Northwest Metro impacting property prices?

While getting off my bus stop, someone handed me a note on NSW Govt. discontinuing most of city bound express buses from Kellyville, Castle Hill, Dural, West Pennant Hills and Cherrybrook when Northwest Metro starts operations from May (3 months from now). At least 2/3rd of all buses are speculated to cease operation from day one and others within a few months. NSW Govt is not releasing new timetables due to expected community backlash ahead of state elections on 23rd March. Some of the buses will be diverted to new stations where travel time to city is up to 50 minutes from some stations. Someone who had a 35-40 minute commute from West Pennant Hill will now have a up to 30 minutes added to their commute one way. On average, it will take another 15-20 minutes to commute to city (including a changeover at Chatswood) each side with the people living within easy walking distance to stations being only exception.

Someone from Dural now will have to take a bus to Castle Hill (20 mins) and then take 50 minute train to city. All Cherrybrook buses with the exception of M61 will cease to operate and parts of the suburb are 3-4 km from new station. Previously 90% of Cherrybrook households could catch an express bus to city within 700 meters from their house.

I think making Northwest 15-20 minutes further from CBD in terms of travel time will have massive consequences on property prices. A lot of people were lucky to walk to an express city bus from large parts of Kellyville, Castle Hill, Cherrybrook and West Pennant Hill and that drove up property prices near bus routes.

Bus routes expected to cease operations:

607x
617x
642, 642x
620N, 620x
615x
613x
614x
616x
621
650, 650x
651
652x

 

Have there been any announcements or is this another case of Mediscare & outrageous scare tactics?

 

Doubt hillsbus would stay quiet if this is the case.

 

My memory must not be good. I recall catching the bus from both Baulkham Hills & Cherrybrook sometimes taking 90 minutes.

 

The cessation of bus routes to the city was announced as a contractual element of the NW Metro and its non negotiable. No bus is permitted to act as an alternative for the NW metro so forget private operators trying to compete on time or price. Not allowed. The second phase of the metro to the city rather than the Chatswood changeover will assist to return journeys to a faster time than the bus BUT only in five years time. (Fine print everyone forgot)

In return Hillsbus get the routes to metro stations and its intended to be very high frequency (ie each 10mins). New routes will be explained later. They are intended to act as local fillers to take passengers to the rail if they dont park (very limited despite the apparent size of the carparks !). Some will be on-demand routes where using an app you can request pickup rather than a designated bus stop. Like a slow and shi77y uber service. I have tried to learn if these fares will be free, cheap or a costly rip-off. No information available.

NSW Govt owns most Hillsbus buses They are a operator not a owner. Their competitors were annoyed there is no tender. Hillsbus are being handed new routes

 

The 610 is also going to be removed. Its RouseHill / CastleHill to City and the most common

Everything I see says train fares will equal the bus fare. There is a transfer fare adjustmnet for buses...
If you are transferring between Sydney Metro and Opal buses, light rail or Sydney Ferries, you will receive the Opal Transfer Discount. This works the same way as the Transfer Discount currently available on Sydney Trains and NSW TrainLink.

Finally found the integrated access plan.
https://www.sydneymetro.info/sites/...y_Metro_Northwest_Interchange_Access_plan.pdf

Paul keeps wondering how long parking will be free ?? Its not state rail its private.

 

Removing some buses like 607x, 615x or basically those originating or operating in close proximity of Metro station makes sense but removing Dural services like 620x makes no sense. Cutting Dural services is like cutting Blacktown buses for Norwest Metro.

 

The new bus routes are meant to offer a solution. The problem is the roads they must use. Blacktown along Sunnyholt has a Tway. New Line, County and Castle Hill roads can be a car park.

Government deals like metro routes, tways, toll roads and tunnels and the airport express rail stations etc always come with contract terms.

Pennant Hills road will soon have a ban on above ground trucks and a underground option only for cars. Cameras will enforce all heavies and they are forced into the north connex tunnels. At a hefty fare.

