Parramatta light rail

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tonyp
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by tonyp »

Swift wrote: What makes you think Parra LR will be run any differently?
It won't of course, but it's probably not so critical as L1-L3 as I don't think it will be competing with or replacing any bus services. The main challenge will be to beat walking speed around Westmead and Parramatta and the train running time of 9 minutes between Camellia and Carlingford.
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by Swift »

Old ladies on quads will probably overtake it on the Westmead leg.
I just hope the blinking things are more consistent in their frequency than the L2 and L3.
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by covo95 »

i have doubts as to whether Stage 2 will ever happen at all.
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by Richard290 »

From today (4th July) Church Street between Factory Street and Victoria Road was closed to vehicular traffic to enable the commencement of Light Rail construction.
As a result, Hillsbus and STA routes were diverted to connect with and utilise the parallel O'Connell Street before resuming their usual routes to Wilde Avenue via Victoria Road.
STA changes for routes 546, 549 and 550:
Image


Hillsbus changes for routes 600, 601, 603, 604, 606, 609, 625 and 706:
Image
Living at the north end of the 513 & 535. and the confluence of 513, 535, 546, 549, 550, 553, 625 & 630.
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Re: Parramatta light rail

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What is a Swiming Centre?
Living in the Shire.
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by molybtek »

Not just the m is missing, the whole swimming centre is missing for many years already!
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by Swift »

Ian 'Corpse' Swimming Centre.
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tonyp
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by tonyp »

From TfNSW, an aerial view of duplication works on the Carlingford line. Taken from above Telopea looking SW. Click on the photo to enlarge.

https://scontent.fsyd4-1.fna.fbcdn.net/ ... e=5F62693E
Transtopic
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by Transtopic »

tonyp wrote: Wed Aug 19, 2020 11:51 am From TfNSW, an aerial view of duplication works on the Carlingford line. Taken from above Telopea looking SW. Click on the photo to enlarge.

https://scontent.fsyd4-1.fna.fbcdn.net/ ... e=5F62693E
You can also see where a potential light rail branch line could be constructed from Dundas Station veering onto Kissing Point Rd at the rail overbridge and continuing to Macquarie Park via the reserved Eastwood County Rd corridor. It's much more direct and faster than a circuitous route via Carlingford and Epping. It's pretty obvious that the current line will terminate at Carlingford and any plan to extend it to Epping, let alone Macquarie Park, has slipped off the agenda. I also have my doubts whether Stage 2 to Sydney Olympic Park via Rydalmere and Melrose Park will see the light of day in view of the advanced planning for Metro West.

The original intention was to construct a light rail link from Parramatta to Macquarie Park, which are the largest strategic centres outside of the CBD, and you would think worthy of enhanced transport connections. Instead, we will finish up with a truncated line only getting as far as Carlingford and not even connecting with Metro Northwest at Epping to allow interchange to reach Macquarie Park and vice versa. Inexplicably, the original Parramatta to Macquarie Park route via Eastwood recommended in a feasibility study undertaken for Parramatta City Council, was completely ignored and didn't even make the short list of options. Unbelievable!

If the Stage 2 Parramatta Light Rail project doesn't proceed, then it opens the door for the direct link to Macquarie Park via Eastwood to be revisited, as it should have been the preferred route in the first place. A branch to Carlingford could still have been included. In a round about way, we may eventually finish up with just that.

Proposed future metro links are decades away and in the meantime the light rail option can be constructed in a relatively short time-frame and at a fraction of the cost of a fully blown metro, which may or may not be warranted.
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by Swift »

One positive: the conversion to LR of the Carlo line is the duplication -something I didn't think about before. The frequency this allows will be a great advantage to the catchment it passes through. Extra stops along the way will be all the better.
If a link to Epping isn't foreseeable, a mini extension to Carlingford Court would be most worthwhile via tunneling with an underground stop under CC with interchange to buses.
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by gilberations »

Swift wrote: Thu Aug 20, 2020 12:36 pm If a link to Epping isn't foreseeable, a mini extension to Carlingford Court would be most worthwhile via tunneling with an underground stop under CC with interchange to buses.
I actually noticed once in the original plans for the Parramatta to Epping link, that Carlingford Station would have been relocated underground anyway, and closer to the shopping centre. If they do extend the Lightrail to Epping and onto Macquarie Park, I would have it go from the existing (former) station, underground to Carlingford Court, then resurface to travel along Carlingford Rd to Epping with at least a stop at Pennant Pde and Midson Rd, then left onto Ray Rd, then travel on a new corridor to cross the tracks utilizing the old bus underpass, to head up to Epping Station, then down Pembroke St, Epping Rd stopping at existing Bus Stop locations, and into the University with at least 3 stops within the grounds, and finishing by traveling through to the Macquarie Park metro station down Waterloo Rd with at least 2 intermediate Stops.

