Something for everyone — and therein lies the problem - TheAge

Tim Colebatch

A TRANSPORT plan as big as this — investing $38 billion over 12 years — can transform the city it serves, or give it more of what it already has. But this is John Brumby's plan, so it tries to do both.

Melbourne is one of the world's most spread-out cities, small islands of high-density housing amid a vast sea of low-density, mostly single-storey homes set in gardens. It is inevitable that a city like that will rely on cars for its transport needs.

But it's the 21st century, and car emissions cause global warming. Melbourne's population is nearing 4 million, heading for 5 million, and its roads are congested as never before. The planners say that instead of building out, we should build up, creating a different kind of city where trains, trams and bicycles can take us where we need to go.

And where is the Brumby Government on this? Everywhere.

Last week John Brumby announced yet another expansion of Melbourne's urban boundaries, pledging to rezone enough rural land for 134,000 new homes. Yet he also made a fresh move to get Melbourne to build up, selecting just six of the 116 activity centres identified by Melbourne 2030 as priority business centres, to create momentum for their redevelopment.

We are moving ahead at full speed, in both directions.

Brumby declares the new Victorian Transport Plan "transformational", and in a sense it is. In recent times, 80 to 90 per cent of the state's transport investment has gone into roads and only 10 to 20 per cent on rail. In this plan, it's roughly 50/50, and it proposes investment in rail on a scale not seen since the 19th century.

Assuming Commonwealth funding — and the plan assumes Canberra will pay a third of the total cost, although it has committed only $3 billion so far — by 2020 Victoria will build two significant new rail lines, extend or electrify five others into rapidly developing suburbs, and invest $4.5 billion on new trains, trams, and buses.

In 1999 Steve Bracks promised to spend $80 million to upgrade rail tracks on four lines. Regional Fast Rail ended up costing more than 10 times that, and even then many of its best ideas were jettisoned to keep costs down. Now the money is there, or assumed to be there. These projects are staggeringly expensive. For the South Morang line, to build 3.6 kilometres of track and a new station, duplicate five kilometres of track closer in, and enlarge Thomastown station will cost $650 million. To electrify 15 kilometres of track to Sunbury will cost $270 million. To electrify the track as far as Melton (with new stations and improvements, of course) will cost $1.3 billion.

The two tunnels in Sir Rod Eddington's report on east-west options were costed at $16 billion as a preliminary estimate. And few voters saw them as meeting their own transport needs.

So instead, Brumby is offering us a smorgasbord: 60 projects, in roads, rail, trams, buses, bicycles, ports, even regional airports. Some are already under way or programmed. Others are new projects, whether on roads, tracks, buying new trains, trams and buses, freight terminals, etc. There's something for everyone.

Half that spending would be on four big projects: two road, two rail. What remains of Eddington's road tunnel is a $5 billion tunnel under the Maribyrnong River and the western suburbs to link the Dynon Road freight terminal to its supply sources, via the Geelong road and the Western Ring Road. We need roads like this for Melbourne to work, yet remain liveable.

The second road costs even more: $6 billion-plus to build a nine-kilometre freeway underground from Greensborough to Bulleen. It's the link our rulers left out of the Outer Ring Road, because they assumed it would have to go through Eltham, and even Jeff Kennett was not game to try that. But if money is no problem, we can build it underground, without going anywhere near Eltham. Just don't be surprised if it ends up as a toll road.

The Tarneit-Sunshine rail link proposed by Eddington would be expanded into a $4 billion line from Werribee to Southern Cross, creating a dedicated double track for regional passenger trains from Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo, with a spur line to serve the new suburbs of Tarneit and Wyndham Vale.

Eddington also proposed a rail tunnel from Footscray to Caulfield. Brumby has promised to build only the central bit. Even that would cost $4.5 billion, a cost he defended as kicking off "the development of a metro system in Melbourne".

But it doesn't do that, and can't, unless we have planning policies that create population densities where public transport becomes our best option for getting around. This plan sets some good priorities, but in trying to please everyone, it lacks a clear strategy.

Read the original article at TheAge.com.au