There are 1000 spots at this Sydney metro car park. By 7.13am, they’re all gone

There is space for 1000 cars at Tallawong metro station’s three car parks. At 6.40am on Thursday morning, the first is minutes away from filling up.

The sign at the entrance to the P2 car park reports 64 free spaces. By 6.47am, that number has fallen to 20. And by 7am, despite that sign declaring five free spots, the car park is full, and frustrated drivers are leaving to drive to the next one, the furthest away from the station, which is full by 7.13am.

At the same time, the clog around Tallawong station – where drivers can park free for up to 18 hours if they use public transport immediately after – is affecting the flow of cars around the suburb. Traffic is at a standstill. Some commuters, desperate to make it to work, are being dropped off on busy main roads, and others are parking wherever they can find a spot.

At 7.22am, one driver in a red hatchback attempts to park in a drop-off zone near the station. A passing van driver – with all the time in the world because the traffic is barely moving – launches into a torrent of abuse informing him he cannot park there.

Residents have expressed concerns about the clog in this car-centred corner of Sydney in recent years, but since the metro was extended to the CBD on August 19, it’s become worse. In November, Tallawong’s car park was full by 7.30am, according to a survey from Transport for NSW. But when The Sydney Morning Herald visited on Thursday, a week and a half after the metro to the CBD opened, the park was full by 7.13am.

“I’m fighting with other cars to get to the car park,” says Marsden Park resident Prasad Perera. “I can see the spots going down, counting 80, 60, 50, while I’m waiting in the queue for the car park.”

Steven Lanfranca, a tech worker who lives in Tallawong and drives to the metro station about once a week for work, said: “The goal posts [to get a parking spot] keep getting earlier and earlier, which is kind of crap. If you want a decent spot at a quarter to 7, you’re pushing it. At 7 o’clock, you’re asking for trouble.”

The essential challenge for transport authorities and urban designers, playing out in real-time at Tallawong, is the “first and last mile problem”: how do you get commuters from their front doors to key transport stops such as the metro?

For decades, cars were the answer. But as tens of thousands of homes are built, the number of people using the metro has spiked since it opened in 2019. Paradoxically, the more car parks are created, the more cars come, and the more spots are needed to meet demand.

“You could build the biggest car park in the world and people would come and use them [and they’d still get full],” said Brad Bunting, mayor of Blacktown Council, which takes in Tallawong. Bunting is campaigning for re-election with Labor in elections this month.

“Building the metro is a great thing for people in that area. The issue we’ve got is we’re putting a whole heap of new houses in that north-west area, and they all like it too.”

More than four in five commuters at Tallawong, Kellyville, Bella Vista, Hills Showground and Cherrybrook arrive at the station by car – 61 per cent drive, while 22 per cent are dropped off, according to a Transport for NSW study conducted in November last year.

If commuters cannot drive, how else do they get to the station? The most obvious answer is buses.

The NSW government committed an additional $24.3 million to improving bus services in the city’s west in the last budget. Transport for NSW began increasing the frequency and operating hours of several routes in Greater Western Sydney, as well as extending some routes to service new housing developments.

“We are closely monitoring patronage on all services connecting with Sydney Metro to identify if there are changes in demand and travel patterns,” a Transport for NSW spokesperson said. “At the current time, routes which connect with Metro such as the 732 and 747 have sufficient capacity to meet current demand.”

For planners, it’s a game of “chicken and egg”: not enough commuters are catching those buses because they are infrequent, but the frequency cannot be improved without data that shows there is increased demand.

Active transport such as cycling and walking are options, but the infrastructure is lacking.

“Those who are [proposing locals should just cycle to the station] aren’t cyclists,” said Perera, the commuter who sits in traffic as the car park capacity falls and who has lived in Marsden Park since 2020.

“I’m a cyclist. The elevation is not flat, it’s hilly. So if I rode on that shared path [on Schofields Road], I’d be very sweaty by the time I got to Tallawong. [But] if they connected all the shared paths, I’d probably buy an e-bike.”

When the cycle and shared paths around the station end, bike riders and even pedestrians are forced onto roads: some streets have no footpaths in the area – despite the vast majority being greenfield developments created over the past decade.

The immediate area around the station has “decent enough bike lanes”, said Sarah-Jane Shearston, who occasionally cycles to Tallawong but has resorted to getting Ubers to avoid the hassle. “But the roads of Schofields don’t have consistent pavements for walking or cycling. The road I go off to get on Schofields Road, there’s no footpath. I’ve seen women pushing prams on the road.”

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