Libs ramp up priority for freeway - TheAge

Based on the last post, I could see this coming. A bit more today, in The Age.

A CONTROVERSIAL freeway through inner Melbourne and a new underground rail line have again topped the state's wish list for funding from Canberra, with the Baillieu government saying it wants to proceed with a series of major transport projects first proposed by Labor.

The government today will unveil its submission to the federal government's advisory body Infrastructure Australia. It marks the first release of the Coalition's transport proposals since coming to office last November.

However, the submission does not say when any of the projects detailed would be built, or what they would ultimately cost. Premier Ted Baillieu said yesterday he did not want to make these predictions until more planning had been done.

The government has backed an 18-kilometre ''inner urban freeway'' that would link the Eastern Freeway in Clifton Hill to the Western Ring Road in Sunshine. The freeway would travel via CityLink and the Port of Melbourne. It is based on a plan put forward by Sir Rod Eddington in 2008 in a report for the Brumby government. Sir Rod is now chairman of Infrastructure Australia.

This freeway plan was partially adopted by Mr Brumby's government later in 2008, when it announced plans for WestLink, a $2.5 billion tunnel linking the inner west to the port.

Public transport advocates attacked the road tunnel plan, which has been in limbo since Labor's defeat last year, saying it would only add to road congestion.

Federal Greens MP Adam Bandt vowed to fight ''tooth and nail'' to stop the freeway gaining money from Canberra. State Labor MP Richard Wynne - whose electorate the freeway would slice through - also attacked the idea. ''When Eddington first looked at this freeway, it was neither economically or environmentally sustainable. It's the same today,'' he said.

But the government's submission to Canberra argues booming traffic on the West Gate Bridge and Hoddle Street means the project is now justified. It has requested $30 million to fund a two-year planning study. ''This is a once-in-a-generation project that would transform the way people move around Melbourne,'' Mr Baillieu said.

The government's submission says the private sector may help fund construction of the freeway, raising the possibility it may be a toll road.

The submission also puts a new rail tunnel under inner Melbourne back on the agenda. Labor's 2008 blueprint detailed a plan for a 17-kilometre track from Footscray to Caulfield via Parkville, with its first stage to cost $4.5 billion. Its future was put in doubt after the election but the Baillieu government is now seeking a further $130 million for pre-construction work. While the new proposal follows much the same route as Labor's plan, it will stretch only nine kilometres...

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/libs-ramp-up-priority-for-freeway-20111116-1njco.html#ixzz1du7EHKrg

Note that there's little detail about the route, and therefore what could be at risk. The previous government had categorically said that JJ Holland Park was safe. With the prospect of the car tunnel on the agenda, I suppose it depends upon its route and how they intend to create it.

Even the more recent plans for the rail tunnel showed that the park would be safe.

For both of these, however, there's the potential disruptions to the surrounding areas during construction to think about. With the train tunnel, I'd personally view that as a short-term pain, for long-term gain. With the car tunnel, as with other roads built to 'save' the city from traffic, I believe it will fill up with traffic, just like the others, and make any arterial which its exit ramps spill onto, even worse. The 'booming traffic on the Westgate and Hoddle Street' is the product of the Monash Freeway works, and EastLink, respectively. The tunnel would certainly help through-traffic, but usage patterns show the vast majority of users would be getting on/off at some point near the city. And most of them are commuters. And many of them are driving because of the poor/non-existant public transport options.

Emergency lanes to make way for more traffic on West Gate Bridge

Ashley Gardiner

EXCLUSIVE: EMERGENCY lanes on the West Gate Bridge will make way for more traffic in a bid to tackle Melbourne's congestion crisis.

An extra lane across the bridge in both directions could make room for 40,000 more motorists a day.

The Herald Sun believes the plan will be a major plank of the State Government's transport blueprint, to be released within days.

A $2 billion road tunnel under Footscray is also tipped, as is a substantial increase in suburban rolling stock to cope with booming public transport numbers.

At least 20 extra trains and about 100 trams will be bought, and the Preston tram depot is set for a $200 million expansion.

Victoria's peak motoring organisation, the RACV, confirmed yesterday it had promoted the West Gate expansion idea.

The expansion plan would mean the scrapping of a proposal to change the direction of one lane according to the time of day.

RACV public policy manager Brian Negus said the organisation had lobbied against the so-called contra-flow lane plan.

"We have been saying that's not a desirable outcome," Mr Negus said.

Traffic would be monitored constantly, as it is on CityLink, by closed-circuit television.

