Brumby's $40bn plan to get Victoria moving

[Hindley Street Alley]

http://www.theage.com.au/national/brumb ... -6t8k.html

Brumby's $40bn plan to get Victoria moving
Paul Austin
December 8, 2008

PLANS to buy 52 trains and 50 trams for Melbourne, as well as 20 trains for regional Victoria, will be unveiled today as John Brumby seeks to lay claim to the title of "the public transport Premier".

The $4.2 billion buy-up of rolling stock will be accompanied by a promise to build Melbourne's first metro-style underground suburban rail line — a 17 kilometre cross-city tunnel from Caulfield to Footscray via St Kilda Road and inner Melbourne — as well as a new surface rail line through the rapidly growing western suburbs and a long-awaited extension of the Epping line in the north.

The Age believes the Government's transport blueprint, to be revealed today, will involve nearly $40 billion of purchases and projects.

Mr Brumby will claim the plan will create tens of thousands of jobs and transform Victoria's road network and public transport system into Australia's best.

But the Opposition will claim the timeline for many of the major projects is so long that there can be no guarantee Labor will deliver them.

Roads Minister Tim Pallas said the State Government had not ruled out tolls on some freeway links as part of the latest transport package.

"That will ultimately be determined on what the construction and the costs of the roads are, but I would have to say that the larger projects, those are the freeway connection projects, we're not ruling out tolling,'' Mr Pallas told Radio 3AW this morning.

"Certainly our policy is anticipated, we don't anticipate that (tolls will) be required subject to receiving federal funding on the Frankston bypass or the Peninsula link for any tolls to apply there.''

Commuters on the Eastern Freeway will have to wait years for relief from the daily congestion as they hit Hoddle Street, with cabinet rejecting a recommendation from its transport adviser, Sir Rod Eddington, for a $9 billion road tunnel from the end of the Eastern Freeway under North Carlton to the western suburbs.

Instead, Mr Brumby will announce that the Government will commission an engineering study to consider building underpasses or flyovers south along Hoddle Street at the intersections with Johnston Street, Victoria Street, Bridge Road and Swan Street

But there will be quicker action to get freight traffic out of residential areas of the inner-west, notably Francis Street in Yarraville.

Mr Brumby will announce plans to build an elevated road from West Gate Freeway to Hyde Street, to carry trucks along Footscray Road to the Port of Melbourne, at a cost of about $380 million.

About $80 million will be allocated to build a 3.5 kilometre Dingley bypass road in the south-eastern suburbs, between Perry and Springvale roads.

The Age has confirmed that, as part of the Government's public transport push, today's statement will include:

¦ $1 billion to buy 50 low-floor trams. But the first of the trams, which can carry up to 200 passengers, will not start operating until 2012-13.

¦ $550 million for 20 V/Line trains, to add more than 1500 extra seats to the regional.

¦ $650 million for a further 20 X'Trapolis trains, to be added to the 18 already on order and due to start operating from late next year.

¦ $2 billion for 32 "new generation" trains, with 30 per cent more carrying capacity and extra doors. These trains will not start operating until all 38 X'Trapolis trains have been rolled out.

The transport plan is also expected to include:

¦ An investigation of potential routes to extend the Metropolitan Ring Road from Greensborough to EastLink at Ringwood, possibly through environmentally sensitive areas such as Diamond Creek and Warrandyte.

¦ Buying up land for a road in an arc from Avalon Airport to the Hume Highway as the start of a new outer ring road.

¦ A bypass road around Frankston, costing about $750 million.

¦ Extra bus services for Doncaster and surrounding eastern suburbs.

¦ About $100 million — but spent over 12 years — for new and improved bike paths across the state.

¦ More than $30 million to fund extra transit police, especially on train lines with high levels of violence and vandalism.

Mr Brumby would not discuss details of the transport blueprint yesterday, but emphasised it was for the entire state, not just Melbourne.

"It is transformational in terms of its scale," he said.

But the Opposition said the fact that the plan was being unveiled nine years into the life of the Government showed Labor had failed to plan adequately for the state's population boom.

Opposition transport spokesman Terry Mulder said: "We keep getting told this is a plan for the future, but it seems to be a plan to have a heap more plans and studies."

Another subject title would be "is Victoria swimming in money"... if we could get $40bn here, I wonder what we could accomplish...

[AG]

I doubt the Victorian Government is going to fund the entire $40 billion worth of projects. The Victorian Government is also pinning its hopes of all of these projects going ahead with funding from the Federal Government for some of the projects, probably under the Auslink program. Some of the projects such as the Metropolitan Ring Road to Eastlink Freeway link may be done under PPPs, the Victorian Government has left that as an option.

[AtD]

It would be interesting to see what the funding arrangements are for this 'plan,' ie, how much, from whom and over what period. It's the experience with state governments, unfortunately, that this will be scrapped after just a fraction of the plan is made into reality.

[SRW]

Is it possible that our new train order could be bundled with theirs? Obviously, we'd need to receive them first, but perhaps there are benefits for a larger group order?

Also, is the 52 new rail cars we're supposedly getting enough?

[Norman]

Is it possible that our new train order could be bundled with theirs? Obviously, we'd need to receive them first, but perhaps there are benefits for a larger group order?

Also, is the 52 new rail cars we're supposedly getting enough?

I think we're actually getting 50 new railcars, but if the Seaford extension will go ahead with the federal funding, that will require a few more. And I'm not sure if the government has decided what type of railcars we will be getting yet.

[AG]

Is it possible that our new train order could be bundled with theirs? Obviously, we'd need to receive them first, but perhaps there are benefits for a larger group order?

Also, is the 52 new rail cars we're supposedly getting enough?

From today's AFR (pg 6), there's a push by the Australian Industry Group to have most of the new vehicles produced locally so that the potential economic stimulus would have greater benefits, even though the economic stimulus isn't the key reason behind the Victorian Transport Plan.

The 50 or so new rail cars are being put into service with most of the existing railcars still in service (the few 2000 series railcars in operation will be withdrawn from service while the 3000 series will be overhauled) as far as I understand. TransAdelaide has not made clear as to how services will change after electrification, so it's hard to say whether another 52 railcars will be enough IMO. The order could be expanded at a later date if necessary, as Perth did after opening the new Mandurah Line at the end of last year.

[Shuz]

Wow - what SA could do with $40b.

[peas_and_corn]

what are these 'new generation' trains all about? Anyone have pics of what they look like- and also, how do they have more capacity, are they just longer?

[Xaragmata]

Some more details here ... http://www4.transport.vic.gov.au/vtp/index.html
with the train / tram pdf here ... http://www4.transport.vic.gov.au/vtp/pd ... ority3.pdf

[AG]

what are these 'new generation' trains all about? Anyone have pics of what they look like- and also, how do they have more capacity, are they just longer?

The trains are the same length, but they will have more standing room replacing seats. The Melbourne trains can't be extended on most lines, the platforms are not long enough to support longer trains. Extending the platforms would also require a lot of resignalling work, an expensive exercise.

[peas_and_corn]

Ahh, OK. I presume the fewer seats is the reason why they can stick another door in, eh?