The Limits of Mass Transit

CityRail suffers from mismanagement and chronically bad finances. It is heavily subsidized, and the picture above is an indicator of why that should be so. 5:30 p.m. trains into the city are going to be emptier than those coming from the CBD, because Sydney's sprawl over the years has emptied the city centre, a trend the City of Sydney Council has been trying to reverse since around the time M. & I relocated here. There is only so much a few warehouse conversions and modern multi-use towers can do, however, so while it's nice to see the rolling stock not completely empty heading into Central Station, a large proportion of these few riders is probably going to head over to Railway Square to pick up a bus, transfer to an Eastern Suburbs line, or keep on going over the Harbour Bridge to the North Sydney suburbs. Packs of school children in the morning don't do much for the system's numbers, so a system that worked once, and made the Australian free-standing home dream possible, has been pretty thoroughly brought to near ruin by the successor dream: a two-car garage. With the rise of Parramatta and Chatswood - and next up: Campbelltown - as alternative city centres, the trains become less important to Sydney and more of a luxury, not that you could tell from the condition of many of the carriages.