A similar arrangement will be in place along CityLink's southern link when the current upgrade is finished.

Lanes could be closed in an instant from a control room using electronic overhead signs, as is done in the tunnels, to compensate for the lost emergency lane.

The bridge would be strengthened to carry the extra traffic.

VicRoads has been conducting a detailed structural investigation.

A source said the Government had decided to build only one section of the east-west tunnel proposed by transport expert Sir Rod Eddington. The tunnel would run under Footscray and the Maribyrnong River underneath Buckley St.

It would connect Geelong and Sunshine roads with Dynon and Footscray roads.

By providing a new link to the ports area, the tunnel would remove much of the truck traffic from the inner western suburbs.

A source said a decision not to build a road tunnel under Kensington, Carlton and Fitzroy for now was politically easier.

The Herald Sun has previously reported the Government's decision to go ahead with the first stages of the underground rail tunnel from Footscray to Caulfield.

The Tarneit rail link, between Sunshine and Werribee, will also form part of the package, as will electrification of the rail line to Sunbury. Extending rail services to South Morang is also expected.

Opposition transport spokesman Terry Mulder said the Government appeared to be ignoring several of Sir Rod's recommendations.

"The road (tunnel) project doesn't appear to be what Sir Rod wanted," Mr Mulder said.

Releasing his report on east-west transport this year, Sir Rod cautioned against cherry-picking his recommendations.

"Not only are they cherry-picking, but also altering the recommendations of Sir Rod," Mr Mulder said.

The decisions on which projects to adopt have been affected by the global financial crisis.

State Government transport spokesman George Svigos declined to comment when contacted by the Herald Sun yesterday.

Read the original article at HeraldSun.news.com.au

Our font size increase and bold, above.

City transport plan revealed - TheAge.com.au

Paul Austin

A MULTIBILLION-DOLLAR expansion of Victoria's rail network and the go-ahead for some of the most controversial roads ever built in Melbourne are the key elements of the State Government's transport blueprint.

The Age believes Premier John Brumby will announce a "metro-style" rail tunnel from the western suburbs to the south-east, a new rail link to free-up the Geelong and Ballarat lines, and an extension of the Epping line in the rapidly expanding outer north-eastern suburbs.

Mr Brumby is also expected to flag the Government's intention to build the so-called "missing link" in the Metropolitan Ring Road through some of the city's most environmentally sensitive areas in the north-east and east.

He will also signal plans to start work on a new outer-metropolitan ring road, and to build the long-mooted Frankston bypass.

But it is understood the plan will pull up short of an immediate go-ahead for the contentious east-west road tunnel recommended by the Government's transport adviser, business leader Sir Rod Eddington.

Instead, the Government plan is expected to include only a new road in the inner west, designed to cater for increased freight traffic from the Port of Melbourne and to free up residential roads such as Francis Street, in Yarraville, that are clogged with trucks.

Mr Brumby will sell the plan as a blueprint to ease Melbourne's road and train congestion and to transform a suburban transport system into a modern, metro-style network.

But the Opposition, which expects transport congestion to be one of the major negatives for Mr Brumby in the lead-up to the 2010 election, will accuse the Government of failing to act quickly enough to enable Melbourne to cope with its population boom.

The Government last night refused to comment on the plan, expected to be released within days. But The Age believes it will include:

• A rail tunnel from Caulfield to Footscray via St Kilda Road and the central business district, which the Government will describe as the start of a European-style underground network. It is expected to cost about $8.5 billion, and construction is unlikely to start for several years.
• A "Tarneit link" surface rail line from Werribee to Deer Park, providing services for residents in that growth corridor, and freeing up the Geelong and Ballarat lines. The new link will cost about $1.5 billion.
• An extension of the Epping rail line to South Morang, with construction to start in the election year of 2010 and the first trains to start operating in 2013, at a cost of about $650 million.
• A detailed study of routes to extend the Metropolitan Ring Road from Greensborough to the EastLink tollway at Ringwood, possibly through environmentally sensitive areas such as Diamond Creek and Warrandyte.
• A bypass road around Frankston to Mount Martha, costing about $750 million and jointly funded by the State and Federal governments.
• Setting aside land for a road in an arc from Avalon Airport to the Hume Highway as the start of a new outer ring road.
• Extra bus services for Doncaster and the eastern suburbs.
• About $30 million for more transit police on train lines that have high levels of violence and vandalism.

Fast-tracking the extension of the Epping line will be welcomed by public transport advocates and residents.

