With much of the CBD and inner Sydney looking like a bombed out Beirut, the champions of free enterprise/privatization the NSW Coalition government led by the Liberal Gladys Berejiklian is at a loss as to how and when the 14km, billion dollar light rail project from the city to Kingsford, a 20 minute bus trip, will ever be completed.

It is looking very much like the NSW taxpayer is going to have to folk out hundreds of millions more dollars to get the hugely over budget and way behind time project completed sometime in the future, months or years past the scheduled completion date of March 2019. The gigantic failure is something residence have been aware of for sometime, with the major activity being the operation of 24/7 lolly pop people, and the occasional digging of holes in the ground. The private Spanish contractor seems to be on one long siesta, as inactivity is the order of the day. The legal fighting and accusations are flying thick and fast, as the bumbling government tries to deflect blame for the disaster onto anyone, but themselves.

March 2019, is also the due date for the next state election. GB was expecting to present the city with this fabulous new light rail, just before the poll, and hay presto get reelected, sad is it not.

If you read the following link you will see the name of Transport Minister Andrew Constance throughout, his claim to fame is he tried to have a ferry named in his honour, 'Ferry NcFerryface', enough said! This guy is the most incompetent Transport Minister this universe or any other has ever seen!

http://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/no-finish-date-for-sydney-s-light-rail-as-company-takes-nsw-to-court-20180410-p4z8uh.html

The State government seem to have something of an obsession with appallingly stupid light rail projects. They tore up our perfectly good train line in Newcastle so they could replace it with light rail, which I expect will materialise any time within the next fifty years or so. Apparently, this will 'revitalise the city'. But in practical terms, all it's done is dissuaded people from going to the east end unless it's absolutely necessary, which is hurting businesses. Genius.

P1405

And Lucy Turnbull in the picture with Constance...intriguing or what? (Your link).

Perhaps they'll name a series of light rail carriages after Gladys & Andrew...something like: Smashed Crab McFace & Dropped Pie McFace with free McDonalds meals for the kids on opening day?

Don't expect your ride into Circular Quay any time soon though, it'll happen in the same century as the new Children's Hospital opens in Perth.

I remember watching a steam roller using its road digging hook to snap the steel gauge rods on the tram tracks in front of Wynyard Station in George St all those years ago when the State Government had realized its ambition to get rid of trams (aka Light Rail).

Had they left the tracks there they would have saved a lot of time and money.

Some far thinking people, at the time, said that when there was not enough room on a road for trams and cars then the cars should be the ones to go.

We have the laughable situation where the Premier and her Transport Minister are blaming the Spanish contractor, for the monumental stuff up. The morons running operations from Macquaire Street say "(they will) not be held to ransom", but it has come to light today that the Berejiklian government has award another $1 billion worth of other project to the supposedly incompetent contractor.

Wake up. Its trams. With ugly wires everywhere they go.

Who asked for trams?

It was a great day when the last trams wer

...... were taken out of Sydney previously.

JF,

and it's been downhill ever since.

Is Mise,

What do you mean downhill?

How much Australian export product of what value will be produced by these new trams and the billions to build their infrastructure?

Whilst the light rail project is important, I just want to remind everyone that we have far more pressing issues to contend with right now...

No, it not cheating in the cricket.

It's not US, British, German, French forces facing off against Russia and China in the Mediterranean in a showdown that could go nuclear; no.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied has been deported from the US.
- Yes, this is not a joke nor is it a laughing matter, you heard me correctly, THEY'RE SENDING HER BACK!

Please No. Anything but this...

//THEY'RE SENDING HER BACK!//

On a plane to Amsterdam. I didn't know you lived in Amsterdam, AC. Mind you, that does explain a lot.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/apr/12/yassmin-abdel-magied-says-she-is-being-deported-from-us

//Had they left the tracks there they would have saved a lot of time and money.//

I rather suspect that that is the point, Is Mise. We had trams in Newcastle as well, until it was decided circa 1950 that trams weren't as good as trains and buses, and they ripped up the tram lines. Now that enough time has passed to let the older people who remember why the trams were removed in the first place die off, it has been decided that trains aren't as good as trams and buses. Presumably it will be decided in the future that trams were a bad idea, and that a combination of heavy rail and buses would be best.

