SYDNEY – In early August 2024, the ribbon will be cut on a A$21.6 billion (S$19.5 billion) rail project in Australia that involves the first-ever train tunnel beneath Sydney’s harbour.

The driverless trains will whisk passengers at speeds up to 100kmh across the harbour, completing the 4km journey between the stations on either side in three minutes.

The tunnel has been built up to 40m beneath the water’s surface, about 15m below the only other tunnel under the harbour – a roadway that opened back in 1992.

The harbour crossing is part of a new 15.5km rail line, from the suburb of Sydenham in Sydney’s south-west to Chatswood in the north.

It is a key link in a A$65 billion expansion of the city’s train network that marks the biggest transport project in Australia’s history.

New lines and stations have been opening across the city since 2019 and will continue to do so until 2032, boosting rail capacity to 40,000 passengers an hour, up from 24,000 currently.

In south-western and northern Sydney, residents have been keenly awaiting the opening of their new line. Discussing the project this week, Mr Peter Olive, a resident of south-western Sydney, told The Straits Times: “The Sydenham to Chatswood line is fantastic.”

Mr Olive criticised the state government’s conversion of some existing rail lines into new lines, saying this was wasteful and unnecessarily disruptive to local communities.

But he was enthusiastic about the soon-to-open harbour tunnel, which will provide extra rail capacity and help to address worsening congestion in this city of 5.5 million people.

“This is a new rail line,” he said. “It is new mass transit in Sydney. It takes us away from cars,” he said.

But this highly anticipated cross-harbour rail line is just a small component of a massive infrastructure boom that is happening in Sydney and across Australia as the nation urgently tries to make up for a failure in recent decades to build enough transport and other services to accommodate its surging population.

The new projects are expected to ease congestion and ensure residents of fast-growing cities have ready access to jobs, schools, hospitals and other services. 

On June 24, as the New South Wales government confirmed plans to open the harbour rail tunnel within weeks, it also announced that a new 10km tunnel had been completed on a separate line that will take passengers to a new international airport, Western Sydney Airport, which is due to open in 2026.