Transit Rehearsal Far From a Breeze

Howling winds knocked down power lines, littered downtown streets with debris and crippled service Tuesday on the sole rail line to Olympic Park, heightening long-standing concerns about the readiness of transit plans for the Olympic Games--which begin next week.

The Olympic rail loop was down for about five hours after the late-winter winds, whipping about 30 mph for most of Tuesday afternoon at Olympic Park in the western suburb of Homebush Bay, blew a hatch off a train and into an overhead electrical line. Hundreds of passengers were forced to wait for hours for shuttle buses. Confusion ran rampant. Tempers flared.

The rail failure took place on the day designed to test Sydney’s Olympic transit capabilities, as buses began ferrying journalists as well as athletes. But some buses failed to show up or ran hours late because drivers became disoriented on Olympic routes--and then had to slowly maneuver around debris littering the streets as a result of the whipping wind. Roadside signs flashed in downtown Sydney warning drivers to beware.

The wind also tore signs and scaffolding off some Olympic structures, forced the evacuation of some venues and, at picturesque Sydney Harbor downtown, bent or broke a number of sailboat masts. At the harbor, about 10 miles east of the main Olympic venues, the wind roared up to 55 mph. Two Australian sailors training for the Games had to be towed to shore.

No one was seriously hurt, officials said.

Wednesday dawned sunny and breezy but with a forecast for the winds to abate.

Government weather officials and Sydney organizers warned, however, that more ill winds might bedevil the Games, which begin Sept. 15. Locals know that August and September are Sydney’s windiest months.

“We do tend to get one or two events like this around this time of year,” said Glenn Bourke, manager of the Olympic sailing venue.

He added: “We’re hoping that [Tuesday] was our one for this Olympic window. Perhaps we’ll see more conducive conditions from now on.”

With nine days to go before the start of the Games, the rail failure highlighted the transportation issues that continue to confront Sydney organizers. The 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta were dogged by transit woes and in Sydney officials have long said that getting their buses and trains to run smoothly is their most pressing priority.

The complex bus system lurched into gear Tuesday.

One bus was two hours late picking up Australia’s shooting team from the athletes’ village. Another bus failed to arrive as scheduled to take Australia’s team to the water polo venue.

Dozens of reporters were left waiting for buses and missed the arrival of International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch for his tour of the athletes’ village.

Some journalists said the 10-mile ride from downtown Sydney to Olympic Park took 80 minutes. Many drivers, recruited from rural areas, were obviously not familiar with scheduling and routes.

“Olympic transport has only just begun and we’re having an Atlanta experience--not enough buses, not enough drivers,” said volunteer driver Peter Burke, who had traveled to Sydney for the Games.

“They’ve made up all these schedules,” Burke said, peering at an oversized map of downtown. “But they’ve got us turning right on streets where you can’t turn right.”

As an official at one transfer station put it, using Australian slang: “Things are a bit dodgey today.”

Australian Olympic Committee President John Coates said, “Anything that is unacceptable to the athletes doesn’t make these the athletes’ games that we promised.”

Paul Willoughby, a spokesman for the Olympic Roads and Transport Authority, the agency in charge of the rails and buses, acknowledged the system was experiencing what he called “teething problems” and said, “We’re working to address those issues as quickly as possible.”

He also said: “We’ve always been conscious of the huge task that transport represents for the Games. Stating the obvious: It’s a very difficult task.

“It’s not possible to run a transport operation of this size without something going wrong. Something will go wrong during the Games. But we have worked very hard to minimize any problems and we have put into place contingency plans.”

When the Games open, the loop to Olympic Park will become Australia’s busiest rail artery. Officials say they expect to move up to 500,000 people a day to the Olympic venues; at peak times, they say, up to 50,000 people an hour will shuffle through the rail station at Olympic Park.

Starting next week, officials said, hundreds of buses will be on standby for any rail breakdowns.

“All Olympic cities experience teething problems the first few days,” said a senior aide to Michael Knight, the government Olympics minister and president of the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games. “We have our best people on the case.”