Sydney Central Station Metro Upgrade: a new heart uplifts the urban realm

Abstract

The Sydney Metro upgrade to Central Station is nearing completion, vastly improving the station experience and delivering significant benefits to the urban realm. The upgrade has opened new cross-city pedestrian connections and resolved many of Central’s navigational issues. What contribution has the project made to the city and what must be safeguarded for the future?

About the Author

Troy Uleman is a director of John McAslan + Partners, a global architectural and urban design practice with studios in Sydney, London, New York, Edinburgh and Belfast. He is the Sydney Studio Leader and has over 25 years of experience with sensitive and complex transport, cultural, university, commercial, urban design and master planning projects. His work on rail infrastructure in Australia includes the Central Station Metro Upgrade and Waterloo Station, both part of Sydney Metro. Contact:

Email: tuleman@mcaslan.com.au  T: 61 2 9241 4033

Preface

This article presents the impressive Sydney Central Station Metro Upgrade project in urban design perspective, greater than architecture alone. The upgrade has occurred in the best tradition of, say, European central station design in which the central station/terminus is a city’s public transport entrance with grand spaces, a multi-modal transport hub, retains architecture of historic significance, integrates into the built fabric of the city, connects to its important public spaces,  has seamless pedestrian connections, is a visual focal point in the city and is a catalyst for urban development and redevelopment shaping the city around it. The author points to the need to safeguard all this for the future, in the light of proposed development in the air-rights, or over-deck space, of the station platforms. Indeed, we need public policy that reins in development that is excessive and that diminishes the design integrity of this important city building and transportation project. 

Raeburn Chapman, Editor, Urban Design Review

Article

Sydney’s Central Station is Australia’s busiest transport hub. It’s where trains, buses and light rail converge to move a quarter of a million people a day. Since it first opened at the start of the last century, the station has undergone many changes, the most recent triggered by Sydney Metro.

Sydney Metro is Australia’s biggest public transport project, a new metro rail system that will better connect the sprawling, modern city. The Sydney Metro Central Station Upgrade has added two new underground platforms to Central as part of the Sydney Metro City & Southwest project, with the city section due to open in 2024. Driverless trains will soon pass through every four minutes in the peak, revolutionising travel around the inner city.

In addition to the metro platforms, the Central Station Metro upgrade has delivered:

• Central Walk – a 19-metre-wide underground concourse that connects to the new metro and existing city train platforms;
• a new entrance on Chalmers Street that is the entry and exit for the Central Walk;
• and a redesigned and upgraded northern concourse that has transformed pedestrian thoroughfares and created a new heart for the station and the precinct.

The impact of the upgrade radiates out to the wider city. To understand how, let’s look at the station within its urban context and how it has evolved.

Australia’s first rail terminus

The sandstone Terminus Building at Sydney Central Station was completed in 1906 – a striking new piece of transport and civic infrastructure occupying a large site on the edge of the CBD.

Designed by New South Wales Government Architect Walter Liberty Vernon, it was Australia’s first rail terminus. It is bounded by Railway Square and Pitt Street to the west, Eddy Avenue to the north, Elizabeth Street to the east and the Devonshire Street Tunnel (once a road) to the south.

Central’s clock tower – dubbed ‘the workers’ watch’ – was added in 1921, along with additional storeys to the building. The clock tower remains a distinctive landmark, visible from approaching streets thanks to its careful positioning.

The clear space around the Terminus Building has made an important contribution to placemaking. With Belmore Park to the north and Railway Square to the west, open sightlines have ensured the building’s prominence has not diminished as the city has grown around it.

Urban interfaces are problematic where multiple forms of transport intersect and Central has always been a blockage to movement between the surrounding suburbs of Surry Hills, Haymarket, Ultimo, Chippendale and Redfern. An aerial view of the wider city shows that Central sits at the apex of the CBD and inserts a wedge into east-west precinct movement.

Prior to the upgrade, the station had become a maze of cramped tunnels, lifts and escalators as a result of additions and modifications over time. Station navigation had become increasingly difficult, and knowing where to go and where to exit was a learning curve – not helpful for the first-time visitor. As many can attest, getting it wrong would lead to a long walk!

A new era – the Sydney Central Station Metro Upgrade

The station upgrade has addressed these issues. The addition of the North-South concourse and Central Walk has reorganised the way people move through the station and improved accessibility for people with poor mobility. Generous orientation spaces at key nodes and thresholds, notably the northern concourse and new Chalmers Street entrance, provide places for people to pause and get their bearings.

