LETTER: Freight diversion commuter bonus – Newcastle Herald

PREMIER Barry O’Farrell seems to be waiting for Prime Minister Tony Abbott to assume responsibility for western Sydney road, rail and air infrastructure.

My suggestion is to put the container terminal in Newcastle.

This would provide the base load freight to pay for a rail freight bypass of Sydney travelling through Badgerys Creek.

This in turn would allow  freight to be removed from the Sydney rail network, thus releasing rail capacity for an express passenger service to Badgerys Creek.

Sydney Airport could be expanded by lengthening runways after relocating Port Botany container terminal operations to Newcastle.

And removing freight from the Newcastle urban area would  enable redevelopment using degraded land along the rail corridor paid for by medium-density housing development, based on world-class rail.