Sydney Metro cost blowout exposed in NSW budget review

The Sydney Metro cost blowout has deepened after a New South Wales government budget review found another $6 billion would need to be added to the metro program.

This is reported by the railway transport news portal Railway Supply.

Sydney Metro cost blowout and NSW government budget review

According to the NSW government budget review, outlined by ABC News, the total cost of Sydney’s new metro lines is now expected to climb by a further $6 billion, with two of the routes projected to come in at more than twice their original estimates. Transport Minister John Graham said the review uncovered a series of cost overruns and accused the former administration of leaving behind what he described as “funding black holes”.

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The document concludes that building three metro lines at the same time pushed prices higher by putting the projects in direct competition with each other. It also notes that scope changes and design alterations over the decade-long construction period added further cost pressures to the metro rail program.

Metro West line $27–$29 billion and City & Southwest overruns

The latest figures show that the Metro West line — which, according to the Sydney Metro West project overview, is intended to double rail capacity between Sydney’s CBD and Parramatta by 2032 — is now estimated to cost between $27 billion and $29 billion. In 2023, the project had already been priced at $25 billion, more than $12 billion above the initial cost estimate.

The City and Southwest line is now expected to cost up to $23 billion, compared with the $12 billion figure cited when the project was first announced, underlining the scale of these metro line cost overruns.

Under the banner “budget black holes”, Graham pointed to several specific examples highlighted in the review. He said his government had found multiple cost blowouts, including $110 million that was taken out of the Metro West project to build the Eastern Creek Speedway and never returned to the rail construction budget.

He described this as “the infrastructure equivalent of robbing Peter to pay Paul — or, in this case, draining a rail construction budget to build a speedway”.

Western Sydney Airport Metro legal claims and extra $2.4 billion

The current government also accused its predecessors of awarding tunnelling packages to private contractors that ended up running $500 million over budget, with those blowouts not disclosed to the public. In addition, the Western Sydney Airport Metro may cost another $1 billion because of legal claims brought by the private sector delivery partner Parklife, adding fresh uncertainty to the overall Sydney Metro cost blowout.

In light of these findings, the Minns government is committing an extra $2.4 billion into the Sydney Metro build to support the ongoing delivery of the projects.

Shadow Roads Minister Natalie War criticised the timing of the document’s release, saying the government was “taking out the trash” by publishing it on a Friday. She argued that the current administration has already delivered three budgets and commissioned the metro review itself. “If there were suddenly problems with this, why didn’t they come clean with the public when they did the review?” she said.

NSW government data shows more than 66 million journeys were taken on the Sydney Metro in its first year of operation to August 2025, a milestone also noted by Railway Supply, resulting in 3,500 fewer cars travelling southbound over the Harbour Bridge.

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