By Olivia Condous
An independent transport organisation has called for the Victorian government to rethink priority rail projects in favour of a new railway connecting the western suburbs with the rest of Melbourne.
The Rail Futures Institute (RFI) said the government’s Suburban Rail Loop project was not the best option for investment and proposed a new option that would have “substantially wider benefits”.
The organisation put forward the Melbourne East-West Rail, which would combine with the current Melbourne Metro project and draws upon the government’s Western Rail Plan, which was first announced in 2018 but has not progressed since.
RFI said Melbourne East-West Rail will have twin 14-kilometre tunnels which cross Melbourne’s CBD from Newport and Sunshine to Fitzroy, with new underground stations at Spotswood, Fishermans Bend and Fitzroy and new underground platforms at Southern Cross, Flagstaff and Parkville.
The outer western suburbs would also benefit from five new train stations between Deer Park, Wyndham Vale and Werribee, in order to meet the needs of growing residential developments.
“East-West Rail aims to redress the disparity in public transport supply between Melbourne’s burgeoning outer west and its eastern and southern suburbs,” RFI said.
“Outer west residents face the challenges of limited local employment, inadequate health and educational facilities and the inevitability of lengthy, unreliable commutes on heavily congested roads.
“East-West Rail will overcome these poor public transport connections by providing a new, high capacity east- west cross-city rail corridor, giving long overdue metropolitan style train services to Melton and the
Werribee- Wyndham Vale area.”
A government spokesperson said it was currently delivering the biggest ever pipeline of infrastructure projects, with upgrades to roads and rails in Melbourne’s west.
“The government’s current solutions provide the benefits that this plan purports to achieve and it is happening right now.”