Then you could also add, like suggested above a secondary link from Dundas to the University via Kissing Point Rd and Balaclava Rd, Rutiledge St, down to the existing bus interchange at Eastwood station, and a new underpass constructed to cross over to Balaclava. I would recommend between 8 and 10 intermediate stops.
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by Swift »

Why does it have to go along Carlingford Road much if at all, except the start where there is ample reservation on the north side of the road? It could use all of Ray Road with one lane each way for resident traffic only. Buses use Ray Road at present so that can justify a light rail replacement argument for any opposition.
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tonyp
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by tonyp »

I don't think it's worth speculating about future light rail routes. The mode has only few very specific and quite short distance applications in the Sydney context and in fact I think all the possibilities for it in Sydney have been already explored and implemented (either completed or in process). If we still had the old system, the E/SE, North Sydney and Ryde line systems would have been extremely useful to retain within the future overall transport network but, except for what's now been done in the SE, it's prohibitive to resurrect them and they would ultimately be in danger of running short of capacity without a metro system to support them in any case. The other obvious point is that the metro system offers much faster journey times.

When planning for a city in the 5 to 10 million population range, trams, like buses, ultimately don't offer enough capacity for potential future demand. The only robust solution, with reserve future capacity, in a city this size is a rapid transit/metro system. On top of this, the ongoing deficiencies in the ability of TfNSW to manage projects mean that it is better to stick with what they can do well. Light rail - under their watch - has turned out to be not the best value for the enormous expenditure and, if this is the case running in a normal surface environment, you can imagine the blowouts if we're talking excavating tunnels and underground stops. All of this doesn't mean that tramways don't work well in other contexts. In medium and small cities they can be an excellent solution for trunk circulators, as the success of the Canberra and Gold Coast projects suggests. It boils down to horses for courses and best bang for bucks.

Sydney is a megacity - it's growing beyond the capabilities of both trams and - definitely - buses. As far as buses are concerned, if a job can't be done by artics or deckers, then we have to look at metro with buses feeding it. Again TfNSW hasn't helped with its apparent set against high-capacity buses and productivity improvements, so all the arrows point to one solution: metro. I tend to agree with Transtopic that this is definitely a metro line shown between Parramatta and Epping and that, en route, it will interchange with the light rail at Carlingford. The metro line would exit Parramatta via North Parramatta, so it's quite a different route. The planning option to redirect it via Eastwood to Macquarie Park is certainly still open if they want, but I don't think that route should be light rail. On TfNSW's present form, that will be poor bang for bucks, too slow and may run short of capacity in the future.

In relation to the above map, yes the suburban and metro lines are blended without distinction, but that's the whole point they are making. It's all one integrated system, with interchange available. Sydney won't have Perth's luxury of being able to convert the legacy system to rapid transit because that is prohibitively costly, but there is nothing particularly disadvantageous in leaving the suburban system running as it is (with modern signalling and other improvements). The bigger issues are to achieve more line separation, denser coverage so we're not relying on trams and buses, quicker journeys, higher capacity and not skipping stations.
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by Linto63 »

THe 2056 Transport Plan is more just a vision rather than a concrete plan, being on a plan and actually being built are two different things. Just look at the equivalent long-term plan from the 1970s or 1980s of what was envisaged and what we have now, and only a fraction will have come to fruition. Not just a Sydney things, same will apply to all other capital cities.
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by STMPainter2018 »

tonyp wrote: Fri Aug 21, 2020 8:46 am I don't think it's worth speculating about future light rail routes. The mode has only few very specific and quite short distance applications in the Sydney context and in fact I think all the possibilities for it in Sydney have been already explored and implemented (either completed or in process). If we still had the old system, the E/SE, North Sydney and Ryde line systems would have been extremely useful to retain within the future overall transport network but, except for what's now been done in the SE, it's prohibitive to resurrect them and they would ultimately be in danger of running short of capacity without a metro system to support them in any case. The other obvious point is that the metro system offers much faster journey times.

