“This is very much a case of the government giving with one hand and taking with the other.”
That’s how Campbelltown MP Greg Warren now sees the state government’s “more trains, more services for South West Sydney’’ announcement earlier this week.
He said that the announcement did not contain any details about the 20 new CBD services, such as how many carriages they will be, how they will be spread across the timetable or whether they will be air-conditioned.
And the decision to remove direct services between Campbelltown and Blacktown and Parramatta would lead to significant overcrowding of trains between Campbelltown and Glenfield.
This was because people travelling to Blacktown and Parramatta would have to catch trains headed for the city until they get to Glenfield where they can change.
[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]“The government is taking away all of our direct train services to Blacktown and Parramatta, and to compensate for this is adding just two extra services to the CBD,’’ Mr Warren said.[/social_quote]
“Everyone travelling to Blacktown or Parramatta will still have to catch these CBD-bound trains until they change trains at Glenfield, so this is going to create huge issues of overcrowding, which is already unacceptably high at 80 per cent.
“While extra trains to the CBD are obviously great, they shouldn’t come at the cost of losing all direct trains to Blacktown and Parramatta.
“I’m worried that this will discourage people travelling to Blacktown and Parramatta from catching the train to work, which is the exact opposite of what the government should be doing.
“If people can’t get a train from Campbelltown to Blacktown or Parramatta they’ll be forced to drive to work, which means more congestion on our local roads, the Hume Motorway and the M7.”
The government should concentrate on public transport not on freight trains for the disgusting moorebank intermodal freight hub there is only so much capacity