The inner north of Melbourne is not a bad place to be a pedestrian or cyclist. There’s any number of shopping and restaurant strips festooned with bicycle hoops, most gradually gentrifying but retaining that slight streak of rebelliousness that distinguishes them from the blue-rinse heartland off to the south-east. Lots of people ride to work along the widely distributed cycle lanes, with artfully placed barriers allowing cycle commuters, but not cars, down wide, flat boulevards like North Carlton’s Canning Street. And there’s a couple of train lines, a profusion of trams, and even a gradually improving bus schedule to get oneself around.
But in amongst this car-haters idyll, there’s one dramatic exception - Alexandra Parade. Despite its pretentious name, it’s a massive traffic sewer that links what used to be the Tullamarine Freeway from the airport, to the Eastern Freeway to the outer-eastern wastelands of Ringwood. And, every weekday morning and evening, the eight lanes of this ugly piece of road are jammed to capacity with cars and trucks; the only people making any progress through it tend to be lane-splitting nutcases on bikes and scooters. Despite the desultory attempts at bicycle lanes, no sane cyclist would go near the smelly particulate-laden air that diffuses from the thousands of commuters, truckies, and courier vans. My own daily commute takes me, briefly, onto the Parade; and while my travelling time hasn’t changed much, the proportion of that time spent weaving through stationary cars and trucks has increased markedly. And, at peak times, the queue of vehicles backed up on the Eastern Freeway trying to enter the inner city can be kilometers long. On occasion, I also take the train to work, from Brunswick into the city, and then out to Hawthorn. As an academic, it doesn’t matter terribly much if I’m in after the 9 o’clock rush, so in the past this usually meant an uncrowded carriage in which I could find out what nonsense Tracee Hutchinson was inflicting on the opinion pages that day. But the squeeze is increasingly on in Melbourne’s rail carriages too; even lunchtime trains into the city are becoming standing room only.
My commuting experiences are Melbourne’s; the city’s transport, particularly the links between the east and west, are being choked by a population growing faster than the other capitals, even boomtown Perth; and that growth is particularly strong in the northern and western suburbs. And so the government has commissioned a The East-West Transport Link Needs Assessment - otherwise known as the Eddington Review after chair Rod Eddington.
The review is likely to recommend the construction of two new tunnels. The first is a rail tunnel linking Footscray in the west, through the inner north, the CBD, and down to St Kilda Road, south of the city, thus bypassing the overloaded underground City Loop in the Melbourne CBD and allowing a lot more trains to be run. The second, however, is an enormous can of worms for the government - a road tunnel linking the Westgate Freeway - the main freeway from the southwest, which is now also horribly overloaded - the Western Highway, from the west, the Tullamarine Freeway from the northwest, and the Eastern Freeway, thus magically clearing the bottlenecks on the Westgate Bridge over the Yarra, not to mention Alexandra Parade. Sounds great, right? Business - both those who build tunnels, and those who would love to send their trucks through them - love it, the construction unions love it, the residents - and Labor politicians of the western suburbs love the idea of a quick commute into the CBD; Julia Gillard undoubtedly likes the thought of not running late. But as the Age article mentions, the other Labor heartland - the inner-northern suburbs where I live, are likely to fight the tunnel tooth and nail.
Carlo Carli, my local MP, is concerned enough about the topic to be sending copies of a Fabian society speech he gave on the topic to all and sundry, including scruffy bloggers. The Age goes into the political threat that a tunnel poses for Carli (and people like Lindsay Tanner), under long-term threat from the Greens. But on the key policy question, Carli has neatly described the problems with the tunnel push - its commercial backers are proposing tunnels that, rather than removing traffic from inner Melbourne’s overcrowded streets, will drag more traffic on to the innumerable city streets that their preferred tunnel designs have exits on to - and, in the meantime, skewering competition from public transport:
Constructing an east west link will funnel traffic into inner Melbourne. Funneling traffic is why the private sector wants to invest. They don’t care what happens to the roads they don’t own. What they will be concerned is how much volume can they get through their tunnel. Since most traffic is traveling towards the central city they will provide that access.
Such a PPP will invariable involve government making agreements with private owners over the life of the contract – 30 or 40 years. If we look at similar projects in Australia and around the world these contracts invariably have some “no compete” clauses, which limit governments from expanding nearby roads or public transport alternatives.
