Northwest Metro impacting property prices?

My sister living in Cherrybrook takes a Hills bus to get to work near Wynyard. She has also spoken about not being able to get a seat on the bus when going home. She's contemplated going to QVB to get on just to get a seat.

Me personally, I live in Epping so I take a train. But I work just near QVB so the seat situation would be no issue for me (going home). I do see the line of Hills bus people there.... Its very orderly.

Speaking of crowded public transport, I also have a colleague who gets on the train at Concord West to get into the office.... Now sometimes the trains have been arriving at her station jam packed with people getting in at Rhodes. Sometimes she even missed 2 trains in a row (and they only come every 15 minutes) because of it.
Now she said she started going to work earlier to be able to stand on the train less jam packed. I suggested she could also take a train back to Rhodes to become one of those Rhodes passengers herself....

Me... I will always get a seat to get into the city and tend to get one home too. I tend to take trains that terminate at Central though and then go to platform 16/17 to take a second train to Town Hall. Yes, a change is required but the Central - Town Hall services are very frequent and generally there is no (or minimal) waiting required.

 

I certainly would choose a frequent bus service interchanging to a frequent train service over these direct but inconsistent bus services. It's not great that this corridor has to wait longer for direct CBD services but at least the interchange is very simple at Chatswood and not everyone works in the city.

It's incredible to think that originally this service was going to be four trains each hour or a train every 15 minutes. Standard Sydney service. Before the current Government were elected the previous Government were talking about eight trains in an hour as a maximum and split via two routes so only some stations got more than that 15 minutes service and it restricted the capacity of other lines.

What will be delivered is a service that is independent and so more reliable and can run 30 trains each hour in both directions! A train every 2 minutes! 10 more services in each direction than any other current line in Sydney can run at their maximum (the majority can't even do that as they are all tangled together).

Don't let anyone fool you, due to this frequency, this line will offer substantially more seating then any of the other options put forward for this corridor. Also this line is not just about people traveling to the city, people will get off at many big stations before then including Epping, Macquarie University, Macquarie Park, North Ryde, Chatswood, Crows Nest and North Sydney.

You don't even have to take a bus if you don't want to with over 4000 parking spaces on this line. Compare that to a lot of Sydney train stations who have next to nothing. This line will be good for property prices in this area.

 

Daily commuters don’t care about frequency or shiny new trains. If Cherrybrook buses stopped, a lot of people would park at Pennant Hill and take a direct train rather than getting a train from Cherrybrook station and then changing at Chatswood.

 

You speak for all commuters do you? Impressive! I know thats BS because I work in Crows Nest with 5 people who live in Cherrybrook/ Castle Hill/ West Pennant Hills and none will be doing this at all, they've said as much when we were discussing this just last week.

Why on earth would anyone do this anyway when you can turn up at basically any time at a much closer station, get a car park and have a more direct and faster trip, in particular if you're not heading to the CBD. You're certainly not guaranteed a park at Pennant Hills, you have to wait and not all trains actually go to the main CBD anyway, you have to interchange at Central even for normal services. Which is much harder than just walking across the platform at Chatswood to a waiting train to North Sydney and the city.

The way you're going on suggests you have some ulterior motive here.

 

The thing about it is that the new station is on the south/ south west edge of the suburb. If you lived at the other edge of Cherrybrook it would take you over an hour to walk to the station. Just a consideration. My sister is somewhere in the middle of Cherrybrook and Google maps indicates the walk to that station for her would be 44 minutes. That's not something people would choose to walk.

 

I'm not sure of the relevance of your comment to what I said? No station can serve everyone in a suburb. They are best using a feeder bus or driving if that option isn't available. The comment was about driving to Pennant Hills rather than the other stations on the Metro so you can avoid that interchange at Chatswood. Which makes no sense and like the seating comments are misinformation.

 

I currently catch a train line that has the usual 15 minute service and walk 20 minutes to get to the station. No feeder bus services are available and there's very little station parking. The walk time can be quite inconsistent due to crossing main roads that are clogged with traffic. This means I can miss the train easily. So it can add up to 15 minutes to my already long trip. I would kill for a 2 minute frequency to remove this obstacle!

