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  #1  
Old Posted Aug 27, 2018, 11:22 PM
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Melbourne Public Transport News & Discussion

Daniel Andrews' current ALP government just announced they'll be taking a suburban rail loop to the state election in November.

Every rail line will be connected, all the suburban clusters in the middle suburbs of Melbourne will be connected and Melbourne Airport will have a second line (a few months ago it was announced the city to Airport line will be going ahead - this is a second line even before the first has commenced).



The Premier announced it via his facebook page this morning with the following video: https://www.facebook.com/DanielAndre...U0FbWz7QhgASWw

$300 million has been committed for planning with a view to start on the first phase by 2022.
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  #2  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2018, 12:32 AM
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Bit more info - it'll be phased starting with Cheltenham to Box Hill. The entire section from Cheltenham to Melbourne Airport will be underground - that's approx 50km , they'll re-use part of the already-underway Melbourne Airport Rail link (City to Sunshine then Airport).

If the gov are re-elected the $300mil planning will kick off early next year.
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  #3  
Old Posted Aug 29, 2018, 7:47 AM
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A few more parameters were mentioned in a new media release today. https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/new-r...t-our-suburbs/


The Suburban Rail Loop will connect every Victorian to some of our biggest universities and TAFEs, and get people there faster than our road network.

Premier Daniel Andrews and Minister for Public Transport Jacinta Allan joined leaders from major universities and TAFEs to outline the benefits to students and the huge travel time savings the new underground rail line will bring.

The Suburban Rail Loop will be the biggest rail project in Australian history – connecting every major train line in Melbourne and providing a direct rail link to Melbourne Airport for the first time.

Trains will travel up to 130km/h through dedicated tunnels with no level crossings, no interaction with the existing network, and a dedicated fleet of rollingstock allowing trains to travel faster than ever before.

Expert modelling undertaken as part of planning for the project shows the trip from Cheltenham to Melbourne Airport will take 45 minutes – less time than it takes in the car. A trip from Box Hill to the airport through the tunnels could take just 25 minutes – saving people time, money and hassle when they fly.

The landmark project will connect Monash Clayton, Deakin Burwood and La Trobe Bundoora, with travel between Monash Clayton and La Trobe Bundoora taking just 25 minutes.

It will mean someone living in Broadmeadows can get to Monash Clayton in around 35 minutes – making studying or working at one of the world’s best universities a possible for many for the first time.


TAFEs will also be connected, including the Box Hill Institute, Melbourne Polytechnic in Heidelberg, and VU Polytechnic in Sunshine.

New super-hubs at Clayton, Broadmeadows and Sunshine will connect regional passengers to the new line, giving them direct access to these education and jobs precincts, and opening up new opportunities for regional students.

The Suburban Rail Loop is projected to create more than 20,000 jobs during construction – including 2,000 apprentices, trainees and cadets employed through Labor’s Major Projects Skills Guarantee.

Labor will invest $300 million in a full business case, design, and pre-construction works, with work on the first section in Melbourne’s south east expected to begin by the end of 2022.
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  #4  
Old Posted Aug 29, 2018, 8:03 AM
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By the way I made this map to put into a better context (well scale!): https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/vi...471377026&z=13

The yellow line (Cheltenham to Box Hill) has already been mentioned by the government as the first phase. The red line is Box Hill to the Airport (assumption that it will be the second phase). They may not be 100% accurate with regards to what the gov has in mind, but they're connecting all the publicly available stations.

