----- Forwarded message -----

To:australiantransportnews@... australiantransportnews@...>
Sent: Saturday, 3 June 2023 at 01:06:31 pm AEST
Subject: Sat.23.7.22 daily digest

Roderick

"220723Sa-Melbourne'Age'-EGate-a-ss.jpg"
"220723Sa-Melbourne'Age'-EGate-b-s.jpg"
 "220723Sa-Melbourne'Age'-EGate-c-ss.jpg" 
"220723Sa-Melbourne'Age'-EGate-d-ss.jpg"
 "220723Sa-Melbourne'Age'-EGate-e-ss.jpg"
 "220723Sa-Melbourne'Age'-EGate-f-ss.jpg"
220723Sa-Melbourne'Age'-electric.buses-ss.jpg with ATN

"220723Sa-Melbourne'HeraldSun'-tram-solar.power.jpg"

Sat.23.7.22 Metro Twitter
Flinders St: still with a lane closed for tunnel works? [reopened by July?  Closed again by Nov.]
Campbell Arcade (Flinders St station) is closed until 2024. The exit from the Myki gates within the subway will  also be closed. No pedestrian access between the arcade & Flinders St. Use Elizabeth & Swanston St entry/exits. Platform  interchange via that subway will be available until mid 2022.
Buses replace trains on sections of the Craigieburn line until the last train of Mon 25 Jul (works).
Mernda line: Trains will run to an altered timetable until Sep 2022 (works).  Trains operate on a single track Thornbury - Regent, and trains will not stop at Bell or Preston.  Shuttle buses operate Thornbury - Bell - Preston - Regent - Reservoir. No access to station facilities during this time.
Buses replace trains on sections of the Lilydale & Belgrave lines until the last train of Sun 24 Jul (works).
Pakenham/Cranbourne lines: Buses replace trains Caulfield - Westall until the last train of Sun 24 Jul (works).
Frankston line: Trains will run to an altered timetable until late Aug 2022 (works). Trains will stop at all stations Caulfield - Cheltenham in both directions, all day.
- Buses replace trains Moorabbin - Frankston/Stony Point until the last train of Sun 24 Jul (maintenance works).
3.21 Sun  Mernda/Hurstbridge lines: Major delays clearing after trespassers (vandals) were in the North Richmond area.

Rail loop rethink is first major test for new planning minister  Michael Buxton July 22, 2022 [140 comments, with only a selection appended]
The two previous Melbourne attempts at circular railways, the Inner and Outer Circle lines, failed.
The newest attempt, the Suburban Rail Loop, will repeat this record and become the greatest public transport infrastructure failure in Australia unless substantially altered.
Premier Daniel Andrews argues the case for the Suburban Rail Loop.CREDIT:AAP
To be successful, cross-suburban public transport must provide multiple routes accessible via many station stops along with fast passenger transfers at interchanges. But the loop is proposed as a single orbital heavy railway beneath middle-ring suburbs with few stations. This cannot provide effective cross-town public transport for a city the size of Melbourne.
Only 15 stations will be provided over the 90-kilometre length of the loop, at an average spacing of six kilometres compared to the average 1.83-kilometre spacing between the 219 existing metro stations. Only four intermediate stations are proposed for the first stage of 26km from Cheltenham to Box Hill, all at major centres and none for the 200,000 residents who live along its route.
As a result, the net shift from roads to public transport would be only 230,000 trips or 0.83 per cent of all travel, hardly a decent return on the more than $100 billion eventual expenditure.
The loop will connect major centres, not communities, but these centres will provide only a fraction of CBD jobs.
video Melbourne's East West Link officially 'dead' as Suburban Rail Loop construction begins
Anthony Albanese's new infrastructure minister has declared $4 billion kept aside under Scott Morrison, a fraud.
A contrasting approach can be seen in the Rail Futures Institute plan. This proposes a range of transit technologies, such as heavy and light rail, using multiple cross-city routes over 223km at a cost of about $31 billion, almost three times the distance of the government’s project for a fraction of the cost.
Another major failing is that loop station connections with radial lines are world’s worst standard. Instead of easy platform transfers, passengers must walk up to half a kilometre between lines or exit one station before descending to another. Many stations are in the wrong locations, particularly those situated long distances from Monash and Deakin universities.
Such design problems are the inevitable outcome of the secretive decision-making around this project. Instead of using public sector and other expertise, the government outsourced the planning and design to a consulting firm and then established a nominally public body which operates essentially outside government and has only one task, to build transport infrastructure.
