The Herald last week published the results of an independent inquiry that recommended the government dump the metros and focus instead on new heavy and light rail projects.
In recent weeks the government had settled on planning for the construction of an $8 million to $10 million Western Metro, which would travel from Westmead to Pyrmont, to replace the proposal to build the $5.3 billion CBD Metro from Central Station to Rozelle.
Cabinet sources say while the Transport Minister, David Campbell, is pushing hard for the go-ahead for the Western Metro as soon as possible, Mr Roozendaal and Treasury are blocking it and are likely to succeed.
Meetings between senior ministers and high-level officials continued through most of yesterday and into the evening.
”It is a constant battle against Treasury,” said a senior cabinet source.
The metro proposal has been rocked by the Herald’s transport blueprint in which rail supremo Ron Christie recommended construction should not begin until 2020. Mr Christie said the government instead should start work immediately on lines between Epping and Rouse Hill, in the north-west, and Glenfield and Leppington, in the south-west. Mr Christie also said work must start on a $2 billion Epping to Parramatta rail line, which would connect with an existing line south to Liverpool.
The deferral of the project leaves large question marks over what the Premier, Kristina Keneally, will announce in her Land Use and Transport Plan.
Light rail for the CBD has been mooted, and the government is understood to have ruled out any plan to reinstate a north-west rail link.
The executive director of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, Brendan Lyon, said industry had spent $50 million to $60 million so far in the tender process for the metro and there would be compensation claims if the project were scrapped.
He said the tender costs did not ”include the costs of having those people there on that project when there was an opportunity to have those people doing something else”.
The opposition’s spokeswoman on transport, Gladys Berejiklian, said the metros were doomed if the Coalition won.
”We want to reassure the community – if we do win the next election, our absolute priorities will be to construct the north-west and south-west rail links.”