City of Sydney signs agreement to repair

The longest escalators in the southern hemisphere descend a glorious 45 metres beneath Central Station to the city’s new underground platforms, but it’s the escalators on the other side of Central Station, near Railway Square, that have been causing the biggest fuss.

Since 2023, the two escalators that transport people from the Haymarket side of Broadway to Central Station via Henry Deane Plaza have been out of service. And for years before that, they have been ridiculed, vandalized and left in near disrepair.

The situation took so long to resolve that it prompted one neighbour, Alison Davey, to run for Sydney city council, arguing that she had rarely seen them move despite living in the area for years.

“Every day I see people trying to carry strollers and suitcases up there. There is no small slope that you can walk up. They just push it up, it’s not easy because it’s not like a staircase,” said Davey.

But they could move again after the City of Sydney signed a contract to replace the aging escalators and lifts, following months of negotiations.

But these works will not begin until “early next year,” said a city council spokesman, because “the supply and delivery of new lifts takes time.”

“Rather than continuing to repair the old infrastructure, we launched an open tender to replace all lifts and escalators, which represented the best value for money for the city and its residents,” the council said.

Davey, who is standing alongside independent councillor Yvonne Weldon in September’s council election, spent the start of the election campaign highlighting the state of the escalators as a symbol of how the council has neglected to maintain the city.