Premier reveals $10 billion cost as Southwest Metro opens Friday

The long-awaited extension converts a 130-year-old heavy rail line in Sydney's south-west to driverless metro trains. The project was originally forecast at about $11.5 billion when plans were unveiled last decade, but the combined cost of the metro sections between Chatswood and Bankstown has reached nearly $23 billion. The bill for the pink replacement buses during the two-year shutdown is about $200 million.

Sydney Metro customer and operations head Hugh Lawson said the age of the railway created unexpected challenges. "You're digging into a platform that's had 100 years of who knows what going on. As soon as we dug it up, a bit like other infrastructure projects, you encounter cables and pipes and things you didn't expect," he said.

Plans to straighten curved platforms were abandoned. Lawson explained that in some locations it would have required moving the entire station. “If you think about some of the curves we've got, and we're hemmed in by cuttings and bridges and people's houses, you can't just straighten the track,” he said.

For residents, the opening follows a highly disruptive two years. Café worker Aayusha Thakuri, at Campsie, said a one-way trip to the CBD had taken almost 90 minutes on occasions. “It was really hard for us,” she said. “I just wasted my three hours travelling [for a return trip to the central city].”

Butchery owner Wren Zhang, who has called Campsie home for 35 years, believes the metro will deliver a “very good future” for the suburb. “We need more people coming,” he said. “You can already see many people feel very interested in this area.”

Anastasia Varsamas, owner of Belmore Cakes for 25 years, said her business had lost at least 20 per cent of trade during the closure. She hopes the metro will entice more customers. "I'm really hoping it'll improve business," she said.

Martin Locke, an adjunct professor at Sydney University's Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies, said the key challenge would be realising value from the upgraded transport links in the south-west corridor. “You need more than just residential development. This must link in with the broader strategic plan in terms of creating local jobs and clusters of economic activity,” he said.

Eamon Waterford, chief executive of the Committee for Sydney, said the metro's primary purpose was to connect part of the south-west to the nation's most important economic arc and predicted an “explosion in profitable” cultural businesses due to easier access.

The conversion was nearly abandoned several times. Labor policy ahead of the 2019 election was to scrap it, and a 2020 parliamentary inquiry recommended ditching the conversion. There was serious debate within the Perrottet government about whether to ditch the project in late 2022. After winning the 2023 election, the Minns Labor government commissioned a review before committing an extra $1.1 billion to finish the job. Last year it was forced to tip in more, pushing the total cost to nearly $23 billion.