The Bracks government two years ago promised to begin duplicating the track from Keon Park to Epping in 2016 and to extend the double-line to South Morang from 2021.

Mr Brumby will announce that both projects will begin in 2010, to provide services for the booming Plenty Valley.

South Morang will be a "premium station", staffed from first train to last, with about 380 services a week, a 500-space car park, a taxi rank and timetables linked to local bus services. Trains will run about every 10 minutes in peak times and 20 minutes during off-peak.

As part of the project, Thomastown station will get a second platform and will be upgraded to improve access for disabled and elderly passengers — as will Epping station.

Once the second rail bridge now being built across Merri Creek at Clifton Hill and the South Morang extension are finished, the line will have two tracks all the way from South Morang to the City Loop.

"This time it's actually going to happen," one Labor insider said last night of the long-promised project.

Read the original article at TheAge.com.au

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Any chance of delivery on transport promises, Premier? - TheAge.com.au

Peak hour at Flinders Street station. Photo: Paul Rovere.

Sick and tired of rubbish public transport? You're far from alone.

FOR too long public transport has been the poor cousin to what the Government considered were more pressing policy areas, and commuters have suffered.

This has occurred at a time when train patronage has grown by more than 30 per cent in the past three years. Indeed, on one morning last October at the Caulfield station, most trains between 8am and 8.30am carried more than 900 passengers, with the 8.23 squeezing in 1035. Similarly at Clifton Hill, the 8.13am and 8.20am services averaged more than 1000 passengers. And this when the Government considers any more than 798 passengers in a six-carriage train "a load breach".

Transport plan: 60-second opinion

Experts in transport and key government officials were given the opportunity to spend 60 seconds explaining how they see the upcoming Victorian transport plan.

Premier John Brumby will soon deliver Labor's umpteenth "transport plan". He needs to deliver major improvements in service. An Age/Nielsen poll published last week made this clear when almost two out three Victorians said spending on public transport was more important than expenditure on roads.

The same proportion are unhappy with the Government's performance on public transport. Too many people in inner Melbourne can no longer turn up at a station and expect to board a train and get to work on time. Nor can they expect to find room to even board their local train. Rather, they just watch dangerously overloaded trains pass by.

Meanwhile, too many people in Melbourne's growth areas rarely see public transport. A recent parliamentary study found just one in 100 outer suburban residents used public transport to get to work.

While Melbourne has gained an average of one new freeway every 10 years over the past four decades, since Sir Henry Bolte was premier, the last suburban link built was the Glen Waverley line in the 1930s. As train line building ceased, Melbourne's population grew from 1.5 million in 1954 to almost 4 million now - no wonder the trains are full.

The deficiencies in the public transport system are the result of successive governments finding other priorities for taxpayers' money.

For much of the 1990s premier Jeff Kennett was fixated with cutting costs, reducing debt and building up a large cash surplus. The newly elected Labor government in 1999 had to find hundreds of millions of dollars to deliver its promised regional fast rail project.

When private rail operator National Express decided to walk away from the train contract, the Bracks government had to step in with an additional $1 billion funding over five years. So while the present Victorian Government could argue that an extra $1 billion was spent by Bracks on public transport, none of it was spent on extra trains, trams or buses.

In recent years there have been ad hoc transport plans, most recently the Government's marketing extravaganza in 2006 known as "Meeting Our Transport Challenges", which boasted a "25-year vision" for Melbourne's transport needs.

Just two years later the Government conceded the plan massively underestimated public transport demand. Yet it continued to find other spending priorities.In July 2006 it committed almost $5 billion to new water projects. By the November 2006 state election, its focus had shifted to rebuilding every government school.

Now there are signs the Government may be dampening expectations for its latest public transport announcement as the financial crisis hits Government finances. Treasurer John Lenders has said Victoria was expecting at least $10 billion from Canberra and warned if the money was not forthcoming the Government's transport plan would have to be scaled back.

One option the Government may be considering is pushing projects back, with some to be delivered in decades to come.

What is clear is that hollow transport promises will not help one commuter. The new transport plan must include real projects with deliverable timelines. If state borrowing is the only way to fully fund the urgently needed upgrades, the Government should do it. There is no doubt people are prepared to pay more for reliable, accessible public transport.

On the day Mr Brumby was sworn in as Victoria's 45th premier, he listed "accelerating public transport improvements" as a priority. Now is the time to deliver. No more empty promises, public transport's time has come.

