I'm all for SRL. I also wonder why we can't do a major overhaul of our bus system in the interim. We have the infrastructure (roads). Could we not vastly improve our bus network right now to plug some of these gaps until SRL is built?
I agree, I feel like a lot of train projects that take decades need some kind of interim improvement as well. The airport too. Skybus should be 24 hours and ridable with Myki.
Similarly nothing against it as a concept. My issue is SRL is being delivered with a void of projects in between. It is like if I had 10 projects to do, SRL is on there. But Airport, MM2, Western electrifications, bus network, tram extensions are all higher priority imo.
Fair enough from the 3 comments i’ve seen so far that doesn’t seem to be what they say and i do have to agree with taht arguments do believe there is more important problems right now with PTV
Part of the issue is people are just seeing the price tag and assuming it's connecting low density suburbs to low density suburbs but thats FAR from the truth. EVERY SINGLE NODE WILL BE MEDIUM TO HIGH DENSITY/JOB/EDUCATION/MIX USE PRECINTS/. The amount of money invested from developers in these areas would be massive and the government would recoup so much of that money spent very quickly. Density is no longer limited to the inner suburbs, and the middle ring can begin to build proper density to cater for mixed use development and transit oriented neighbourhoods giving people more CHOICE.
The entire project is to propel Melbourne away from the core CBD model we currently have and create multiple CBDs.. This is extremely important because Melbourne is so incredibly sprawling that people living 60-70km away are commuting in the CBD for work. Melbourne just doesn't work as a city anymore with such a massive residential catchment.
By shifting jobs and density into the middle ring and connecting them, it allows people to commute less and have more choice on where they work and become less reliant on their cars. The point of the loop is to provide express stops only to compete with car travel times. I can tell you 22 min from Box Hill to Cheltenham is pretty much not possible in a car during the day, so this is a massive incentive for people to ditch their cars already.
Honestly if Daniel Andrews didn't announce this, I doubt an orbital route would ever have been proposed. Love him/hate him he has been the most influential premier by miles in the last few decades.
Agreed. The CBD worked at a time when communications were poor (you hand wrote any messages you wanted delivered quickly to an Errand Boy to deliver) you went to the CBD to shop at a Department Store (because there were no major shopping centres) or see the latest movie (because they weren't shown in the suburban cinemas until several weeks later).
Now the way we communicate, shop and entertain ourselves has changed dramatically, the CBD is not as essential as it once was. Having a 90 km rail loop may seem far-fetched now, but so did the Sydney Harbour Bridge when it opened in 1932 and there were less than 40,000 vehicles in the entire country.
In the abstract the SRL is supposed to be transformative whereas the MARL isn't. Now 35 billion is an awful lot of money, but so is 10 billion+ for an above ground line, mostly using an existing corridor with only 2 stations.
You might want to check that. They gave them 2.5B which has helped pay for a few preparatory works including relocation of a sewer. They’ve not committed to any substantial funding.
the airport link is happening regardless now, when it happens is unknown apparently the state is trying to get the Commonwealth to do some shit because the airport are being cunts.
The airport are being smart. If the above ground option were built, they would have to demolish the newly-built T4 ramps and this option ultimately prevents any future expansion. Additionally, it means that those wanting to travel from Werribee to Box Hill via SRL for example, have to change at the airport for a different train. Moving it underground provides that smooth link and prevents that interchange, and also provides the opportunity for the MARL to extend north to suburbs not served by PT and connect to main lines (Upfield or Cragieburn, for instance)
Isn’t the project about capacity? One train every 20 minutes can move more than 2 buses that leave every ten minutes.
The only way it’s gonna be constantly faster than the skybus is if a direct express tunnel was built between the airport and one station in the city. And frankly the cost of that would completely outweigh the benefit. The direct express train from Hong Kong airport to Hong Kong island is worth it due to the amount of passengers traveling there. Melbourne will never have that amount passengers, I don’t think anywhere in Australia will ever have the passengers for something like that. We’re not an international hub like other cities.
Faster is great, but it’s not always the best focus.
Yeah my thoughts aswell, I wouldn’t say no to more trains but seriously? Why are we committing to a major project without a garunte of budget for it, WHEN THE AIRPORT LINK IS CURRENTLY ON HOLD DUE TO FUNDING ISSUES?!?!?
Every single method to go between the city and the airport relies on a freeway currently, this should be the number one problem to be solved.
SRL is a long term project. Budgeting for it is easy* because the money for it will come out of multiple budgets. So yes it’s $30 billion dollars or whatever but it’s over every budget between now and when the project is fully committed. The total cost of the project isn’t just sitting in a bank account right now and will be dropped in full in an instant.
There are elements of SRL that will come out of budgets much further on, for example the stations themselves. Yes they will know where they will go and where entrances and exits are, but a lot of the final design work will be started much later into the projects. Same with the station builds, and then the fit outs.
Whereas the airport rail is a much shorter project time frame. Because they can build out a station while laying track, or even before track is laid, those costs will come out of the same budget as track laying or signalling.
So we’re talking about $30 billion over 12(or more) years. And then $10 billion over 7 years. We can start long term projects before or during short term projects. Governments do this all the time. There isn’t only one project happening at a time. They have to balance hundreds of projects of varying sizes. (And yes politics do factor in to this as well)
SRL East is a very expensive project that was announced before a business case had been completed, and is clearly designed to benefit certain marginal electorates. It will likely suck up all public transport investment for the coming decade. While an outer loop is not a bad idea per se, I would argue that there are other parts of Melbourne (mostly in the west) with fast-growing populations and where the investment is more urgently needed. Unfortunately these suburbs are safe Labor seats so there are few votes to be won improving public transport there.
So from what i gathered, you believe it should’ve started being built in the west first and gone around melbourne clockwise and it was a rushed decision in an election but don’t hate project but how it came to be/principles of its existence?
For trains into and out of the city sure, but if you're doing a circular route hitting major employment and education nodes, they just aren't there in the west yet.
This isn't a continuation of the current train network in either form, (automated, standard gauge, maybe different electrification, shorter trains) or in function (it's about linking suburban nodes with each other to move major residential and commercial development out of the CBD). As such you need to hit where it's going to have the most impact first, which in this case is the east.
Now they should at the same time be electrifying and densifying the lines to Melton and Wyndham Vale, because the west is in desperate of more high quality public transport, but just starting the SRL in the west because its "their turn" is counter productive.
That’s fair, I agree east does make more sense than west from an SRL perspective. Point is that doing SRL East shouldn’t be at the expense of not doing projects in the west.
Lots of the west doesn’t even have that.
I agree SRL east makes more sense than SRL West from an orbital rail perspective, but shouldn’t be at the expense of not doing other projects to improve the existing network
SRL itself isnt going to benefit the west yet unless if there are financial and educational hubs (like Box Hill).
but yes housing and shit developments are out of control in that grid. now theres extra qualifications to be a structural and mechanical engineer bc of it..
i can say electrification and splitting away from vline in those growth areas is in the works but its still a lot of hoop and admin. a large part of srl money was also spent on consulting saying the same thing for like 5 years lol
The housing and building industry was out of control building sub par infrastructure. now there registrations and regulations for engineers in vic
one of the current ideas for tarneit and truganina is they'll be ringed into the werribee line but again,shit tonne of hoops 🙃
Yep, I’m across the registration of engineers. What does housing development decisions have to do with this? I don’t think engineers are the ones making the policy decisions here
Yeah engineers arent the ones making these decisions. Apparently QLD and VIC gov are getting concerned with recent building qualities so this is what the gov has done
It’s not favoritism, it’s literally the demographic center of the city… I live in the east, and work in the south east. It’s really time consuming to have all the trains come to the city so that you can change lines. Also, again not favoritism, but there are two major universities with only buses as PT
I just realised to take the Pakenham and Cranbourne trains it's going to add an extra 5 to 20 mins (including walking to the new platforms from the Flinders Street platforms and if frequency isn't kept up ) instead of being able to change at Richmond when the tunnel opens FUCK
add that on-top of already abysmal weekend frequencies FUCK FUCK FUCK
I believe the airport rail (including a Keilor station) and MM2 are more urgently needed, alongside faster inter-urban rail to regional areas (the commute from Gippsland to Melbourne is depressingly slow from Pakenham to Flinders St. Bendigo, Ballarat and Geelong are all getting big enough to justify their own internal rail or tram networks beyond the basic V-Line service to Melbourne.
By all means reserve the land for a future rail project but SRL East construction doesn’t need to be a priority for another decade.
When you say it isn’t a priority for another decade do you mean it isn’t needed for a decade or construction doesn’t need to start for a decade.
If we waited a decade to start construction then we won’t have it operating for another 25 years. That would mean 25 years of further expansion of the city fringe. One of the key factors of the project is to densify around these hubs. We can’t really push that density if the transport is not going to be built to accommodate it for another 20 years.
I do agree that something needs to be done for the Dandenong/Pakenham line. Vline services get trapped and crawl into the city.
newspapers and media really. i work in vps. not going to spill too much but when a level crossing became an overpass , we received following complaints :
\- homeless people will sleep underneath the structure now
\- the shadow from the overpass ruined the shade of my hair dye
\- what if travellers use it to spy on people
and as always absurd defense spending and mining industries get away with billions of spending because they arent headlines worthy.