And it’s true. In fact, it’s a statement of the bleeding obvious - toll road financiers will try to maximise the number of people on their road, and if it’s to the detriment of the general public that’s not their problem. The roads of the inner north and west - Flemington Road, Sydney Road, Underbelly’s Lygon Street*, all the way to Hoddle in the east - are already heavily congested at peak times. And while some of this traffic is indeed outer suburban commuters, a large proportion is, like me, people travelling relatively short distances to work and school. Tunnels can’t help with this kind of traffic. Local road upgrades might, but at the cost of making inner-suburban roads even more unpleasant places for anything other than cars. About the only things that can help - across the city, because the development of “urban infill” townhouses and apartments is occurring around the inner-middle suburbs - are initiatives to make it easier to walk, cycle, or take public transport on the innumerable relatively short trips people tend to take. That, or encouraging vehicles off the road through road user charging, a topic that comes up again and again but is the only thing that can reunify Labor politicians on transport issues in their steadfast opposition!
That said, we are going to be stuck with a lot of truck freight for some time to come, and it would improve the amenity of the entire city if such freight was taken off the key inner-suburban thoroughfares. And, as my friend Russ argues, it would make life better for everyone if that truck traffic wasn’t on Alexandra Parade. And, if a tunnel was built that didn’t have those innumerable exits feeding traffic into the CBD, it could turn out to be quite a good thing. But a solution for Melbourne’s traffic woes? Not on your life, and the sooner that the government realizes that it can’t build its way out of inner-city congestion issues, the happier I, and the residents of car-hating central, will be.
* Incidentally, for those of you in non-Victorian states enjoying Underbelly, while much of the action occurred in Lygon Street, I, um, have it on good authority, that the street scenes are actually filmed in North Melbourne.
Interesting blog. It seems to me that Melbourne is experiencing the same sort of traffic problems that have plagued Sydney for some time. And, like Sydney, the Government is looking at the same flawed solutions: road tunnels.
As you corectly point out, while through-tunnels bypassing the CBD may be of some use for traffic seeking to simply get from one side of the city to the other, the tunnels they’re actually building are used by people to access the CBD and just serve to funnel traffic into it, thus creating more congestion there.
The obvious solution, to my mind, is a commitment to heavy and light rail infrastructure, but succesive Governments in NSW have done bugger-all in that regard, save for funding a couple of lousy branch-lines and that crappy monorail. What’s needed is a full-scale rail expansion program.
People in the McMansion suburbs of Sydney’s North-West might as well live on the Moon, so far as their access to public trasnport to and from the CBD are concerned. And no-one in Government seems to give a toss about it.
Sure, Iemma was recently on the Tele promising a Metro system for the West (in about a decade), but we’ve heard that crap before. Last-time it was to be heavy rail. Perhaps by the time it’s built, it will have morphed into a skate-boarding path. Labor has had 12 years plus to act and they’re still making promises.
The only thing that’ll spur any Government to action is when petrol hits $2 or maybe $3 per-litre and people in the outer suburbs find that they just can’t afford to drive to work any more.
Then it will really hit the fan.
I was having a discussion with a friend of mine about similar points today. Infill coupled with underground rail and giving the streets away to cyclists and buses (road freight can use the highways) is the only way we’re going to really fix congestion for good. Building new roads is only going to further destroy the communities through which they pass, as you’ve noted.
Brisbane is also on this bandwagon and we’re doomed because of it. 40 year contracts that diminish a government’s ability to provide public transport seem to be all the rage.
Couldn’t agree more - and also live near the proposed tunnel area. It appears the ‘tunnel industry’ has politicians in a daze all over the nation. The tunnels clearly have not solved transport problems and as you point out - tunnel owners don’t care what happens at the exits, just getting suckers into the tollways.
We have not heard any real non-tunnel solutions - like sending Alexandra Parade under the major intersections via short subways, the way the French do with Voie Georges Pompidou along the Seine in Paris or the N6 along the Rhone in Lyon. Getting rid of the intersections will keep the through traffic flowing - and reduce the delays for those of us crossing Alexandra North-South (or vice versa).