The Rail Loop Authority continues the Victorian tradition of regarding public open space as free land for development. Moorabbin’s William Fry reserve will be plundered and used for development to raise funds and the Heatherton Chain of Parks concept destroyed as 35 hectares is used for train stabling.
The government has not explained why it is prioritising a rail loop before the Melbourne Metro 2 project or making urgent improvements to the existing public transport system.
Melbourne’s outer suburbs hold 44 per cent of the city’s population but only 4 per cent of their area is served by public transport. Funding the loop project condemns 1.5 million residents in new western, northern and south-eastern suburbs to long-term reliance on cars or to being crammed onto country trains or inadequate metro train services.
Perhaps the biggest issue is the implications for land use. The government claims the loop will transform Melbourne’s shape and growth trajectory by locating large populations in multiple mixed-use suburban centres and also probably along the route.
However, land use impacts were excluded from the scope of the panel evaluating the project’s environmental effects. The government wants the project to proceed without making clear the nature and scale of the associated development.
Yet impacts will be extensive, including large-scale relocation of communities and land uses, high-rise development and other intensified uses, traffic impacts and altered modes of living and working for large numbers of people.
The government has removed all planning decisions for a 1.6-km radius around each centre from local councils and denied the right of residents to be notified of developments or to object.
The Town and Country Planning Association has shown that the area of the precincts around all proposed 15 centres would equal the area of 36 CBDs. It is surely unacceptable that such massive changes to land use are not assessed.
All these deficiencies are the inevitable result of the intransigence flowing from an unaccountable governance model.
New planning minister Lizzie Blandthorn’s first major test is whether to challenge this model of secretive project design and resistance to change as she considers the panel report on the project.
ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE Premier Daniel Andrews argues the case for the Suburban Rail Loop. London rail boss backs Andrews’ vision for Suburban Rail Loop
RELATED ARTICLE SRL  Go West: Experts in call to drop Suburban Rail Loop for ‘more urgent’ projects
<www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/rail-loop-rethink-is-first-major-test-for-new-planning-minister-20220717-p5b285.html>
* Another grand project to maintain the Andrews and friends government in power? Even a new ALP government, after the November election would likely lose interest when the real cost become clearer. We can only hope the Federal ALP are more discriminating in assisting its fast demise.
Many parts of the existing suburban rail system still need improvement to 20th century standards let alone 21st. Major peak hour failures occur every week at various junctions on the system. Huge areas of greater Melbourne currently have extremely sparse bus services in both coverage and frequency. Even our vaunted tram system fails with lack of connectivity to rail, poor tram accessibility and poor after-hour frequencies.
Professor Buxton points out the very poor connectivity planned at many new Loop stations. So even today our senior 'planners' are forgeting what is required for disabled public transport users in particular. Easy access and connections!
* At last, an author not dazzled by the spin and propaganda. The line can succeed only with mass bulldozing and high-rise redevelopment. China does that.  Maximising the ability of the current system is achievable. The biggest obstacle is management mindsets.
* What does you think the Minister can change? This is Dan's project and I doubt he will change his mind on it.
* A major - perhaps the major factor - in the government's expected success of the SRL is expected large-scale land use redevelopment around the SRL stations. That is, land developers and corporate executive decision-makers will decide to relocate their businesses to buildings located near the stations. Phenomena known as economic and social agglomeration.
Nowhere is the SRL feasibility studies is there evidence direct market research having been done to predict with reasonable accuracy, the future migration of businesses and land development projects to the these stations. This should be done before a final decision is made about the SRL and other alternative strategies for development of polycentric urban centres.
Is there evidence of agglomeration trends already occurring, such as commercial land-banking (buying up properties near the proposed stations)? The Titles Office and State Revenue Office have databases that would reveal any acceleration in land acquisition by property developers, and above-average increased land values (for assessment of stamp duty) near the SRL stations.
* Prof Buxton raises some very good points in relation to the need for improved planning, better integration with existing rail and lack of scrutiny of 1.6km development zones around each station.
The comparison with the long-closed Inner and Outer Circle lines is misleading. Melbourne is now a very different city and we need to start investing in viable alternatives to road transport. Just considering one cohort, tens of thousands of tertiary students and staff would have much improved public transport access to Monash Clayton and Deakin - as well as Swinburne, Holmesglen, Box Hill TAFE and Monash Caulfield. Hundreds of thousands of people could increase their employment options with better travel times to more locations.
