Eveleigh Pedestrian and Bridge documents revealed

A June 2025 Transport for NSW (TfNSW) ‘Optioneering Report’ reveals a preferred Eveleigh bridge concept, location and an approved way to launch the bridge across the railway corridor.

The preferred bridge would ramp from Wilson Street Darlington near Carriageworks over the railway corridor to Locomotive Street South Eveleigh between the Large Erecting Shop and the Locomotive Workshops. It is not possible to ramp in South Eveleigh and a combination of lifts and escalators are proposed at that end.

Construction could be by launching a steel truss, bridge built next to the site in stages across the railway tracks. The process requires supports at both ends and a permanent pier in the middle. Two temporary piers are required for construction. A steel trust launch methodology was developed for the Redfern Station Southern Concourse in 2020 in consultation with Sydney Trains but was not adopted as it did not result in savings for that site.

The TfNSW ‘Optioneering Report’ was one of the documents received when REDWatch on behalf of the Eveleigh Bridge Alliance (EBA) made a Government Information Public Access (GIPA) request for bridge studies since 2020.

The EBA was formed by REDWatch, Friends of Erskineville (FOE) and the Alexandria Residents Action Group (ARAG) to kick start a broad-based community campaign for the delivery of the bridge.

The 338 pages of released documents also include engineering feasibility studies by ARUP on a number of bridge and tunnel options, a ‘Heritage Assessment’ by Curio Projects and three versions of a ‘Bridge catchment analysis’ by SCT Consulting. The catchment studies are based on an earlier option to the east of the Paint shop. Costings of options were not released.

The EBA was pleased to find that TfNSW continued to assess options after it ruled a bridge out of scope during the North Eveleigh rezoning. While TfNSW has addressed some of the major technical barriers its reports also indicate it does not think that usage of the bridge will be high enough to justify the expense of building across an active railway corridor.

Media reports indicate that a consortium preparing a bid for the Paint Shop Precinct in North Eveleigh plan to include a bridge in their bid to provide sound stages and film studio facilities when the NSW Government calls for expressions of Interest in March 2026.

The EBA plans to work with surrounding institutions, businesses and the potential users of the bridge to convince the government that the bridge, promised in 2004, needs to be delivered one way or another. A website and social media presence for the EBA is under construction.

The GIPA release of documents was made as one large 338 page PDF that contained some duplication. As well as the full release of documents we have broken the documents up so that people can access documents that might be of particular interest to them. The breakup of documents are below:

• TfNSW Preferred Option for Eveleigh Bridge June 2026 (GIPA) — This extract from the June 2025 Transport for NSW North to South Eveleigh Optioneering Review v3 extracts the preferred option (Option 4) from the options review. It also includes information on how the bridge could be constructed and launched by a process previously agreed with trains NSW. Option 4 links Wilson Street Darlington between Carriageworks and The Paint Shop by a ramp to the bridge across the railway corridor to a lift and escalators to Locomotive Street between the Locomotive Workshop and the Large Erecting Shop. This extract is from documents released under a GIPA request. The full report Optioneering report with all other options considered also on this website for completeness.
• TfNSW Optioneering Report for Eveleigh Bridge June 2026 (GIPA) — This is the June 2025 Transport for NSW North to South Eveleigh Optioneering Review v3. This review assessed a number of bridge and tunnel options and concluded that option 4 was the preferred option. It also includes information on how the bridge could be constructed and launched by a process previously agreed with trains NSW. Option 4 links Wilson Street Darlington between Carriageworks and The Paint Shop by a ramp to the bridge across the railway corridor to a lift and escalators to Locomotive Street between the Locomotive Workshop and the Large Erecting Shop. This extract is from documents released under a GIPA request. On this website you will also find an extract of this report just dealing with Option 4.
• Pedestrian Bridge Heritage Assessment August 2023 (GIPA) — This is Pedestrian Bridge Heritage Assessment undertaken by Curio Projects for Transport for NSW in August 2023. It details the heritage impacts, especially in North Eveleigh for a bridge built from Traverser 1 over which the bridge would need to be built and the visual and physical impact of ramps on the North Eveleigh Heritage. The Assessment deals with the location of TfNSW’s 2025 preferred option 4. Heritage NSW approval will be required as part of any development to build the bridge.
• Bridge Catchment Analysis v 5.0 July 2023 (GIPA) — This is the latest version (July 2023) of the Redfern North Eveleigh Paint Shop Precinct Bridge catchment analysis report by SCT Consulting. The GIPA release includes earlier versions of this report from October 2021 (v1) also quoted by ARUP and an April 2023 v3 report included in an undated ARUP report. The earlier reports can be found in the full GIPA release on this website. Some projections change between reports. The original catchment analysis was done in 2021 to assess who would benefit from the bridge. It includes walking times from 5 to 30 minutes from Carriage Workshops and Chanel 7 and then compares savings through a bridge and the Southern Concourse. It also undertakes a bridge demand analysis however the report does not include the information necessary to understand key diagrams or to understand the basis for projections. The final section of the report added in 2023 provides a retail sensitivity analysis for retail added into North Eveleigh. This report uses an earlier bridge location which is 100m closer to Redfern station than the June 2025 preferred location, so care needs to be taken in interpreting this report for the preferred location.
• Redfern North Eveleigh Bridge Feasibility Study ARUP (2023) — This document brings ARUP documents found in two of the GIPA released records. The first document “Redfern North Eveleigh Crossing” is labelled Record 3, it is undated but according to the GIPA release letter it is dated 26 July 2023. Interestingly this is the only document that shows “Facilitate an Innovation and Collaboration precinct” among the objectives. The second GIPA record is Record 5 “Redfern North Eveleigh Bridge: Feasibility Study” is undated and includes the 7 July 2023 SCT Consulting report as well as two ARUP November 2022 studies a “Constraints Review” and a “Feasibility Study and concept Options Report”. A draft ARUP study report that duplicates material in the above documents is also in the GIPA release but not in this collection to minimise duplication. These ARUP studies explore in detail options and assess the engineering feasibility of the providing the connection and there is duplication of information between reports. ARUP conclude that “constructing the bridge will be difficult, expensive and take several years” to build across the active railway corridor. ARUP uses the SCT Consulting Report to argue it “does not provide outstanding time savings or convenience for users”.

Alternatively you can explore the full GIPA document release TfNSW Eveleigh Pedestrian Bridge Studies - GIPA release Feb 2026. The following information from the GIPA release will assist in understanding the Records shown in the GIPA release.