And as much as I love our trams - they make several major roads impassable. Sydney Road is the best example, but throw in Ballarat Road, Burwood Road, Swan St. As the population of inner-Melbourne continues to soar due to high-density housing we need bike paths plus removing trams from some of those roads - replacing them with faster public transport, like Lyon’s Metro - Line D which was built by cutting down from the major roads and covering the underground line with girders, etc and putting the road back on top afterwards. They run robot-driven trains every 5 minutes all day. (Have done for nearly 20 years).
If we have to have tunnels, can’t we have public transport tunnels?!?!
One point I would like to emphasise is that it’s not tunnels in and of themselves that are bad - it’s tunnels that dump traffic on already overcrowded roads that are the problem.
How much demand for road tunnels there will be in a carbon-constrained world is of course another question.
Robert Merkel wrote:
It isn’t the carbon, the traffic or the welfare of city dwellers that drives the construction of tunnels - it’s the dead end idea that governments can’t borrow for infrastructure. It’s what makes “infrastructure funds” and Macquarie transport monopolies such money spinners. There’s nothing better for a group of cynical politicians and beaurocrats to farm out their social problems to the finance industry in the guise of “doing something, anything”.
Being unable (in the face of barely credible political opposition of the right wing variety) to borrow and build has heavily distorted the investment profile of our cities away from 20+ year rail developments down into 3 year tunnel band-aids. OK, so (a few influential) people get rich and Bob Carr stays in gainful employment, but for everybody else in Sydney and Melbourne this short term stupidity has destroyed the urban area and sent property prices into a sky rocketing, them vs. us walled garden defined by old rail lines and uncrossable roads like Pennant Hills road. I used to live in the North West and working in the city in Sydney was an unending nightmare. Ironically, I worked for that institution most associated with the rot described above. F*ckers.
RoD, you mention Lyon’s metro system, but even more recent is the “Toulouse metro”. The first line was approved and constructed in 4 years! Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s the same duration as a government in Vic, no? It’s definitely the term of the Brisbane City Council.
So the bastards can do it, they just choose not to. It’s just pathetic, especially when many cities around the same size as Melbourne and Brisbane, such as Toulouse (1.2m), Lyon (1.8m), (1.6m) and (3.3m) have all gone ahead and built or significantly extended their metro systems over the last 15 years or so. The technology is there, and it has proven to be effective.
Furthermore, on David R’s point, with the massive surpluses the federal government has, not much to nothing would have to be borrowed to build the systems. Plus, from a social welfare perspective, public transport benefits the less well-off more than the well heeled. And then I could start on the benefits of developing some new heavy industry in this country on the back of a roll out of metros in the big cities. But most importantly, Robert M’s point about the cost of private transport vs public transport in the (near) future is what should really be driving investment in rail for public transport. We really should build the systems before the price of private transport goes through the roof.
Electric trolleybuses seem an ideal way of introducing more public transport and while the electricity might be generated from fossil fuels the trolleybuses use that energy very very efficiently.
Trolley buses need only overhead wires to get power from, can travel away from powerlines if they have to, are very smooth, fast accelerating etc and a pleasure to ride in–I remember trolleybusses down Port Rd in Adelaide in the 60s.
Trolleybus technology has kept on moving and seem a great way of encouraging people out their cars onto public transport. Bus-only lanes on freeways will hep in this regard.
No one here has mentioned them so I thought I would add my 2cents worth.
Thomarse, I’m a huge fan of the idea of articulated trolley-buses as a cheap substitute (perhaps an interim measure) for light rail. There are so many cities that do it well and it’s fairly easy to throw some power lines up compared to tearing up a road to lay track in it or even adding a lane to an existing road.
Road tunnels are bloody expensive, especially when you start dealing with things like filtration of emissions. A rail/trolley tunnel requires no exhaust filtration and the vehicles themselves produce no emissions. Score one for public transport.
Sam, Capt Bligh was on the Teevee over the weekend suggesting that Brisvegas may get triple artic buses. She was also talking up the environmental aspects of running gas buses rather than diesel ones.
Maybe triple artic trolley buses for Brisvegas and Melbourne. Bris can run them down all the busways, Melb can create cheap tunnels.
BTW - tunneling under intersections does speed the traffic up.
IIRC tunnels in Melb are particularly problematic due to the sub-surface conditions.