The blue and green lines actually reflect the information the state gov has released on the western section (complicated by the Melbourne Airport Rail Link which will be the airport-sunshine section) - it's very fluid in the west. All the purple stations are the ones the government released info on, the stations in green are just ones that I've thrown in for good measure (no real science behind it other than the one in the south is near an employment centre and the one in the north west is a potential servent to the north-western suburbs).
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  #5  
Old Posted Oct 1, 2018, 5:37 AM
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The start of some independent analysis is trickling through.

https://www.sgsep.com.au/news/latest...bourne-we-want

If the loop were operation today, each of the identified stations would have, within a 2km buffer around each: 270,600 jobs, 416,100 residents, 212,300 workers and 112,600 higher education enrolments.
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  #6  
Old Posted Oct 1, 2018, 10:41 AM
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awesome — and so much better than an outer loop road.

definately keep us up with the news on this.
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  #7  
Old Posted Oct 4, 2018, 3:00 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tayser View Post
Trains will travel up to 130km/h through dedicated tunnels with no level crossings and a dedicated fleet of rollingstock allowing trains to travel faster than ever before.
.
Metro of Los Angeles needs to take note here!
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  #8  
Old Posted Oct 14, 2018, 12:54 AM
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The Federal opposition (ALP, same party as current state government seeking re-election) just announced they'll match the $300million announced by the state government for the business case development/environmental effects studies et al. Obviously with the caveat that both win elections.

$600 million just for planning!
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  #9  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2018, 2:59 AM
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Another day, another announcement, perhaps this one now gives a better idea of what's proposed re: election policies for the current state government.

As part of the Melbourne Airport Rail Link (which in turn will form one part of the Suburban Rail Loop, so the govenrment says), scope will increase to include the electrification of two western lines beyond Sunshine - one to Melton (which has been foreshadowed for a while now) and the other to Wyndham Vale which is near Werribee (which has its own service) on the Regional Rail Link tracks which form a kind-of outer suburban loop anyhow.

There'll be a tunnel from the city to Sunshine (no doubt for Airport and Regional service use) with a new mega-hub built there and Wyndham Vale and Werribee will be connected (adding a third side to a triangle junction to the west of Werribee). The Regional Rail Link tracks will be quadruplicated and the Melton tracks will be quadruplicated so newly electrified metro services can run separately to regional services to Ballarat (Melton) and Geelong (Wyndham Vale) - potentially moving from our state's current top speed to 160kph (100mph) to 200-250kph (125-140mph).

The only project we haven't heard about is the second cross-town metro tunnel.... who knows, they might promise to do that too!

New map which puts everything together:

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  #10  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2018, 3:22 PM
mrnyc mrnyc is offline
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i am so envious of this -- nyc needs the triboro rx plan and cross bx rail service asap!
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  #11  
Old Posted Oct 20, 2018, 1:40 AM
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This is related to the suburban loop proposal, however Melbourne Airport just released plans on expansion.

37 million passengers p/a (we are literally an end of line airport in the international network) and the international terminal (T2) is getting expanded. A few weeks ago, a private-led proposal, by the operator of the airport, came up with the AirRail Melbourne proposal for the Melbourne Airport Rail Link (which has its own public study underway that will no doubt hook into the Suburban Rail Loop study if current state government is re-elected) and released this station render at the time:



And with the release of the Airport's other expansion plans, we now have more context for the AirRail Melbourne Airport station:



Fully expect this to change slightly - because state government has a) an election b) an active Airport link study and c) if they are re-elected (a), their election proposals will impact on the Airport link (b).

Confused yet? Yeah, welcome to Victorian transport planning 101.
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  #12  
Old Posted Oct 20, 2018, 1:44 AM
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In summary:

a) Melbourne Airport Rail Link was a 'thing' before the Suburban Rail Loop (current state and federal governments each committed $10 billion to it).
b) The Suburban Rail Loop was a policy under wraps not devised within 'traditional' transport departments (but the state's own land development agency: Development Victoria [side point: the public transport minister also has oversight of that portfolio area[).
c) A few weeks after the Suburban Rail Loop was unveiled, the operator and owner of the Melbourne Airport lease came up with its own private proposal for the Melbourne Airport Rail Link, pledging that the link would be open and potentially hook into the SRL.
d) the SRL has now evolved so that we know what's happening in the West - which when first unveiled was really undercooked.
e) Victoria's state elections have been held every 4 years on the final Saturday in November since 2010, the next one is Saturday, November 24th, next month.

