A forum at Sydney’s Town Hall on Monday night has endorsed plans for a light rail line down George Street (see our previous post about this here).
The forum, attended by around 700 people including business owners and general public, tackled two competing plans before the O’Farrell government: a tram line versus an underground bus tunnel through the city. Overwhelmingly, the group voted in favour of the tram line.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the transport bureaucracy, under Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian, is working on a proposal for a pedestrianised George Street featuring trams with two-minute frequencies. In its State infrastructure strategy, the advisory body Infrastructure NSW rejected the idea of running trams through the city, saying it would cause too much disruption. It instead proposed a $2billion underground bus tunnel running off the Harbour Bridge under Wynyard and Town Hall.
The government said it would respond to the competing plans by the end of the year.