Sydney Metro opening in three weeks

Australia’s first fully accessible railway, the North West Metro will open to passengers on Sunday the 26th of May.

The service will run from Rouse Hill to Chatswood and will be a turn up and go service.

On peak hour trains will run every 4 minutes.

“This is an exciting time for the future of public transport. Thousands of commuters will have access to world class metro rail,” said Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

“We have delivered the North West Metro on time and more than $1 billion under budget. This project is the result of hard work, discipline and focus. I want to thank all those involved in delivering this important project,” she said.

There are 13 stations along the line and four thousand new commuter car parking spaces.

Final commissioning of Sydney’s new generation of driverless trains is currently underway with more than 180,000 kilometres of testing complete.

The North West Metro will be fully accessible meaning each station has a lift and has level access between platforms and trains, with no gaps.

During the six-week settling period trains will run every five minutes at peak to allow the new system to get used to full frequency.

Improvements have been made to the bus network in Sydney’s north, more than 1500 weekly services have been added to the timetable.

Minister for Transport Andrew Constance said the Metro line is currently being extended from Chatswood to Bankstown. He said by 2024 Sydney will have 31 metro stations running along a 66 kilometre standalone metro railway.

In the future the line has the ability to run trains up to every two minutes in peak times.