Jason Dowling is city editor.

Read the original article in TheAge.com.au

Fixing the road ahead

TRANSPORT is the new health. The transport portfolio has become the hottest potato on the state cabinet table. Angry train commuters kept waiting on stations have replaced frustrated hospital patients kept waiting on trolleys as the staple nightly news item that serves as a reminder all in Victoria is not working as well as it should.

It is no coincidence that the highest profile shadow cabinet minister is the Liberal Opposition's transport spokesman, Terry Mulder, whereas in the final years of the Kennett government it was the Labor opposition's health spokesman, John Thwaites. Mulder is, and Thwaites was, a talented and conscientious politician, but they've had plenty of material with which to embarrass the government of the day.

It is also no coincidence that the transport portfolio, traditionally the task of one minister, is now split between two. Peter Batchelor struggled with the task for the first seven years of this Government. Then Steve Bracks gave the public transport component to senior minister Lynne Kosky and roads and ports to his trusted former chief of staff Tim Pallas. They've struggled too.

It is no surprise that the latest Age/Nielsen poll shows a big majority of voters giving the Bracks/Brumby Government the thumbs down on public transport. The poll, taken this month and published this week, found 61 per cent of those surveyed were dissatisfied (including 27 per cent "very" dissatisfied) and only 27 per cent satisfied (including just 2 per cent "very" satisfied).

Even among Labor voters, fully 54 per cent declared themselves dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their Government's performance on public transport.

Nor has it escaped the attention of either side of politics that transport woes can be even more politically damaging for an incumbent government than health woes, for the simple reason that most voters will see the inside of a busy hospital rarely, whereas most will take their chances on the congested roads and/or trains daily.

If this is a political crisis, it's been a long time coming. When The Age published a series in 2005 on public transport called "Off the rails", Bracks was stung. Cabinet was on to the problem, he insisted. Indeed, a cabinet sub-committee had been working for months on a transport and liveability policy statement, which would cater for the city's population boom and deal with not just public transport but roads and ports.

That statement was duly delivered in May 2006, under the title "Meeting our transport challenges". In the glossy documentation, Bracks talked about "our vision of a world-class transport network". Here was an "action blueprint" for "an ongoing program of transport projects over the next 25 years". "Victoria's transport system is in good shape," he declared. "But as our population grows and our lifestyles and work patterns change, we must make sure that our transport system keeps up with our travel needs."

Clearly, the Bracks statement failed on this score. That's not the verdict only from the clogged streets and railway carriages of Melbourne, it's also implicitly acknowledged around the cabinet table at Treasury Place. So, 2½ years later, Bracks' successor, John Brumby, is about to do it all again.

And guess what? Brumby wants you to know cabinet is on to the problem. Indeed, a cabinet sub-committee has been working for months on a transport and liveability policy statement designed to cater for the city's population boom and deal with not just public transport but roads and ports. (Incidentally, Brumby has been a key member of both cabinet sub-committees.)

The Brumby statement will be delivered within days. You can be sure it, too, will be accompanied by glossy documentation and sweeping rhetoric. Brumby is already talking about a "transformational" plan that will hasten the evolution of what is basically still a suburban transport system into a modern, metro-style network. Expect to hear that your Government is planning not just for the short term but for future generations.

The starting point for the Brumby plan is Sir Rod Eddington's report, commissioned by Bracks in 2006 and delivered to Brumby in April this year. Eddington, who has a gift for diplomatic language, is more forgiving of the performance of our state politicians on transport than many commuters might be.

"Victoria has been well served over a 15-year period," he told a business audience in Melbourne on Tuesday. "When you compare our infrastructure with the infrastructure of many cities in the world, we're in good shape." But he added this warning: "We will only enjoy the title of 'the world's most liveable city' if we continue to make smart investments in infrastructure."

That was the message in his report, too. "Doing nothing is not an option," Eddington wrote. "A failure to take action will undermine Melbourne's future prosperity and reduce the benefits being generated by the city's growth and development."

There's no chance of Brumby doing nothing. Indeed, he is expected to commit to most — although not all — of Eddington's major recommendations. Expect Brumby to promise a rail line from Werribee to Sunshine — the so-called Tarneit link. Expect him to commit to a 17-kilometre "Melbourne metro" rail tunnel from Footscray to Caulfield via the CBD and St Kilda Road (but watch for a long time lag). Expect at least the western bit of Eddington's proposed east-west road tunnel to get the go-ahead, pending business cases, environmental studies and funding deals with the private sector and/or Canberra. And expect lots of new bus routes and bike paths across the suburbs and into town.

