Sydney Metro books one million riders in first week

Sydney’s new Metro line has welcomed one million riders as it moves into its first weekend.

NSW Premier Chris Minns celebrated the milestone alongside his predecessors Mike Baird and Dominic Perrottet and NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen and Metro workers and planners on Saturday.

The transformative $21bn public works project has exhilarated Sydneysiders since its launch on Monday.

Mr Minns said it was “fantastic to see the city come alive in the last week.”

“I think the reason this has been almost shocking to Sydneysiders is that most of the work has been done underground for literally years and years and it was almost as if it opened on a single day,” he said.

“I think it shocked the taxpayers of New South Wales to see this world leading piece of public infrastructure.”

The new 15.5km line adds to the Metro system, linking Chatswood in the city’s north to Sydneyham in the south.

On its launch on Monday, more than 190,000 caught one of the driverless trains.

Ms Haylen revealed on Saturday passenger numbers had hit more than one million.

“Sydney is more connected right now than it has ever been,” she said.

“We’ve made history in our city this week.”

Mr Minns saluted the engineers, planners, builders and construction workers who brought the new line into existence and also paid tribute to “Mike,” “Dom” and “Gladys” (Berejiklian) for the “incredible achievement”.

Mr Perrottet said the Metro was “above politics”.

“These projects don’t just come about, they come about because of so many people across our city, 50,000 people who worked on this project,” he said.

“This isn’t the best Metro in Australia, it’s the best Metro in the world.”

The premier said the Metro had put Sydney ahead of every other city in the country.

“It’s given us a new lease on life,” he said.

“Has knocked every other city in Australia way, way back down the pecking order.”