The next arm of Sydney's underground rail network could be funded by modest savings from the $112.7 billion in infrastructure investments currently on NSW books, a new report has found.
The Committee for Sydney has released a 53-page analysis of NSW infrastructure spending, making 40 recommendations for cost savings.
Committee chief executive Gabriel Metcalf said with the recommended savings, the government could "not only do more but do it better" as a 10 per cent reduction would deliver enough to fund the next extension of the Sydney Metro.
The Better Value Transport report was compiled following workshops, interviews, and analysis from infrastructure experts.
They included "sweating" current assets until they needed replacement, introducing third-party design reviews, limiting construction hours, scheduling construction around events, and developing a national register of procurement dates to avoid clashes.
Mr Metcalf said the recommendations, formulated by private and public sector experts, were designed to be "practical" and "actionable" steps government agencies could take to trim the $112.7 billion committed to infrastructure projects in the state over the next four years.
"If we could improve the cost efficiency of those projects by just 10 per cent, it would provide more than $11 billion in savings - enough to pay for the next extension of the Metro network," he said.
"Many of the recommendations in this report will generate incremental improvements to project delivery and project costs. Taken together, they offer the opportunity to not only do more but do it better."
Budget savings could be used to extend the Western Sydney Airport Metro to Leppington, for example, or fully fund the second stage of Parramatta light rail.
Melbourne University transport planning senior lecturer John Stone said it was possible to make significant savings on infrastructure plans as transport trends had changed dramatically over the last three years.
Governments around the world had funded transport projects as if traffic and travel trends would continue at pre-pandemic levels, Dr Stone said, but that was not always so.
"There's a big case for having a close look at spending. We've just kept the foot on the pedal for infrastructure because of their value to the economy as construction rather than whether these projects are needed given the way travel patterns have changed," he said.
"This is a moment where we could start to get public transport ahead of the game rather than playing catch-up."
The report, released to Committee for Sydney members, also found rail projects came at a high price in Australia, which was not "performing as well as comparable countries, particularly Canada and Japan".
The report also said its recommendations could be be applied in other states.