It will indeed be a big plan — bigger than Bracks' — for a big city. But the big trouble for Labor is that an obvious and potentially effective political response is available to the Opposition. It can embrace whichever parts of the plan win community support, while making the point that it would have been good if Labor had got around to it much earlier. In other words, the Opposition will be able to say to voters: if you like Brumby's transport plan, it doesn't matter whether you vote for us or Labor, because both sides will implement it; but if you want to punish anyone for allowing Melbourne's transport system to become so clogged, the decade-old Government should be your target.

The politics of transport are about to become still more intense.

Paul Austin is state political editor.

Read the original article in TheAge.com.au

Fix public transport, Brumby urged

ALMOST two thirds of Victorians are unhappy with the State Government's handling of public transport, and an equal number say new public transport should be given priority over roads.

As the Brumby Government prepares to release its multibillion-dollar transport plan next month, Victorians have sent a clear message of frustration to the Government over its handling of public transport.

A special Age/Nielsen poll found 61 per cent of people are dissatisfied with the Brumby Government on public transport — and only 27 per cent are satisfied.

And the poll, of 1009 Victorians taken between November 10 and 14, found 62 per cent want the Government to give public transport priority over roads, compared with 24 per cent who want roads to have priority.

In Melbourne, support for public transport was even stronger, with 68 per cent wanting more funding directed to it instead of roads; just 19 per cent support roads as the priority.

Despite this, support was strong for a proposed $9 billion road tunnel linking the western suburbs to the Eastern Freeway.

Fifty per cent of people supported construction of the road tunnel, compared to 45 per cent who want a proposed $7 billion rail tunnel built from Footscray to Caulfield via the CBD.

Just under half of all Melburnians surveyed about the rail tunnel said they had "no opinion" on the proposal, indicating it has failed to capture the public's imagination.

The RACV said it was no surprise the public was demanding better public transport.

"Public transport services are overcrowded and inadequate, and improvements are required to both the frequency of services, (and to) improved new routes," spokesman Brian Negus said.

Congestion on the road system was also at a "critical level", he said. "This impacts on the freight system, (and) has obvious effects on the economy and the operation of trams and buses."

The Public Transport Users Association said people were angry about the state of the public transport system. "Everyone, whether they shoe-horn themselves onto packed trains, trams and buses every day or not, knows the Government has dropped the ball on public transport," president Daniel Bowen said...

Read the entire article at TheAge.com.au

Strategy to ease the squeeze - theage.com.au

Clay Lucas, Jason Dowling and Ben Schneiders

Waiting: The city seen from South Kensington station yesterday. Photo: Joe Armao

UP TO 20 new six-carriage trains will be ordered to ease overcrowding on Melbourne's rail system.

The $300-million-plus order will be a key plank of the State Government's coming transport statement.

As part of the statement, due by November, the Government is also set to order at least 60 new trams to replace the old Z-class fleet that was commissioned in 1975. Secrecy surrounds the transport statement, which the Government has been working on for several months, as commuter anger over the struggling system becomes a political liability.

But The Age believes the Victorian Transport Plan — the Government's fourth "long-term" transport statement since 2002 — is also set to:

• Implement public-private partnerships across the train network in which developers build new railway stations in return for the right to build above the stations.
• Consider abandoning the contentious $7 billion Footscray-to-Caulfield rail route proposed by infrastructure adviser Sir Rod Eddington, and instead make better use of an under-used 80-year-old train tunnel running beneath Footscray's Bunbury Street.
• Announce a construction timetable for the $500 million Frankston bypass, now the subject of an environmental study.
• Bring forward the Government's $660 million orbital SmartBus program, to be completed in 2010, an election year, rather than the planned 2012.
• Dramatically upgrade bus services to Doncaster on the Eastern Freeway.

The Government also is moving towards backing the first stage of Sir Rod's proposed $9 billion road tunnel, which would go from Melbourne's inner west to CityLink.

This road option would result in hundreds of homes in either Yarraville or Sunshine being compulsorily acquired.

But with many tollway companies spooked by gloomy financial conditions, it is unclear who would pay for the road project unless the Federal Government steps in...

Read the entire article at TheAge.com.au

My bold.

I wasn't aware of the Bunbury Street tunnel. From the looks of it, it means trains don't have to go through Footscray station, crosses the Maribyrnong River on its own bridge, and then links back up with the train line.