I’ve always been a fan of putting the Glen Waverly line above or below ground level - just count the number of bottlenecks the level crossings on that line alone cause.
Another thing to keep in mind is that in Melbourne, the state government is too daft to consider building heavy rail out to where people actually live. There’s a nice bit of space in the middle of most of the Eastern Freeway that’s dying for a train line to be built, and it still hasn’t happened. Maybe it never will. But surely one way forward to solving congestion would be, rather than build a tunnel for the one in ten cars that’s trying to go past the city rather than the nine in ten going into the city, instead, try getting thousands of people onto a reliable and frequent rail service instead.
I really don’t understand the logic behind transport policy in Melbourne - as an outsider, it seems that the people who are planning these things are really too stupid to get out of the house. But they can’t be complete idiots; a complete idiot doesn’t become a minister (Joe Tripodi notwithstanding). So what’s going on here?
Sorry not true.
If you want to be kind to the State Govt you could argue that the reason that PT infrastructure hasn’t caught up is because they don’t know when the population boost is going to peak and therefore can’t plan the infrastructure as yet.
>
If you want to be unkind you could just say that they are a bunch of gutless, greedy shits who’re leaving the mess to future generation because they don’t have the bottle to cop the huge expense of infrastructure improvement. If you think that doesn’t happen visit Sydney.
“lane-splitting nutcases on bikes and scooters”
Hey, that is me that you are talking about, only not in Melbourne. Not that I am devoid of Melbourne traffic experience. My most recent pleasure was a terrorfying hour clinging desperately to the back of Trevor’s (not a kiwi) leather jacket risking sliding off the rock hard 45 degree rearward sloping seat, with every accelerating forward lurch that his Motto Guzzi seemed to effortlessly provide. Throughout, the soles of my joggers were steadily melted away by the exhaust pipes to which the foot pegs seemed to be integrally attached. But the highlight of the trip from the city to Wonga Park had to be the tunnel. Don’t ask which tunnel as I sure that I passed out through lack of oxygen.
Deterred from visiting Melbourne? No way!! Along the trip I enjoyed suburb after suburb of beautiful historic architecture, perfectly framed with exquisite mature trees of many origins.
I’m comin’ back!! And it will be on one of these;
http://www.vectrix.com/portal/us.php
“If you want to be unkind you could just say that they are a bunch of gutless, greedy shits who’re leaving the mess to future generation because they don’t have the bottle to cop the huge expense of infrastructure improvement. If you think that doesn’t happen visit Sydney.”
I’m going with that as the reason.
Um, sorry, Bill, should have made it clearer that I am one of those lane-splitting nutcases. It\d take me 15 minutes longer to get to work if I didn’t weave my way through stationary traffic.
I take no offence. I did read in that you are a nutcase too, and assume that you are proud to be so.
What do you think of the Vectrix? Was the real point.
Looks hot as an engineering concept, BilB, but it’s a scooter, not a bike.
BTW, a 45° rear-facing seat? What were you riding, a motor-camel?
Once upon a time, in a Parliament House not so far away, there was the money for the grade seperation infrastructure between vehicles and rail. But it was used on the SE Arterial, so hence several decades later we will be literally paying for that tunnel vision.
Ahhh, lane-splitting on Alexandra Parade … takes me back. You haven’t lived until the two petrol tankers you’re threading your way between start moving when the lights turn green, and you haven’t it to the front of the queue in time.
My record lane split on the Eastern Fwy was 3.2km, back when it used to end at Doncaster Road. And Lex Parade has always been a vehicle-infested sewer. IIRC correctly it was even worse in the days it went from 3 lanes to 2 just after the Nicholson St lights. I also spent a couple of years riding a bicycle along its entire length (I used to live in the Shadow o’ the Shot Tower) but the Parade had been widened by then and had those “implicit” bike lane markings at traffic lights. Much more civilized!
There’s a nice bit of space in the middle of most of the Eastern Freeway that’s dying for a train line to be built, and it still hasn’t happened. Maybe it never will.
I’m hoping not. Bloody stupid place to put a train line. Metro-style undergrounding of the route 48 train along Doncaster Rd and onwards from there, starting at Melbourne Uni and going under Johnston St would be infinitely better value for money. Everyone who wanted to board the freeway train would need to drive to the station…
Melbourne could easily have a metro, and it’d be great for the immortality of the first government who sees it.
