Not every trip starts or ends in the CBD in Sydney. The 400 and several other extremely busy bus services from bondi junction to the areas I mentioned in Randwick and Maroubra would not affect CSELR volumes.

Even though the line will be a full through service the CSELR will be a line of 2 halves when it comes to patronage. Central to Circular Quay will provide connections along the george street spine for shoppers. Central to Randwick and Kingsford will provide connections to moore park, the racecourse, university and prince of wales hospital.

None of this would interfere with an extension of the ESR.

Here we go again. What are ESR and CSELR?

ESR = Eastern Suburbs Railway

CSELR = CBD & South East Light Rail

Sort of Agree,
The local council has a vision of extending the LR from the city to Bondi Junction and Bondi Beach area using the narrow Old South Head Road. At least on the southern CSELR they are actually using the old tramway in the wide median and basically not interfering with traffic.

I think the opportunity to extend the ESR south to the Uni is over, or at least until the LR is fully uterlised and there is justification for a railway to move at least 10,000/hr in peak.

However extension east to Bondi, Bondi Beach and North Bondi (yes likely break a record with four stations in a row using the same part name) is valid. The other benefit is that it would not require 1c to be spent on the existing line to Bondi Junction. No extra trains, no extra staff, no extra track requirements, just extend from the east side of the Bondi Junction Station and build a stabling yard north of North Bondi station while TBM's are cutting the tunnel.

As the line to North Bondi is roughly 4km long, apart from the infrastructure you need around 3 more train sets to service the extension.

Justification is that Bondi Junction station is currently around 6th busiest station in peak on the network and most walk out into a bus going roughly the same direction. After capital cost of building the line, most of those buses would be replaced with just 3 trains, total 6 staff + a few station staff. Removing alot of buses improves traffic.

And while we are at it, the cheapest station to add to the network, Woolahra, finish it. If they want a tram, they'll love a train (finally).

At least on the southern CSELR they are actually using the old tramway in the wide median and basically not interfering with traffic.

But they are not utilising the reservation past The Juniors to La Perouse and as for the ESR it should be pushed through to Eastgardens considering a lot of the industrial estates in that area are being rezoned as high density residential units like the former BAT site. Whether the line continues to link in with the existing Airport line towards Central or connect with Kurnell to the south it would be better then the arrangements for people changing for the CSELR at Kingsford from buses.

My understanding is that the LR extension south of 5 ways Kingsford is to use the former tram ROW off the road. Which is where light rail excels not running intermixed with road traffic or taking over a lane on a busy road. If it's not then that in itself is a screwup.

Extension of tge ESR to the airport won't haopen as it will screw up the airport
Iine capacity into the city and I highly doubt there is much dand from south to southern eastern suburbs or VV.

Extension across the bay to Cronulla could be a more reasonable but costly option and would involve closure of the existing Cronulla station and relocation further north but underground.

This would certainly ease congestion by a few trains an hour via Hurtsville. However I'm not sure it's the cheapest or best option for this problem. Cost would exceed $10B.

Sort of Agree,
The local council has a vision of extending the LR from the city to Bondi Junction and Bondi Beach area using the narrow Old South Head Road. At least on the southern CSELR they are actually using the old tramway in the wide median and basically not interfering with traffic.

I think the opportunity to extend the ESR south to the Uni is over, or at least until the LR is fully uterlised and there is justification for a railway to move at least 10,000/hr in peak.

However extension east to Bondi, Bondi Beach and North Bondi (yes likely break a record with four stations in a row using the same part name) is valid. The other benefit is that it would not require 1c to be spent on the existing line to Bondi Junction. No extra trains, no extra staff, no extra track requirements, just extend from the east side of the Bondi Junction Station and build a stabling yard north of North Bondi station while TBM's are cutting the tunnel.

As the line to North Bondi is roughly 4km long, apart from the infrastructure you need around 3 more train sets to service the extension.

Justification is that Bondi Junction station is currently around 6th busiest station in peak on the network and most walk out into a bus going roughly the same direction. After capital cost of building the line, most of those buses would be replaced with just 3 trains, total 6 staff + a few station staff. Removing alot of buses improves traffic.

And while we are at it, the cheapest station to add to the network, Woolahra, finish it. If they want a tram, they'll love a train (finally).

Couldn't agree more Shane.  My original thinking was to extend the ESR to at least Maroubra Junction, but as the light rail is more likely to be extended to MJ and beyond, then the ESR extension to North Bondi makes a lot of sense, especially as it will remove a lot of buses from Bondi Rd.  Oh yes, and complete Woollahra Station.

The problem with the extension of the CSELR is that at launch the CSELR will not be able to meet capacity if the government also gets rid of all the buses that currently service the south eastern suburbs. Even with 65 metre long trams it won't have enough capacity unless there is a tram every 1 minute (60 trams per hour = 36,000 passengers per hour).