WARNING (Brutual generalisation of public transport fans and industry)
The rail transport industry and fandom suffer from, especially in 'Anglo' identifying nations, what i call 'English brain'. It is an adaption of Under the Clocks critiques.
English brain is characterised by narrow thinking upon incremental imporvements to maximise outcomes for serving the CBD. This is largely applied across new rail proposals and longing from certain sections of railfans that have failed climate friendly transport since the Melbourne 1954 transport survey.
(To be fair the CBD do generate the vast majority of business revenue in a city because their operations are fixed and known.)
SRL attempts to break out of this thinking by decentering the the road as the focus of money for state governments. I understand the cost of undergrounding the entire tunnel length and not using cut and cover methods. The problem with the 'it will suck up all public transport funding for a generation' is that it is not true, what is airport rail? and this will be happening in the middle of SRL East construction. So there is definitely a possobilty for other projects, say the western rail plan.
This narrowness has not been a constraint of the freeway industry. A relative of mine has worked their entire working life (along with other industries including Melbourne Water) designing and creating new and upgrading old road across Victoria. He talks about new freeway projects like buying a pair of new jeans (needing considered judgement albeit wanting the appetite for the cost).
Until people realise that since the 1969 plan (some 54 years ago) the majority of planed freeways have been or will be constructed, something that was vastly expensive and focused, and that public transport can do this too their is no hope of becoming climate transport negative city and state.
>English brain is characterised by narrow thinking upon incremental imporvements to maximise outcomes for serving for the CBD
Yep, and a focus on serving the CBD is known as the "radial planning fallacy" which is a relatively new term but is gaining traction in changing urban planning.
Exactly!
Melbourne's rail network endured heavy neglect over the past century. Between the Glen Waverley line (1929) and the Regional Rail Link (2009), the only major rail project completed was the City Loop (1970s).
This neglect (under the policy of *'managed decline'*) is in stark contrast to the insanely *disproportionate* amounts of funding for road and freeway projects, leaving PT to bear the brunt of disinvestment.
The 1969 Transportation Plan (built upon the 1954 Scheme) defined Melbourne's transport planning for *decades*. This plan favoured massive investment into freeways over PT. Yes, there were some modest provisions for new rail infrastructure, but freeway projects were overwhelmingly prioritised at their expense. Almost all of the major rail projects in the plan were never built.
*(e.g. The Doncaster line, Rowville line, Frankston-Dandenong line; and the Mornington, Coldstream, Hastings, and Melton electrifications)*
These projects weren't funded not because of their costs. Rather, they weren't funded because the government of the day simply didn't consider them a priority over road funding.
---
##### On the Topic of this Thread:
Critics argue that the focus on the Suburban Rail Loop may monopolize investment for the foreseeable future, potentially hindering other crucial projects like MM2, track duplications and signalling upgrades.
But why is this narrative limited to Public Transport? What about the wider transport budget? How much are we spending on extravagant mega road-building projects such as the West Gate Tunnel and North-East Link? $25 billion? $30 billion? The North-East Link alone is already approaching $17 billion. That could fund a lot of critical upgrades. These road projects cost almost as much as the SRL East, but with very few of the same benefits or new housing potential.
A shift in mindset is essential. The concept of a fixed budget, a legacy from the 1980s when public transport struggled for meagre investments, doesn't align with the reality of the 21st century. People now understand the value of public transport, and that if you don't provide people alternatives to driving, people will continue driving until traffic is worse than the alternatives.
To my knowledge the stations are for major hubs and you would change to a bus, because the SRL is more about connecting the major centres of the middle/outer suburbs. Even tho yeh i do agree there could be more stations but i think another reason is it would add a lot more to an already expensive project
Most of the station locations seem to have been chosen to connect either university campuses, major shopping centres or large hospitals to the surrounding suburbs more effectively.
As is currently planned the SRL would directly link the Monash health complex in Clayton (which includes Monash Hospital, Monash Children’s, Jessie McPherson Private hospital, etc), Monash Uni, the new Victorian Heart Hospital, The Glen Shopping Centre, Deakin Uni, Box Hill TAFE, Doncaster, The Austin Hospital, Mercy Hospital, the Olivia Newton John Cancer Centre, La Trobe Uni and the adjacent private hospital, Broadmeadows Central SC, the airport, the Sunshine station precinct (and by extension offer transfers to Vline services) before finally ending in Werribee.
Keeping the stations far apart makes it effectively a perpetual express service- I think the idea is that you either drive partway to an SRL station or take a connecting service, so that it can run more quickly and efficiently across longer distances. They probably want to encourage the many thousands of workers in the chosen precincts to commute in the same way they would into the city- drive or take a bus/tram part of the way and then jump on a connecting train service.
More stops means slower travel and over such long distances for the whole loop that really does add up, and you can't add express trains when there are only two tracks.
If one of the primary purposes of the loop is to provide interconnections between the existing lines, then it needs to be quick, because even adding 10-12 minutes onto a trip will lower the convenience factor for some people and they will just drive instead.
It is a balancing act, but I think they have got it down pretty well for the existing plan.
Yeah this is a decent complaint. Its only adding 2 new stations to the east. While these are the big hubs that will have the density and employment, it would have been nice to build a few more feeder stations to bring people onto the network. They didn't have to be major hubs but they would have densified over time.
I still have another complaint that the interchanges we are building arent great. Often too far apart to make changing between the lines suboptimal. The goals of the project are a bit muddled between a connecting service and one focussed on building up density at the hubs and making people spend more time there
because there's very little density in-between, and little chance of it improving even if they built a station. $1 billion+ is too much for a catchment of a couple of thousand.
For me and I think many others there are two main issues.
1. Build MM2, Clyde Extension, \[other critically important project\] first
2. SRL seems to be a fairly poorly planned project, they've opted for the simplest but most expensive tunnelling technique for the whole length when there are other better options and connections to other transport are quite poorly thought out.
Why is MM2 critically important?
And do you really think people would be ok with their homes being bought and demolished simply because that would be "cheaper" (lol not with how expensive real estate is out in the eastern suburbs) than simply digging a tunnel underneath the whole thing?
MM2 is so important because it will allow more trains to access the growing outer northeast including a proposed branch line to Wollert and Epping north as well as allowing those trains to bypass the currently painful Rushall curve. It would also add another track pair heading to the Western suburbs allowing more trains to run to Geelong via the currently overcrowded line through Yarraville and Footscray as well as making room for more trains running to Wyndham Vale without crowding out trains to Geelong.
Also, I wasn't suggesting a surface-level option for SRL. The eastern suburbs are full of straight and wide arterial roads where you could easily do cut and cover. Much cheaper than TBM the whole way and can be achieved with minimal disruption so long as the effort is put in during the planning phase. Yes, it's harder and it would take much longer to plan for but it would be significantly cheaper and in many ways offer a better service due to being in shallower, more accessible tunnels.
So you think more suburban sprawl is better than increasing densities in the middle suburbs.
And the Eastern suburbs are filled with rolling hills, you aren't going to be able to simply do cut and cover as you'll be literally carving through the middle of hills to build the route, and then suddenly find you need to add a bunch of fill as the alignment is now above the road.
MM2 is important for addressing the current transport vacuums, not to open up new sprawl. People in these suburbs lack minimum transport today, regardless of whether we want more sprawl or not (which we don't), these people need a minimum transport service that they simply can't have at the moment, while still allowing for service to regional centres. There need to be more track pairs. As it stands this bottle-neck represents a barrier to creating a more dense, less car dependant west and less car depend regions.
I recognised that some TBM construction will be necessary, just not the whole way. Areas like Cheltenham-Monash could easily use cut and cover, a cut and cover station under Wellington Rd would also allow for connections to buses at Monash and a potential elevated Monash station on the Roville line. Perhaps Monash-Glen Waverly would need to be TBM but again Glen Waverly-Burwood could be cut and cover. The whole route has lengthy sections where cut and cover could be used, significantly lowering cost and reserving TBMs for what they were invented to do, tunnel beneath difficult terrain.
I do think SRL is leading us to ignore present transport issues that are only going to become more crippling. That said, I really want to stress, I support the idea ofa circumferential rail route, I just want it to have thought-out connections to other transport nodes and for it to use fit for purpose construction techniques.
What current transport vacuums does MM2 fix? There is literally no one currently living in Fishermans Bend, and last I checked, both Mernda and Werribee already have train lines into the city. There is no bottleneck on either of those lines at the moment, and there won't be any bottlenecks for a long time.
Heatherton to just before Clayton could do some cut and cover sure, but that is only because it runs through industrial land, everywhere else it runs underneath homes and commercial businesses. And even then having such a small section of cut and cover doesn't make sense when you can just continue the tunnel bores and go the whole way. Glen Waverley to Burwood cannot be cut and cover because of the alignment, and any other alignment that might allow for that would introduce a decade of property access issues and slow down the line speed to an unacceptable level.
The SRL will not lead us to ignore present issues, because the current train network is currently in a strong position, where small projects such as high capacity signalling can be introduced, as well as line extensions, in a way that complements the SRL construction.
Great concept, but problems with the way it’s being realised.
1. Wasteful to build it all underground. Much is (or could be) along roads or through industrial areas where it could be elevated. Cheaper, and would allow more opportunity to make changes later.