Liam,
Well that is how it felt. It was, of course, flat. But when 1000cc’s rip that machine forward the little ledge at the back that the pillion passenger is sitting on suddenly feels to be sloping aft. I have a lot of words for the idiots who design these things and none of them are nice. They would say that it is to make the girl on the back cling to the man who is in control. How sexist is that?
I make no apology for riding a scooter. For me it is about getting about at the minimum cost while enjoying the environment, not stretched out over the fuel tank of a marginally guided missile.
As for the Vectrix, it’s a bit big and bulky for my taste - not exactly an ideal lane splitter! I’m hoping that E-max’s 190L loses its vapourware status soon, as it would meet my commuting needs nicely.
Thomarse, I wrote to the Minister for transport 9always a waste of time, but I was feeling optimistic) about trolley buses, and they are strictly off the agenda. I have heard some awful things said about the public transport policy people in the Dept of infrastructure, and I’ve rarely found reason to contradict it.
Robert, it seems to me that Melbourne is crying out for integrated transport policy and a big, a very big, infrastructure spend. There is no one fix for it so it’s a matter of what gives the best bang for our bucks in meeting all of our needs. My mateur analysis suggests the following, in loose priority:
* First thing I would focus on is getting a far greater proportion of freight onto trains. So what are the bottlenecks there? Yarra tunnel or bridge, not sure what else.
* Next, the eastern freeway is the second worst disaster in melb after Hoddle street. So we need the originally planned doncaster railway. Hoddle street itself can’t easily be fixed (get rid of parking, put our first trolley bus system there).
* third, I think we need the link from the ring road to eastlink. I know the argument that freeways jsut create more traffic, but freeways only work well as part of a network, this would be a small addition to create significant connectivity.
* lastly, it’s public transport all the way. More and better bus services in the outer, fix the capacity problem in the loop (is it true METROL still hasn’t been replaced?), maybe double-decker trains, electrify to Bacchus Marsh, build the promised links to outer suburbs and think about new lines in growth areas.
Really, it all comes down to population growth. We’re just making do right now, but Melbourne is still growing rapidly. Petrol wont get any cheaper, heavy rail is the primary answer. It’s for this reason that I think a lot of Labor backbenchers are quite rightly worried about the rise of the Greens.
Wilful: I’m not against such freeway links, per se. I’m just against using freeways to dump more traffic on already overloaded roads.
No, metrol has not been replaced. A replacement project is underway, but won’t be ready by 2010 or so, apparently.
As I understand it, the ~$35 M budget to replace METROL was allocated in 2002 or thereabouts. SO WTF have they been doing? Surely these sorts of things are off-the-shelf?
The freeway link pre-emptive defence wasn’t aimed at you Robert, but in the pro-public transport crowd (of which I am a staunch, fully paid up member) the suggestion of any further road links is controversial. Ring road would allow Hume and Gippsland traffic to connect, taking traffic off the inner northwest.
Wilful #25
On this topic, I am in *violent* agreement with you! *Yay*
Addition:
A rail link with the Airport
Implement the MTAG plan for freight to the docks for the remaining road transport (after, as you say, putting the maximum amount possible on rail)
Decent bike paths (and I don’t mean painted on roads, which motorists can ignore and leave us in constant terror of car doors opening.)
Helen @28. It’s very important that any airport rail link be publicly owned otherwise the huge price that the private sector charges (because they can) will stop so many people using it that the trains run consistently under capacity. Just look at Brisbane’s AirTrain; $13 one way from the city with no concession fare and the trip’s a little over 10km. Never full.
helen, it’s only forestry that gets my goat, really, I’m a nice bloke…
Can you actually believe it, Southern Cross Station has designed in the extra capacity at the far south end for an airport link. How incredibly farsighted for this government. And due to the noise paths, the land is already basically reserved. They could snap their fingers and get that one done.
The copenhagen style bike lane down swanston street is nice.
I love those bike paths that are great, and then they just end, typically before some horror intersection. Dynon road is a great one like that, lovely bike path, then they got to the Spencer street rail bridge and thought, “bugger that, that’s too hard, we’ll stop now”.