I'm disappointed the first section does not extend to Doncaster, which would connects thousands of residents to heavy rail for the first time and provide a reliable alternative mode to Doncaster Hill.
By all means let's agitate for a better SRL than what's currently documented (the existing Glen Waverley interchange plan is ridiculous), but this project is visionary and, properly implemented, has the potential to transform Melbourne's commuting culture.
* Nice to read a considered response
* I have a destination to go - A) hop in the car - wait for train - get off - wait for another train - catch a bus or walk 20 minutes to get where I want to go and do the same in reverse or B) just drive a car straight there - most people will pick B I think
* Why don't we have a very large fleet of modern buses to do the LOOP ?
* Buxton is right. Just staggering the opacity of the whole process, and the cheering by the squad. We've just seen how WFH come in to play, as per the vision decades ago as one of the benefits of
fast ubiquitous internet, communications more generally, technology and computers. Shift the data more, not the people - who would much rather not be having to travel an hour each way each day, along with costs. Sure, some work has to be in place, but much doesn't. $100B on a project for an already outdated model of how to organise society and work.
* The planning powers extend 1.6 km from each station, which is more than twice the accepted walking distance of 800m. For comparison Southern Cross Station is 1.2 km from Flinders St station and few people walk it. Development centres for the SRL should mostly have more than one station, just like the Melbourne CBD is served by 5 stations.
* Did they have the same debates about metro, cross city and orbital lines in Paris, Munich, Berlin, Leipzig, etc many of which cities have smaller populations and lower growth than Melbourne. Strategic transport investment can seed development of better communities. If we believed transport planners and economists we'd have the 1969 Wilbur Smith network of LA style Motorways (the report is still available in many suburban libraries). Or, what about the famous Louie Report that recommended closing down rail in Melbourne because cars were all we needed? It's said Mr Lonie had previously worked for General Motors?
Have you been to Box Hill lately? If not, go and have a look, then drive around Monash University, Chadstone, Ringwood and Doncaster. Or go to Sydney and look at the impact of some of their new suburban railway lines. We should not base our planning on the most recent decade, we should use strategic infrastructure investment to reshape our city and make it better.
* Great comment. I fully agree.
* As I recall there was no survey conducted to even assess who would actually use this loop that seems to go from nowhere to nowhere. The same can be said for the airport rail link. How many people intend to use it. You need to get into Southern Cross station. If you do that it is actually easier to use SkyBus to the airport. on buses designed to carry loads of luggage.
* NO properly tested and independent business case no community consultation, another white elephant
* All while in regional Victoria the trains get slower and the roads more congested with minimal relief in sight ...
* $100 billion for a train loop with so-so business case to be paid by 6 million Victorian taxpayers and between $75 billion and $90 billion (depending on data source) for 12 nuclear submarines to be paid by 26 million Australian taxpayers.
Per capita, which is the better value?
(For arguments sake, total population as opposed to taxpayers population is easier to compare with)
* So in other words, more expensive and less useful than a bunch of submarines. The cost is guaranteed to blow out by at least 250%
* This is a great article thank you Michael Buxton , the SRL is poorly planned and needs to be stopped.
* "The two previous Melbourne attempts at circular railways, the Inner and Outer Circle lines, failed."
Why? Because the motor car came along and we decided public rail projects were a waste of money.
The Outer Circle line from Fairfield to Oakleigh linked the north-east to the south-east from the Hurstbridge to Pakenham lines, five rail lines altogether, doing away with much of the Suburban Rail Loop.
The Inner Circle line from Royal Park to Fitzroy was more limited but if it still existed and was extended from Clifton Hill to Footscray would complement or replace much of the Metro Rail 1 & 2 projects.
Past myopia is no justification for future myopia.
* A good study on a great concept poorly executed. Light rail/trams would be much cheaper and more flexible on any circular city transport solution, while allowing practical integration into existing services where and when needed. Perhaps such services could be controlled in such a way that both express services between key hubs and local stopping services in neighbourhoods would be possible.
* The Andrews government was elected in 2014. It was almost a referendum on the East West Link, a project with a dubious cost-benefit. This rail loop, whilst it is an attractive concept suffers the same problem, magnified by a factor of about 30 times. The numbers don't stack up.
* Another classic case of how the Govt have failed the people who voted them in.
Many of such decisions are not made in the interest of the general public at large but appears to serve certain interest groups.
The election slogan by politicians "We are here to serve you" rings hollow...
I hope fellow Victorians be more vocal and voice their frustration more.. Create more noise and make your voice be heard !!