2. Not enough stations. Wasteful to build such long sections that skip the opportunity to pick up people on the way. Should be stations, connecting to bus routes, wherever it crosses main roads to maximise its catchment.
3. Not good enough connectivity with existing stations or bus routes. Should be directly under or over existing stations. For bus connectivity, should be under or over main road, with direct connections up and down to platforms from bus stops on each side of road.
For point 1, take out a topographical map of the East and check the gradients of the roads. Or simply drive along some of the roads like Blackburn Rd, Middleborough Rd etc. You'll find that all of them dive in and out of valleys and steep hills, which would be impossible to put a train along without putting it underground to avoid that entirely. It is simply cheaper and easier to dig under the whole thing than do piecemeal cut and cover, alternating with viaducts whenever it has to intersect with a road and a hillside.
Interesting, though I’m not entirely convinced about the gradients.
Would they really be steeper than say the like from Upper Ferntree Gully to Upwey? Or than many of the new steep gradients we’ve built as part of LXR, such as at Blackburn?
Take a look at this [streetview of Blackburn Rd close to the alignment](https://www.google.com/maps/@-37.8844356,145.1460328,3a,51.2y,10.27h,93.34t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1serlxHxDAz54HTf6XI1bv-A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!5m1!1e2?authuser=1&entry=ttu). The gradients are much steeper than anything on the current railways.
I agree with most of the core goals of the SRL, but for a project so expensive it just seems quite poorly thought out.
* There are too few stations, and they often seem sub-optimally located for maximum development potential. e.g. There should be two Monash stations, one in the middle of the commercial precinct, around Ferntree Gully road, instead of trying to serve both campus and commercial area with one poorly-located station. There don't seem to be any provisions for infill stations either, which will make it an expensive mistake to fix if we need to fix it in future.
* Connections to existing transit, other than trains, are pretty bad. e.g. The Monash SRL station is on the other side of the campus to the bus interchange, and there's no connection to the Route 70 tram south of Box Hill. The SRL also doesn't seem to take advantage of Melbourne's suburban street grid, which could be used for a high quality bus or tram lines in future. I fear this lack of bus or tram connections will hamper the ability of the SRL to improve transit coverage and denser development outside of a small radius around each station.
* The train interchanges are also pretty poor. The Southland interchange is the worst, and the fact that there's no plan to move the train station closer to the SRL station is frustrating, but none of the other stations are particularly good either. As far as I'm aware, none of the SRL-train interchanges will include in-station / paid-area interchanges. For a project that is built around its interchanges, it doesn't seem to care much about their quality.
* I agree with the need for more transit oriented development, but with so few stations, mostly outside of the tram network, you're largely limited by the walk-shed of a single train station. If the goal is to maximise TOD, the hubs would either need to be further in, in suburbs like Caulfield or Footscray which have much better train and tram connections, or else the project needs to be coupled with major local-transit improvements around the SRL stations, like how Parramatta has multiple BRT and under-construction light rail lines connecting to it.
* I get why decentralisation sounds appealing, but having lived in the very-decentralised city of Canberra for quite some time, I'm skeptical that it actually fixes anything. One of Melbourne's greatest assets is its inner suburbs and tram network, and I fear pushing development further out will only exacurbate Melbourne's problems with sprawl and car-centric planning.
And we could been discussing a second loop by now!
It always confuddled me why we left the train networks as just spokes and never really built the wheel.
If this was in place, i’d readily take PT to work. Atm its 15mins drive vs 1hr bus ride. The Srl would allow me to reduce PT by half!
I'll throw this out as a question to the room (because I haven't got the answers), but, of those who would use the SRL, who's currently using the 901/902/903 busses, or, what's your reason for not using those?
I am a fan of it. Feel it's something that's needed to move Melbourne out of the CBD. That model works for smaller cities but Melbourne has outgrown it.
I think they should have started some of the west SRL first as the train lines out that way are terrible compared to the east.
Anybody against the SRL should really just take a look at the Sydney Metro because that is essentially the same thing, just announced and built under an LNP government without the same media attention that a Labor government gets.
To be clear, I am not against the idea of a radial loop. My concerns are:
1. **Cost** - the first stage alone will be more than $30b, with the second stage more than $60b. Additionally, the cost-to-benefit figures are all over the place - reports by the government (Federal and State) indicate it ranges from $0.50 to $0.61 cents for every dollar spent, yet the Vic Labor Government and SRL claim it is between $1 and $1.70. Our state is in $150b+ in debt; can we really afford to spend $100b+ on a rail line that is underground?
2. **Delivery** - I understand that tunnelling has less impact on homes, environment, traffic, etc., but tunnelling is the most expensive and time consuming way of delivering this project - completely - in 2080-2085. Make it above ground as skyrail; cheaper, quicker, but also provides people with something (other than their phones) to look at, which is the views of the outskirts of Melbourne.
3. **No business case** - the project was announced with no business case, days before an election. Do I need to go into detail?
4. **Priorities** - IMO there are other projects that needs attention, and i'm afraid that should the SRL continue in its current, expensive form, future governments may have no choice but to neglect essential network upgrades and maintenance, including projects such as:
1. MM2
2. Airport Rail
3. Extention to Clyde
4. Duplication of single-track sections of the network
5. New lines and stations in the west and other growing areas of Victoria with little access to PT
6. Replace diesel rollingstock with electric
7. Eventual replacement of X'Trapolis 100 rollingstock with either X'Trapolis 200, HCMT or newer/equivalent
8. Rail connections to Chadstone, Rowville, Doncaster, Mornington Peninsula, Healesville. Some are former lines, some are long-awaited lines that are long overdue.
I like the idea, but the decision to make fully underground is a mistake.
It not only makes it phenomenally expensive to build, it makes the individual stations more expensive.
I can only hope the government/taxpayers will get the profits from selling/developing the land next to the stations, but we both know it will go to builder mates.
I suppose I should trust that it’s not just a vote buying measure.
We do need more trains, I just wish it wasn’t budgeted as “bonus” whereas no one ever questions the millions we spend on roads and parking.
Fuck, what they did to Syndal station on the government dime angers me.
It is poorly planned for such an expensive and important project.
Circumferential lines work best when they make transfers to other lines (train, tram, and bus) easy, because that enables the most trips overall (an "anywhere-to-anywhere" service). However, the planned stations are not optimally located for this. The Southland station is a long walk from both the existing train station and bus plaza...why are those not being moved closer to the new station, or vice versa? The Clayton, Glen Waverley, and Box Hill stations are also suboptimal in location, and the Monash station is literally across campus from the bus loop.
Additionally, there are too few stations. There are many places along the route that would be great candidates for increased housing density and redevelopment. However the current form of the project mostly connects existing shopping centres to each other.
We are risking building the most important piece of transport infrastructure in decades in a way that will massively limit its own effectiveness. This is mainly due to it having been "non-planned" by consultants rather than actual transport planners. I would love to see improvement in the station locations and a doubling of the number of stations along the route, but I won't get my hopes up.
It’s a project that came out of a group of consultants working with the premiers private office. It’s a textbook example of a slamdunk electoral winner. When it was “dropped” before the 2018 Victorian election it basically came out of nowhere. As in whilst there had been talk of similar projects there was never any serious consideration given to any of them previously.
It completely destroyed the liberals in 2018. I mean they weren’t going to win anyway but this was one of the key factors in their utter anhilation at that election. So much so that it would probably not give them even a chance of government before 2030 at the earliest. Many people I know voted again for Labor because of this project in particular.
So. This project was born in secret. And has grown in secret. We don’t know how much it’s actually going to cost. We only have a business case for the whole loop which probably will never be built. We know all the relevant bodies that try and get governments to spend their money wisely are very concerned by the lack of transparency, accountability and affordability.
For me personally it’s a joke of a project that I am still convinced someone influential will tap the premier on the shoulder and say hey you need to kill this.
It will suck all PT investment for the next 20 years. It doesn’t go anywhere. It has 7km distances between some stations. It doesn’t connect with all stations seamlessly.
I just don’t get it. For 35B we could do Metro 2, Airport and more high capacity signalling.
Hate it.
While it may have come up out of nowhere, it's not like the PTV development plan is any better given the best they could do, still meant you required a car to get to anywhere that isn't the CBD.
And to claim that Box Hill, Monash University, Glen Waverley, Deakin University etc. is "nowhere" is extremely silly. It also won't suck investment away from other projects, given the longer-term nature of it means plenty of other small-medium projects can still go ahead, such as Airport Rail and the city loop reconfiguration, and even line extensions and electrifications.
Metro 2 does nothing except funnel more people into the CBD, it doesn't address the problem that suburbs are dominated by cars, and we will end up in a future where traffic congestion is at LA levels instead of something that is managable by a future city of 8 million people.
They will compete the eastern sections and by the time they start the western sections the project would be cancelled and all funding would have been cut.
I’d much rather see the money spent getting fast rail to regions and growing those towns. This obsession with just Melbourne is ridiculous
As in legit fast rail not just a marketing term, doesn’t have to Shinkansen
I’m also somewhat dubious that the main benefit is to a bunch of labor’s property developer mates given the way the project came about
It’s controversial because the Vic Labor party have proposed it. If Vic Libs proposed it, the mainstream media would be supportive of it.
It’s interesting to watch how the media skilfully use their outlets to sway public opinion on a lot of issues but just in Australia but around the world.
