Sydney's new Metro line is finally set to open to passengers on Monday, after weeks of delays. The line was originally scheduled to open on August 4th, but the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator (ONRSR) announced that it had not received the necessary approvals. The opening was further delayed after a firefighter suffered an electric shock while completing safety drills on the line.
The $21 billion project has been plagued by problems since its construction began in 2013. The line was initially supposed to open in 2019, but was delayed due to a number of factors, including design changes and construction issues.
The new Metro line is expected to cut travel times for thousands of people. Travel between Martin Place and Waterloo should take six minutes, Sydenham to Macquarie University should take 33 minutes, Central to Chatswood should take 15 minutes, and North Sydney's Victoria Cross to Barangaroo is estimated to take three minutes.
However, the Fire Brigade Employees Union (FBEU) has raised concerns about the safety of the line. The union's state secretary, Leighton Drury, told ABC Radio Sydney that he was not convinced that safety concerns had been addressed. "Obviously there are a couple of things to clean up," he said.
An investigation is still being carried out into an outage on the North-Western line on July 13th, which left five trains stuck in tunnels for a number of hours. The cause of the outage is still unknown.