Sydney Metro West part 2: complementary metro and light rail catchments

The first part looked at one proposal to replace the Parramatta light rail line with a metro.

However, the Parramatta to Olympic corridor, at over 1600 hectares of potential renewal lands, in the geographic heart of Greater Sydney, could easily support both a light rail line and a metro, as shown in the catchment map below (blue circles = light rail stations, purple circles = metro stations).  The metro would have stations at Silverwater and at Pippita as the key intermediate stops between Parramatta and Strathfield.

Note that Olympic Park is not an intermediate stop for the metro, as it actually has very limited value capture opportunities - sufficient for light rail but not for heavy rail... more on this later - first what needs to be explained is the concept of a "continuous walkup catchment".

The next diagram shows how having three rail lines run in parallel is needed to create continuous 3km wide walkup rail catchments (the purple shaded bands).  These "continuous rail catchments" are formed by the lining up of stations across the existing Western heavy rail line, a new metro and new light rail line.  These catchments are then the foci for high density urban renewal and value capture.  An analogy can be drawn to Manhattan (which like the Parramatta Olympic corridor, consists of a 10km long x 3km wide land mass).

So for the vision of a "Manhattan-like" Olympic corridor to be realised, both a metro and a light rail line running in parallel are needed.  What is not needed is a metro station at Olympic Park.  Instead, the metro station should be located further to the south, at Pippita where the existing Olympic Park-Lidcombe shuttle crosses over the M4 and Parramatta Rd.

So why is a metro station not needed at Olympic Park?  The value capture opportunities at Olympic Park are actually quite poor.  Much of it is already occupied by sports stadiums/facilities, parks and other environmentally sensitive open space (eg. brick pit).  The remaining town centre is sub-scale and is already being redeveloped into residential (not commercial) towers and hence is not going to be redeveloped again any time soon.  A light rail line augmentation is sufficient.  This can be seen in the follow value capture data from the WestLink consortium:

Carter St has more value capture opportunities, but it is actually poorly served by Olympic Park station.  Instead, it would be better served by a "Pippita" station located near where the Olympic Park shuttle line crosses over the M4, as shown below.  This station would also add value capture opportunities at Homebush industrial parks and Flemington markets, located south of Parramatta Rd.