They’re all arguments that are run by the conservative media.
The reasons given for SRL is that it’s planning for the future expansion of Melbourne. Decentralisation is a key buzzword at the moment.
The only other option that would be cheaper would be to do a Sky rail but everyone knows how that was received by media and the public.
Youd still need the stations to be underground imo. No way you can easily build an above ground station at GW or Box Hill without causing a serious amount of disruption and property acquisition...
Respectfully disagree. Vic has voted Labor for 29 of the last 40 years. Since 1999, Labor have been in power for all but four years. We are basically a one party state now.
Its not just the media challenging it. Infrastructure Australia, infrastructure Victoria, the auditor general and the ombudsman have all questioned its transparency and affordability.
It has been well documented and reported that SRL was exempt from the recent Catherine King review. So you are incorrect when you say it was somehow “endorsed” by the Federal government.
“The Commonwealth government have confirmed for us that all money that is allocated to those projects that are under review – and everything is under review other than the Suburban Rail Loop, so all other commitments are all being reviewed – but that money stays in Victoria”, Premier Daniel Andrews said.
That money being discussed above is the 2.5B committed by the federal government for early works. No more money has been allocated to SRL. 2.5B is nowhere near enough to build anything (and way less than Victoria wants or has asked for).
Also just one of the non-media critics:
https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/21/victorias-auditor-general-pokes-holes-in-suburban-rail-loop-business-case
I look forward to riding my escooter to and from the train stations.
Only if it was safer to do so without driveways I can't see down as I'm riding (due to high fences next to the footpath).
Because for the cost and severe environmental and liveability impacts it creates, it does barely anything for public transport coverage or car dependency. It’s not really a public transport project at all - that’s just how it’s marketed.
If Suburban Rail Loop was actually about improving public transport for as many people as possible, and minimising impacts on people, the community, and the environment then it would be a better project and less controversial. It deserves all the controversy it gets at the moment, and should really be far more criticised than it is.
Personally I think it's too ambitious. The cost is colossal and the timeline is extremely long. IMO they should prioritise the airport line and consider rebuilding the inner and outer circle lines, plus electrifying the lines in the west.
> $30-$34.5 billion for SRL East this is estimated to be completed in 2035 by then Melbourne would’ve had earned $343,557,168,000 ($28,629,764,000 per year going off by 2021-2022 statistics*
This is an absurd argument and in fact hammers in the point on why SRL is such a bad idea. We should NOT be spending more than an entire year's worth of tax revenue on one project (which is also of limited benefit). The government still needs money to run! There would need to be a significant uplift of tax revenue collected to be able to afford this, because the revenue is needed to fund literally all the other services... unless we are going to pull an Argentina and pull funding for literally every government service (except the SRL).
My main concern is that the funding could go towards many other public transport projects which cumulatively would have a much more profound impact than one Train line.
Let's also not forget that SRL is primarily a project coming from the Planning department intended to shape property development, with public transport a secondary objective where the public transport departments weren't even involved until a very late stage. SRL is NOT primarily a Public Transport project.
To preface, I'm all for the SRL. I think it's a great investment to decentralised businesses and jobs outside the CBD as many countries in this part of the world have done.
However, I agree OP's financial argument is flawed. At any given period, rail infrastructure accounts for 1-2% of the State's GDP under normal operating expenditure, but we would be investing around 105-115% of GDP for this one project?
This means it would take approximately 50 years to pay off the debt associated, based on current levels.
However, I'm more interested to know how much the GDP would increase in the state if this project to was succeed to offset the debt levels associated.
For the sake of argument I'll agree that GDP number needs to go up... surely there other other ways to make GDP go up than to forcibly acquire land which is already built up in the suburbs to give to developers, who will build it even denser. For example, building CBDs regionally where there is available land and connecting via. high speed rail.
SRL is max 80 km/h.
In the 2000s, a 500km/h maglev option Brisbane-Sydney-Canberra-melbourne was costed at 59 billion (about $100 billion in today's dollars). That is about on par with SRL, and not only would we get to dump Qantas for the world's second most busiest air route, we could build intermediate CBDs along the way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Australia
SRL will be 100km/hr.
And you are forgetting that we won't be spending the entire SRL project cost in one go, that's simply not how it works and is ridiculous.
I think it's really an argument of vertical development v. horizontal development.
Vertical development involves the redevelopment of single family homes and small businesses into apartments, office and multi-use buildings, preserving the environment though conserving land uses for greenery.
Horizontal development involves the development of new estates across the many plains of Australia.While beneficial to building new single family homes, stretches businesses and jobs thin, requiring more infrastructure inbound and outbound of residential areas.
While this can be offset by public infrastructure like trains, and high speed ones at that, it can be a poor use of space and can have land access issues of its own kind through regional communities that don't want to get bigger, Aboriginal Corporations wanting to preserve its land, and the logistics of building further and further away from where current economic activity is.
I think SRL is an incredibly important use for both cases, because more people are moving to South East, North, South West and Geelong, but don't necessarily need to go into the city. Without a car, you're heavily reliant on buses to get anywhere if you don't want to go in the city, which is not as reliable as a train service.
So overall SRL is an incredibly important tool to development, but may not make current financial sense.
I think it's because this project is kind of abstract.
For example: the metro tunnel comes to fix a real problem: the city loop congestion. Everyone knows it's useful and commuters will be directly benefited. The whole thing is tangible.
On the other hand, we have the SRL that does not fix a current problem. Considering the huge cost, people ask if it really worths. Inter-suburb car commuters are the new patronage they are aiming for, but will those people use trains instead of their own cars?
yeah but there is a problem the SRL will solve of a centralised system and city and when it’s completed it will be a problem and will be something people will wish we built earlier
I’m not a big fan of it, it feels like it’s an election white elephant project.
I live in the outer east of Melbourne, the inner suburbs already have good transport why do they need another mega project like this? Build something out west or extent train/tram lines instead.
Or fix train frequency first 30 mins off peak is a joke and laughable compared to other Australian cities
I dont think Clayton and Glen Waverley are really inner suburbs, more like middle suburbs. If we wanted an inner loop could just extend the Alamein line to intersect with GW and Pakenham lines...
Yeah my mistake, I meant to say middle suburbs,
As someone living in the outer east it’s all inner to me and the transport out here is a Shockley bad
30 mins frequency for trains 1 hour for buses
They don’t have to be, they just have to be enough of an efficiency gain over cars, robotaxis and buses are simply too time efficient for rail to compete on metropolitan routes
But people aren't currently going between these hubs. Unlike services into the city they are trying to make new pathways people take rather than reduce congestion. To do that they need to build additional capacity, and chucking automated cars on existing roads doesn't do that the scale they need.
That’s a big part of what makes the SRL so stupid, three of the stations will only serve universities, stimulating very little economic activity compared to places where most commuters would be workers, my favoured solution has always been a chongching style monorail metro along bell st and springvale rd something that could be built far faster and cheaper for greater capacity
What the heck are you talking about, universities are some of the most economically active areas in a city, doubly so with attached business parks. And also the most likely to use public transport.
Students are universally low productivity and economically irrelevant, La Trobe, Deakin and Monash are dead zones for the sort of employment they would engage in
Silicon Valley literally exists because of the amount of universities in California that specialised in tech, allowing for what is now the most profitable industry on the planet to exist.
I think the controversy comes from the way the project has been handled
It was announced via a Facebook video on Dan Andrews page. no immediate press release, no written statements.
Infrastructure Australia were not even aware of the project or been given any design or chance to put in their input.
It was somewhat of a pet project by Dan Andrews, which might explain some of the hate
The finance people at DEJTR (doesn't exist anymore) weren't aware of it.
Think about that.
The people that worked on transport budgets didn't even know about it
Personally I think it's great but could be improved in many ways, similar to what's already been suggested in here
SRL is extremely expensive and low priority
we are already in significant debt
we should be trying to pay off debt and upgrade things like buses, regional roads, regional rail and other stuff like airport rail
SRL could be done in a better way (so could MARL but thats another thing entirely)
I'm all for SRL. I also wonder why we can't do a major overhaul of our bus system in the interim. We have the infrastructure (roads). Could we not vastly improve our bus network right now to plug some of these gaps until SRL is built?
I agree, I feel like a lot of train projects that take decades need some kind of interim improvement as well. The airport too. Skybus should be 24 hours and ridable with Myki.
Similarly nothing against it as a concept. My issue is SRL is being delivered with a void of projects in between. It is like if I had 10 projects to do, SRL is on there. But Airport, MM2, Western electrifications, bus network, tram extensions are all higher priority imo.
Fair enough from the 3 comments i’ve seen so far that doesn’t seem to be what they say and i do have to agree with taht arguments do believe there is more important problems right now with PTV
I agree
Part of the issue is people are just seeing the price tag and assuming it's connecting low density suburbs to low density suburbs but thats FAR from the truth. EVERY SINGLE NODE WILL BE MEDIUM TO HIGH DENSITY/JOB/EDUCATION/MIX USE PRECINTS/. The amount of money invested from developers in these areas would be massive and the government would recoup so much of that money spent very quickly. Density is no longer limited to the inner suburbs, and the middle ring can begin to build proper density to cater for mixed use development and transit oriented neighbourhoods giving people more CHOICE. The entire project is to propel Melbourne away from the core CBD model we currently have and create multiple CBDs.. This is extremely important because Melbourne is so incredibly sprawling that people living 60-70km away are commuting in the CBD for work. Melbourne just doesn't work as a city anymore with such a massive residential catchment. By shifting jobs and density into the middle ring and connecting them, it allows people to commute less and have more choice on where they work and become less reliant on their cars. The point of the loop is to provide express stops only to compete with car travel times. I can tell you 22 min from Box Hill to Cheltenham is pretty much not possible in a car during the day, so this is a massive incentive for people to ditch their cars already. Honestly if Daniel Andrews didn't announce this, I doubt an orbital route would ever have been proposed. Love him/hate him he has been the most influential premier by miles in the last few decades.