This cycle of playing silly buggers with public transport fulfils the important roles of creating work for public servants and giving the illusion that the State government are actually doing something. So when you think about it, the only real downsides are the enormous cost to taxpayers and the enormous inconvenience it causes to those who rely on public transport. No wonder politicians love the idea so much.

It wouldn't suck so much if they were actually going to give us a decent tram network. The old one was quite extensive, running to numerous satellite suburbs of the city, and even into the neighbouring local government area (Lake Macquarie). The new one they're giving us is minuscule. I've seen rollercoasters which have longer tracks than what their proposing. It's just so frigging pointless.

Sometimes I wonder if our pollies have ever been to Newcastle, or if they've just taken somebody's word for it that we really need the world's shortest tram network to attract people to the city (everybody knows that the only draw-card Newy has ever needed is our Big Thing: the Big Dick, or Queen's Wharf Tower if you want to get technical - and they're pulling that down as well). Still, at least they're going to rebuild some very recently constructed sports stadiums in Sydney at hideous expense to balance out all this pointless destruction, which is terrific news for people outside Sydney who don't particularly like sport.

F%^k the state government. I hope they all get run over by their precious trams.

JF,

In the then existing tramways, we had an electric system that didn't spew fumes into the streets (the fumes were spewed into the sky miles from anywhere or at Pyrmont).

Trams are much more efficient at moving people than cars and busses but NSW ripped out the efficient system and pandered to inefficiency because the pollies saw votes in it.

Numbers Three and Four platforms at Wynyard Underground station were tram platforms that served the North Shore going as far as Narrabeen, with a short walk across Spit Bridge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Sydney#Second_period_1909%E2%80%931932

Is Mise.

The Pyrmont and Balmain power stations used to spew soot through Sydney city and suburbs, depending on wind direction.

Trams never stopped at the kerb as buses do, resulting in all traffic having to stop AT ALL TRAM STOPS to allow all passengers, even slow older people, to walk across the road to reach the kerb and footpath.

The stop start traffic burned much more fuel and even brake linings and tyres that left residue.
Time was wasted.
Temper sometines flared.
Traffic flow was constantly blocked or greatly slowed.

Buses stop at the actual kerb, no need for traffic to stop, no need to get wet disembarking in rain, as you know Is Mise, as you should admit, Is Mise.

Buses running on less polluting natural gas became more common.

Cities and towns spent a fortune putting ugly electricity wires underground, without poles, but now trams posing as light rail are putting wires and poles up again.

Look at this lightweight rail, it appears almost identical in weight to the old tram rail. And it's buried in heavy cement, not on timber sleepers under asphalt.

Many many businesses are now big losers from this new tram fiasco, parking spaces lost, no more cruising in cars or buses to sight see and window shop day or night.

These new 'light rail' trams are not viable.

Traditional and key main roads being taken just for occasional trams is an absolute farce.

Worse, hospital waiting lists and even patients waiting for urgent medical attention are being kept waiting while money is wasted on preposterous "modern looking" trams.

JF,

What you say is true but in the CBD on George St. there will be no cars.

Is Mise,

People used to travel along George Street and look out of cars at shop window displays, then park their car and return and buy. Driving along George Steet at night was also good for George Street businesses, cars could park right there, occupants could walk and window shop and enjoy the city.

I suppose parking station's at the end of tram lines will do very well.

I think cancel and bury the lot right now and get on with life and real productivity and prosperity, would be the best way to go.

//What you say is true but in the CBD on George St. there will be no cars.//

As far as I know they're not planning to ban cars from Hunter St.

Things are gonna get ugly.