 

Hills council mentioned a few weeks back some shopping centres near the metro are considering 4 hr metered tickets to stop people parking in centres and using buses. Castle Towers installed them a while back anticipating the issue. Major parking restrictions around stations are coming too eg Castle Hills showground, Cherrybrook etc. Time will tell. eg Bella Vista, Kellyville etc

 

I live in Kellyville Ridge and I can say with confidence prices have been dropping for the past 12-18 months (KL is down about 10-15%). This bus time table change thing is minor and won't affect prices by that much. Most people don't sell and incur massive selling fees; and in the beginning they also paid big transaction costs like stamp duties and/or LMI.

I recently had a mate who sold a unit in North West at 20% loss after holding it for 4 years, very unlucky; he doesn't care though, made a motza out of land in Marsden Park.

Mortgage demand is crashing so prices will keep falling unless NSW Gov or the Feds do another round of stimulus aimed at housing, but that's gonna cause more leveraging and rating agencies and RBA won't like it, can't inflate this in perpetuity, so I reckon prices will keep falling (-30% for Sydney, we're already at close to -15%)

 

I agree removal of bus routes will suck for many...

 

Houses near the stations will do better in the next cycle? Maybe that works for metro west too?

 

Which bus stop did you get the flyer? I'm a regular at Oaks Rd but havnt got anything yet.
Cutting back on number of buses is expected to get the patronage towards metro however if they bring it down by 2/3 then I'm sure there will be a massive backlash.
Its good to have the feeder buses but think of people living around Old northern road,windsor rd etc ...are they suppose to catch the bus and travel in opposite direction to Castle Hill station? That itself will add 15 mins and then 45 min STANDING train ride inc chchange at Chatswood! It wouldnt make much sense to me.Also to think about those people like me who catch the bus from West Penno,North Rocks...what are they suppose to do?

Cutting few buses makes sense but 2/3 would be just too much,just think of the massive backlash from the electorates specially Hills shire...Dave Elliott's gonna face some tough time ahead

 

I get off at new line road and someone handed me the flyer - I suppose some people are already getting together and starting to campaign.

As Paul pointed out, contractual arrangements have already been made without much community engagement and due to expected backlash no new timetables have been released yet. This has the potential to unseat quite a few liberal MPs in the area if backlash gathers momentum before March 23rd.

 

Backlash or not but they have effectively sold out our next 15 years of trips to CBD to a single private operator with almost zero competition from buses!

 

I used to get the buses from Oakes Rd too all the time. When they introduced the service back in 1997 when the M2 opened you could never get on a bus at the stop. The bus was just so popular. You'd see all these "full" buses go by and there was always a huge line at the Oakes Rd bus stop. (When the service started they never let anybody stand on any of those buses!)

 

uggh who wants buses anyway? they're the most unreliable public transport, always out of timetable, prone to traffic congestion despite express lanes, and they make me feel dizzy.

 

Don't knock that service till you tried it.... For what it's worth, I liked my buses to Parramatta as I could mostly get my own seat and the trip was pretty direct. Plus compared to the train station, the bus stop is just around the corner from home. I.e. ~6 minute walk to the bus stop vs 15 minutes walk for the trains.

For the M2 buses from Oakes Rd you could get into Wynyard at peak in about 25 minutes. Of course, it does depend on traffic though. Crazy fast.

 

I occasionally catch a city bus from Baulkham Hills just near m2 many buses already full by this point so yeah good luck for north rocks Carlingford stops. Also any event in The city and buses to the hills fill at QVB with massive lines left behind, Wynyard stop has no chance. This can only get worse with removal of services.

Other question is what will happen if light rail on Windsor Rd happens

 

I am impacted by this too, 620X, 620N, 621 as I live in Cherrybrook. I will certain miss the buses even though right now I don't use it as I recently changed jobs.

Then again all these Express Hillsbuses are there because for a long long time there are no trains coming to Hills, even though many governments promises for it. So now the train is actually coming, it probably makes sense to divert these buses to trains.

It is like there is no express buses from Blacktown or Cabramatta to city right now. There are plenty of buses from nearby suburbs to terminate at those train stations.