Same with driving or catching a bus to a station. If the bus is late or you're stuck in traffic, proper frequency makes a big difference to travel time. Same with leaving work, you not only have the issue in reverse but with proper frequency you can leave work or an after work activity at any time and not have to worry about waiting 15 mins for a service to arrive.

It irks me the suggestion that people don't care about frequency. Plenty do! It's part of a proper transport service and works that way around the world. Metro is just a catch up for the backwards way our current train lines are run.

 

I agree, frequency is important.
You work in Crows Nest so of course the North West Trains makes sense for your colleagues living in the Hills. However I think Hills residents will really miss their direct city buses though. I'm not sure what routes will be cut, but if the services are cut back to 1/3rd of the current services, then lots of residents will lose out.
For me, being able to get very frequent M2 buses from Oakes Rd was great. And the stop is just 500m from my parents home.
Sure beats catching a "Carlingford" line train...
So having both a decent service frequency and a stop close to home = having your cake and eating it too.
With the metro rail a lot of people will lose the stop "close to home" factor.

I doubt that a lot of people will start to ride bikes to the station. Some will, but many won't.

 

I haven't always worked in Crows Nest, I worked near Town Hall for 10 years. It's not really relevant, I would like a direct service straight to Crows Nest as much as I would the CBD but it's not an option and I walk now and will have to change to the Metro when it's built like others do. It's no big deal.

It's not like a direct service is gone forever, a superior rail service is being built right now, people know this and will spend accordingly. How many people are flipping PPOR every few years? It's a long term choice for most. People will buy if they want, change at Chatswood knowing that in 4 years they will get a direct service. This line will have connections to many important destinations without having to change trains like the rest of us. Valuable!

Better than a bus which is a poor travel experience in comparison as I know first hand! I know that the bus travel times in the NW are not consistent from friends and co workers. This rail line will give a better experience to those traveling from the NW and by redirecting their buses to the Metro stations you open up more room closer in for those using buses on shorter trips.

I will add that I'm putting my money where my mouth is and looking in the NW right now. I won't move there while my only option is a bus though. They are a horrible travel experience and I won't go back to them.

 

I know certain political parties are fueling this but trust me I don’t particularly support anyone nor I am a bus driver so be assured I don’t have an ‘ulterior motive’.

Consider people living in parts of Cherrybrook around Cedarwood drive and Casuarina and a good part of West Pennant Hills around Cherrybrook road/northern side of Victoria road/around West Pennant Hills public school would consider going to Pennant Hill station rather than going backwards on Castle Hill road or taking a longer loop around New Line country road.

New line road is a car park in the morning and by removing buses and asking each one of hundreds of morning commuters to sit in a car and drive to new Cherrybrook station, I don’t know how much more congested it would become.

How many cars will be able to turn into Roberts road/Franklin road at peak times without causing miles long queues?

 

But the current buses serve almost everyone in Cherrybrook - almost every house has an easy walkable access to a city bus stop.

Feeder buses make sense but they add extra 15 mins and overall make commuting worse than before.

This is like poorly implemented NBN which has crappier speeds after spending billions and now a rail which gets you to your destination ‘slower’ than before after spending billions. This is ridiculous!!

 

There will still be some people using Pennant Hills station (with less competition for parking spots) if it suits them but this claim that everyone will ignore the Metro because of the change required at Chatswood is what I take exception to. For some the feeder buses will also make more sense than driving and we don't yet know exactly what the plans are there yet as they haven't been released. I would suggest if the Government retain power there will be a lot of effort to create bus services people want to use. They want people on the Metro. Labor may prefer people don't use it though

 

This claim must be in your head because I didn’t claim everyone will ignore metro - a lot of people will and that’s what I said mate

 

I would like to see where this 15 min figure comes from? Its impossible for that to be a uniform number surely? It also assumes that the travel time for the busses to the CBD are consistant, I know they are not. You can easily chomp through that time with a poor trip to the CBD and lets be clear, this will only get worse with time whereas the rail will be consistent, even when compared to the existing rail that is constrained.

