Sydney’s $21 billion driverless metro line has opened, with tens of thousands of commuters taking their first trips on the mega rail project.

Up to 200,000 commuters were expected to use the long-awaited driverless metro train line under the central business district when it officially opened on Monday.

The cross-city extension, which runs from Chatswood in Sydney’s north to Sydenham in the inner west via tunnels under Sydney Harbour, forms part of a metro network that is the largest public transport project in Australia.

NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen said the line will be the biggest change to how the city moves since the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which linked the business centre with northern suburbs in 1932.

“I’m pretty sure that before the ‘coat hanger’ was in place, no one would have conceived that infrastructure development,” she said.

“Now, discovering a fast, automated train under our harbour, the vision of the former government and the vision of all of those people involved is now being played out across our city.”

Credit where credit’s due, none of this would have been possible without the vision Mike Baird, Gladys Berejiklian, and Dominic Perrottet had for Sydney.

This achievement belongs just as much to you.

— Chris Minns (@ChrisMinnsMP) August 18, 2024

Premier Chris Minns said the project would link previously hard-to-traverse parts of Sydney, paying tribute to his Liberal predecessors for making the metro line happen while they were in government.

“The previous premier, Gladys Berejiklian, deserves a lot of credit for this city-shaping piece of infrastructure … she had the vision to get it done,” he said.

He also urged commuters using the link to be patient as the line became properly integrated with the rest of the public transport system.

 

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Liberal leader Mark Speakman said the previous Coalition government had delivered the first metro line, from Chatswood to the north-west, and guaranteed latest extension.

He said the transformative project would never have been built under Labor, which cancelled long-running plans to construct it in 2010 during the tenure of then-premier Kristina Keneally.

The NSW Liberals took out billboards and branded placards at several metro stops highlighting that the line was designed, funded and built during their tenure.

The publicly owned, privately operated city metro line will enable passengers to travel from Sydenham to Chatswood in 22 minutes and from the city centre to North Sydney in three minutes on timetable-free, turn-up-and-go services.

Some 445 metro services across eight stations will run each weekday on trains that carry more than 1150 people and hit speeds of up to 100km/h.

The line’s opening was pushed back in July after the NSW government said more time was needed for safety checks.

It is part of Australia’s largest public transport construction project, consisting of four metro lines, 46 stations and 113 kilometres of new rail in Sydney.

-AAP