* Especially in Nov.
* It's a pretty shallow overview here. The alternative proposed has a many, if not more, problems. Light rail sounds good until it's gridlocked in with the traffic. Having to walk uptown 500 meters to change trains? Big deal. You have to get a bus or train to change terminals at most Australian airports. And get a train into the city and it's more than that to most shops or offices. As someone who lived in frankston and went to Monash uni in Clayton, i remember having to go to ormond, then get a 30 min bus down north Rd as there were no interconnections on the radial lines. It was, and still is, a joke.
* More stations equal slow transit, there needs to be a balance. The writer comparing current station spacing is not a fair comparison. The roles are different.
* A valuable contribution to the debate Michael. We need more transparency. My own gut feeling is it was seen as a very big ambitious plan which would also garner votes. Lets have a conversation and transparency in the process. A review must be had in light of what has transpired over the last two years . Lets have debate consultation and transparency before the election later this year.
* The pure fact is, everything that is on the drawing board, or should be on the drawing board, needs to be built. Geelong Faster Rail, Metro 2, Melbourne Airport Rail they are all worthwhile investments.
Until Metro came along, we basically had dined out on the investment of earlier generations without building on it ourselves (in some cases, we deleted capability that we are now trying to get back) City Loop was a gap filler. Even Metro is a gap filler.
Projects like SRL are looking forward and will induce demand.
If we want Monash to be a world leading medical research hub we need to make it easy for researchers to get to. That includes, from the airport, but also from the residential growth areas of the city. The heavy lifting of research is done at the doctorate and post doctorate level by people who don't necessarily get paid a huge amount. You have to sell a place of work to them on the basis of convenience and quality of life - intangible values.
If the SRL induces a billion dollars a year of extra investment in medical research at Monash, then, that's job done - the project is justified.
That's just one example of the benefits the SRL will bring - but Box Hill will become a mini CBD in its own right, Doncaster needs a rail link.
The stations are far apart, but that is OK as long as there is another mode of transport when you get there - electric self driving "tram buses" on demand self driving EVs - they will be a reality when SRL is completed.
They are long time frame investments. Metro will be finished in 2025 - that's a 20 year delivery horizon from when it was first brought into the public consciousness. So you spend 20 years building it and then it's designed to last 100 years. (But they last much longer) Yes, they are expensive projects, but when you amortise them over a 100 year timeframe, it's chicken feed.
* Excellent article, non-partisan and well argued...You have used good arguments with lots of supporting evidence to arrive at a sound and sensible conclusion. The SRL Project has unfortunately become very politicised. Many Supporters of The Dan Andrews Government seem to regard The SRL as Dan's infrastructure tour de force. It is not. I'm yet to see a decent non-partisan argument supporting The SRL Project. I'm a strong supporter of the Andrews Government but not the SRL.
* SRL is putting all your eggs into a very faulty basket - the funds it will chew up for years not allowing smaller and better projects to be build will damage victoria - cheaper to buy every household an electric car than build this monstrosity - all work on this project needs to be stopped ASAP - the biggest downside is inconvenience - door to door travel is best done by cars - rail wins when a large number of people want to go to a relatively small area - SRL does not fit into this category at all
* People seem to forget that this game changing project is a 30 + timeline to finish! I doubt either Buxton or Daniel Andrews will be in their same positions by then.
* I would rather have a leader with vision than a whinging recalcitrant. The project will have many versions during a continuous improvement design stage before the end product. Rome wasn’t build in a day and this important transport project does need to be built.
* I’d rather a semblance of vision be applied to the State health system than the misplaced (distracting) vision currently applied to this transport white elephant.
* Fundamentals like station locations are extremely difficult to change once the planning is set.
* Speed is a key factor as well, the more stations you add, the slower it takes to get from one side to the other, which I think is the more important goal.
Having a stop in each area might also curve the track around and add on extra time overall. Just look at how the Bendigo line has an extra fifteen minutes added onto it with the inclusion of Clarkefield station simply because of the geography. A key aspect of the SRL in my opinion should be the speed of getting from one side to the other, not hitting every community along the way, those can be serviced by dedicated transport of their own linking in and out of hubs or additional lines.
* A balance needs to be struck between speed and number of places serviced. If there aren't enough stops it renders the whole expensive exercise pointless.
* There is already a rail service between Cheltenham and Werribee. Only one change of trains required. It will probably still be quicker to take the old train if you travel end-to-end, because it's much more direct.
