Slashing travel time between the Sydney CBD and Parramatta to 20 minutes, the proposed 24km underground rail route will have stops at The Bays Precinct, Five Dock, Burwood North, North Strathfield and Sydney Olympic Park before heading straight to Parramatta and on to Westmead.
State MP for Auburn, Lynda Voltz, slammed Transport Minister Andrew Constance and called for him to apologise to residents after he responded to an Opposition question about a Silverwater stop in Parliament last week by saying, “Why on earth would you want to build a train line to a jail?”
Ms Voltz said it wasn’t unreasonable for residents in areas which had taken the brunt of development for more than decade, to expect a metro stop.
“There is a 10km stretch of the metro line between Parramatta and Sydney Olympic Park with no stop, a significant larger gap than anywhere else on the proposed metro west,” she said.
“How can the Government justify excluding parts of the Auburn electorate from much-needed infrastructure given it has the second fastest growing population in the State?”
While the first trains aren’t due to run until 2036, Premier Gladys Berejiklian said early site works would start next year and it would “fundamentally change how we get around our city for generations to come”.
City of Parramatta Lord Mayor Bob Dwyer welcomed the news, describing it as “a critical piece of infrastructure that will support the vision of Parramatta as Sydney’s Central City”.
Less enthusiastic, Roydon Ng from the long-running Restore Inner West Line campaign, said the lack of a Silverwater or Newington station “raises the question of how Metro West has selected its stations”.
Miss out on Metro link
SYDNEY Olympic Park is one of seven sites confirmed for Western Sydney Metro stations, although residents in Newington and Silverwater will miss out.
