Sydney Metro’s missing link creates kilometre-long underground walkway beneath city

Beneath central Sydney, people will be able to walk for almost a kilometre entirely underground between the CBD’s western and eastern sides, once the missing link in a web of tunnels is finished as part of the city’s largest metro rail project.

Completion of wide pedestrian tunnels under the northern part of the CBD will leave Sydney with similarities to cities such as Toronto and Montreal in Canada, and Sapporo in Japan, where extensive underground links allow people to move about without setting foot above ground in the depths of winter.

While Sydney’s climate is temperate, completion of the missing link in the underground walkway system as part of the $25.3 billion Metro West project will allow people to keep dry on wet days – although they will have to pass through some ticket gates.

Commuters will be able to walk under city streets from near Barangaroo to the eastern side of Martin Place close to the Reserve Bank of Australia building. In doing so, they will pass through the 180-metre-long Wynyard Walk near Barangaroo and four railway stations.

Construction of a massive metro train station beneath Hunter Street for the Metro West line will result in two underground pedestrian connections.

At the eastern end of Hunter Street station, a multi-level walkway will directly connect platforms for the Metro West station to those on the existing M1 metro station at Martin Place. The latter is already linked by underground walkways to the 46-year-old station serving the T4 eastern suburbs line beneath Martin Place.

Sydney’s largest underground train station beneath Hunter Street will also comprise a pedestrian link westwards to Wynyard station, and will use an existing Hunter Connection tunnel, built in the 1930s, about 20 metres below George Street.

The underground links are aimed at easing commuter flows at and near above-ground entrances for the new Metro West station. By 2036, more than 10,000 people are forecast to pass through the Hunter Street station every hour in the morning peak, and that number is expected to rise to 35,000 over the following two decades.

Sydney Metro chief executive Peter Regan said the Metro West line would follow in the footsteps of the M1 line and its well-used underground concourse at Central Station, as well as the eastern suburbs link at Martin Place.

“More than 10,000 people per hour are expected to move through Hunter Street station during the morning peak and many of them will use these cleverly repurposed connections to bypass Sydney’s busy city streets to get where they need to go,” he said.

“Rarely does a city like Sydney get the opportunity to connect four major transport hubs, but this is the type of city-shaping connectivity Hunter Street station will unlock.”

The new tunnels from Hunter Street station will be about eight metres wide, making them large enough for lifts and escalators to be installed.

Architect and former City of Sydney councillor Philip Thalis said the underground walkways would be functional, but the most beneficial aspect of the new metro stations was the way in which they allowed people to switch between transport services smoothly.

“They are public spaces in their own right. The sheer scale of the metro [station] halls is 21st century,” he said.

The 24-kilometre Metro West line between the Sydney CBD and Parramatta is due to open in 2032. It will be one of three metro rail lines that crisscross Sydney and operate independently of one another.

The final stage in the south-west section of the M1 line is due to open next year. A 23-kilometre metro link to Western Sydney Airport was meant to open late next year but it is now at risk of being delayed to as late as December 2027.

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