The current New South Wales government has a disastrous track record on transport. The truncation of the Newcastle railway far from where the passengers want to go, and the decision to use single deck trains on Sydney's North West Rail Link should result in Labor winning this election by a landslide... except their policy is arguably worse! On the North West Rail Link in particular, the plan to do the same as the Coalition but more slowly will result in years of transport chaos and dangerously overcrowded platforms at Chatswood, before spending the same ten billion dollars on a railway that provides very few new journey opportunities.

But there are cheaper ways to fix the problem. The biggest limitation on how many trains cross the Harbour Bridge isn't the number of tracks on the bridge itself, but the time the trains spend in the stations. So rather than building a whole new line under the Harbour to add capacity, the capacity of the existing line can be almost doubled by having four tracks and platforms in each station.

So if North West Rail Link trains could share the existing tracks, capacity could be added at a much lower cost. The best way to do this would be to build double deckers that can fit through the North West Rail Link tunnels. This would be much better for the passengers who wouldn't have to stand for a long journey, but would be quite expensive – especially as to make space, some safety features would have to be omitted from the tunnels, so more safety features would be required on the trains.

A second option is to have single deck trains with the same width and entrance floor height as the existing double deckers.

Or if they're unwilling to alter the NWRL train specifications, a third option is continuing to terminate NWRL trains at Epping until a direct route to the CBD via Rozelle is constructed. This would also allow Epping-Parramatta to be constructed.

Most elections are decided on ideas; this one seems set to be decided by a lack of them.

A cheaper option than having a rail tunnel under the water would be to remove the car roads from the existing rail corridors on the bridge and use the existing tunnels and platforms at Wynyard; just as the designer intended way back in the 1920s.

It's time to get rid of cars from the city.

The problem with road infrastructure is that it has something like
30 year period before breakeven on expenditure.
In thirty years time I doubt anyone will be driving to work in the
large numbers that we now have.

This web site has a number of studies on why there have been so many
financial failures of motorways.

http://crudeoilpeak.info/

Look under Motorways in the right hand side index.
They are doomed even before construction starts.
The only benefit they will have is that they are perfect for light
rail installation.

With Ponzi Scheme immigration policies, where federal Labor leader Shorten and the ethnic lobby are talking up a 25% increase in migrant numbers, that big hole in the middle of Sydney where the water is will have to be filled in for cheap housing estates.

Labor and the Greens will then have solved Sydney's transport problems. Because there could be a giant Centrelink office in the middle, with the neon, 'Welcome to Wonderful Centrelink' on the now unnecessary bridge. All roads would aim that way, like spokes on a gigantic wheel.

If you are in Melbourne or Brisbane, don't laugh, because as taxpayers you too are going to be up for even more unaffordable taxes and council rates for infrastructure. Migrants love the cities and nothing will ever change in that respect. So maybe YOU move to the country, or at least that is how the pollies will see it.

Is Mise, my point is that if tracks are shared there's no need to modify the bridge any time soon. But I agree with you about Wynyard.

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Bazz, there have also been many successes of motorways, and as population increases it's likely that many currently regarded as failures will eventually turn out to be successes. In most cases they're not well suited to light rail, though as Perth demonstrates, they can be very well suited to heavy rail.

Westconnex is a separate issue: they're building entirely the wrong infrastructure! What's really needed is a tunnel direct to the airport and port.

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onthebeach, why this obsession with Centrelink? The main reason migrants love cities is that's where the work is!

Serious question: what do you have against sprawl in Western Sydney and densification in Eastern Sydney?

And why do you ignore the obvious solution of building fast trains to encourage more people to move to country areas and reverse the rural decline?

Aidan,

You must have come here very recently if you are not aware of State Premiers' criticisms over the years (examples being Labor Premiers Anna Bligh and Bob Carr) of the effect on the major capitals of the feds' over-enthusiastic migrant policies. Just Google and you will see.

As for 'that is where the work is', the answer is no, that is not the case as unemployment figures show.

Regarding fast trains to country areas, you are unaware that government cannot afford to replace single lane road bridges on the nation's Highway One.

Maybe you might put a case for growthism, a 'Big Australia', to show how it will be sustainable, and secondly where the ordinary citizen would benefit from it. State Premiers have had severe reservations about excessive migration for many years and their warnings have been spot on.