Sydney light rail project is a project of light rail expansion operated by the government of NSW. This project is intended to bring a significant improvement on the city’s public transformation system. The service will provide extra capacity for major events. The light rail will be 12.7 km long, have 19 stops and the new line will be connected to the existing line called L1 Dulwich Hill Line.
The population of Sydney is rapidly increasing over recent years. Therefore, the stable transportation system would be an essential factor for the city to keep developing. This project would be considered as an urban transformation since the project will improve the lifestyle of citizens in the city whilst also keeping the heritages untouched.
The light rail will collaborate with other public transportation system to maintain city’s accessibility. The locations where light rail doesn’t exist will be covered with buses and trains. The area which the light rail will lay down has the high demand and usages of public transportation.
This urban transformation can bring more open spaces closer to citizens. The citizens in inner Sydney would take less time to go visit some major parks with the light rail. This change can potentially invorigate those areas near the stations which is a little far from CBD.
Due to the establishment of more convenient public transportation system, people’s behaviour might change. The residents in the area of inconvenient public transportation may have a higher chance of using the new light rail, if stops are close to their living area. In addition, this will improve the access to major facilities/sightseeing locations, therefore, increased number of people using the public transportation can be expected. However, this might cause a over capacity issue in certain dense population areas such as CBD.
The success of this urban transformation can be measured by several data. As the aim of this project was to expand the capacity of public transportation, it would be possible to assess the success by comparing the total usages/customers of public transportation in the area, before and after the new light rail was built. In addition, due to the appearance of more efficient transportation system, there might be less number of people using their own vehicles. This might reduce the traffic greatly, therefore, the data of certain area’s traffic volume would be relevant source of measuring the success also.
Not only from the perspective of public transportation, this urban transformation would affect the city. Since this change let people to move through the city more time-efficient, people might spend more money due to easier access to areas. This would improve the economy of NSW. Besides that, assessing from the perspective of environment would work as well. As the light rail would noticeably increase electricity usages, it might increase the pollution or waste. Thus, measuring the sustainability of the light rail would work too.
These listed stakeholders would be favoured of this project. Government and NSW are the ones who launched the project, therefore, the organizations themselves should be willing to launch the light rail as soon as possible. The construction company gets paid for building the light rail so they should be satisfied also. Users and customers, who will use the light rail will gain the more efficient transportation system to certain areas, therefore, they would not have much problems.
There are two main potential opposed stakeholders for this project, which are small business owners along the construction sight and residents in the area of construction. They have been mainly affected by the construction of the light rail. This project was initially planned to be completed by 2019, however, the completion date has been moved to March 2020. This delay has infuriated business owners and residents in the area of construction. Especially those small businesses on the light rail alignment, they have argued that the construction has affected the income of their business. The delay of construction would harm their businesses furthermore. For the residents in the area, there can be issues of loud noises from the construction. This can potentially harm the residents from mental side.
However, the NSW government has launched the projects to solve this problem. One is called “Small Business Assistance Program”. This program has intended to support those business owners on the alignment of construction and the delayed construction areas, who believe that their businesses/income have been affected by the construction. For the residents, the government is offering alternative accommodation for residents where the area has over 3 nights of construction. By doing this, the residents can avoid the loud noises and vibration caused by the heavy machines.