For decades, building a high-speed rail network in Australia has been derided as a financially flawed fantasy, even as Sydney’s population strains at the seams and housing prices soar. The affordability crisis is now spurring Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government to bet on a 94 billion-Australian-dollar ($66 billion) fix.
Plenty of people still don’t believe that the bullet train vision, which has a history of false starts, will materialize. But the new High Speed Rail Authority has now been given an unprecedented $462 million preparatory budget, and a man in charge whose CV includes projects like Hong Kong’s Eastern Harbour Crossing and the Sydney Harbour Tunnel.
“Everything has come together — and we’ve got a government that wants to do it,” Tim Parker, the first head of Australia’s High Speed Rail Authority, said in an interview. “This can be delivered, and should be delivered.”
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