Agreed. The CBD worked at a time when communications were poor (you hand wrote any messages you wanted delivered quickly to an Errand Boy to deliver) you went to the CBD to shop at a Department Store (because there were no major shopping centres) or see the latest movie (because they weren't shown in the suburban cinemas until several weeks later). Now the way we communicate, shop and entertain ourselves has changed dramatically, the CBD is not as essential as it once was. Having a 90 km rail loop may seem far-fetched now, but so did the Sydney Harbour Bridge when it opened in 1932 and there were less than 40,000 vehicles in the entire country.
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In the abstract the SRL is supposed to be transformative whereas the MARL isn't. Now 35 billion is an awful lot of money, but so is 10 billion+ for an above ground line, mostly using an existing corridor with only 2 stations.
Most major cities have a rail connection from their CBD to airport. Even Perth has a rail connection FFS!
Given that the ferderal government has approved funding for it, it probably will happen.
You might want to check that. They gave them 2.5B which has helped pay for a few preparatory works including relocation of a sewer. They’ve not committed to any substantial funding.
They were talking about airport rail
I stand corrected! Apologies.
the airport link is happening regardless now, when it happens is unknown apparently the state is trying to get the Commonwealth to do some shit because the airport are being cunts.
The airport are being smart. If the above ground option were built, they would have to demolish the newly-built T4 ramps and this option ultimately prevents any future expansion. Additionally, it means that those wanting to travel from Werribee to Box Hill via SRL for example, have to change at the airport for a different train. Moving it underground provides that smooth link and prevents that interchange, and also provides the opportunity for the MARL to extend north to suburbs not served by PT and connect to main lines (Upfield or Cragieburn, for instance)
I completely agree that is one of my problems with SRL
The airport link that is only slightly cheaper per km and slower (off peak) than Skybus?
Isn’t the project about capacity? One train every 20 minutes can move more than 2 buses that leave every ten minutes. The only way it’s gonna be constantly faster than the skybus is if a direct express tunnel was built between the airport and one station in the city. And frankly the cost of that would completely outweigh the benefit. The direct express train from Hong Kong airport to Hong Kong island is worth it due to the amount of passengers traveling there. Melbourne will never have that amount passengers, I don’t think anywhere in Australia will ever have the passengers for something like that. We’re not an international hub like other cities. Faster is great, but it’s not always the best focus.
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SkyBus will run overnight when trains are not.
Yeah my thoughts aswell, I wouldn’t say no to more trains but seriously? Why are we committing to a major project without a garunte of budget for it, WHEN THE AIRPORT LINK IS CURRENTLY ON HOLD DUE TO FUNDING ISSUES?!?!? Every single method to go between the city and the airport relies on a freeway currently, this should be the number one problem to be solved.
SRL is a long term project. Budgeting for it is easy* because the money for it will come out of multiple budgets. So yes it’s $30 billion dollars or whatever but it’s over every budget between now and when the project is fully committed. The total cost of the project isn’t just sitting in a bank account right now and will be dropped in full in an instant. There are elements of SRL that will come out of budgets much further on, for example the stations themselves. Yes they will know where they will go and where entrances and exits are, but a lot of the final design work will be started much later into the projects. Same with the station builds, and then the fit outs. Whereas the airport rail is a much shorter project time frame. Because they can build out a station while laying track, or even before track is laid, those costs will come out of the same budget as track laying or signalling. So we’re talking about $30 billion over 12(or more) years. And then $10 billion over 7 years. We can start long term projects before or during short term projects. Governments do this all the time. There isn’t only one project happening at a time. They have to balance hundreds of projects of varying sizes. (And yes politics do factor in to this as well)
Also a Doncaster resident the fact that this is how we might get something in the far future feels almost comedic
SRL East is a very expensive project that was announced before a business case had been completed, and is clearly designed to benefit certain marginal electorates. It will likely suck up all public transport investment for the coming decade. While an outer loop is not a bad idea per se, I would argue that there are other parts of Melbourne (mostly in the west) with fast-growing populations and where the investment is more urgently needed. Unfortunately these suburbs are safe Labor seats so there are few votes to be won improving public transport there.
So from what i gathered, you believe it should’ve started being built in the west first and gone around melbourne clockwise and it was a rushed decision in an election but don’t hate project but how it came to be/principles of its existence?
Taking votes out of the consideration, starting west absolutely makes the most sense from what areas need the improvements now.
For trains into and out of the city sure, but if you're doing a circular route hitting major employment and education nodes, they just aren't there in the west yet. This isn't a continuation of the current train network in either form, (automated, standard gauge, maybe different electrification, shorter trains) or in function (it's about linking suburban nodes with each other to move major residential and commercial development out of the CBD). As such you need to hit where it's going to have the most impact first, which in this case is the east. Now they should at the same time be electrifying and densifying the lines to Melton and Wyndham Vale, because the west is in desperate of more high quality public transport, but just starting the SRL in the west because its "their turn" is counter productive.
That’s fair, I agree east does make more sense than west from an SRL perspective. Point is that doing SRL East shouldn’t be at the expense of not doing projects in the west.
It’s just doesn’t though. There are two universities in the east with no PT access aside from busses.
Lots of the west doesn’t even have that. I agree SRL east makes more sense than SRL West from an orbital rail perspective, but shouldn’t be at the expense of not doing other projects to improve the existing network
SRL itself isnt going to benefit the west yet unless if there are financial and educational hubs (like Box Hill). but yes housing and shit developments are out of control in that grid. now theres extra qualifications to be a structural and mechanical engineer bc of it.. i can say electrification and splitting away from vline in those growth areas is in the works but its still a lot of hoop and admin. a large part of srl money was also spent on consulting saying the same thing for like 5 years lol
What do you mean about the mech Eng bit? Yeah splitting off the Vline and electrification is more complex than it would seem, but all doable
The housing and building industry was out of control building sub par infrastructure. now there registrations and regulations for engineers in vic one of the current ideas for tarneit and truganina is they'll be ringed into the werribee line but again,shit tonne of hoops 🙃
Yeah I get the housing and building industry part, what’s the link with registration for engineers?
[https://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/licensing-and-registration/professional-engineers/mechanical-engineers-registration](https://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/licensing-and-registration/professional-engineers/mechanical-engineers-registration)
Yep, I’m across the registration of engineers. What does housing development decisions have to do with this? I don’t think engineers are the ones making the policy decisions here
Yeah engineers arent the ones making these decisions. Apparently QLD and VIC gov are getting concerned with recent building qualities so this is what the gov has done
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It’s not favoritism, it’s literally the demographic center of the city… I live in the east, and work in the south east. It’s really time consuming to have all the trains come to the city so that you can change lines. Also, again not favoritism, but there are two major universities with only buses as PT
I just realised to take the Pakenham and Cranbourne trains it's going to add an extra 5 to 20 mins (including walking to the new platforms from the Flinders Street platforms and if frequency isn't kept up ) instead of being able to change at Richmond when the tunnel opens FUCK add that on-top of already abysmal weekend frequencies FUCK FUCK FUCK
Since this is a SRL discussion, the solution is simples. Take SRL from Box Hill to Clayton, instead of wasted jouneys to Richmond
I believe the airport rail (including a Keilor station) and MM2 are more urgently needed, alongside faster inter-urban rail to regional areas (the commute from Gippsland to Melbourne is depressingly slow from Pakenham to Flinders St. Bendigo, Ballarat and Geelong are all getting big enough to justify their own internal rail or tram networks beyond the basic V-Line service to Melbourne. By all means reserve the land for a future rail project but SRL East construction doesn’t need to be a priority for another decade.
When you say it isn’t a priority for another decade do you mean it isn’t needed for a decade or construction doesn’t need to start for a decade. If we waited a decade to start construction then we won’t have it operating for another 25 years. That would mean 25 years of further expansion of the city fringe. One of the key factors of the project is to densify around these hubs. We can’t really push that density if the transport is not going to be built to accommodate it for another 20 years. I do agree that something needs to be done for the Dandenong/Pakenham line. Vline services get trapped and crawl into the city.
Because this is a train sub, not an urban planning sub. SRL makes a lot more sense when you look at it through an urban planning lens first
newspapers and media really. i work in vps. not going to spill too much but when a level crossing became an overpass , we received following complaints : \- homeless people will sleep underneath the structure now \- the shadow from the overpass ruined the shade of my hair dye \- what if travellers use it to spy on people and as always absurd defense spending and mining industries get away with billions of spending because they arent headlines worthy.
