\u201cWe are very close,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Alia Karaman, the project director for the southwest metro extension, says \u2018change is seen in a positive light\u2019. Photograph: Jessica Hromas\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
The opening depends on a key final approval from the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator (ONRSR) \u2013 Karaman submitted the final piece of safety data to the regulator this week. After regulator approval delayed the opening of the city metro section in 2024, the Minns government has been at pains not to commit to a date for the southwest expansion, despite media reports that it was aiming for launch on 18 October.<\/p>\n
The former T3 heavy rail line was only originally estimated to be closed for 12 months when it ceased operations in September 2024. However, converting the historic stations on the 130-year-old line to be fit for the driverless, rapid transit system has proved challenging.<\/p>\n
Mechanical \u201cgap-fillers\u201d have been added to fill the space between the train doors and curved platforms, as has anti-ibis infrastructure to keep the birds out of the rail corridor. They were frequently triggering a sensitive new hi-tech intrusion detection system, Karaman says. At four stations, particularly wide gaps will still mean that certain train doors will not open, while data is collected on the reliability of the gap-fillers.<\/p>\n
People at the bus stop on Chapel Road by the new Bankstown metro station. Photograph: Jessica Hromas\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
In Bankstown, at the end of the expanded line, locals and commuters are either unaware of the impending opening, or sceptical about the completion of a project first announced by the former Coalition government in 2014. Labor campaigned against it at the 2019 election but has supported the project under Chris Minns as premier. The city and southwest metro sections have cost more than $20bn combined.<\/p>\n
But Sophie, who works in Bankstown but lives in Chatswood at the northern end of the metro city section that opened two years ago, says the southwest extension\u2019s opening will be \u201clife-changing\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to cut my commute down in half,\u201d she says, before breaking off to run for a local bus.<\/p>\n
Jason Tran, drinking an early morning coffee at a heaving cafe on Bankstown\u2019s City Plaza, agrees. \u201cI\u2019ve had enough of the pink buses,\u201d says the IT worker, whose commute to the city begins with a more than 40-minute replacement bus journey to Sydenham.<\/p>\n
When the extension opens, the train will take 21 minutes from Bankstown to Sydenham, before rolling into the feted city metro, making parts of the Sydney suburbs within easier reach of the city\u2019s centre than ever before.<\/p>\n
Jo Haylen at the new Dulwich Hill metro station. Photograph: Jessica Hromas\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
The Labor MP for Summer Hill and Marrickville resident, Jo Haylen, has been catching the pink buses herself.<\/p>\n
The former transport minister, who oversaw the closure of the T3 line, admits the pink bus is \u201cnot a train, but it\u2019s been free and it\u2019s been frequent\u201d, even if \u201con a rainy day, it\u2019s just not as much fun\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think we do need to remember what we had before,\u201d Haylen says. What had been four trains an hour at smaller stations like Dulwich Hill will become a train every four minutes during the peak.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be a totally different proposition about how people will choose to move \u2026 People will leave their private vehicles at home for the first time ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tran thinks more people will use the metro to explore Bankstown \u2013 \u201cIt\u2019s multicultural, you have all your ethnic food\u201d \u2013 but says he thinks the property prices will \u201cskyrocket, for sure\u201d.<\/p>\n
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