Melbourne Airport expansion plans context (Rail stuff toward end of video)

Video Link


AirRail Melbourne proposal which may or may not form part of the eventual Airport Rail Link (and therefore Suburban Rail Loop). https://www.airrailmelbourne.com.au/
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  #13  
Old Posted Oct 20, 2018, 10:14 PM
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Wow, inner Melbourne must have very highly-developed and extensive subway system for them to think about building a 50km (!) subway line just for the suburbs.
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  #14  
Old Posted Oct 21, 2018, 12:16 AM
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Wow, inner Melbourne must have very highly-developed and extensive subway system for them to think about building a 50km (!) subway line just for the suburbs.
I detect sarcasm, but it is unjustified.

Australian cities have electrified, high frequency suburban networks which have been upgraded into metro-like systems, even if they are technically categorized as conventional railways.

A few cities in the UK have similar lines, Liverpool and Glasgow. Dublin technically doesn't have a metro but DART is pretty close. Auckland electrified and modernized its system and is digging a city center tunnel with underground stations that will bring passengers directly into the central business district and the densest part of the city. Not an english-speaking city but Copenhagen only recently built a true metro, for the longest time it had an extensive s-bahn type thing.

A reversal of this would be how some smaller Japanese cities have things branded as "metro" or "subway" which are actually just short underground lines which link to the rest of the railway network, or how a few American rapid transit systems originated as upgraded passenger railroads(Cleveland, PATH, PATCO, probably some NYC lines).

Oslo's T-bane ("metro") has only been an actual metro since the mid-1990s when they rerouted part of into a tunnel and built a fully metro-standard ring line, IIRC before that it was actually just a collection of surface commuter lines with grade crossings and used old-fashioned trains.

To be honest, the taxonomy of public transportation infrastructure is something only nerds obsess over. I think if you actually take the time to study the origins and services of many systems there are no clear categories.

Last edited by llamaorama; Oct 21, 2018 at 12:30 AM.
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  #15  
Old Posted Oct 21, 2018, 2:48 AM
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I detect sarcasm, but it is unjustified.

Australian cities have electrified, high frequency suburban networks which have been upgraded into metro-like systems, even if they are technically categorized as conventional railways.
Melbourne's suburban heavy rail network (750,000 boardings per weekday) has similar ridership to Toronto's subway (915,000 boardings per weekday) and Washington's metro (749,000 boardings per weekday), but I don't see how that justifies building a 50km suburban subway line. This suburban subway line by itself will be 3/4 the length of Montreal's entire metro system (1,254,000 boardings per weekday).

Melbourne has a very highly developed suburban rail system. Maybe one of the best in the world. All the more reason to stop building suburban rail and concentrate on the inner city.

There are no crosstown subway/metro lines anywhere in Melbourne, and they decide to build the first one on the outskirts of the urban area, 15-20km from the city centre? Imagine if Toronto built a 50km subway line along Highway 7, or Montreal built one along Boulevard Saint-Martin. I would find that odd, but maybe it's just me.
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  #16  
Old Posted Oct 21, 2018, 9:26 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doady View Post
Melbourne's suburban heavy rail network (750,000 boardings per weekday) has similar ridership to Toronto's subway (915,000 boardings per weekday) and Washington's metro (749,000 boardings per weekday), but I don't see how that justifies building a 50km suburban subway line. This suburban subway line by itself will be 3/4 the length of Montreal's entire metro system (1,254,000 boardings per weekday).
I can only readily find annual figures, but Melbourne's tram network is focused almost exclusively on the inner-city and it sees 200 million passengers per annum (547,000 if you simply divide the annual figure by 365, but realistically the weekday daily figures are higher and the weekend daily figures are lower). It's slow, but it primarily does the job of transporting people in the inner-city (and it definitely has scope to improve as well) - the lack of a [modern day-defined] metro doesn't filter up because that's what the tram network does.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Doady
Melbourne has a very highly developed suburban rail system. Maybe one of the best in the world. All the more reason to stop building suburban rail and concentrate on the inner city.
Melbourne Metro 1 might pull in passengers from the middle and outer suburbs but it's expanding the inner-city heavy rail network by three stations (there are 5 existing stations all around the CBD). See tram comments. If the best/highest developed suburban system is Paris' RER (I reckon it is), we're not quite there, but if you're looking for an equivalent with regards to where we're heading with all these proposals - both the inner-city work and the SRL - Paris and its RER network would be a good comparison.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Doady
There are no crosstown subway/metro lines anywhere in Melbourne, and they decide to build the first one on the outskirts of the urban area, 15-20km from the city centre? Imagine if Toronto built a 50km subway line along Highway 7, or Montreal built one along Boulevard Saint-Martin. I would find that odd, but maybe it's just me.
Melbourne Metro 1 is the first cross-town line and the eventual aim is to have all heavy rail lines, except 2, to - in effect - become cross-town lines (that just go through the inner-city).

