Macquarie Park station

To illustrate my concept for a transport tourist’s guidebook that we can all share on TT, I will post a ‘guide’ I produced for a colleague when they visited Sydney recently, based on my knowledge as both a former Sydney local and also as someone who worked in the transport system up there. I welcome any refinements or alerting about errors and omissions of other things of value for the transport tourist to see in ‘the magic place’.

I assume that people are flying in – still the only rational choice for getting to Sydney until someday in the future when High Speed Rail links (at the very minimum) Sydney to Canberra and Melbourne.

1. Take the Airport Line from the Airport to the City (if staying in the CBD). Don’t forget to pay the ‘Station Access Fee’ to pass through the barrier line at Domestic!

2. If you’re loitering around the airport, take the time to observe Sydney Buses Route 400 that has provided (relatively) high frequency PT to Sydney Airport for the last few years – something Melbourne is yet to do – or alternately, travel the whole of Route 400 from Bondi to Burwood.

3. Once you’re in the city, purchase a Green Travel Pass – it covers all Sydney Buses routes and all Sydney Ferries routes and a fair whack of the inner CityRail network. The TravelPass Guide gives you the lowdown on the system and also shows the limits of ticket integration in Sydney. Beyond the Green Travelpass area, integrated ticketing disintegrates:

4. Get on the Eastern Suburbs Railway (ESR) to Bondi Junction. This was a major and controversial project to retrofit a heavy rail network into an already highly urbanised part of Sydney when it was finally completed in 1979. In some ways it compensated the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney for the loss of its extensive tram network 20 years beforehand. However, the ESR did act as an ‘enabler’ of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) in the Eastern Suburbs, particularly around the stations at Kings Cross and Bondi Junction. Get out at both and have a look around.

- Just down the hill from Kings Cross (about 10 minutes walk) is Elizabeth Bay, the most densely populated suburb in Australia, and you’ll see some fine Art Deco and later blocks of flats that show it has been densely populated for a long time. There are also significant numbers of newer buildings (both high and low rise residential) along Victoria Street that were infilled in the 1970s and after – part of a controversial development process – google ‘Juanita Neilsen’ or ‘Green bans’ and you’ll see what I mean.

- Also, keep your eyes open for the ‘phantom station’ in the cutting between Edgecliff and Bondi Junction stations. It’s the site of the projected (but never built) Woollahra station, killed off by resident objections (and possibly its poor location away from shops and businesses).

- Bondi Junction is a better example of the role of the railway as a TOD ‘enabler’. Bondi Junction was largely low-rise shops and housing until the mid-1980s, The arrival of the railway, the closer proximity to the city (and beaches) and rising land values made Bondi an attractive place for development. The anchor to the area is the Westfield Shopping Centre (I think it’s still a Westfield) to the east of the station. Notice how the Oxford St Mall to the North is not as appealing or active as the eastern area of shopping around the Westfield. The bus/rail interchange is interesting as it has been extensively redesigned recently, but still (as I recall) not developed over for mixed use retail/commercial/residential development, which is a shame as it’s a prime TOD site. The interchange however is quite significant as a hub for ‘tram replacement’ feeder bus routes that serve Bondi Beach, North Bondi and other affluent areas of the eastern suburbs as well as the Oxford Street-CBD bus corridor and a number of cross town routes and the 400 sub-orbital route.

5. From Bondi Junction, take one of the 380 or 382 buses to Bondi Beach and have a look around. The high-frequency of feeder buses down Bondi Road from the rail interchange is sufficiently good to forestall calls for a rail extension (along with objections from high-profile locals and obvious engineering/operational problems such a link would create).

6. Come back up Bondi Road and catch the 400 bus to Burwood. It’s a high-frequency service from from Bondi Junction to Eastgardens Shopping Centre (10 minutes) and a lesser-frequency (20 minutes) to Burwood between 0630 and 1830, 7 days a week, dropping back to 30 minute frequencies along the whole route after 1930. The trip takes around 80 minutes for the whole length and connects up with five CityRail lines at key, relatively high frequency nodes (Bondi Jct, Rockdale, Bexley North, Campsie, Burwood). Some points of interest include -

• Randwick Junction – an old-style strip shopping area with a small mall retrofitted into an affluent district centre once served by trams. The bus ride along ANZAC Parade through Moore Park and along Alison Road toward Randwick should take you down the off-road ‘bus lanes’ (formerly used by trams)

• Maroubra Junction – the end of affluence in the ’sand belt’ of the Eastern Suburbs. Note that there is significant land available in the centre of the ANZAC Parade corridor to allow either for bus rapid transit or light rail on a segregated alignment. South of the junction are large areas of low-density ‘Commission’ (public) housing with significant income and educational (but not transport) disadvantage. South Maroubra’s Commission housing is the home of the infamous ‘Bra Boys’

