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Metro delay met with mixed reception from Inner West residents
- Caitlin Maloney
- Nov 15, 2025
- 3 min read
Commuters in the Inner West have expressed mixed reactions at another delay in the Southwest Metro.
Although the project has reached 75 per cent completion at a station level, Premier Chris Minns confirmed the 11 stops from Sydenham to Bankstown will not open until the “second half of 2026”.
Train services on the Bankstown Line, which included Dulwich Hill and Marrickville stations in the Inner West, closed in September 2024, with the conversion to metro originally anticipated to take one year.
For Marrickville resident Ari, catching the replacement buses everyday has "severely" disrupted his commute.
“If I time the bus perfectly, then it's not too bad, but quite often that's not what happens. So my commute time, on average, the return is I've added about half an hour,” he said.
Ash has also found her daily commute takes a lot longer due to traffic congestion in peak hour, despite the replacement buses running every two minutes.
“Ideally, we wanted it done sooner. I appreciate things happen, but we're going on a couple of years now, and it's not really great,” said the Marrickville resident.
“Sometimes you get off at Sydenham and there's so many people, you could miss two or three metros before you can actually get through the gates. So, hopefully it'll get fixed soon.”
The Metro Southwest plan was first announced in 2018 and is estimated to have cost at least $20.5 billion.
Ari said he was frustrated at how long the metro has taken.
“I was hoping that it would open this year, the metro, but it sounds like we're going to continue doing this for another year,” he said.
“Considering that it's a relatively short line, and it was meant to open last year, and here we are – we still don't have a confirmed date – it doesn't give me that much confidence that's actually going to happen.”
Still, Ari believes the metro will be “100 per cent” worthwhile once it’s complete.
“It's probably five years late, but we need it, and we need more of that in Sydney.”
Another Dulwich Hill Station commuter, Cath agreed, telling Interchange it will be worth the wait.
“It's increased commute time, but I'm just looking forward to the big picture of it being finished, so we'll just hang in there,” she said.
“The [replacement bus] service is great because we don't pay for it, so I think it's pretty amazing, so I don't think we can complain too much.”
“I think probably everyone's a little bit tired of the extra commute, but I just feel like it is what it is, and we'll just roll with it as it comes.”
This week, high-speed testing of up to 100km/h began on the Southwest Metro line, with a minimum of 9,000 hours and 30,000 kilometres of testing to be completed before the service can open.
So far, a single train has completed more than 700 hours and 3,000 kilometres at lower speeds since April.
In a statement, Member for Summer Hill Jo Haylen thanked the community for their patience.
“I want to thank everyone across the Inner West for their patience as we deliver this transformative public transport project. High-speed testing is a major milestone, bringing us closer to a metro service that’s fast, frequent, and reliable,” she said.
Minister for Transport John Graham said the commencement of high-speed testing was “exciting”.
“I want to again thank the community for their patience in using replacement buses before this game-changing train service begins and for local businesses around stations that have also been impacted by construction,” he said in a statement.
“The T3 Bankstown line was a notorious bottleneck and a metro will open more doors to job and education opportunities while also bringing more business to this part of Sydney.”
Once complete, the metro will run every four minutes in peak hour, with a trip from Marrickville to Gadigal cut in half to 12 minutes.