* The entire project was designed on the back of an envelope in complete secrecy. I love the idea of Melbourne having a more interconnected train system with a loop, but for goodness sake can't we give it to experts to design with proper consultation and feedback? $50b+ is too much to spend on something that's imperfect.
* This is a very good analysis. Three points. The number of jobs presently along the proposed SRL route is about 200,000. By way of contrast, along the Metro 1 route are about 800,000 jobs and Metro 2, more than 600,000. Obviously, Metro 2 should be built before SRL on that basis alone. Secondly, the business case modelling relies mostly upon jobs growth around Monash, Clayton and Bundoora Campus of La Trobe University. Around Monash station jobs are to grow from 36,500 in 2018 to 162,500 jobs by 2056 (because of the SRL!), getting up into the realms of the present day Hoddle Grid (210,000 in 2020). Really!! Surely, unrealistic!! Finally, has a scenario of what this unlikely jobs growth would look like around the stations of Monash and Clayton been prepared, in particular? Need to cede the northern end of Monash Campus and Eastern end of CSIRO site for city centre development, to begin with. Never going to happen.
* If you are going to do an underground ring rail it would be better as automated light rail.
This allows for...
much smaller stations (less digging)
tighter bends/curves giving more design flexibility (smaller tunnels needed)
more frequent services - you don't need a timetable, just turn up and wait a few minutes
routing around a failed service - currently lot of trains are stopped with a single sick passenger
more stations within the same budget
You could also cut down on costs by using some of the same equipment as trams (wheels, power systems etc).
* This is exactly one of the alternative that needs to be considered. The present plan is too costly, the projections of benefits way over-stated. The state also has vital health infrastructure needs that arguably should come before a costly transport build.
* Put Jeroen Weimar on the job - he’s worked in transport and is a great operator.
* Full marks to Prof Buxton - an eminent urban planner who should be listened to by government

E-gate: The inner Melbourne suburb that could have been.  Rachael Dexter and Patrick Hatch July 23, 2022
KEY POINTS
A City of Melbourne blueprint that outlined visions for former industrial sites left E-Gate largely off the list. 
Critics say the reason was to allow Transurban to build two large tollway extensions through the site, as part of the $5.5 billion West Gate Tunnel.
A government spokeswoman said it would reconsider E-Gate for development when the West Gate Tunnel is completed.
Anthony McKee looks out over a severe vista from the elevated platform at North Melbourne station. Between where he stands and the shuttered Docklands Observation Wheel in the distance are belts and belts of train tracks and disused rail yards.
Not so long ago, there were grand plans for this place: up to 10,000 people would live here, in eco-friendly homes on one of the “best development sites in Melbourne”, with bucket loads of green space, a sprawling urban forest and sporting fields.
Anthony Mckee set up the Western Connection community group several years ago to propose some ideas on the E-Gate site to government.CREDIT:JASON SOUTH
“Under our plan you’d cover the top of the train lines all the way down and build a bridge to go across the top of Footscray Road,” says McKee, pointing out across the area known as E-Gate, 20 hectares of largely disused, publicly owned rail land on the fringe of the CBD.
“Then [on top] you’d put in a park. [We were] proposing something the size of Flagstaff gardens. You would literally walk off the edge here [the North Melbourne station raised platform] and you would be on grass.”
But a 20-year blueprint published last week by the City of Melbourne that outlined grand visions for the renewal of former industrial sites around Melbourne left E-Gate largely off the list.
Places such as the fledgling suburbs of Arden and Macaulay, nestled between North Melbourne and Kensington, and Fishermans Bend and Lorimer, south of the Yarra, will be radically transformed over the next two decades to house more than 25,000 people and become, as Deputy Mayor Nicholas Reece described, “the next Fitzroy or Collingwood”.
Notably absent, though, within the council’s Municipal Planning Strategy and City Spatial Plan, were any concrete plans for E-Gate.
The plan envisages 1600 people working in the area by 2040 but no residents at all – a surprising admission by the council for a place that has been flagged since 2009 by successive Labor and Coalition state governments as an ideal location for major residential and commercial redevelopment.
Back in 2009, the current Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas, who was then major projects minister, said the site was “one of the last remaining large brownfield areas in inner Melbourne that is currently without a long-term strategic plan”.
The Napthine government later moved to sell the land, launching an expressions-of-interest campaign just days before it lost the 2014 state election.