• Eastgardens – a major road-based retail development on a former TOAD (Temporarily Obsolete, Abandoned or Derelict) site (the old British Leyland car plant – home of the P-76). When Eastgardens was built, Sydney Buses re-organised many of the bus routes to run into Eastgardens as a hub for local and linehaul services in the south-eastern suburbs

• Domestic and International airport terminals – the 400 is a good example of a retrofitting of bus-based route PT services into a largely road-based activity centre, providing a radial alternative to the rail line and somewhat of a model for what Melbourne’s Yellow and Green Orbitals should be doing at Tullamarine.

• Rockdale Station – a major rail interchange that features in most stopping patterns (except for Illawarra line trains) with a large bus interchange for buses to Botany Bay and across the south-western suburbs (to Canterbury, Ashfield and Burwood), an old-style strip shopping centre near the station (another formerly-tram based centre) and a small mall development near the Princes Highway

• Campsie – a place I know well. A down-at-heel but still vibrant strip shopping centre, with a small mall (Campsie Centre) behind it and a station that features both local and express stopping patterns on the Bankstown Line. Note the heavily Korean feel of Campsie – it was a major attractor for Korean ‘chain migration’ in the 1980s and 1990s

• Burwood – A good example of what Sydney does (to my mind) better than Melbourne – a still vibrant strip shopping area along the main road (Burwood Road) near the railway station, with some more intense development nearby and a Westfields set back off the main road. As good an example you’ll find of relatively peaceful co-existence between big and small retail on a suburban shopping street (Burwood Road). If you’ve got time, get on a bus to the Parramatta Road end and watch how the area tapers away to become a low density wasteland of used car lots and light commercial and industrial uses along the traffic sewer of Parramatta Road.

7. Take a train from Burwood into Wynyard Station. Get out and wind your way up through the small scale version of Melbourne Central up to the Carrington Street bus terminal. Wave hello to David Marchant at ARTC headquarters on Carrington Street and have a walk around the terminal. You will notice that all the buses are now pre-pay from this stop, which services most of the lower north shore runs up the Military Road corridor (another former tram corridor). Nearby you’ll find the Sydney Buses ticketing outlet and the nearby newsagents/7-11s will mostly be ‘Pre-Pay’ agents. In fact, all Sydney Buses stops in the CBD are now pre-pay.
You can jump back on the trains at Wynyard and go around the City Circle to look at the London Underground-inspired largely unaltered Bradfield-era stations at St James and Museum (St James is my favourite of the two): visit them not merely for the nostalgia but because an understanding of the past is essential for an appreciation of the present and the possibilities of tomorrow.

8. Go to Central Station and catch the Light Rail to Lilyfield and back. Not integrated with the Ticketing system, so you’ll have to pay a cash fare to the friendly conductor. At Lilyfield, have a look at the old Rozelle Goods Yard (a vital piece of infrastructure when there were coal and grain loaders at White Bay), but now rusting and in decay. The goods line from Rozelle continues through to the junction with the Metropolitan Goods Line to Port Botany at Dulwich Hill and this has been touted as the logical terminus of the Light Rail system, possibly with some on street running up Marion Street and Norton Street in Leichhardt. Don’t forget the light rail was part-Federally funded as part of the ‘City West’ urban renewal strategy of the Sydney City Council during the 1990s

9. Take the Manly ferry to Manly and get the bus back – this is always a good trip to do. Bear in mind that this was the last major ferry route to switch from private to public hands (in the mid-1970s) largely after state-funded improvements to the road network and widening the Spit Bridge drove the private operator to the wall. If you come back by bus, do ride it through to Town Hall. In terms of the remainder of the ferry network, if you have time, it’s worth a trip. Particular favourites are the Neutral Bay and Mosman trips after dark when the city and the bays are lit up with thousands of lights.

10. Take the Route 10 MetroBus to Leichhardt. Have a look around Norton Street (a bit like Carlton for its Italian flavour) and around the terminus at Leichhardt Marketplace. This area has been touted as an area for increased densities and high-rise development if the Ron Christie-inspired West Metro gets up. Get back on Route 10 and go the other way to Kingsford. Note the major fault of this route is that it comes into the CBD then heads out again. That aside, watch as the Metrobus goes down ANZAC Parade from Moore Park onwards to Kensington as the bus runs on its own alignment off ANZAC Parade. This is the old tram reservation that was used from the 1920s as a way of dealing with then tram priority on already congested roads and has now become a bus priority corridor for Eastern Suburbs services.