The trouble is I don’t think bikes are the answer, not for Melbourne, not for Melburnians. The culture change needed is unrealistic, and it’s too spread out now to change it.
Sam, in what world do you live in where the privately owned Melbourne train system charges excessive prices and only runs when there is money to be made (another annoying aspect of the Brisbane airport train). If you want subsidised fares and services than public/private ownership is not terribly important. What matters is the terms of the government contract that is tendered out.
What is important, is that any airport rail form part of an integrated transport plan so it connects up to adjacent services, and (more than any other aspect) is usable for the tens of thousands of workers who travel from nearby suburbs to that area each day. In that respect, it should be no different to any other railway line in this city, under the control of the public transport authority and whatever private operator (if any) has the contract.
wilful, on what they have been doing, who knows? The DoI has released two transport plans in the past four years, the first of which was more or less, a road congestion reduction plan, and the second a grab bag of nice sounding platitudes, a (very) small handful of public transport projects, and the promise of more studies into cross-town connections. They’d actually already done those, but they didn’t come back with building a tunnel so they’ve tried again (that’s what the East-West Link Needs Assessment is). With the exception of VicRoads, who are very efficiently doing what they were told to do in 1968, the last time there was a coherent plan, no-one anywhere in government seems to know what sort of transport system they want, nor does anyone seem to know how to achieve what they don’t know they want. Though Treasury knows they don’t want to pay for anything, and therefore treat seriously any proposal that matches that criteria, regardless of its strategic merits. Not that Melbourne is substantially worse than any other city of comparable size mind you. Others just have different financing arrangements.
I have to say that airport rail is a pretty low priority. The advantages over the Skybus (both from an environmental and traveller perspective) would be quite marginal.
One that seems cheap and easy that could be done is ensure that bus timetables mesh with train time tables. At the moment, your train can arrive at a station, then you might have to wait 20 - 30 mins for a bus.
More bus routes, with buses that run more frequently for the outer suburbs would help. It’s pointless having services that are barely there and don’t run on weekends and evenings. Link them properly to major train stations, as well as extending a couple of key train lines, would also be very useful.
Russ, I live in Brisbane, the land of terrible PPPs. The AirTrain is a PPP with absolutely shocking conditions which allow the BAC to throw on a huge “access fee”. QR owns and runs the trains on the Airport Line and BAC own the track and the stations. It’s not properly integrated into the main network, either.
Melbourne seems to have it better though I’ve heard horror stories of Connex’s management of Melbourne’s trains. Lines getting axed, etc.
Robert Merkel, I agree that a train line to Melbourne Airport is a low priority. Skybus works quite well and there are other privately owned shuttle services as well.
Sam Clifford, Connex are pretty bad, but they haven’t actually axed any lines.
The funniest/saddest recent tale I’ve heard recently is that of Connex attempting to build a new tram stop in Flinders St over Easter. It resulted in them somehow drilling through to the subway underneath Flinders St. causing great lumps of rock and flooding making the subway currently unusable. A large insurance pay-out awaits the shopkeeers in the subway.
I don’t really mind connex that much. I suspect the system is very much as it would have been otherwise. I like their advertising company.
I happen to know where I could find a lazy $1 billion to fix public transport.
Fine @35, I must be thinking of Japan’s railways with the axeing of lines. Good to see Connex have reversed the bike ban.
Ah PPs wonderful ideas. The innovation of the 21st century. You people just don’t understand. See what you do is mix private ownership with public monopoly. That way there’s no market (ie choice of products or price signal) so there’s no way anyone can out-compete you. And also it’s private so the voters get redirected away from the Minister’s office by the PBX service: Ho you’re call is important to us. Please hold or press #4 for a brief instruction set on how to go screw yourself.
>
It works. The shareholders are pleased and the Minister gets Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays free for baby-kissing and golf. Everyone wins!
Re Connex:
Fine @ 35 - it was actually Yarra Trams that was building the tram stop - Connex are only involved because the tunnel in question leads to the Flinders Street train station.