 

Agree that it would be different for everyone - I would think adding an extra leg would add minimum 15 mins and could run up to 30 mins for someone coming from Dural and buses having to compete with cars trying to get into station precinct.

Having said that, the whole point is that after 2/3rd of city bound buses are removed, new train will increase commute time to city for a vast majority of people from Northwest. Most people living in northwest will be worse off!!

If you read the access document shared by someone in this thread, it appears that real objective of northwest metro was never to improve commute time for northwest suburbs but to take Hillsbus buses off the CBD to improve transportation into city for northern suburbs.

 

I don't think your figures for the interchange of buses to Metro are right at all, are these figures obtained from somewhere? They also assume that the travel time on the buses to the CBD are always the same and always will be. That's wrong.

The train line is not about giving the NW line a faster single seat trip direct to the CBD because that's not what's needed. That's a captured market. It's about a more comfortable, consistent trip time and access to not only the CBD but other employment areas too. As well as opening up employment areas in the NW to the rest of Sydney.

Removing not only some of the current cars that clog the streets of the NW heading to destinations that aren't the CBD (nearly 80% of trips to the CBD are on public transport) but accounting for future trips from the huge growth in the NW in general. The area has outgrown buses as a core mode of Public Transport, it needs more capacity. Rail.

The areas closer in need more buses because they aren't getting a $20 billion dollar rail link. Passengers from these areas as they grow won't have a high capacity, reliable rail link, they will be sitting in the conga line of buses on the Harbour bridge running late for work.

Anyway, I'm starting to repeat some points which means that this conversation probably won't get anywhere, so we will just have to see what happens in the future.

 

Rouse Hill to City:

• I’m 7 mins walk to a 607x service to QVB (from Sanctuary Drive). Buses typically every 8-10 minutes in peak. Timetabled service around 1 hr 15 minutes.
• I’m 12 mins walk to Rouse Hill Station ( trains will be every 4 minutes in peak ). In peak including interchange at Chatswood the travel time will be about 55 minutes.
• 10 minutes faster by train (including an allowance for the extra walking)

I've found the 607x services are the most unreliable in the afternoons. There can be big delays on the M2. I frequently interchange from 611 from Macquarie Park to 607x at North Rocks and have waited up to 20 to 30 minutes for a 607x to arrive in the afternoon.

I'm certainly looking forward to the improved reliability. The buses are cramped and noisy.

I'm also expecting the North Connex to make traffic on the M2 for through traffic to / from the hills to be worse and not better.

If I want to get a direct bus from Rouse Hill to Macquarie Park (where I work) then the travel time is around 1 hr 20 minutes in peak. The train journey will be about minutes.

With Metro I will be able to interchange at Epping and head to Hornsby or Strathfield. I can also interchange at Chatswood for easy access to North Shore line.

I like to cycle. The Metro will make it so much easier to get to other places for cycling without taking my car. You can't take bicycles on any of the bus services.

Once the extension of the metro opens to Martin Place in 2024 it will be a 46 minute journey to the city.

I'm looking forward to the service!

I'll continue to use buses if I wish to get to or from Parramatta.

 

For some perspective also, once the extension of the metro is complete in 2024 the travel time between Rouse Hill and the CBD will be 46 minutes.

Most services to the CBD from Hornsby or Parramatta are 45 minutes. This puts some perspective on the improved transport connectivity that is coming.

There are also new trial on-demand bus services being rolled out via fixed routes. Booking is via an app. On-way trips are $1.50. Has anyone actually used this service. What is it like?

I can envisages services like this being rolled out to improve access to the metro stations.

On Demand public transport

 

We could also see autonomous technology rolled out in perhaps a 3-5 year timeframe.

This is solving the "first mile / last mile" problem:

What Do We Know About the “First Mile/Last Mile” Problem for Transit?

Trials underway at Olympic Park:

Driverless shuttle bus trial | Transport for NSW

See also Mike Quindazzi ✨ on Twitter

 

Very unlikely to happen in that timeframe I would say. We don't have a good history of early adoption