Brumby promises big spending on transport

The Victorian government is promising massive investments in infrastructure to address transport problems.

The government is holding a summit to discuss road, rail and public transport networks, including fixing chronic overcrowding on public transport and whether a proposed East-West tunnel is needed in Melbourne.

It will feed into the governments new transport plan being released later this year.

The Premier John Brumby says they are long term challenges that will need big investment.

"These will be projects which are bigger than Eastlink, are bigger than channel deepening, these are big projects," he said.

Earlier today, anti-road tunnel protesters gathered outside the transport forum to voice their anger over plans for the East West tunnel recommended in the Rod Eddington report.

The Royal Park Protection Group and the Yarra Campaign Against Tunnels say the proposed link is a truck bypass route in disguise and will be a blight on local communities.

"In the process of tunnel construction over five to twelve years, inner city suburban streets will be destroyed; Royal Park and Holland Park in Kensington will be transformed into giant quarries," tunnel opponent Rod Quantock said.

"It's extraordinary that the Premier should be favouring building road tunnels at a time when the public is screaming for improved and expanded public transport."

Read the original article at abc.net.au/news

Plan 'may ease' Melbourne's train crush - theage.com.au

Melbourne's long-suffering train commuters could be given free late evening travel under plans to ease the squeeze on the rail network.

Victorian Premier John Brumby flagged the travel deal on Friday, saying it would capitalise on the success of the earlybird scheme, which provides free travel for passengers before 7am.

It came as more than 100 stakeholders met for the Victorian Transport Summit to give their final input into the government's transport plan, due later this year.

Mr Brumby said free travel for passengers travelling after 8pm would help spread out the commuter burden, with public transport patronage forecast to top half a billion people by 2010.

It would be modelled on the early bird scheme which was a "spectacular success", saving families up to $1,000 a year, he said.

"Is there a case for doing the same thing for, say, a post-8pm fare and shifting some of that peak which is presently there between 5pm and 8pm?

"These are all issues that we're looking at."

Public Transport Minister Lynne Kosky said the earlybird scheme was being replicated interstate and overseas.

A "late bird" version would be an interim measure as the government continues to thrash out a transport blueprint to alleviate road and rail congestion crippling Melbourne.

Transport expert Sir Rod Eddington has proposed an $18 million infrastructure splash, including an east-west road tunnel and a rail tunnel linking the western and south-eastern suburbs.

Mr Brumby told the summit all funding options were on the table as the government sought to meet the challenges of unprecedented population growth, climate change and rising petrol prices.

He said the plan would set the framework for the biggest transport investment in the state's history.

But opponents of the road tunnel are angry they were excluded from the talk fest.

They believe digging through Melbourne's inner suburbs is a "dinosaur" solution for tackling Melbourne's transport crisis in an age of climate change and will be disastrous for residents.

"Sustainable public transport, not road tunnels - that's our war cry," Royal Park Protection Group convener Julianne Bell said.

Mr Brumby denied community and residents groups had been locked out of the summit.

He said the government had received more than 2,000 public submissions and forums had been held across the state.

"Honestly, I can't think of any process over the last few years that our government has embarked upon where there has been more opportunity for people to put a point of view."

Read the original article at TheAge.com.au

Report blinded by bad case of tunnel vision

THERE have been two extremes in many of the comments reported by The Age on the East-West (Eddington) transport report. Infrastructure construction interests have pressed to get on with building a $7 billion road tunnel and an $8 billion rail tunnel, and never mind the bad economics.

Public transport advocates have pressed for rail investments and no road investments, ignoring the congestion related to road freight (which cannot use public transport), especially near the port.

The technical reports underlying the East-West study show that neither tunnel is economically sound. Even allowing for indirect agglomeration benefits, the cost-benefit ratio for the rail tunnel is only 1.2 and for the road tunnel is well below 1.0. The ratio for the combined road and rail solutions is 1.0. Normally projects need at least 1.5 to pass muster, and there are other road projects in the queue with ratios much better than that. The reason for the bad economics is simply that tunnels are very expensive.

There is, however, a clear case for doing something - Eddington was right in saying that doing nothing is not an option. The abrupt end of the Eastern Freeway is inefficient, and there is severe congestion on and around the Westgate Bridge, and the port area. Urban rail lines on the inner north-west side of Melbourne are clogged with both Connex and V/Line trains. The trains are overcrowded and patronage there is growing fast.