11. Catch a North Shore line service over the bridge to Chatswood. Note the development along the Milsons Point – St Leonards – Chatswood Corridor that follows both railway and freeway that was at the start, overspill from CBD development, but now has taken on a life of its own, particularly around Chatswood, which has a very Asian feel about it these days. Transfer to the Epping-Chatswood line and have a ride. It’s worth getting off at each station to have a look around and see what kind of modal interchange is available. The most interesting station will be Macquarie University station which serves both the Macquarie Centre shopping mall and the University, which was once the most car-centric university in Sydney. Macquarie Park station is also interesting as it aims to serve the ‘high-tech’ business parks that have been promoted in the area over the last 20-30 years through an alliance between the local council, Macquarie University and the State Government. Geographers and urban planners often use the North Ryde/Macquarie Park area as an example of an Australian ‘edge city’ as it meets many of the American-developed criteria for one.

12. Go back to Chatswood and take the Shore line up to Hornsby and have a look at the works there on the station redesign, bus interchange and rail freight bypass of the station. Fairly major rail infrastructure work taking place on a constrained site. Note also the fairly high residential densities around Hornsby station and the relatively low density commercial densities too. It shows one aspect of Sydney’s urban planning (maintain the primacy of the CBD), where the smaller ‘district centres’ like Hornsby are mostly medium-density dormitory suburbs with few jobs of their own beyond retail and service industries.

13. Take the train back to the City via the Northern Line and keep an eye out for the track works south of Hornsby to provide a long freight train crossing loop on the approach to Hornsby to deconflict freight and passenger operations. This is much more of an issue in Sydney as it is in Adelaide, Brisbane (south of the river) or Melbourne, since freight is not mostly gauge segregated from the passenger network in Sydney. While heading south, you might want another look at Epping station (or maybe not). It’s still a fairly low-density activity centre, but does (or did before the new railway) have a good bus interchange. Finally, have a look out the right hand side of the train once you cross the Parramatta River at Meadowbank for the ‘One Nation’ works of the freight line between Rhodes and North Strathfield. Watch at North Strathfield as the line diverts down the western chord of the junction at Strathfield as it heads toward Flemington to access Enfield and Clyde Yards.

14. Get off at Strathfield and transfer to a Western Line train bound for Lidcombe. Once again, you’ll pick up the One Nation freight route on the right hand side of the train. Change at Lidcombe to ‘Platform Zero’ for the Olympic Park shuttle that runs on a 20-minute frequency. Have a look at the station and the surrounding area, which is still finding its feet after the Olympics and having the Showground functions transferred to it from Moore Park (in the eastern suburbs). Check out the growing corporate presence, the new shopping and restaurant strip, the proposed sports hospital and residential towers, the growing range of leisure activities and the preparations for the Grand Prix.

An alternative way to get to Olympic Park from the City is to catch an ‘interurban’ service from the terminal platforms at Central in the late mornings (they’re actually V-sets that have completed their morning peak runs and are returning to Flemington, but fit an OP run in on the way). The reverse services run back in the early/mid afternoon. The STA 401 connects with the ferries running from Olympic Park Wharf and the latter is a truly delightful way of traveling to or from the Quay.

Get back on the train and go back to Lidcombe (or back to the city if you’ve had enough for the day). Alternatively, stick around in the PM peak (or if you’re there in the AM peak), marvel at the numerous extra bus services to places like Strathfield, Chatswood and Hurstville leaving from the north end of OP station. Finally, be startled and perhaps a little perplexed at the gaggle of Commonwealth Bank commuter buses and coaches shuffling their employees off to lunchtime shopping venues, nearby car parks and adjacent suburbs (usually paralleling existing STA routes!). What would the STA bus frequencies be like now if ComBank’s 6000 employees had been offered corporate funded (green) Travel Tens instead?

15. Head out to Liverpool from Lidcombe on the Southern Line. Again, look for the One Nation-funded freight route on the right hand side of the train and then watch it disappear around the back of Flemington EMU Maintenance Centre to go under the mainline to Enfield and Clyde Yards. Look also for the number of disused industrial sidings along the route, especially around Yennora, Warwick Farm and Liverpool.