At least four major developers – Lend Lease, MAB Corporation, Walker Corporation and Cbus – were considered in the early days of the Andrews government to build the project. Beautiful concept renders of green neighbourhoods were published in newspaper articles touting “one of the best development sites in Melbourne”.
“But then things went quiet,” says McKee, who formed a community group named Western Connection, which included urban planners and a range of professionals, and pushed for a major green-space project in the new suburb.
“And then came the announcement that Transurban were going to use the site for the West Gate Tunnel Project.”
Critics say the sole reason for the loss of E-Gate’s potential was the Andrews government’s decision to allow Transurban to build two large tollway extensions through the site, as part of the $5.5 billion West Gate Tunnel.
An early concept the E-Gate site.CREDIT:VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT
Melbourne City Council was one of the loudest dissenting voices on the plan, claiming in submissions to the government at the time that the flyover would ruin “a once-in-a-generational opportunity” for E-Gate, and that proposal was “inconsistent with policy and practice of the last 30 years, in an area of Melbourne where we should be specifically planning for the next 30 years”.
An inquiry and advisory committee, convened in 2017 to hear submissions on the West Gate Tunnel, recommended to then-planning minister Richard Wynne that it considered the impact on E-Gate as “suboptimal” and there would be “a missed opportunity” if the design wasn’t remedied.
Despite these protestations, including from groups such as Western Connection which proposed an alternative road set-up, the flyovers went ahead. The only concession was to lower the road by about 10 metres, to 2.6 metres, for much of the road, but it will still tower to 11 metres at some points.
Urban planner and associate professor of RMIT’s Centre for Urban Research, Andrew Butt, who was also part of the Western Connection group as an expert and a West Melbourne local, said the decision to allow the tollway operator to cut through the site “sacrificed” it.
A vision for the site created by Western Connection. North Melbourne railway station is on the bottom right.CREDIT:WESTERN CONNECTION
“It was an exercise in providing tolling for Transurban and not necessarily transport solutions,” Butt says.
Docklands Chamber of Commerce chief executive Shane Wylie said E-Gate would have been a game changer for the harbourside suburb. By connecting Docklands to West and North Melbourne, E-Gate could have ended the precinct’s isolation.
“Retailers, traders and residents were all extremely excited,” he says. “It’s disappointing for the chamber and Docklands businesses to see such an exciting proposal disappear.”
Western Connection’s depiction of what the view from North Melbourne railway station could be.CREDIT:WESTERN CONNECTION
Wylie says the West Gate Tunnel’s intrusion into the site is now a major barrier to the planned development becoming a reality. The dampening of the appetite for major new developments caused by the pandemic leaves Wylie with little hope that the development of E-gate will get off the ground.
“The barriers that are there now are too great and the rewards for such a proposal are not what they were,” he says.
When or if E-Gate will ever be realised as a proper suburb will be a decision for the state government of the day. An Andrews government spokeswoman said it would reconsider E-Gate for development when the West Gate Tunnel is completed and when the site is no longer being used as a rail stabling yard and maintenance site.
She said significant changes were made to project design to get the “full potential” out of the E-Gate development site, including lowering the Wurundjeri Way extension to allow direct access to the site.
“The Wurundjeri Way extension … will create a CBD bypass, making it easier to travel between the inner north, central city and the western suburbs,” she said.
An artist’s impression, released by the Napthine government in late 2014, of what the E-Gate site was meant to look like.CREDIT:VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT
“It will take traffic off Spencer and King Streets and use less than 1.5 hectares of the 20-hectare E-Gate site on its northern and eastern edges, leaving the vast majority available for future development.”
But Rohan Leppert, a Greens-aligned councillor with the City of Melbourne who was active in the council’s failed fightback against the plan, said the toll road ramps had reduced the idea of E-Gate to a shadow of its former self.
“Raised freeways are a recipe for urban blight, and E-Gate will be surrounded by big and hostile arterials. Knitting E-Gate together with West Melbourne and Docklands will need a lattice of bridges, and that isn’t cheap,” he said.
“But if those challenges can be overcome, E-Gate has the potential to be a world-class urban-renewal precinct, with sustainable buildings and the reintroduction of trees and greenery. That’s what our new Municipal Planning Strategy strives for, despite the ridiculous folly that is the West Gate Tunnel – where ‘tunnel’ means ‘freeway on stilts’.”
Anthony McKee, meanwhile, says he hasn’t given up entirely on his hopes of one day seeing some remnant of his group’s original vision for E-Gate come to life.
Although it would require building over both the rail lines and now over the new toll roads, he says there are examples of this happening already on different sections of Wurundjeri Way in Melbourne and other Australian cities.