But big, expensive tunnels are not the best solution. A disappointing aspect of the technical papers is that they do not thoroughly explore more modest (but still substantial) alternatives - apart from a good "truck plan" to handle growing road freight while reducing the negative impact on residents in Yarraville and Footscray.

The road problems are local rather than corridor-like and could be eased without a large tunnel by widening streets where possible, adding a river crossing, and building underpasses at the busiest intersections. (Underpasses would also be a great help in other busy parts of greater Melbourne.)

The rail congestion problems can also be eased without a expensive tunnel by using spare tracks and land in the inner north-west area and building flyovers at junctions to improve the capacity and make better use of some of the lines.

This could be supported by more efficient use of Flinders Street Station (covered in the report), newer signalling to boost line capacity (discussed only briefly in a technical paper), and by convincing passengers to abandon the strange local custom of standing in doorways, which slows the exit and entry of peak period passengers and extends "dwell" time at stations.

The cost of such alternatives, although in the billions, would be a fraction of what the tunnels cost.

These more modest alternatives could be implemented much more quickly than tunnels. The current road and rail problems will become severe before tunnels could be completed.

Good alternatives would also achieve most of the benefits, should have good economics, and would allow the financial room to address other pressing transport problems.

Some of these problems are indicated on a map in one of the technical papers, which shows the streets in greater Melbourne that are the most congested - many of them are not those covered by the East-West study. And there are other rail demands; new high capacity trains, planned for 2013, will need to be financed.

It is possible that tunnels, perhaps shorter than those proposed, will be justified at some later stage. Experience shows it is rash to project short periods of high growth well into the future - as the study did.

Any justification will also depend on other developments such as carbon prices, and greater efforts in "demand management" to spread peak periods. The study mentions congestion pricing in 10-plus years - not long after the tunnels (yet reducing the need for tunnels).

There is a good economic case for congestion pricing; it has been successful overseas, and can be popular when the proceeds go to transport improvements. It would be best accompanied by peak/off-peak public transport pricing, possible when the Myki electronic ticketing eventually works.

The wise approach (using the economics technique known as "real options") is to address future uncertainty by proceeding with adequate capacity improvements while preserving easements for larger projects later.

The Victorian government is considering the east-west study and developing a wider transport policy it will announce in November. It will be finding that the tunnels would crowd out many other good transport options across Melbourne.

David Greig is an Executive Director in the economic consulting firm ACIL Tasman.

Read the original article at TheAge.com.au

Transport Forum, Footscray - another take on it

One more friend of savehollandpark.org.au gives her opinion of the Minister Kosky's forum

I was amazed to be informed there is no transport plan and that one is due in October 2008 .How can there be no plan??? We as participants were expected to formulate strategies and goals as to what are the priorities in transport on a totally blank page. I don't know how we can be expected to formulate transport policy in a vacuum .It was all very cliché

Without the backdrop of some form of plan to bounce off the session descended into groping for cliches. The answers we gave were the bleeding obvious: get cars off the road, increase public transport and increase cycling and walking opportunities and put freight on rail. Some of the suggestions included Copenhagen style lanes (if I had a penny ...), embracing Melbourne 2030 (I think the Government has well and truly given up on that one) and decentralise the employment centres, allow bus only lanes and allow freight hubs. The guys from Port Philip were very erudite in their observations firstly Port Phillip has already designed the bike lanes (down Fitzroy Street and around Albert park lake and up to Cecil Street in South Melbourne)and they said the government had been sitting on approving the freight hub in Laverton for no apparent reason.

We were then provided were a task at each table they were broken up to public transport, freight ,planning (which I will talk about later),social change ,roads and one subject I cannot recall.

I was on the table about social change there were suggestions that the "opportunities" were working out the priority of road users eg. Bikes ,walking and public transport were priorities and down a scale where single occupant vehicles are the last priority ,the pricing (including increasing petrol prices and tolls) and reducing public transport ticket prices encouraging cycling and walking by making it safe and (wait for it) Copenhagen style lanes ,elevating the bus from the poor cousin status and try to make it attractive for the middle class to take the bus. My input was that there was the challenge of preserving the inner city integrity including open spaces.

I also thought that we needed as a community to accept there has been social change and that it was necessary for the Government to step up to the challenge and embrace the social change -there is no point in leaving your car behind and deciding to take a tram or a train and you cannot get onto the tram or train or that you decide to ride but in doing so you take your life into your own hands as you compete with a semi-trailer for road space.