When planning for a city in the 5 to 10 million population range, trams, like buses, ultimately don't offer enough capacity for potential future demand. The only robust solution, with reserve future capacity, in a city this size is a rapid transit/metro system. On top of this, the ongoing deficiencies in the ability of TfNSW to manage projects mean that it is better to stick with what they can do well. Light rail - under their watch - has turned out to be not the best value for the enormous expenditure and, if this is the case running in a normal surface environment, you can imagine the blowouts if we're talking excavating tunnels and underground stops. All of this doesn't mean that tramways don't work well in other contexts. In medium and small cities they can be an excellent solution for trunk circulators, as the success of the Canberra and Gold Coast projects suggests. It boils down to horses for courses and best bang for bucks.

Sydney is a megacity - it's growing beyond the capabilities of both trams and - definitely - buses. As far as buses are concerned, if a job can't be done by artics or deckers, then we have to look at metro with buses feeding it. Again TfNSW hasn't helped with its apparent set against high-capacity buses and productivity improvements, so all the arrows point to one solution: metro. I tend to agree with Transtopic that this is definitely a metro line shown between Parramatta and Epping and that, en route, it will interchange with the light rail at Carlingford. The metro line would exit Parramatta via North Parramatta, so it's quite a different route. The planning option to redirect it via Eastwood to Macquarie Park is certainly still open if they want, but I don't think that route should be light rail. On TfNSW's present form, that will be poor bang for bucks, too slow and may run short of capacity in the future.

In relation to the above map, yes the suburban and metro lines are blended without distinction, but that's the whole point they are making. It's all one integrated system, with interchange available. Sydney won't have Perth's luxury of being able to convert the legacy system to rapid transit because that is prohibitively costly, but there is nothing particularly disadvantageous in leaving the suburban system running as it is (with modern signalling and other improvements). The bigger issues are to achieve more line separation, denser coverage so we're not relying on trams and buses, quicker journeys, higher capacity and not skipping stations.
Oh Christ please save me the propaganda Tony. Metro is not gonna be the saviour that fixes all of Sydney’s transport woes and light rail shouldn’t be disregarded because of previous poor implementation. There’s plenty of corridors around Sydney crying for the resurrection of trams. Metro isn’t gonna be enough. Especially when the trains are allegedly rough riding and wearing out the wheels faster than they should cause they don’t know how to handle the driverless system properly.
tonyp
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by tonyp »

As I said, the problem in a very large city (in the 5 to 10 million population range) is that the capacity of a tram operation may be overwhelmed as the population of its corridor grows, so you have to apply them in specific situations where you know they'll be adequate for the present and future demand. They're obviously better than a bus operation in this regard, but not as good as a train. All of this is going to be determined by the planning regime and its forecasts for the city's growth and the places where that growth will occur.

You may have noticed, looking around the world, that, while tramways are very common in smaller and medium-size cities, they're not commonly part of the central transit system in very large and megacities. For example, the once gigantic Moscow and St Petersburg tram systems have very much contracted to the suburbs, replaced by metro as the backbone system. The population grew too big for them. London and Paris have reintroduced trams only in the suburban peripheries with metro again being the backbone and core system. As you move down to smaller cities, you see more tram networks based in city cores and spreading into inner suburbs. Trams work well in this way in cities between a few hundred thousand and 2 or 3 million people. Once you pass that mark you're looking more at serious heavy lifting and thus metro.

A case in point is why the Sydney SE light rail is not proposed to be reinstated right down to La Perouse. The planners intend to house a much larger population in the outer SE, an area that has been artificially underdeveloped because of lack of transport capacity (made worse years ago by downscaling from trams to buses). For the level of development proposed (medium to high density), even the capacity of a tram line would no longer be adequate, so there will be metro south of Maroubra Junction. The other advantage of that is - being at a distance - that it will provide a decent journey time which neither the present tram nor buses will be able to provide.

The other potential role for a tram is a downtown circulator and this is already being put in place in Sydney's two major CBDs. A similar opportunity may arise in the western CBD or other centres in the distant future, but for now I'm saying that the major opportunities for using trams in the setting of this rapidly-growing very large city have probably been exhausted. We very much need to stay ahead of the rate of growth and not fall into the disaster of the previous seventy years where we fell behind. The only way we can stay ahead is mass rapid transit - as is the case in large cities around the world.
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by Transtopic »

tonyp wrote: Fri Aug 21, 2020 9:13 pm As I said, the problem in a very large city (in the 5 to 10 million population range) is that the capacity of a tram operation may be overwhelmed as the population of its corridor grows, so you have to apply them in specific situations where you know they'll be adequate for the present and future demand. They're obviously better than a bus operation in this regard, but not as good as a train. All of this is going to be determined by the planning regime and its forecasts for the city's growth and the places where that growth will occur.

