UTS and UNSW unite for light rail

UTS and  UNSW unite for light rail
Image: Professor George Paxinos

Academics from UNSW and UTS have joined forces to support the State Government’s planned South-East Light Rail line.

Michelle Zeibots, a research principal in transport at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at UTS, said transport from Central to UNSW was currently inadequate.

“UNSW attracts around 20 to 25 thousand trips a day, and buses that provide the bulk of public transport access simply don’t have enough capacity to cope with demand,” she said.

“For students and staff travelling to UNSW from western Sydney, the journey leg from Central can be the most difficult and unreliable, even though it’s the shortest. This means some travel by car instead, adding to road traffic noise, congestion, local air pollution and parking problems for residents in Randwick and surrounding inner city suburbs.”

The $1.6 billion CBD and South East Light Rail line will run from Circular Quay to Kingsford and Randwick via Surry Hills, cutting through Devonshire St. There is a growing chorus of Surry Hills residents who oppose the plan, which will see an undetermined number of homes demolished to allow the lines to continue east.

“Having worked with so many communities whose local areas were inundated with traffic generated from new freeways and homes destroyed by road traffic noise from semi-trailers using their exhaust breaks at three in the morning, I just can’t see the severity of the impacts that light rail opponents are claiming,” said Ms Zeibots.

Several key stakeholders, including Lord Mayor Clover Mayor, believe the most appropriate route for the line would be underground, which would involve the construction of a tunnel. But George Paxinos, a Professor of Neuroscience at UNSW, said building a tunnel would be misguided.

“It mustn’t go underground because of two things: you need to be immediate to the people who are going to use the service. You are saying goodbye to someone and then you are getting to the light rail vehicle,” he said.

“If you are going to access by going to building into the ground, which costs $40 million to build, then you are burdening the system with excessive costs and therefore will not be built and you are actually time to the person.

“I would not let just a few residents pose something that’s going to be good for the broader area of Surry Hills and also for the City of Sydney. Eventually these things have to happen throughout the world.”

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