Sam @ 37 - Connex actually get more bad press than they deserve (but don’t get me wrong, they deserve a lot of bad press). Their job is merely to run the trains and stations - it’s still the Government that owns the trains and tracks. The bike ban was actually a government decision. They are happy with Connex getting blamed for everything, and Connex are happy because the way the contracts work they merely have to provide a minimal ’service’ and get a massive funding adustment in their favour most years.
Robert,
Can you tell me whether the supposed overcrowding of the loop is actually real or not. The government keeps saying they can’t run more trains because the loop can’t take them (at least at peak hour), so they have to build this tunnel which will cost a motza (although not as much as the road tunnel). However, the PTUA point out that they ran more trains in the 1940s and 50s, and the loop should increase capacity as the trains don’t have to turn around.
So how is it that we can now run fewer trains than 50 years ago?
It seems a pretty key question, since if there were more trains on the current lines the congestion would drop a lot. If they added extra lines to Doncaster and Rowville it would drop a whole lot more.
As a regular loop commuter I can confirm that the system is so overcrowded that if you make the mistake of travelling at peak hour, you will often find yourself left on the platform unable to board the train. Even in slightly “off-peak” periods such as early morning it is unusual to find a seat once the train enters Zone 1 and you will be squashed up against 100 MacRob students.
Hugh@39, you’re quite right. The State Govt is very happy for us to blame the transport companies. And as a friend who works for Connex explained to me, they don’t care because they get a guaranteed return every year, regardless.
Hi everyone,
Seems to me one problem with Alex Parade is the single block b/w Canning and Lygon St where after 10am you’re allowed to park your car - thus one car sitting in that lane can hold up all the traffic trying to squeeze into the two lanes next to it. I should know, I lived right behind the Dan O’Connell for the past year. A tunnel would only be good if, as previous commenters suggested, it acted like a bypass of the whole inner north. Can’t see that happening. Meanwhile, the number of cyclists crossing alex. parade at canning st continues to increase. It’s a beautiful sight to sit in the little park across from the Dan and watch them all ride by. Might need an overpass there eventually
The State Govt is very happy for us to blame the transport companies. And as a friend who works for Connex explained to me, they don’t care because they get a guaranteed return every year, regardless.
Huh. Connex only cares about its damn shareholders, for them to complain about the attitude of the State government is pretty damn rich, even though I agree with them, but Connex is no better. It should never have been allowed to take over the running of public transport in Melbourne.
FS: short answer: I don’t know; I’m not an expert on train scheduling and signalling. FWIW, I’m not convinced Paul Mees is.
But then again I’m not sure the current operators are either…
My only anecdotal comment is that it’s not uncommon for trains to be delayed around Flinders Street to wait for platforms to be emptied.
I think the story re the loop is is that the signalling isn’t up to scratch (it’s the original 1983 system, METROL) so trains have to keep a minimum safe distance from each other such that it is currently at ‘capacity’. They allocated the dollars to fix this up several years back (new computer, new lights, new comms infrastructure), but have inexplicably appeared to have totally cocked it up and made no prorss, are totally years behind schedule.
In other parts of the world, they could fit 50 - 100% more trains around the loop safely. This is one of the easy gets of a better transport system, one of the several black marks against DoI’s bureaucrats.
I am also somewhat wary/sceptical of Paul Mees actual expertise, however he is out there promoting something good so I wont knock him too hard, but I do wonder at his credibility sometimes.
Also, North Melbourne Station is for some reason (don’t know why) a bottle neck, and the current renos to the station are apparently going to alleviate this a bit.
One urban planning/liveability issue I would like to see, that probably wouldn’t really help PT, would be to totally underground Richmond Station and the train lines between there and Flinders St. Create new open space the whole way down. The Richmond overpass of Hoddle Street is one of the biggest eyesores in Melbourne. If it was mostly roofing and included commercial precincts it wouldn’t be too expensive.
Fine @ 33, I couldn’t agree more; my commute is four stations in zone 2 plus a fifteen minute bus trip. When the bus operator cleaned up their act at the beginning of this year and made the connections happen it cut an average of twenty minutes off each way of my trip.
I also like wilful’s suggestions. We used to live backing onto the Banyule Flats which I assume is where the link between the ring rd and the eastern would go. If the government is set on building tunnels I hope they would tunnel under the green wedges in the northeast instead of laying roads over the top of them.
They are still working on a new signalling system, but it’s an IT project. Say no more…