You may have noticed, looking around the world, that, while tramways are very common in smaller and medium-size cities, they're not commonly part of the central transit system in very large and megacities. For example, the once gigantic Moscow and St Petersburg tram systems have very much contracted to the suburbs, replaced by metro as the backbone system. The population grew too big for them. London and Paris have reintroduced trams only in the suburban peripheries with metro again being the backbone and core system. As you move down to smaller cities, you see more tram networks based in city cores and spreading into inner suburbs. Trams work well in this way in cities between a few hundred thousand and 2 or 3 million people. Once you pass that mark you're looking more at serious heavy lifting and thus metro.

A case in point is why the Sydney SE light rail is not proposed to be reinstated right down to La Perouse. The planners intend to house a much larger population in the outer SE, an area that has been artificially underdeveloped because of lack of transport capacity (made worse years ago by downscaling from trams to buses). For the level of development proposed (medium to high density), even the capacity of a tram line would no longer be adequate, so there will be metro south of Maroubra Junction. The other advantage of that is - being at a distance - that it will provide a decent journey time which neither the present tram nor buses will be able to provide.

The other potential role for a tram is a downtown circulator and this is already being put in place in Sydney's two major CBDs. A similar opportunity may arise in the western CBD or other centres in the distant future, but for now I'm saying that the major opportunities for using trams in the setting of this rapidly-growing very large city have probably been exhausted. We very much need to stay ahead of the rate of growth and not fall into the disaster of the previous seventy years where we fell behind. The only way we can stay ahead is mass rapid transit - as is the case in large cities around the world.
I have to agree with your summation Tony, although I still think that a light rail link from Parramatta to Macquarie Park as a cross regional corridor based on Parramatta would be warranted in the short term until the level of demand warrants a metro, by whatever route. It's not unlike the light rail lines feeding into the metro in Singapore.
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by Linto63 »

May have been a better option than building the light rail, but what is done is done, so unlikely the heavy rail will be extended.
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by boronia »

Transtopic wrote: Sat Aug 22, 2020 12:43 am
I have to agree with your summation Tony, although I still think that a light rail link from Parramatta to Macquarie Park as a cross regional corridor based on Parramatta would be warranted in the short term until the level of demand warrants a metro, by whatever route. It's not unlike the light rail lines feeding into the metro in Singapore.
The "light rail" lines in Singapore are actually just small rubber tyred automated people movers running in elevated loops around housing estates. Pretty much similar in purpose/function to the Sydney mono-rail.

I first went to SIN about 15 years ago and there was one line built through a completely undeveloped area, not operational. I went back 5 years later and there was still no development in the area.
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by jpp42 »

The Singapore light rail / peoplemover systems are similar to Sydney's light rail in capacity - way higher than the Monorail. They do have a significantly different design, but for this discussion capacity is what is more important. These systems support clusters of high rises and are feeders to the MRT, as mentioned.
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by viccii »

What trams will be used? The old one variety? Or a new variety?
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by boronia »

FRom Wikipedia:

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Stage 1 will be operated by a fleet of thirteen Urbos 3 vehicles built by Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF). Urbos 3 vehicles are also already in operation on the Dulwich Hill Line (Inner West Light Rail). However, unlike the Dulwich Hill Line, the Urbos 3 vehicles on the Parramtta Light Rail will operate in seven modules and are 45 metres (148 ft) long.
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Re: Parramatta Light Rail

Post by 385BUZ »

Hi!

I’ve just got a couple of questions regarding the parramatta Light Rail since it’s quite foreign to me!!

1. Why have we returned to Urbos 3 Veicles rather than the newer Alstom Citadis 305s for the CBD and South East light rail
2. Are stage 1 and stage 2 seperate lines?? L4 and L5?

Thanks in advance
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tonyp
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Re: Parramatta light rail

Post by tonyp »

The Urbos 3 and Citadis 305 are current models from their respective manufacturers. One is not newer than the other. Urbos 3 was selected by TfNSW for the Inner West, Newcastle and Parramatta projects; Citadis came with the winning consortium for the SE project. Stage 2 of Parramatta is a branchline off the main line.
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