AJ Sadauskas<p>Chris Minns is incompetent at budget managent and out of touch with the public.<br><br>A pipeline of rail projects is the cheapest way to build rail.<br><br>It means construction workers and engineers can take their experience from one project to another.<br><br>Meanwhile, decade-long gaps between projects means that experience is lost, so you have to retrain staff, and you need to bring in expensive international consultants.<br><br>And you need to dip into the labour pool for housing and construction to fill those roles, slowing down the construction of housing!<br><br>"As the city’s newest infrastructure offspring celebrated its first birthday this week, complete with cupcakes, balloons and trainspotters recreating its very first trip, adoration for the underground train system cannot be underestimated. The passenger numbers tell the story.<br><br>"Take the new Martin Place station. In 2024, forecasts predicted an average 15,600 passenger movements through its gates during each morning peak. By June this year, less than 12 months since it opened, that figure had already hit 17,200.<br><br>"Gadigal station, near Town Hall, boasts similar popularity. Daily passenger movements in the AM commuter rush have hit 9400, up from the forecast 7500. Other stations lag their expected numbers, including Crows Nest and Barangaroo, but there is no doubt that Sydney has fallen for the metro.<br><br>"Sydney Metro chief executive Peter Regan says the reason for higher-than-anticipated numbers is obvious. Metro trains offer faster trips than the heavy rail system from the north shore to the CBD.<br><br>"It is often standing room only, but that is the point. The metro is designed to move more people more quickly and more reliably than its older counterpart. Crowding is par for the course, as it is in every other major metro system around the world."<br><br>A large part of the catchment for Barangaroo is currently a vacant plot of land. As that urban development project continues, the numbers will definitely go up.<br><br>But this gets to the broader point: The people of Sydney have experienced what a modern metro is like, and they want more of them.<br><br>Chris Minns, an out-of-touch fool who thinks he'll win votes from talkback radio listeners by cosplaying as a fiscal conservative, is out of touch with the people.<br><br>The metro also opens up the possibility for more dense housing, which is something the state needs.<br><br>What's not mentioned in this article is that car-brained Chris wants to build another motorway tunnel under Sydney Harbour that will carry far fewer people than the metro, and also motorways up to the Northern Beaches.<br><br>"The answer depends on which political party you ask. The NSW Labor government, which has been able to bask in the glory of opening the biggest transport project in a generation, has ruled out building new metros beyond those under construction. Premier Chris Minns is unapologetic."<br><br>Chris Minns is to the right of the NSW Liberal Party. When you're a Labor Party premier and the Young Liberals have more abitious and progressive urban planning policies, it's time to really think about what you're doing in politics.<br><br>"Minns has also dashed any hopes of new stations for the under-construction Metro West [to Parramatta] having the same artistic flair that has given Sydney its first Instagrammable public transport project."<br><br>So he's not a social progressive, and he's a philistine.<br><br>Seriously, the progressive side of politics would be better off if this guy resigned.<br><br>"Similarly, the opposition has seized on Sydney’s love affair with the metro which was, after all, a Coalition project. On the day Sydney was wishing the metro a happy birthday, Opposition Leader Mark Speakman was declaring that the Coalition had “metro ambitions”, creating its most notable point of difference with the government to date."<br><br>Minns and his government should be deeply and existentially ashamed of their performance.<br><br>"The government could increase the frequency of the peak services to every three minutes, down from the current four, or it could add extra carriages. But those changes also come with considerable operating costs and this is a Labor government determined not to be a spendthrift."<br><br>The biggest op-ex for new trains is usually the driver and guard's salary. But these are driverless trains!<br><br>Most of the costs of additional services are upfront capital costs, rather than operational expernses.<br><br>And here's the thing: Capex and Opex becomes *cheaper* per passenger to operate as the number of passengers increases, which you accomplish through more frequent services.<br><br><a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/sydney-has-reached-peak-metro-is-it-all-downhill-from-here-20250820-p5moco.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/sydney-has-reached-peak-metro-is-it-all-downhill-from-here-20250820-p5moco.html</a><br><br>No paywall: <a href="https://archive.is/YrCPX" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://archive.is/YrCPX</a><br><br><a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/auspol" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>auspol</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/train" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>train</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/trains" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>trains</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/rail" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>rail</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/rwailway" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>rwailway</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/railways" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>railways</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/metro" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>metro</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/sydney" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>sydney</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/parramatta" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>parramatta</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/nswpol" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>nswpol</span></a></p>