There are still a number of inner to medium suburban areas not within 2km of an existing rail station. Victoria Road corridor is case in point. These can only be serviced with Metro type train technology if look ing to use the most cost effective underground rail technology.
Thank you for giving an example. This corrider used to be served by trams in fact. Two suburban lines already serve different parts of that corridor.
Apparently, J. J. Bradfield himself planned a railway up Victoria road, part of the system that he designed.
The ESR used DD because the route was short but this project was a never ending saga that saw the line truncated to around 40% of route km. It also used existing tunnels through TH and connected to Southern line. These options don't exist anymore and ESR project should not be used as a guide to the future. Rather not what to do.
I recall reading this was built in the 1970s, when there was no talk of a separate metro. In fact, there was a U.I.T.P conference held in Sydney, and building tunnels under the city large enough for suburban trains was regarded as a great achievement. This was at the time that Paris had just finished linking the R.E.R
With regard to Paris RER. The 2min frequency is limited to stations built to a higher standard than Sydney UG and only occurs for short distances. The rolling stock also has lower density per door.
Some R.E.R rolling stock only has two doors per side of each carriage. Not sure what else to say on this.
While Sydney was able to avoid the problems Paris had for the early need of a Metro. It's now in the same position and hence all expansion is UG.
Okay, the Paris metro dates back to 1900. That was the same year as the
Exposition Universelle was held there for the forth time, all other three in the 19
th century. Before the metro:
1. There was
no heavy rail anywhere within the periferique ring, which is more or less a ring of mainline railways stations in Paris.
All regional and international rail serving Paris terminated on the edge of that ring.
2. There was simply no room for surface trains within this ring.
3. Mainline trains serving Paris were steam hauled, so those lines simply could not be extended underground.
So a separate, electric metro was the only off-street rail that could run within Paris itself. Sydney has heavy suburban rail right into and through the busiest part of the metropolitan area and so cannot be in the same position as Paris and other older cities where when the railways came.
Has anyone here realised this?
When people of cities like Sydney travel to those older cities, their use of the transit system there is different from a local commuter. The old parts of these cities are also the most touristed and many tourists only visit those parts. Because these are parts where the transit is best, people come back home thinking it would be great to have the same kind of service.
...but I do support new segregated metro lines, which would obviously have to be underground, such as the proposed West Metro, a South East Metro, a Miranda Metro, a Northern Beaches Metro, a Parramatta to Macquarie Park Metro and a Victoria Road Corridor Metro. There may be others.
I didn't realise that you too want a recreation of the metro-suburban divide of older heavily developed cities. Remember than no city anywhere else in the world is setting out to do that.