Photo courtesy of Sydney Ports Corporation.
Opinion – Greg Cameron
This week, the Prime Minister offered the NSW Premier $1 billion towards a road project for reducing traffic congestion caused by trucks accessing Port Botany Container Terminal. Premier Barry O’Farrell rejected the offer because the NSW government was not willing to commit its own funds to the proposed project. In all of the debate, no mention was made of the $4 billion needed to maintain rail access to Port Botany Container Terminal from the north. A dedicated freight rail line between Strathfield and the HawkesburyRiver must be built within 15 years before capacity of the Northern Sydney Freight Corridor reaches its limit.
Given that the Prime Minister’s objective is to reduce traffic congestion around Port Botany, her government’s $1 billion would be better spent on building a dedicated freight rail line to Badgery’s Creek and progressively moving all containers by rail. With the Southern Sydney Freight Line now open, the missing link is a dedicated freight rail line between Glenfield and Badgery’s Creek. The South West Rail Link, which is currently under construction, is a passenger service between Glenfield and Leppington, only 10 km from Badgery’s Creek. $1 billion should be sufficient to add a freight rail component and extend the line to Badgery’s Creek.
Work can start immediately on building an intermodal terminal on a small portion of the site owned by the Australian government at Badgery’s Creek for a future airport. The terminal would be designed to expand in line with long-term growth in container movements. This would release the Australian government’s Moorebank site for a business park and create significantly more jobs than the current proposed use, which is a small-scale intermodal terminal servicing Port Botany and interstate rail freight.
It is common sense that freight entering Sydney from the north should not be railed through Strathfield when the destination is Badgery’s Creek. A more practical approach is to transfer freight onto rail at Newcastle for the journey via outer western Sydney to Badgery’s Creek. Such a line would cost many billions of dollars. But no government money is needed if the line is funded by private enterprise.
The line would be paid for by setting an appropriate charge for moving containers between Badgery’s Creek and a container terminal at Newcastle. Private enterprise would pay for both the Newcastle container terminal and the Badgery’s Creek intermodal terminal. Containers would reach Badgery’s Creek faster from Newcastle than they would from Port Botany.
By removing freight from the Sydney metropolitan rail system, all capacity would become available for passenger services. A constructive use of $4 billion saved in not building the Strathfield-HawkesburyRiver freight upgrade would be to improve metropolitan passenger services. Such an investment would be self-sustaining by reducing growth in commuter road trips. A productive use of Port Botany Container Terminal site would be to improve passenger and cargo services at SydneyAirport.
