Bus Express: Safety neglect on Sydney’s light rail

The safety of workers and the public should always be the number one priority for any project, but yet Sydney’s light rail continues to raise red flags when it comes to safety.

Today it’s been revealed that Sydney’s new light rail will likely be a potential target for terrorist attacks due to the area being a large, wide, populated area that doesn’t shut off vehicle access. Despite this, plans by the City of Sydney to implement ways to protect pedestrian zones against terrorist attacks will only be implemented in mid-2021, despite the light rail beginning in 2020.

This backwards approach to safety planning is simply unacceptable and needs to be addressed immediately. The City of Sydney and the NSW Government both have a responsibility to ensure that from day one of Sydney’s light rail – the area is safe and not exposing commuters and workers to preventable levels of danger.

While it’s important that the City of Sydney have plans to implement terrorism protection measures in the areas which will be vulnerable to attacks, it’s simply not good enough to deliver it over a year after the light rail opens.

We must put the safety of pedestrians, workers, and the travelling public at the forefront of our infrastructure and transport planning – right from the beginning.

This article references: 21/11/18, The Daily Telegraph, City of Sydney hiring artists to design heritage-sensitive barriers.