The jewel in the crown is the reimagined northern concourse, replacing cramped connections with a beautiful new urban room that is now the heart of the station and wider precinct.

 

A striking new ceiling soars over the dual-level space, sensitively intersecting with the restored Central Electric Building and the Terminus Building to amplify the heritage architecture.

This merger of old and new elevates the station’s existing character whilst adding a new and distinctive element to Central’s identity. As a point of arrival for regional and inter-city trains, the northern concourse is now memorable and welcoming in the manner of the world’s great rail station.

The northern concourse is memorable and welcoming in the manner of the world’s great rail stations. Northern concourse looking south. Image: Brett Boardman.

 

A light and airy public space, the northern concourse enables station users to orientate themselves. Signage is minimal thanks to intuitive wayfinding – the clock tower and city can be seen through banks of louvres; the above-ground platforms are clearly visible; and there is a visual connection through to the central concourse, which leads out to the west.

On the lower level, the base of the Electric Building was excavated so that entry from Eddy Avenue opens directly into the northern concourse and across to a tunnel to the subterranean platforms. This tunnel delivers passengers seamlessly to the new Central Walk for links to suburban train platforms, the new metro lines, and the Chalmers Street exit.

Alternatively, passengers can take escalators or stairs to the northern concourse’s upper levels, guided intuitively by visible sky. Gone are narrow, claustrophobic tunnels. Generous proportions, quality materials, public art and considered lighting, including the kite-shaped overhead skylights, combine to uplift the public transport experience.

The northern concourse has unclogged Central’s veins, creating a new heart that courses with the flow of people. It is significantly easier to understand where you are and see where you need to go. Beyond the functional, it has added a unique public space that strengthens the station’s sense of place and creates a point of nexus locally and nationally. From this room, Sydney connects people via bus, light rail and trains in every direction, all the way to Perth.

Central Walk has unlocked the east-west movement and platform connections that Central had always been missing. A new station entrance on Chalmers Street, adjacent to the light rail station, connects Surry Hills into the station’s centre, greatly simplifying transport connectivity and importantly, enabling easier pedestrian movement across to Ultimo and Haymarket.

This connection is a game-changer for the urban realm. Delivering people directly into the heart of Surry Hills will have a positive economic impact, supporting local businesses and driving investment. This is where transport hubs can and should be ‘city-making’ in the best sense of the word, creating a permeable urban fabric that connects people and place.

The upgrade has improved connections to the green spaces of Belmore Park to the north and Prince Alfred Park to the south, and supports the City’s future vision for Central as the threshold to Tech Central. Tech Central locates innovation and tech start-ups throughout the surrounding precincts, aligned with existing education, health and cultural campuses. The station upgrade has facilitated better movement across this wider precinct, feeding people north, south, east and west. A planned future extension to the Central Walk will lead to the new Atlassian Central building.

The scale of these station upgrades will accommodate passenger growth from the current 270,000 daily passengers to 450,000 in the next two decades. Safety, accessibility and navigation are all greatly improved. Importantly, the design has been carefully conceived to allow for future needs to be met. This is where the city must be vigilant.

Safeguarding the future

The biggest future element of precinct growth is the proposed new over-rail deck referred to as Central Square, touted as Sydney’s third, grand public square alongside Circular Quay and Martin Place. All three will be connected by George Street and rail.

An earlier article here discusses how this could adversely impact Central Station as a heritage asset, a place maker and a landmark that is integral to the city’s memory and identity.

Heritage stations often struggle to accommodate the changes that come as their cities grow up and around them. Whilst Central suffered somewhat to adapt to new forms of transport and greater capacity, the Metro upgrade has served to enhance what exists, preserving architectural and social heritage and evolving the station for the better.

The transport hub’s more coherent relationship with its urban context is a credit to the many architects, engineers and planners who worked together to design and deliver it. Our responsibility now is to ensure that any future development, in and around the station, amplifies, rather than diminishes, its value.

Defending the space around the station, including sightlines to the clocktower, will require a sensitive and unified approach. Done well, it will reinforce the newly established movement routes and open new ones, including additional green spaces that allow the city to breathe.  Central must be supported to maintain its position as the civic heart of this new southern hub for the Sydney CBD and its diverse communities.

Acknowledgements

Architect: John McAslan + Partners with Woods Bagot
Multi-disciplinary Engineer: GHD, Aurecon
Contractor: Laing O’Rourke