The most expensive grade separation ever undertaken in Victoria was completed on Tuesday with the removal of the notorious level crossing at Springvale Road in Springvale at a cost of $159 million.
The cost included building a new Springvale railway station.
The level crossing was used by 25,000 vehicles a day on average and was ranked the second most dangerous in the state on a list compiled by the Transport Department seven years ago. The highest-ranked crossing on the 2007 list that has not yet been removed is at Main Road, St Albans, where 16 people have been killed.
Premier Denis Napthine said the boom gates at the Springvale Road crossing were down 42 per cent of the time in the peak.
”Traffic will now be able to flow freely along this important road rather than sitting idle for 50 minutes during the two-hour peak,” he said.
Four other level crossings on the Dandenong rail line may also be removed as part of the government’s $2 billion to $2.5 billion Pakenham-Cranbourne line project.
The government on Tuesday also released tenders for six works packages that are part of that project, including for the delivery of 25 high-capacity trains and high-speed signalling along the line.
The project would boost capacity along the Dandenong line by 30 per cent, Transport Minister Terry Mulder said.
”When we came to government there were discussions that unless something was done about capacity on this corridor we would face the situation in the not-too-distant future of people standing on the platform, not being able to get on the train,” he said.
But the project does not include funding for the removal of five other level crossings along the line, at Grange Road, Carnegie; Poath Road, Murrumbeena; and Corrigan Road, Heatherton Road and Chandler Road, all in Noble Park.
Mr Mulder said the removal of those crossings would depend on future funding commitments.
Labor has promised it would remove all nine crossings within eight years, as part of a $5 billion to $6 billion project to remove 50 level crossings.
