Media Release: Chatswood overcrowding to cause serious safety risks

Transport workers’ concerns that overcrowding at Chatswood platforms when the new Metro opens will pose major safety concerns has been vindicated by documents revealing that train delays of 2 to 4 minutes could cause overcrowding at Chatswood, as published in the Sydney Morning Herald today.

The Sydney Morning Herald states that the total number of passengers switching trains or exiting Chatswood station between 8am and 9am is set to more than double to 16,544 passengers – from 6913 – after the metro line opens.

RTBU NSW Secretary, Alex Claassens, said “The platforms at Chatswood are already congested at peak hour now, so imagine what it’ll be like when the metro is dumping hundreds of commuters at the one station who then have to wait for the heavy rail to take them into the city.

“This certainly doesn’t sound like the world class transport network that the NSW Government keeps boasting about.

“We already know that there is extreme stress on our existing rail network, but when the metro opens, dumping all these passengers at one station is only going to make that pressure worse.

“Think about how badly our rail network grinds to a halt when one thing goes wrong. Now imagine how dangerous it could be when you have enormous amounts of passengers being left at one station. If something goes wrong on the network, the results could be catastrophic.

We know that from documents leaked in December 2018 that NSW rail heavyweights advised the Government that the metro rail plans would result in the ‘‘degradation of the robustness and reliability’’ of Sydney’s existing heavy rail network, and ‘‘ultimately lead to the total network becoming gridlocked and unworkable’’. (SMH, 19/12/18, ‘Metro line ‘will cripple network’)

“As well as this, the Government still won’t confirm if buses from the North West will continue taking commuters into the city, as indications show that the Government will reduce these bus services so that commuters are dropped off at a metro station instead of taken into the city.

“This means more commuters are going to be funnelled onto our metro and heavy rail network and will have to take multiple trips for a journey that previously took them from A to B in one go.

“Commuters from suburbs like Dural and Cherrybrook are facing a commute of a bus, a metro and a train just to get into the city. This is just ridiculous.”

Media contact:          Amelia Brock, 0430 187 161