16. At Liverpool, have a look at the works going on to put the Southern Sydney Freight Line through the constrained site of Liverpool station, and a look at the bus interchange before getting on the Liverpool-Parramatta T-Way. An interesting project that opened in 2003 has 35 stops on the 31km route. It uses a right-of-way in the Sydney Water pipeline corridor and was originally designed as a Light Rail project. Some issues include the more general failure to integrate fares and ticketing across Sydney, the placement of stops in relation to trip generators, lack of integration with connecting bus services and an emphasis on urban design and landscaping of stations over utility that led to cost blowouts and disappointing patronage. However, some interesting stops along the way may include: Prairiewood (about half-way) which Graham Currie has identified is starting to see some urban development around the stop, Green Valley (Mark Latham territory and a classic 1960s-era public housing estate) and Miller (Park and Ride facilities). At Parramatta, have a look at the underground interchange between Bus and Train. Also have a look around Parramatta itself. There has been some major development around Parramatta as the CBD for Western Sydney (an area that is the 3rd largest contributor to national GDP), especially the Westfield shopping centre near the station (2nd largest retail turnover in Australia after Chadstone) and also on the other side near the mall.

16a. If you have the time at Parramatta, try riding the North-West T-way to Rouse Hill and back. It’s a different animal to the Liverpool-Parramatta T-way, being only partly on a dedicated alignment with long sections of on-road running. This was definitely T-Way on the cheap (although it cost around twice as much as the Liverpool-Parramatta T-way). Don’t know much about it, so can’t help you too much on that.

17. Make sure that you travel on the Cumberland Line (Campbelltown-Blacktown) while you’re there. It was a Federally-funded project under the ‘Building Better Cities’ program in the 1990s, but never quite fit in with CityRail’s operational thinking. As such it is only used at present for 5 trips on weekdays (2 from Campbelltown in the AM peak and 3 from Blacktown in the PM peak). A wasted asset in anyone’s language. It might be best to catch it in the PM peak from Parramatta to Liverpool after a trip on the T-Way.

18. If you’ve got a bit more time, head down to Campbelltown and Macarthur from Liverpool. On the right hand side of the train, you’ll see the painfully short ‘long crossing loop’ between Glenfield and Ingleburn that was another One Nation project and the first section of the Southern Sydney Freight Line (which is only now starting construction) – there should now be more than survey pegs and markers by now. Campbelltown is a wasted opportunity to develop a compact district centre around a train station. A badly-designed bus interchange that cuts the station off from the town centre and a council without vision has seen few big buildings and little development in the town centre. Most of the development is at Macarthur Square opposite Macarthur Station along with the hospital and some large ‘Macmansion’ style housing nearby at Glen Alpine.

19. Take the train back from Macarthur to Glenfield. Have a look at this bustling transport hub (it isn’t, but it should be) ripe for a Transit Oriented Development. Junction of two major rail lines (South and East Hills) with good access to the City, Liverpool, Campbelltown and other parts of Sydney (especially if the Cumberland Line ever got decent services). One day it may also be the junction of the South-West Rail Link into the new growth areas between the railway line and the Nepean River. It can’t just be the close proximity of Macquarie Fields that is dragging Glenfield down? Take an East Hills Line train back to the City and have a look at some more Rail Clearways projects too (especially the quadding between Revesby and Kingsgrove.

Finally, you’ll notice the urban fabric a bit different to Melbourne and many other Australian cities. More active intervention in planning matters by the NSW Government has seen local councils overruled in the ‘market’s’ (i.e. Meriton and Lend-Lease) drive to build bigger and bigger apartment blocks in the inner areas close to railway stations in particular. If you’re observing the AM peak, I suggest visitors go to an inner city station (i.e. Newtown on the inner western line) or Erskineville and St Peters on the Bankstown line and watch the overcrowding on narrow-ish platforms that have not been upgraded to deal with the huge demand for rail transport the orgy of apartment building has created, especially when services have also failed to be upgraded to keep passengers moving (4 trains an hour in the AM peak is my recollection, with two 20-minute gaps as limited expresses run through Erko and St Peters).

Britomart Station

I’ve been discussing the concept of a ‘transport tourist’s guidebook’ on-and-off with Peter Parker for some time, having informally assisted each other with an itinerary of public transport-related things to see in our respective home towns (Sydney and Perth respectively). At the end of September, I have the opportunity of spending 4-5 days in Auckland for a conference and some work visits. Not knowing too much about happenings across the ‘ditch (apart from Britomart, electrification and so forth), I’d like some help on focusing in on some areas of interest.

My interests are (in no particular order):

1. Transport and land-use integration
2. Major projects
3. Modal interchanges
4. Infrastructure
5. Service standards and quality
6. Customer information
7. What works and what doesn’t in the system

John-ston, as our local expert (of NZ matters) and any other of our contributors who’ve been to Auckland, is there a list of transport things worth visiting that can be assembled for my (and everyone else’s) benefit? Once one has been drawn up, I am quite comfortable with posting it on here for the use of others, along with my list of transport tourist sites in Sydney. Peter P may wish to do the same with his Perth itinerary.