The vice-chancellor of Sydney University has issued a stinging rebuke to Sydney Trains about their brand spanking new timetable, claiming that it’ll have a “serious impact” on the students of the uni, and that they should have been consulted.
The state government unveiled the biggest timetable change in four years just last week, which rejigged a number of services and altered stopping patterns. One of the changes is that trains on the Blue Mountains line no longer stop at Redfern station, which is the most convenient stop to get to Sydney Uni. Anyone who has attempted to walk anywhere near Redfern station during any weekday will know this well.
If you’re coming from the west on a Blue Mountains line train, you now need to switch at Strathfield, or go past Redfern to Central and then double back. As anyone will tell you, changing trains for any reason absolutely ruins your morning. Science has proven this.
About 10,000 students and staff travel on trains on weekdays from western Sydney to Redfern, a great many of whom will be affected by this change. Vice-chancellor Michael Spence says that the changes “added greatly to the university’s already significant public transport pressures”.
“We are disturbed that we were not consulted about such a significant change,” he said in a letter to the state’s Labor opposition, obviously fishing for someone to put up a fight in the political sphere.
Sydney Trains chief executive Howard Collins disputes Spence’s claims, and says that the number of trains stopping at Redfern has actually increased 11 percent across the network, meaning that commuters technically have more choice than ever. He also said that there are increased bus services from Central to Redfern.
“In the weekday morning peak, five times as many customers from Blue Mountains stations are travelling to Central rather than Redfern,” he told Fairfax.
Labor has vowed to “correct the bias against western Sydney” if they are elected in 2019. For now, get ready to see some fumin’ students swapping platforms at Strathfield. Absolutely spitting chips, they are.