“There’s plenty of traffic in Sydney that goes underneath tunnels,” he said. “And above ground, you wouldn’t know anything was there.”
EDITOR'S PICK Juncao grass farmers Vinit Lal and Chaya Kumar on their farm in Votualevu, Nadi. From ‘magic’ grass to roads and schools, China is everywhere in Fiji
<www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/e-gate-the-inner-melbourne-suburb-that-could-have-been-20220719-p5b2ob.html>

Electric buses across the west every 10 minutes - it’s not a dream.  John Stone July 23, 2022
Greenhouse gas emissions from transport are growing faster than any other sector of the economy – it is time to finally put the brakes on.
Despite all the clamour for greater incentives for us to drive electric cars, the surest way to meet our climate targets is to find ways for us to drive less. Offering alternatives to driving is also essential for many living in Melbourne’s car-dependent suburbs, where a second or third car is an increasing burden for households squeezed by higher interest rates and fuel prices.
Melbourne’s car dependent suburbs need alternative modes of transport.CREDIT:PAUL ROVERE
The quickest and easiest way to address both rising transport emissions and living costs is to re-invent Melbourne’s broken bus system for the 21st century.
Our recently completed and externally reviewed research at the Melbourne Centre for Cities, shows how we can within only a few years, move to clean electric buses operating on a fast, frequent, connected network that gets us where we want across Melbourne’s suburbs.
The Victorian government’s recently released Zero Emissions Vehicle Roadmap is moving in the right direction with subsidies for zero emissions vehicles (ZEV), new charging infrastructure, and a ZEV bus trial. But, the growing public appetite for climate action and rapid increases in the cost of living mean that we can and must be more ambitious. So far, there are firm commitments from the Victorian government for only 341 new electric buses to be in service by 2030. This is less than 20 per cent of Melbourne’s current route-bus fleet.
Our work with industry insiders shows how we can do better.
The government’s zero emissions plan includes subsidies for zero emissions cars and a plan for zero emissions buses. CREDIT:REBECCA HALLAS
We know that electrification changes just about every aspect of bus operations from depot layouts to maintenance techniques and the way power is delivered and paid for. We will need strong government leadership to manage costs and risks across multiple industries and strict rules about what happens to the diesel fleet, with clear timelines for them to be off the road, not just sold on for other uses.
Battery-electric buses are already operating in many places overseas . The government could make an informed call now on technical specifications for vehicles and charging infrastructure, and use its buying power to establish the necessary supply chains and performance regulations. This is possible because the state ultimately pays for the capital and operating costs of Melbourne’s buses.
But there is a catch. Melbourne’s buses run under 28 separate contracts with fourteen private operators – some big multinationals, others small family businesses delivering only a few services. Many operators have, over decades, developed a sense of ownership of “their” routes and resisted efforts to simplify the system. This model cannot accommodate the transition to electric buses. So, the expiry of most of the smaller contracts in mid-2025 is an important deadline for finding new ways for government and contractors to collaboratively manage the transition.
Kinetic is trialling electric bus routes in Melbourne.CREDIT:LOUIS TRERISE
This transition to cleaner buses is only the first step. It won’t help the climate or ease suburban transport woes if we run clean buses on today’s convoluted routes and unreliable timetables which only very few Melburnians use. We need more Melburnians using buses.
Fortunately, there is a proven approach to bus service design, articulated by University of Melbourne researcher Paul Mees in the 1990s, that can help us get the most value from a new electric bus fleet. Paul’s work showed how some cities, by exploiting what he called the ‘network effect’, attract drivers onto public transport even at residential densities comparable to suburban Melbourne. They do this by operating fast and frequent services connected in a grid that makes it easy to travel to many destinations. Effectively, the convenience that travellers find so appealing in London and Paris can be reproduced in the suburbs using electric buses.
This approach underpins Victoria’s 2021 Bus Plan. This plan is a great first step, but it is a more of a mud map than the detailed blueprint we need for the next term of state government.
In Better Buses for Melbourne’s West, we use the Remix transit planning tool to show how a modern bus network would give communities in Melbourne’s west an alternative to driving.
We started by drawing a grid network on key arterial roads that would run at a 10-minute frequency all day (including weekends) with an average speed of 25 km/h.
We were surprised to find that a new network could be delivered using existing operational budgets for buses in the west, plus a modest top-up to keep pace with population growth.
