THE CityRail network will reach choking point within four years, despite billions being spent on new trains and the long-delayed Epping to Chatswood Line, the pricing regulator has revealed.
Crowding on trains is worsening by the week, an off-peak ticketing trial that ended in October was a dismal failure, and commuters will have to fork out 25 per cent more for their tickets over the next four years.
By 2012 the morning peak will be so busy new commuters will find no space to squeeze on board. Such overcrowding would cause the timetable to collapse, undermine CityRail's on-time running performance and bring grief to the Rees Government before the 2011 election.
Patronage grew by 5.2 per cent this year, but in peak hour there were 7.2 per cent more commuters on average. And the Inner West line registered a 10.8 per cent increase.
If such growth continued until 2010, 97 per cent of morning peak trains at Redfern would carry more than 135 per cent of seating capacity and on-time running would dive below 70 per cent - 22 percentage points beneath the Government's target - according to research by the Boston Consulting Group.
The dire warning should come as no surprise. In 2001, the Long-Term Strategic Plan for Rail forecast: "By between 2011 and about 2015 the relief provided by [the Clearways Program] will be effectively exhausted and a new rail route through the inner city and the CBD … will be essential."
The Iemma government ignored the forecast and shelved a rail extension program to Sydney's north-west and south-west, and a second line through the CBD and across the harbour.
Last month the Government dumped every significant rail expansion program to which it had previously committed.
It axed the $12.5 billion North West Metro, the $1.36 billion South West rail link and radically cut back the Rail Clearways Program after a series of cost blow-outs.
Now the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal has revealed the rail system is headed for a crash.
In its rail fares report, published yesterday, the tribunal said that despite
more carriages and the Epping to Chatswood line, "if patronage during peak periods continues to grow at current levels, this additional capacity will be exhausted by 2012 at the latest.
"And as the network reaches full capacity, the quality of services will inevitably go down — for example, crowding on trains and in stations will increase, and ultimately reliability will decrease."
Yet the planned CBD Metro between Central and Rozelle will take out the only alignment available to the critical second CBD CityRail line that the Government was told in 2001 must be built.
The $2.35 billion Epping line would provide up to 30 per cent more capacity, said the Minister for Transport, David Campbell.