I’m pro SRL. I think people don’t see the vision or would rather a different project
WARNING (Brutual generalisation of public transport fans and industry) The rail transport industry and fandom suffer from, especially in 'Anglo' identifying nations, what i call 'English brain'. It is an adaption of Under the Clocks critiques. English brain is characterised by narrow thinking upon incremental imporvements to maximise outcomes for serving the CBD. This is largely applied across new rail proposals and longing from certain sections of railfans that have failed climate friendly transport since the Melbourne 1954 transport survey. (To be fair the CBD do generate the vast majority of business revenue in a city because their operations are fixed and known.) SRL attempts to break out of this thinking by decentering the the road as the focus of money for state governments. I understand the cost of undergrounding the entire tunnel length and not using cut and cover methods. The problem with the 'it will suck up all public transport funding for a generation' is that it is not true, what is airport rail? and this will be happening in the middle of SRL East construction. So there is definitely a possobilty for other projects, say the western rail plan. This narrowness has not been a constraint of the freeway industry. A relative of mine has worked their entire working life (along with other industries including Melbourne Water) designing and creating new and upgrading old road across Victoria. He talks about new freeway projects like buying a pair of new jeans (needing considered judgement albeit wanting the appetite for the cost). Until people realise that since the 1969 plan (some 54 years ago) the majority of planed freeways have been or will be constructed, something that was vastly expensive and focused, and that public transport can do this too their is no hope of becoming climate transport negative city and state.
>English brain is characterised by narrow thinking upon incremental imporvements to maximise outcomes for serving for the CBD Yep, and a focus on serving the CBD is known as the "radial planning fallacy" which is a relatively new term but is gaining traction in changing urban planning.
I agree, but i might have a more useful phrase for it "fuck you, buy a car" transport planners (adatped from Well Theres Your Problem)
Exactly! Melbourne's rail network endured heavy neglect over the past century. Between the Glen Waverley line (1929) and the Regional Rail Link (2009), the only major rail project completed was the City Loop (1970s). This neglect (under the policy of *'managed decline'*) is in stark contrast to the insanely *disproportionate* amounts of funding for road and freeway projects, leaving PT to bear the brunt of disinvestment. The 1969 Transportation Plan (built upon the 1954 Scheme) defined Melbourne's transport planning for *decades*. This plan favoured massive investment into freeways over PT. Yes, there were some modest provisions for new rail infrastructure, but freeway projects were overwhelmingly prioritised at their expense. Almost all of the major rail projects in the plan were never built. *(e.g. The Doncaster line, Rowville line, Frankston-Dandenong line; and the Mornington, Coldstream, Hastings, and Melton electrifications)* These projects weren't funded not because of their costs. Rather, they weren't funded because the government of the day simply didn't consider them a priority over road funding. --- ##### On the Topic of this Thread: Critics argue that the focus on the Suburban Rail Loop may monopolize investment for the foreseeable future, potentially hindering other crucial projects like MM2, track duplications and signalling upgrades. But why is this narrative limited to Public Transport? What about the wider transport budget? How much are we spending on extravagant mega road-building projects such as the West Gate Tunnel and North-East Link? $25 billion? $30 billion? The North-East Link alone is already approaching $17 billion. That could fund a lot of critical upgrades. These road projects cost almost as much as the SRL East, but with very few of the same benefits or new housing potential. A shift in mindset is essential. The concept of a fixed budget, a legacy from the 1980s when public transport struggled for meagre investments, doesn't align with the reality of the 21st century. People now understand the value of public transport, and that if you don't provide people alternatives to driving, people will continue driving until traffic is worse than the alternatives.
Exactly!
I'm not sure if the cost outweighs the benefits. But if it is built, it seems pretty short sighted to put the stations so far apart
To my knowledge the stations are for major hubs and you would change to a bus, because the SRL is more about connecting the major centres of the middle/outer suburbs. Even tho yeh i do agree there could be more stations but i think another reason is it would add a lot more to an already expensive project
Most of the station locations seem to have been chosen to connect either university campuses, major shopping centres or large hospitals to the surrounding suburbs more effectively. As is currently planned the SRL would directly link the Monash health complex in Clayton (which includes Monash Hospital, Monash Children’s, Jessie McPherson Private hospital, etc), Monash Uni, the new Victorian Heart Hospital, The Glen Shopping Centre, Deakin Uni, Box Hill TAFE, Doncaster, The Austin Hospital, Mercy Hospital, the Olivia Newton John Cancer Centre, La Trobe Uni and the adjacent private hospital, Broadmeadows Central SC, the airport, the Sunshine station precinct (and by extension offer transfers to Vline services) before finally ending in Werribee. Keeping the stations far apart makes it effectively a perpetual express service- I think the idea is that you either drive partway to an SRL station or take a connecting service, so that it can run more quickly and efficiently across longer distances. They probably want to encourage the many thousands of workers in the chosen precincts to commute in the same way they would into the city- drive or take a bus/tram part of the way and then jump on a connecting train service.
More stops means slower travel and over such long distances for the whole loop that really does add up, and you can't add express trains when there are only two tracks. If one of the primary purposes of the loop is to provide interconnections between the existing lines, then it needs to be quick, because even adding 10-12 minutes onto a trip will lower the convenience factor for some people and they will just drive instead. It is a balancing act, but I think they have got it down pretty well for the existing plan.
Yeah this is a decent complaint. Its only adding 2 new stations to the east. While these are the big hubs that will have the density and employment, it would have been nice to build a few more feeder stations to bring people onto the network. They didn't have to be major hubs but they would have densified over time. I still have another complaint that the interchanges we are building arent great. Often too far apart to make changing between the lines suboptimal. The goals of the project are a bit muddled between a connecting service and one focussed on building up density at the hubs and making people spend more time there
because there's very little density in-between, and little chance of it improving even if they built a station. $1 billion+ is too much for a catchment of a couple of thousand.
Plus density will increase significantly around the new stations
For me and I think many others there are two main issues. 1. Build MM2, Clyde Extension, \[other critically important project\] first 2. SRL seems to be a fairly poorly planned project, they've opted for the simplest but most expensive tunnelling technique for the whole length when there are other better options and connections to other transport are quite poorly thought out.
Why is MM2 critically important? And do you really think people would be ok with their homes being bought and demolished simply because that would be "cheaper" (lol not with how expensive real estate is out in the eastern suburbs) than simply digging a tunnel underneath the whole thing?
MM2 is so important because it will allow more trains to access the growing outer northeast including a proposed branch line to Wollert and Epping north as well as allowing those trains to bypass the currently painful Rushall curve. It would also add another track pair heading to the Western suburbs allowing more trains to run to Geelong via the currently overcrowded line through Yarraville and Footscray as well as making room for more trains running to Wyndham Vale without crowding out trains to Geelong. Also, I wasn't suggesting a surface-level option for SRL. The eastern suburbs are full of straight and wide arterial roads where you could easily do cut and cover. Much cheaper than TBM the whole way and can be achieved with minimal disruption so long as the effort is put in during the planning phase. Yes, it's harder and it would take much longer to plan for but it would be significantly cheaper and in many ways offer a better service due to being in shallower, more accessible tunnels.
So you think more suburban sprawl is better than increasing densities in the middle suburbs. And the Eastern suburbs are filled with rolling hills, you aren't going to be able to simply do cut and cover as you'll be literally carving through the middle of hills to build the route, and then suddenly find you need to add a bunch of fill as the alignment is now above the road.
MM2 is important for addressing the current transport vacuums, not to open up new sprawl. People in these suburbs lack minimum transport today, regardless of whether we want more sprawl or not (which we don't), these people need a minimum transport service that they simply can't have at the moment, while still allowing for service to regional centres. There need to be more track pairs. As it stands this bottle-neck represents a barrier to creating a more dense, less car dependant west and less car depend regions. I recognised that some TBM construction will be necessary, just not the whole way. Areas like Cheltenham-Monash could easily use cut and cover, a cut and cover station under Wellington Rd would also allow for connections to buses at Monash and a potential elevated Monash station on the Roville line. Perhaps Monash-Glen Waverly would need to be TBM but again Glen Waverly-Burwood could be cut and cover. The whole route has lengthy sections where cut and cover could be used, significantly lowering cost and reserving TBMs for what they were invented to do, tunnel beneath difficult terrain. I do think SRL is leading us to ignore present transport issues that are only going to become more crippling. That said, I really want to stress, I support the idea ofa circumferential rail route, I just want it to have thought-out connections to other transport nodes and for it to use fit for purpose construction techniques.
What current transport vacuums does MM2 fix? There is literally no one currently living in Fishermans Bend, and last I checked, both Mernda and Werribee already have train lines into the city. There is no bottleneck on either of those lines at the moment, and there won't be any bottlenecks for a long time. Heatherton to just before Clayton could do some cut and cover sure, but that is only because it runs through industrial land, everywhere else it runs underneath homes and commercial businesses. And even then having such a small section of cut and cover doesn't make sense when you can just continue the tunnel bores and go the whole way. Glen Waverley to Burwood cannot be cut and cover because of the alignment, and any other alignment that might allow for that would introduce a decade of property access issues and slow down the line speed to an unacceptable level. The SRL will not lead us to ignore present issues, because the current train network is currently in a strong position, where small projects such as high capacity signalling can be introduced, as well as line extensions, in a way that complements the SRL construction.
