Balmain to get 24-hour weekend bus service in timetable shake-up

Balmain peninsula residents will have access to a 24-hour bus service on weekends for the first time next month, complementing a plan to inject more nightlife into the suburb.

Buses will run the length of Darling Street at least every hour overnight on Fridays and Saturdays under a timetable shake-up for “region six”, which covers Sydney’s inner west, from December 8.

The shake-up follows the opening of the main section of the $21.6 billion Metro line between Sydenham and Chatswood in August. Transport authorities say the changes to inner west bus services will support the replacement bus service, dubbed the Southwest Link, running between Sydenham and Bankstown while the line is converted for the Metro.

Under the planned adjustments, the 433 bus route between Balmain’s Gladstone Park and Central via North Annandale, Forest Lodge and Glebe, and the 442 route linking Balmain East Wharf to the Queen Victoria Building in the CBD, will operate overnight on weekends.

These services will also be tweaked to run at least every 10 minutes between 6.30am and 8.30pm on weekdays, and at least every 20 minutes from 5.30am to 6.30am, and 8.30pm to 12.30am.

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The extra services coincide with Inner West Council’s plans to revive “the high street” in Balmain and Rozelle by creating two “special entertainment precincts”, where rules for noise and trading hours are relaxed.

Mayor Darcy Byrne declared the all-night buses “could be the shot in the arm” to revive historic drinking holes in the former working-class suburbs.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen said the around-the-clock bus services would give inner west residents another option to get home after a night out.