I would hardly call Skyrail a cheap investment even if the major benefactors are motorists. At least it removes the likelihood of jammed gates and crashes at the crossings delaying the service.

Regards,

On 22 Apr 2019, at 8:38 am, Prescott lenkaprescott@...> wrote:

There is some interesting discussion on Skyscraper City forum (where the graphs came from) about this Sydney/Melbourne disparity at the moment and the general drift is that it's not down to who the operators are (private or public), but the level of background government investment over time, including (in some cases especially) maintenance. That's a difference between Melbourne and Sydney that's become quite radical in the last decade. To get it going needs a powerhouse government in office and that's what is completely puzzling (to an interstater) about the Andrews government because it's one that should in principle be putting its back into a major commitment. After all, it came into office cancelling the East-West link because it was said to be more important to invest in PT - but then that hasn't happened much subsequently.

One thing that does seem to be common between the two states, however, is that the transport agencies are quite bumbling and struggling to effectively implement the political agenda that they're tasked with. I think that TfNSW has added millions (maybe billions) to the cost of projects through its general lack of competence. The only saving grace is that they seem to have saved on the metro what they've overspent on CSELR.

Tony P