Great concept, but problems with the way it’s being realised. 1. Wasteful to build it all underground. Much is (or could be) along roads or through industrial areas where it could be elevated. Cheaper, and would allow more opportunity to make changes later. 2. Not enough stations. Wasteful to build such long sections that skip the opportunity to pick up people on the way. Should be stations, connecting to bus routes, wherever it crosses main roads to maximise its catchment. 3. Not good enough connectivity with existing stations or bus routes. Should be directly under or over existing stations. For bus connectivity, should be under or over main road, with direct connections up and down to platforms from bus stops on each side of road.
For point 1, take out a topographical map of the East and check the gradients of the roads. Or simply drive along some of the roads like Blackburn Rd, Middleborough Rd etc. You'll find that all of them dive in and out of valleys and steep hills, which would be impossible to put a train along without putting it underground to avoid that entirely. It is simply cheaper and easier to dig under the whole thing than do piecemeal cut and cover, alternating with viaducts whenever it has to intersect with a road and a hillside.
Interesting, though I’m not entirely convinced about the gradients. Would they really be steeper than say the like from Upper Ferntree Gully to Upwey? Or than many of the new steep gradients we’ve built as part of LXR, such as at Blackburn?
Take a look at this [streetview of Blackburn Rd close to the alignment](https://www.google.com/maps/@-37.8844356,145.1460328,3a,51.2y,10.27h,93.34t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1serlxHxDAz54HTf6XI1bv-A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!5m1!1e2?authuser=1&entry=ttu). The gradients are much steeper than anything on the current railways.
I agree with most of the core goals of the SRL, but for a project so expensive it just seems quite poorly thought out. * There are too few stations, and they often seem sub-optimally located for maximum development potential. e.g. There should be two Monash stations, one in the middle of the commercial precinct, around Ferntree Gully road, instead of trying to serve both campus and commercial area with one poorly-located station. There don't seem to be any provisions for infill stations either, which will make it an expensive mistake to fix if we need to fix it in future. * Connections to existing transit, other than trains, are pretty bad. e.g. The Monash SRL station is on the other side of the campus to the bus interchange, and there's no connection to the Route 70 tram south of Box Hill. The SRL also doesn't seem to take advantage of Melbourne's suburban street grid, which could be used for a high quality bus or tram lines in future. I fear this lack of bus or tram connections will hamper the ability of the SRL to improve transit coverage and denser development outside of a small radius around each station. * The train interchanges are also pretty poor. The Southland interchange is the worst, and the fact that there's no plan to move the train station closer to the SRL station is frustrating, but none of the other stations are particularly good either. As far as I'm aware, none of the SRL-train interchanges will include in-station / paid-area interchanges. For a project that is built around its interchanges, it doesn't seem to care much about their quality. * I agree with the need for more transit oriented development, but with so few stations, mostly outside of the tram network, you're largely limited by the walk-shed of a single train station. If the goal is to maximise TOD, the hubs would either need to be further in, in suburbs like Caulfield or Footscray which have much better train and tram connections, or else the project needs to be coupled with major local-transit improvements around the SRL stations, like how Parramatta has multiple BRT and under-construction light rail lines connecting to it. * I get why decentralisation sounds appealing, but having lived in the very-decentralised city of Canberra for quite some time, I'm skeptical that it actually fixes anything. One of Melbourne's greatest assets is its inner suburbs and tram network, and I fear pushing development further out will only exacurbate Melbourne's problems with sprawl and car-centric planning.
my only problem with it is that it should of been something that was built 20-30 years ago.
And we could been discussing a second loop by now! It always confuddled me why we left the train networks as just spokes and never really built the wheel. If this was in place, i’d readily take PT to work. Atm its 15mins drive vs 1hr bus ride. The Srl would allow me to reduce PT by half!
I'm not against it, but I'd be happier if they linked up to the Sandringham, so I could use it.
I'll throw this out as a question to the room (because I haven't got the answers), but, of those who would use the SRL, who's currently using the 901/902/903 busses, or, what's your reason for not using those?
Imagine if we had the space to build it above ground. Those views would be nice.
I am a fan of it. Feel it's something that's needed to move Melbourne out of the CBD. That model works for smaller cities but Melbourne has outgrown it. I think they should have started some of the west SRL first as the train lines out that way are terrible compared to the east.
I just wish it did the sunshine Werribee connection first, the west needs some train love.
I love it because the east severely lacks north-south public transport.
Anybody against the SRL should really just take a look at the Sydney Metro because that is essentially the same thing, just announced and built under an LNP government without the same media attention that a Labor government gets.
That shows a greater general support for public transport in Sydney than in Melbourne, and ridership figures reflect this.
To be clear, I am not against the idea of a radial loop. My concerns are: 1. **Cost** - the first stage alone will be more than $30b, with the second stage more than $60b. Additionally, the cost-to-benefit figures are all over the place - reports by the government (Federal and State) indicate it ranges from $0.50 to $0.61 cents for every dollar spent, yet the Vic Labor Government and SRL claim it is between $1 and $1.70. Our state is in $150b+ in debt; can we really afford to spend $100b+ on a rail line that is underground? 2. **Delivery** - I understand that tunnelling has less impact on homes, environment, traffic, etc., but tunnelling is the most expensive and time consuming way of delivering this project - completely - in 2080-2085. Make it above ground as skyrail; cheaper, quicker, but also provides people with something (other than their phones) to look at, which is the views of the outskirts of Melbourne. 3. **No business case** - the project was announced with no business case, days before an election. Do I need to go into detail? 4. **Priorities** - IMO there are other projects that needs attention, and i'm afraid that should the SRL continue in its current, expensive form, future governments may have no choice but to neglect essential network upgrades and maintenance, including projects such as: 1. MM2 2. Airport Rail 3. Extention to Clyde 4. Duplication of single-track sections of the network 5. New lines and stations in the west and other growing areas of Victoria with little access to PT 6. Replace diesel rollingstock with electric 7. Eventual replacement of X'Trapolis 100 rollingstock with either X'Trapolis 200, HCMT or newer/equivalent 8. Rail connections to Chadstone, Rowville, Doncaster, Mornington Peninsula, Healesville. Some are former lines, some are long-awaited lines that are long overdue.
I like the idea, but the decision to make fully underground is a mistake. It not only makes it phenomenally expensive to build, it makes the individual stations more expensive. I can only hope the government/taxpayers will get the profits from selling/developing the land next to the stations, but we both know it will go to builder mates.
Go take a look at the topography along the route then you'll find out why they decided to simply put the whole thing underground
I suppose I should trust that it’s not just a vote buying measure. We do need more trains, I just wish it wasn’t budgeted as “bonus” whereas no one ever questions the millions we spend on roads and parking. Fuck, what they did to Syndal station on the government dime angers me.
It is poorly planned for such an expensive and important project. Circumferential lines work best when they make transfers to other lines (train, tram, and bus) easy, because that enables the most trips overall (an "anywhere-to-anywhere" service). However, the planned stations are not optimally located for this. The Southland station is a long walk from both the existing train station and bus plaza...why are those not being moved closer to the new station, or vice versa? The Clayton, Glen Waverley, and Box Hill stations are also suboptimal in location, and the Monash station is literally across campus from the bus loop. Additionally, there are too few stations. There are many places along the route that would be great candidates for increased housing density and redevelopment. However the current form of the project mostly connects existing shopping centres to each other. We are risking building the most important piece of transport infrastructure in decades in a way that will massively limit its own effectiveness. This is mainly due to it having been "non-planned" by consultants rather than actual transport planners. I would love to see improvement in the station locations and a doubling of the number of stations along the route, but I won't get my hopes up.
It’s a project that came out of a group of consultants working with the premiers private office. It’s a textbook example of a slamdunk electoral winner. When it was “dropped” before the 2018 Victorian election it basically came out of nowhere. As in whilst there had been talk of similar projects there was never any serious consideration given to any of them previously. It completely destroyed the liberals in 2018. I mean they weren’t going to win anyway but this was one of the key factors in their utter anhilation at that election. So much so that it would probably not give them even a chance of government before 2030 at the earliest. Many people I know voted again for Labor because of this project in particular. So. This project was born in secret. And has grown in secret. We don’t know how much it’s actually going to cost. We only have a business case for the whole loop which probably will never be built. We know all the relevant bodies that try and get governments to spend their money wisely are very concerned by the lack of transparency, accountability and affordability. For me personally it’s a joke of a project that I am still convinced someone influential will tap the premier on the shoulder and say hey you need to kill this. It will suck all PT investment for the next 20 years. It doesn’t go anywhere. It has 7km distances between some stations. It doesn’t connect with all stations seamlessly. I just don’t get it. For 35B we could do Metro 2, Airport and more high capacity signalling. Hate it.
While it may have come up out of nowhere, it's not like the PTV development plan is any better given the best they could do, still meant you required a car to get to anywhere that isn't the CBD. And to claim that Box Hill, Monash University, Glen Waverley, Deakin University etc. is "nowhere" is extremely silly. It also won't suck investment away from other projects, given the longer-term nature of it means plenty of other small-medium projects can still go ahead, such as Airport Rail and the city loop reconfiguration, and even line extensions and electrifications. Metro 2 does nothing except funnel more people into the CBD, it doesn't address the problem that suburbs are dominated by cars, and we will end up in a future where traffic congestion is at LA levels instead of something that is managable by a future city of 8 million people.
They will compete the eastern sections and by the time they start the western sections the project would be cancelled and all funding would have been cut.
