quicker than the Metro outside of peak hour. Is that really progress?

As Hadley said yesterday, the Berejiklian government is lucky the current Metro line runs through several safe Liberal seats. It will be interesting to see how the much-maligned CBD and South East Light Rail fares once it opens later this year across some more volatile inner-city electorates. For the sake of all Sydney commuters, here’s hoping the years of pain will be worth it.