Chief Minister Andrew Barr has renewed his calls for upgrades to the Canberra-to-Sydney rail line, arguing even cutting travel time to three hours would be a "gamechanger".
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Mr Barr has also revealed he has lobbied the federal government this year for a high-speed rail connection between the two cities, but accepts less expensive upgrades would make a significant improvement to the service.
"Let's not make the good, the enemy of the perfect ... I'm keen to see practical improvements, and I recognise they can't fix it all at once, but everything they do that shaves a bit of time off helps," Mr Barr told The Guardian.
Infrastructure Australia in 2020 identified the Canberra-to-Sydney rail corridor as an urgent priority, saying it needed to be improved in the next half a decade.
The federal government on Friday announced it was searching for board members for its high-speed rail authority.
But the authority's first priority will be a high-speed rail line to connect Sydney and Newcastle.
Mr Barr told The Guardian a high-speed connection between Canberra and Sydney was his preference, but improvements could be made to the current service.
"I'll be a realist and a pragmatist on this and say, well, look, if the decision has been made for Newcastle-Sydney first, then Sydney-Canberra should be second. And it may even be possible to undertake some work on both simultaneously," Mr Barr said.
"And if the feasibility work and all the rest on Newcastle-Sydney highlights a range of really tricky and insurmountable problems, then you could very quickly pivot to Sydney-Canberra and get a much quicker outcome."
Mr Barr took the four-hour train to meet with NSW's then transport minister, Andrew Constance, in 2017 about potential improvements to the service.
"If the train journey were able to be reduced in time to anything three hours or less it would be competitive with current transport alternatives so I think with a relatively modest investment in the rolling stock, some signalling improvements and some work that can be undertaken on the line itself you could achieve that reduced travel time," Mr Barr said at the time.
Mr Barr said then he did not envisage the ACT making a significant investment in the line, given it was a service principally operated by NSW.
"What I'm saying is we can contribute and we would be interested in doing so, particularly if we could leverage through a three-government approach to a better outcome on this service," he said.
Mr Barr in 2019 said making the travel time faster should be the priority over high-speed rail.
"Let's bring our current 19th century service into the 20th century," he said.
Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of passengers travelling between Canberra and Sydney by train had increased by more than a third in five years, despite slow travel times.
In 2014-15 just over 187,000 people made the trip, which is slower than travelling by bus or car, in either direction, while 250,977 people travelled by train in 2018-19.
An experts' proposal to introduce high-speed rail between Sydney and Melbourne suggested travel times Canberra and Sydney could eventually be cut to 1.5 hours through a series of progressive upgrades.
MORE A.C.T. POLITICS NEWS:
Journey times from Sydney to Canberra would first drop to 3 hours with improvements made between Glenfield and Mittagong, and then fall to 2.2 hours with changes between Goulburn, Yass and the ACT.
A new train station near the Canberra Airport would avoid the need for a Mt Ainslie tunnel and hydrogen- or battery-powered trains could operate commuter services to Goulburn and Yass.
The proposal recommends upgrading the rail section from Canberra to Yass and Goulburn first as part of improvements between Melbourne and Sydney.
The Fastrack Australia proposal was developed by Dr Garry Glazebrook, a retired transport and urban planner, and Dr Ross Lowrey, a retired consultant with experience in high speed rail research.
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Jasper Lindell
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
