Name: Australia's 40-year wait for high-speed rail line could be coming to an end | 9 News Australia
Uploaded: 2024-12-01T08:25:12.000Z
Duration: 3 min 59 s
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Australia's 40-year wait for a high-speed rail line could finally be coming to an end.

A proposal expected, set to be delivered by the government by the end of this month, outlining plans for an east coast network.

For more on where the project currently stands, we're joined by CEO of the High Speed Rail Authority, Tim Parker.

First of all, I'm so excited about this project.

Can you just explain what it would look like, where the stops are going to be and how fast it will go?

Well, I'll explain to you, it's an east coast, it's a new national railway.

So, we'll have a line that will run from Melbourne to Sydney, via Canberra, Sydney to Brisbane.

What we're looking at is tried and trusted, something that is being done all over the world at the moment.

And what we're looking at is travel times from Sydney to Brisbane.

This is CBD to CBD in four hours, Sydney to Melbourne in four hours, and the area we're focusing at the moment is Sydney to Newcastle, and that will be an hour.

It's exciting, but it's also a touch embarrassing when you look at the rest of the world, right?

I mean, in Japan, they're celebrating the 60th anniversary of the world's first high speed rail line.

And have we fallen behind the rest of the world?

Look, I think if you, we're quite a car orientated society, and I think trains have always been seen as sort of slightly quirky, particularly regional.

I think we've got very good intercity, sorry, inner cities trains, and we're now beginning to roll out metros.

I think what's happening now is people are recognising the value, and what we've got to do is actually get a high quality service, and that's what high speed train is.

It's almost twice as fast as a car, so it will get you to Melbourne in four hours, CBD to CBD.

These are the things that will make a difference, and also, when you start looking at some of the problems we've got, you know, we're not a, you know, people talk about the housing crisis.

We're a country that's not short of land.

What we're short of is connected land, so what high speed rail does is actually connect not only cities, but the regions in between.

These infrastructure projects, they often are delayed, and they run over budget.

We're seeing that with the inland project, rail project.

How can you stop that happening for this, if it gets the go ahead?

Look, these are big and expensive projects.

What we have to do is a lot of planning, but also take advantage of what we already know.

We just delivered Sydney Metro, we're delivering inland rail, Melbourne Metro, Cross River.

Take the lessons, slowly, steadily deliver the project, and keep doing what we do well, but keep a good time frame, and actually look at planning this and planning before we start delivery.

I guess good news for those living in the big cities, Sydney, Melbourne, but what about the regional centres who might be saying, hey, what about us?

Look, this is very much where we've actually pivoted the project.

Often, the project's seen as just intercity, going as fast as you can, whizzing through the regions.

This is about a regional economic project.

What we're looking here is two types of service, one that stops in the region, and one that goes between the cities, because actually, the regional economic benefits, what really drives this project.

That will drive housing, it will drive local jobs, but also opportunities for people.

Think about the people in the regions, they need to access medical.

At the moment, it's a long journey, arduous journey.

Imagine hopping on a train, getting straight into Sydney.

If it gets the green light at the end of the month, when will we all be jumping on board?

Look, if we get the green light, we're looking at about a two-year development period, where we actually go and procure all our contracts, get our planning approval, and then about a 10 to 12-year build before we're sitting on a high-speed rail.

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Australia's 40-year wait for high-speed rail line could be coming to an end | 9 News Australia

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