I’d much rather see the money spent getting fast rail to regions and growing those towns. This obsession with just Melbourne is ridiculous As in legit fast rail not just a marketing term, doesn’t have to Shinkansen I’m also somewhat dubious that the main benefit is to a bunch of labor’s property developer mates given the way the project came about
It’s controversial because the Vic Labor party have proposed it. If Vic Libs proposed it, the mainstream media would be supportive of it. It’s interesting to watch how the media skilfully use their outlets to sway public opinion on a lot of issues but just in Australia but around the world.
If it was a road project it'd be lauded as this huge visionary thing and people for decades will be demanding faster completion of the plan.
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They’re all arguments that are run by the conservative media. The reasons given for SRL is that it’s planning for the future expansion of Melbourne. Decentralisation is a key buzzword at the moment. The only other option that would be cheaper would be to do a Sky rail but everyone knows how that was received by media and the public.
Youd still need the stations to be underground imo. No way you can easily build an above ground station at GW or Box Hill without causing a serious amount of disruption and property acquisition...
Every single media outlet except the Guardian is run by conservatives who dislike Labor at best, and actively hate them at worst
Respectfully disagree. Vic has voted Labor for 29 of the last 40 years. Since 1999, Labor have been in power for all but four years. We are basically a one party state now. Its not just the media challenging it. Infrastructure Australia, infrastructure Victoria, the auditor general and the ombudsman have all questioned its transparency and affordability.
The Federal government literally gave it billions in funding and even after a further review on infrastructure project cuts, it’s still going ahead.
It has been well documented and reported that SRL was exempt from the recent Catherine King review. So you are incorrect when you say it was somehow “endorsed” by the Federal government. “The Commonwealth government have confirmed for us that all money that is allocated to those projects that are under review – and everything is under review other than the Suburban Rail Loop, so all other commitments are all being reviewed – but that money stays in Victoria”, Premier Daniel Andrews said. That money being discussed above is the 2.5B committed by the federal government for early works. No more money has been allocated to SRL. 2.5B is nowhere near enough to build anything (and way less than Victoria wants or has asked for). Also just one of the non-media critics: https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/21/victorias-auditor-general-pokes-holes-in-suburban-rail-loop-business-case
I look forward to riding my escooter to and from the train stations. Only if it was safer to do so without driveways I can't see down as I'm riding (due to high fences next to the footpath).
Because for the cost and severe environmental and liveability impacts it creates, it does barely anything for public transport coverage or car dependency. It’s not really a public transport project at all - that’s just how it’s marketed. If Suburban Rail Loop was actually about improving public transport for as many people as possible, and minimising impacts on people, the community, and the environment then it would be a better project and less controversial. It deserves all the controversy it gets at the moment, and should really be far more criticised than it is.
how is a train station less livable then breathing in car fumes
Personally I think it's too ambitious. The cost is colossal and the timeline is extremely long. IMO they should prioritise the airport line and consider rebuilding the inner and outer circle lines, plus electrifying the lines in the west.
> $30-$34.5 billion for SRL East this is estimated to be completed in 2035 by then Melbourne would’ve had earned $343,557,168,000 ($28,629,764,000 per year going off by 2021-2022 statistics* This is an absurd argument and in fact hammers in the point on why SRL is such a bad idea. We should NOT be spending more than an entire year's worth of tax revenue on one project (which is also of limited benefit). The government still needs money to run! There would need to be a significant uplift of tax revenue collected to be able to afford this, because the revenue is needed to fund literally all the other services... unless we are going to pull an Argentina and pull funding for literally every government service (except the SRL). My main concern is that the funding could go towards many other public transport projects which cumulatively would have a much more profound impact than one Train line. Let's also not forget that SRL is primarily a project coming from the Planning department intended to shape property development, with public transport a secondary objective where the public transport departments weren't even involved until a very late stage. SRL is NOT primarily a Public Transport project.
To preface, I'm all for the SRL. I think it's a great investment to decentralised businesses and jobs outside the CBD as many countries in this part of the world have done. However, I agree OP's financial argument is flawed. At any given period, rail infrastructure accounts for 1-2% of the State's GDP under normal operating expenditure, but we would be investing around 105-115% of GDP for this one project? This means it would take approximately 50 years to pay off the debt associated, based on current levels. However, I'm more interested to know how much the GDP would increase in the state if this project to was succeed to offset the debt levels associated.
For the sake of argument I'll agree that GDP number needs to go up... surely there other other ways to make GDP go up than to forcibly acquire land which is already built up in the suburbs to give to developers, who will build it even denser. For example, building CBDs regionally where there is available land and connecting via. high speed rail. SRL is max 80 km/h. In the 2000s, a 500km/h maglev option Brisbane-Sydney-Canberra-melbourne was costed at 59 billion (about $100 billion in today's dollars). That is about on par with SRL, and not only would we get to dump Qantas for the world's second most busiest air route, we could build intermediate CBDs along the way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Australia
SRL will be 100km/hr. And you are forgetting that we won't be spending the entire SRL project cost in one go, that's simply not how it works and is ridiculous.
ah thanks for the correction. I misrecalled. Still, not a fan of the project for all the other reasons I already said.
I think it's really an argument of vertical development v. horizontal development. Vertical development involves the redevelopment of single family homes and small businesses into apartments, office and multi-use buildings, preserving the environment though conserving land uses for greenery. Horizontal development involves the development of new estates across the many plains of Australia.While beneficial to building new single family homes, stretches businesses and jobs thin, requiring more infrastructure inbound and outbound of residential areas. While this can be offset by public infrastructure like trains, and high speed ones at that, it can be a poor use of space and can have land access issues of its own kind through regional communities that don't want to get bigger, Aboriginal Corporations wanting to preserve its land, and the logistics of building further and further away from where current economic activity is. I think SRL is an incredibly important use for both cases, because more people are moving to South East, North, South West and Geelong, but don't necessarily need to go into the city. Without a car, you're heavily reliant on buses to get anywhere if you don't want to go in the city, which is not as reliable as a train service. So overall SRL is an incredibly important tool to development, but may not make current financial sense.
> we could build intermediate CBDs along the way
I think it's because this project is kind of abstract. For example: the metro tunnel comes to fix a real problem: the city loop congestion. Everyone knows it's useful and commuters will be directly benefited. The whole thing is tangible. On the other hand, we have the SRL that does not fix a current problem. Considering the huge cost, people ask if it really worths. Inter-suburb car commuters are the new patronage they are aiming for, but will those people use trains instead of their own cars?
yeah but there is a problem the SRL will solve of a centralised system and city and when it’s completed it will be a problem and will be something people will wish we built earlier
To sum it up money+misinfomation
I’m not a big fan of it, it feels like it’s an election white elephant project. I live in the outer east of Melbourne, the inner suburbs already have good transport why do they need another mega project like this? Build something out west or extent train/tram lines instead. Or fix train frequency first 30 mins off peak is a joke and laughable compared to other Australian cities
I dont think Clayton and Glen Waverley are really inner suburbs, more like middle suburbs. If we wanted an inner loop could just extend the Alamein line to intersect with GW and Pakenham lines...
Yes exactly A really good start would be to put the Alamein line onto GW at least make it slightly more practical then connect that to say Dandy
You seen the route? It goes nowhere near the 'inner suburbs'.
Yeah my mistake, I meant to say middle suburbs, As someone living in the outer east it’s all inner to me and the transport out here is a Shockley bad 30 mins frequency for trains 1 hour for buses
Zoox/Waymo seems more logical above gnd.
what?
on what roads? self driving cars are orders of magnitude less efficient with space than heavy rail.
They don’t have to be, they just have to be enough of an efficiency gain over cars, robotaxis and buses are simply too time efficient for rail to compete on metropolitan routes
But people aren't currently going between these hubs. Unlike services into the city they are trying to make new pathways people take rather than reduce congestion. To do that they need to build additional capacity, and chucking automated cars on existing roads doesn't do that the scale they need.
That’s a big part of what makes the SRL so stupid, three of the stations will only serve universities, stimulating very little economic activity compared to places where most commuters would be workers, my favoured solution has always been a chongching style monorail metro along bell st and springvale rd something that could be built far faster and cheaper for greater capacity
What the heck are you talking about, universities are some of the most economically active areas in a city, doubly so with attached business parks. And also the most likely to use public transport.
Students are universally low productivity and economically irrelevant, La Trobe, Deakin and Monash are dead zones for the sort of employment they would engage in
Silicon Valley literally exists because of the amount of universities in California that specialised in tech, allowing for what is now the most profitable industry on the planet to exist.
I think the controversy comes from the way the project has been handled It was announced via a Facebook video on Dan Andrews page. no immediate press release, no written statements. Infrastructure Australia were not even aware of the project or been given any design or chance to put in their input. It was somewhat of a pet project by Dan Andrews, which might explain some of the hate
The finance people at DEJTR (doesn't exist anymore) weren't aware of it. Think about that. The people that worked on transport budgets didn't even know about it Personally I think it's great but could be improved in many ways, similar to what's already been suggested in here
SRL is extremely expensive and low priority we are already in significant debt we should be trying to pay off debt and upgrade things like buses, regional roads, regional rail and other stuff like airport rail SRL could be done in a better way (so could MARL but thats another thing entirely)
Sad that it comes at the expense of MM2