Almost $40 million worth of Sydney’s seven-year-old trams have been taken out of service to fix cracking, the same model used by Canberra’s light rail system.
ACT Shadow Transport Minister, Liberals MLA Mark Parton, said it’s worrying that millions of taxpayer dollars were spent on a light rail project that is seeing serious issues in other jurisdictions.
“The Labor-Greens Government knew about these issues with the CAF Urbos 3 LRV before purchasing them, but still purchased them anyway,” Mr Parton said.
In NSW, the state’s opposition transport spokeswoman has called the Sydney light rail situation a “total mess”.
NSW Transport Minister Rob Stokes announced on Friday all 12 trams on the city’s Inner West line would be decommissioned for up to 18 months to fix cracks in the tram cars.
NSW Labor transport spokeswoman Jo Haylen has described the move as a “light rail fail”.
The government needs to guarantee alternative work for employees and clarify whether the time the trams spend off the tracks will crossover with the conversion of the Bankstown train line to Sydney Metro, leaving commuters with “inferior” replacement buses instead of two types of rail transport, Ms Haylen said.
Transport for NSW chief operations officer Howard Collins has said he wants the tram fixes “to be done and dusted” by the time the Bankstown line is closed down, and the 18 months the trams could spend off the tracks leaves “a small amount of headroom”.
“We want to fill a workshop with these trams with very competent engineers from Australia who can retrofit, strengthen and sort out these cracks permanently,” Mr Collins said.
Ms Haylen said the government “should have been reaching out to add domestic manufacturers here in Australia to build these in the first place”.
Mr Stokes said the 18 month timeline is the “worst-case scenario” and replacement services were being provided for customers who “won’t be expected to pay anything more” for them.
“People from the Inner West and across Sydney are furious they are going to be forced onto slower replacement buses for up to a year and a half,” Ms Haylen said.
Along with Inner West mayor Rochelle Porteous, she is calling on the government to make the replacement service completely free instead.
Customers “shouldn’t have to pay for the government’s procurement mistakes,” Ms Haylen said.
In the ACT, Mr Parton expressed concern that “Canberra could be on the verge of an 18-month shutdown of the light rail, plus further blow outs in the cost of the project”.
“The Labor-Greens Government must explain to Canberrans why they purchased the vehicles when major safety issues have been raised since 2014,” he said.
According to Mr Parton, issues with the CAF Urbos 3 LRVs have already affected light rail networks in Belgrade, Serbia, Birmingham, United Kingdom, and Besançon, France. The ACT currently owns 14 CAF Urbos 3 light rail vehicles, with four more of the same LRV due to be acquired shortly.
Newstate Media with AAP
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