I then went onto the planning table which to say the least was interesting. A few on the table had already identified preserving open space as a priority ,the facilitator was trying to guide us to requiring planning schemes and overlay or demographic reports which the reflect the impact on a local community of loss of open space. As I pointed out we have all the planning schemes and government policies (see the submission by @leisure) we need to preserve open space but what needs to happen is that the Government needs to adhere to its on policies and the planning policies of local government. Don Nardella ALP member for Melton said words to the effect that when the desalination plant was completed Melton would have plenty water to water their playing fields and the inner city kids could go out there.

Rob and I then went to speak to the Minister about JJ Holland Park. She queried whether it was just the park we were concerned with or the road tunnel itself. We responded it was both .She then proceeded to say that she was stuck on the Westgate freeway and something had to be done for the West (which reflects the Gillard -Shorten submission it appears that this is now the new dog whistling of the Government- they have moved from connecting the Eastern Freeway to the West to we need to relieve the congestion off the Westgate to allow the West access to the CBD.She rationalised it as this if you have a road tunnel and the freight trucks that are heading East use the Eddington Road Tunnel instead of the Westgate the "modelling" as she put it plays out that this will alleviate the congestion on the Westgate. I then had a light bulb moment: I realised - the Eddington Road Tunnel is all about freight. It is that simple -I have not been able to understand it until now because the Eddington report could did not justify the road tunnel and in fact as Mike Scott from Plainsphere summarised about the Eddington Report in his submission stated :

" A whole chapter is devoted to advancing the argument that there is latent demand for a new east-west route crossing the Maribyrnong River. Latent, because the counts at the Eastern Freeway exit fail to justify such a link. Evidence of need has been inferred from screen counts as far a field as Brunswick and the CBD.

This "predict" analysis takes little or no account of the impact of anticipated federal climate change initiatives that will arise from the Garnaut process. Nor does it give weight to current state policies aimed at improving the sustainability of the metro-urban form, such as Melbourne 2030."

However the most articulate and pithy comment of the day went to Carlo Carli member for Brunswick (and the spiritual leader of the No Road Tunnel Campaign)-what about the elephant in the room - the Eddington Road tunnel? Good question Carlo -maybe we need to workshop that.

Jane Good

Monster truck plan by government for Victorian roads

John Ferguson

August 07, 2008 12:00am

SOME of the world's longest freight trucks would dominate Victoria's highways under a State Government plan.

The Government is looking at the benefits and risks of allowing controversial B-triple trucks and road trains on the roads.

Under the strategy, the B-triples -- at up to 36m long and weighing 82 tonnes -- would become common as part of the fight against road congestion and freight bottle-necks.

The Government will spell out its plans for the giant vehicles -- prime movers hauling three trailers -- before the end of the year.

But the move is certain to alarm some motorists. Some of the longest trucks are the length of at least eight Toyota Corollas.

They would be most common on divided roads, but would also use local roads to collect freight...

...

"(Roads) Minister Pallas should be engaging in extensive and well-publicised community consultation before permitted routes for B-triples are considered for extension," he said.

"Many Victorians may believe that upgrading of interstate and intrastate rail lines may be a safer, more productive and cheaper alternative."

A spokesman for Mr Pallas said the study of high-performance vehicle use in Victoria had not finished.

"This plan will be released in November and will respond to transport priorities across the state," he said.

Read the whole article at News.com.au

Victoria's Eddington plan goes to consultation

Victorian residents and other stakeholders will be able to help shape the state’s transport plan through a series of government-led round tables in August and September.

Premier John Brumby said the Government wanted to hear the views of as many people as possible before a comprehensive transport plan is delivered at the end of this year.

“The 2,200 submissions received in response to Sir Rod Eddington’s East West Link Needs Assessment report showed there is a range of views in the community about Victoria’s transport priorities for the future.

“We are now holding more localised consultation, so communities can tell the Government about their local priorities.”

Local Government and peak groups across the various industries will be invited to attend transport round tables in areas including Geelong, Traralgon, Bendigo, Ballarat, Doncaster and Footscray.

The round tables will be followed by a summit to be chaired by the Premier in September, which will revolve around transport and urban planning.

“The job at hand is to listen to all available views before making the necessary decisions to build the best transport system for Victoria,” he said.

“The transport plan we will deliver by the end of the year will help drive our economy, make our communities more liveable and our State more sustainable.”

Invitations to round tables and public information about community summits will be made available in coming weeks.

Read the original article at Transport & Logistics News

Brumbyland - The Age

John Spooner's take on the future of the Murray River...