Finally, despite delay after delay, the L3 Kingsford Line is slated to open tomorrow Friday 3 April 2020. This comes after the government failed to meet its most recent opening target or “March 2020”. The first service is expected to be at 10am.
The line, as part of the CBD and South East Light Rail project, will operate between Circular Quay and Juniors Kingsford. It shares the same corridor through the CBD to Moore Park as the L2 Randwick line, before branching off and operating through Kensington and Kingsford in the median of Anzac Parade.
The line has been greatly delayed. The line was originally supposed to be finished in early 2018 for a mid-late 2018 opening. Due to construction delays and a legal battle between construction company Acciona and the government, this was revised to “some time in 2019”. Upon the start of testing in August 2019, it was revealed that the opening of the Kingsford branch had been further pushed back to March 2020. This was to allow for more time for testing and landscaping works. After missing the March 2020 date due to travel slowdowns imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, a soft opening will instead take place on 3 April 2020.
The opening will be a ‘soft opening’. This means no press release or promotion of the new services in order to try and reduce the patronage on the line, which must open for contractual reasons. This ‘soft opening’ is due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in which people are being encouraged to stay at home and not travel unnecessarily.
Transport NSW Blog 