Comments on: Second Sydney airport must be in, er, Sydney

By: mike smith

mike smith — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

I'm expecting rail and trains to become too expensive to justify 1 day business trips - video links and telecommutes will end up taking over. Don't waste money on a second airport, soon, one airport will be more than enough, when fare prices diminish volume of travel.

By: Ben@Crikey

Ben@Crikey — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

At its current stage of development the Eurostar between London and Paris has gutted air services. Only the poor fly (or those who can afford the time) almost describes the situation, there still being a minor need for connecting flights. Equally on the current market data, Sydney-Melbourne traffic might need to treble to reach anything like viability for high speed rail even with the ‘donation’ of the infrastructure by taxpayers. European and Japanese high speed rail is wonderful. But be wary of the massive and environmentally intrusive landwork needed for the permanent way, the blast shields where it passes through communities, the confiscation of significant freehold, and the obliteration of bird life. Railways are forever. But jets fly wherever demand arises or shifts, and in today’s economic environment, are a risk carried by private enterprise not the state. Europe and Japan have the economic density to make their systems work. By comparison we have fewer taxpayers, less risk capital and smaller transport markets. All of this favors air links over surface links for longer distance business and leisure travel.

By: Derek Ponsford

Derek Ponsford — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Ben Sandilands is 100% correct, but does not go far enough.

I live in Newcastle and have for many years used the train and the road to Sydney. Tha facts are that at the speed limit it will take you (non Sydney rush hour) 2hours 40 minutes from Williamtown by road to the Sydney CBD door to door. Rush hour? Don't ask.

Train? Don't make me laugh. The nearest station to Williamtown is Newcastle itself, a 30 minute drive away - there is only a half assed small bus service that noone uses. Besides the trains being old, dirty, and generally pathetic, the trip from Newcastle to Sydney is at absolute best 2hours 30 minutes (generally 2.45 hours). The line is roughly straight to Gosford, but then winds snail like around the Hawkesbury waterways.

To make a fast service out of this would realistically mean building a whole new line at least from Hornsby to Gosford, through hilly bush terrain, and then replacing the rest of the track (which is now worn out) to Newcastle. It is a sick joke to even think about the current service being sufficient for a new airport.

This furphy about Newcastle being a new Sydney airport comes up frequently, probably mostly to satisfy the neglected Newcastle psyche. It will never happen in my lifetime, or that of my grandchildren.

By: A Greville

A Greville — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

There are probably many good reasons why Williamtown shouldn’t be the next choice for Sydney’s airport, but Ben Sandilands hysterical mathematics haven’t added to the list. Ben says that the location would “add nearly 40% to the current journey time for tourists or business people from China to Sydney, if a minimum three hour road trip was added to an eight hours flight”. Well it would, if you ignore the fact that (a) google maps says that it is 2 hours and 10 minutes from Williamtown to the centre of Sydney, (b) Qantas shows 10 hours 40 minutes from Sydney to Shanghai and 12 hours to Beijing, (c) you ignore the time it takes to get to any other potential airport location, and (d) you ignore the airlines request to arrive 2 hours before your international flight. Lets use 40 minutes for Sydney to Badgery’s Creek and recalculate…10.7% increase to Beijing or 11.8% to Shanghai. Stop treating people like idiots Ben, your creditbility will improve.

By: Ben@crikey

Ben@crikey — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Thanks for the sums, and good luck with the roads or trains. Adding three hours and associated costs to accessing Sydney for any international tourism market will either kill it or cripple it.

By: Doug Clifford

Doug Clifford — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Why not invest in a TGV/”Bullet Train” between Sydney and Melbourne, siphon off the non-business travellers, thus freeing up the current Sydney Airport for International travellers, obviating the need for a second Sydney Airport, and thus provide a less gas-guzelling and less polluting form of transport? If petrol and Avgas keep going the way they are, then really fast land-based transport will become an imperative, and flying only for the rich and for business people. Incidentally, at present aviation fuel is inconsistently cheaper than other forms of transport fuel, being untaxed, due to the Bretton-Woods agreement of 1944.

By: Ben@crikey

Ben@crikey — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

In terms of larger communities, there is no case for spending any public money on airports or airlines, but leaving it to the private sector. The Sydney Airport sale legislation leaves its owners exposed to competition in the event that another consortium comes up with a project that meets government approval, and it decides not to invoke its pre-emptive rights on any new jet airport in the Sydney basin. This seemed a pretty neat and anticompetitive deal until the airlines earlier this year did an about face and said the current airport would not be able to cope in the forseable future. This is true even at reduced growth. There is nowhere to park a significant rise in aircraft numbers, and the location is becoming inconvenient to reach from other Sydney growth areas other than the northern and southern CBDs. This in turn is exacerbating surface transport links over the eastern half of the metropolitan area. All of which was anticipated more than 20 years ago when the site at Badgerys Creek was preserved, albeit subsequently reduced in extent.