The CSELR is not useless as it finally provides a proper connection from Central station to the moore park area and the south eastern suburbs but it will in no way allow any bus services to be cancelled regardless of what the government wants to do. A heavy rail system will be needed for buses to be removed fully from routes into the CBD from south eastern suburbs. This will need to be in the form of extending the esr or for the western metro to continue south east from Central or Pitt street along the anzac parade route.

The ESR should travel:

• Bondi Junction
• Waverley
• Randwick --- CSELR
• Kingsford --- CSELR
• Eastlakes --- West Metro
• Mascot --- Airport Line
• Sydenham --- T4/South East Metro

It would add incredible connectivity to the network, and facilitate light rail extensions to Coogee/Maroubra as the trams would empty and Randwick/Kingsford, creating room for UNSW and Moore Park passengers.

I would have thought an extension to Bondi Beach would be a good idea but I remember protests when it was suggested back in the 1990s.

About Woollahra I think light rail may be seen as more trendy.

I'm looking forward to the CSELR but I think it would have been better to make the section from Moore Park to the city underground so as to avoid future traffic problems.

I would have thought an extension to Bondi Beach would be a good idea but I remember protests when it was suggested back in the 1990s.

About Woollahra I think light rail may be seen as more trendy.

I'm looking forward to the CSELR but I think it would have been better to make the section from Moore Park to the city underground so as to avoid future traffic problems.

The private proposal for an extension of the ESR to Bondi Beach in the 1990's was destined for failure. As far as I can recollect it was proposed as a single track line (I stand to be corrected) without any intermediate station, such as Bondi Road.  Of course the NIMBY's opposed it, because it would in their misguided opinion, bring an influx of western bogans to their sacred shores.  The same attitude prevails by a vociferous minority on the Northern Beaches.  This is not a legitimate reason to oppose an upgraded transport link, when I suspect that if push comes to shove, there would be a far greater proportion of the local community which would benefit from and support such a link.

With regard to a Woollahra Station on the ESR, the basic platform infrastructure is already there (it was planned as part of the original ESR project) and would require only minimal expenditure to complete it.  It's another example of a bunch of self interested NIMBY's denying the broader community of a convenient transport service.

Once you start undergrounding a light rail route, it becomes questionable whether it's economically viable.  Far better to have an underground metro, which IMO should have been the preferred option for the South East transport corridor, avoiding the disruption currently being experienced in the CBD.

I would have thought an extension to Bondi Beach would be a good idea but I remember protests when it was suggested back in the 1990s.

About Woollahra I think light rail may be seen as more trendy.

I'm looking forward to the CSELR but I think it would have been better to make the section from Moore Park to the city underground so as to avoid future traffic problems.

The private proposal for an extension of the ESR to Bondi Beach in the 1990's was destined for failure. As far as I can recollect it was proposed as a single track line (I stand to be corrected) without any intermediate station, such as Bondi Road.  Of course the NIMBY's opposed it, because it would in their misguided opinion, bring an influx of western bogans to their sacred shores.  The same attitude prevails by a vociferous minority on the Northern Beaches.  This is not a legitimate reason to oppose an upgraded transport link, when I suspect that if push comes to shove, there would be a far greater proportion of the local community which would benefit from and support such a link.

With regard to a Woollahra Station on the ESR, the basic platform infrastructure is already there (it was planned as part of the original ESR project) and would require only minimal expenditure to complete it.  It's another example of a bunch of self interested NIMBY's denying the broader community of a convenient transport service.

Once you start undergrounding a light rail route, it becomes questionable whether it's economically viable.  Far better to have an underground metro, which IMO should have been the preferred option for the South East transport corridor, avoiding the disruption currently being experienced in the CBD.

I think the single track extension isn't such a bad idea as you don't need a 3min service to Bondi, single track would have been 6min which is more than enough. And back then where they even running sub 5min frequency?

Overall it would have a cheap option and leaving Bondi Road off would have not eliminated too many buses as the gap between BJ and Bondi Beach stations is 4km.

The anti-Bogan brigade was I think stronger then than today and probably wasn't helped by the project teams approach. TO be honest I think it was the then Premier Carr's apathy to the East Suburbs and rail in general that allowed it to die.

However today, if you are going to do this project, its a 2 station minimum or ideally 3 stations dual track extension to North Bondi. If you draw a 750m circle (10m slow walk) around each of the three stations you can see how many buses would be eliminated. This would do far more for the traffic congestion than LR will ever do which itself will cause  years of hell during construction.

As for Woollahra, yes they once opposed it and won, i suspect today the approach would be much different. The station is physically there, just needs to have the platform top completed and access and services etc. While you probably wouldn't build it new, its a very cheap addition to the network. Again Bob Carr showed his true colours when during his term there was a proposal from the area to complete and open the station and he basically told them to get stuffed, you had your chance.