The SRL might be f**king with peoples heads because unlike North American cities, public transport is in the state/province realm, not municipal, in Australia. Therefore scope is always going to be much wider like you see with the SRL (it goes through about 10 'cities' [municipalities]).
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  #17  
Old Posted Oct 31, 2018, 6:41 AM
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Crosstown rail probably should be built closer to the city centre, then further crosstown rail lines progressively further out.

Melbourne's system carries 237 million riders per year, Paris RER 1.1 billion, 4-5 times more riders, but Paris urban area is 3 times bigger too. All of the commuter rail in NYC area is 273 million per year serving 3-4 times bigger population.

237 milllion for suburban rail, 204 million for tram, but only 118 million for bus. I can't help but wonder if the overall ridership would be much better if there wasn't so much focus on suburban rail.

Paris has RER but it also has Metro. NYC has Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad, but it also has the Subway. Melbourne seems to lack a comprehensive and integrated transit network, with a true metro system for the city centre and a highly-developed suburban bus network to feed into the rail system. A 50km-long suburban subway line doesn't seem like the solution.

Code:
Urban Area  Commuter  Metro  Tram  Bus  Total  Per Capita
Melbourne        237      0   204  118    558         122
New York         273   2858    21  974   4126         225
Toronto           54    303    96  602   1055         194
Vancouver          2    137     0  240    379         167
In 1950, transit in Melbourne had 449 boardings per capita, now it's only 1/4 of that. Maybe so much investment in the suburbs is part of the reason for that in the first place.

Last edited by Doady; Oct 31, 2018 at 5:39 PM.
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  #18  
Old Posted Nov 4, 2018, 1:31 AM
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Yep, the stats on Melbourne's bus network are abysmal - our problem relates to state governments not wanting to piss off the average car driver through implementing higher priority for public transport modes (unless it involves rails).

But this: "A 50km-long suburban subway line doesn't seem like the solution." misses the point, sure part of it is all about mode-shift, lessening congestion on north-south arterials in the east and west, and east-west arterials in the north, but the proposal has come from Development Victoria which is focused on land development. In short, it's far more about changing the way the city (city = metro) operates well into the future, there's been significant planning work done in most of the key station areas for the SRL that is designed to see many clusters developed in a ring around the metro area.
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  #19  
Old Posted Nov 24, 2018, 12:14 PM
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Well, no-one saw that coming.

Not only are the Labor party staying on Spring Street, but they're majority just went from 46 to potentially 61 seats (the lower house/Legislative Assembly has 88 seats).

Labor even picked up seats in the Liberal's (centre-right) heartland eastern middle suburbs of Melbourne................right where the Suburban Rail Loop will likely roll through (the Labor party promised to make phase one through this eastern section).

Still many votes to count but it's a big re-election for the centre-left Labor.
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  #20  
Old Posted Dec 2, 2018, 4:17 AM
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Thread title changed from "Melbourne might be getting a suburban orbital rail line" to "Melbourne Public Transport News & Discussion" at OP's request.
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