SYDNEY, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government on Tuesday committed additional funding for the planning and development phase of the nation's first high-speed train between Sydney and the city of Newcastle to the north.
Catherine King, the minister for infrastructure and development, announced 230 million Australian dollars (about 162.3 million U.S. dollars) in funding to start the development phase of the high-speed rail project, taking total federal investment in the project to date to 659.6 million Australian dollars.
King said the two-year development phase will ensure that construction on the first stage of the railway between Sydney and Newcastle can begin in two years.
According to the government, the high-speed railway will cut travel time by train between Sydney and Newcastle, which are about 120 km apart, from 2.5 hours to one hour.
A business case for the project released by the government on Tuesday found that the project will boost the Australian economy by 250 billion Australian dollars over the next 50 years.
Under a staged construction plan laid out in the business case, trains would be running between Newcastle and the Central Coast 50 km south by 2037 before extending to central Sydney by 2039 and the city's western suburbs by 2042.
King said on Tuesday that the entire project is forecast to cost up to 90 billion Australian dollars.
The project is the first phase of a wider plan from Infrastructure Australia to connect the east coast cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra via high-speed rail. (1 Australian dollar equals 0.71 U.S. dollars) ■