Capital costs, for this first stage, are also low, with upgrades only needed at bus stops and at key intersections to give buses priority.
Once it’s up and running, we could super-charge the network, making it even faster and cheaper to run by investing in internationally proven techniques to isolate buses from other road traffic.
Our modelling also showed that, on average, more than three times more people could reach shops, services, and opportunities for social interaction at their local centre within 30 minutes on a weekday morning. For Hoppers Crossing, the increase is more than tenfold! And, these new bus services would be within an 800-metre walk of most households in the west. This would be easily accessible for most people and, if linked to affordable on-demand services, would leave no one behind.
Our research shows we can be optimistic about finding alternatives to driving in the suburbs. The task now is for the government to refine a new network through careful planning and community consultation and for all of us to build political support to make a world-class system of clean electric buses a reality in Melbourne before 2030.
RELATED ARTICLE Premier Daniel Andrews argues the case for the Suburban Rail Loop. Rail loop rethink is first major test for new planning minister
RELATED ARTICLE The Block Arcade seen here connecting with one of Melbourne's popular city laneways. Melbourne’s plan for the future will transform the CBD and surrounding suburbs
<www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/electric-buses-across-the-west-every-10-minutes-it-s-not-a-dream-20220720-p5b37w.html>
* Not really Zero Emissions Vehicles. They just move the emissions from the exhaust pipe to the Latrobe Valley.
* I like the idea of electric buses. Even hybrid diesel-electric buses are an improvement on the particle gushers. I'm not as enamoured with the bus grid though. Bus routes currently link train services with communities. Schedules match the trains, more or less, albeit with two tiers of service - main road services link one to one with trains; minor road routes link to every second train. Apart from new estates that are yet to have services, existing estates are generally within 400 mtrs of a bus route. Most outer suburbs use public transport to commute. Every change of service (bus to train etc) adds a delay and schedule risk, diminishing the value of using public transport. I would not want to sacrifice good bus access to the train station for better access to one of the local shopping centres.
* YES! Fantastic article! THIS is what we need, not the Rail Loop! A giant, ambitious train loop around the middle suburbs of Melbourne won’t make us more like London. London and New York have fantastic train networks because there are so many conveniently accessed stops with trains coming every few moments. Since we can’t build as many new train stops, making a more convenient and reliable bus network is clearly a better solution than waiting 30 years for something servicing a very narrow strip of the city. Get on to this Dan!
* You make some good points. But it is not clear if the fleet of electric buses would use existing roads or their own dedicated pathways. My concern is that drivers prefer to use their car and may continue to do so, as they are more comfortable than buses, particularly on longer journeys. If this were to occur the amount of traffic would actually increase rather than the opposite.
* This is a great article . A bus network can service the existing outer suburbs well and offer an alternative to cars … and is far more cost effective than a suburban rail loop. Busses can service all the middle ring suburbs too. Great idea to plan for EV bus infrastructure now!
* It may be time for the state government to scrap the Suburban Rail Loop idea and spend the money on a series of well designed radial bus routes with electric buses. The road network represents sunk costs that will not otherwise be used as I suspect electric vehicles will not come down much relative to peoples incomes and not many households will be able to run two of them. Personal EV ownership will not scale like petrol cars unless we are talking golf carts.

Sat.23.7.22 Melbourne 'Herald Sun'.  Solar panels.
California is grappling with what to do with millions of solar panels that are being dumped in landfill sites as they reach the end of their life cycle.
Over the past two decades, more than 1.3 million homeowners and builders have taken advantage of financial incentives to install solar panels on their rooftops.
But defunct panels are now starting to pile up as landfill, raising fears that they will contaminate groundwater with toxic metals. Only 10 per cent of panels are recycled because the process is expensive and time- consuming.
"The industry is supposed to be green," Recycle PV Solar chief executive Sam Vanderhoof said. "But in reality, it's all about the money."

Sat.23.7.22 Melbourne 'Herald Sun'.  Solar-powered trams.  IAN ROYALL
SOLAR power will continue to drive the city’s tram network, with the installation of energy- producing panels on one of the city’s biggest depots.
Yarra Trams Southbank depot is the first of seven tram bases to have solar panels fitted to the roof. When complete, the 200 panels will produce more than 550 megawatt hours of power every year.
All trams are powered by electricity that is fully offset by solar-generated power from two solar farms in northem Victoria. The new depot panels are expected to save about $370,000 annually on energy costs.
Public Transport Minister Ben Carroll said trams were a sustainable way to travel.
“These panels have been made possible through the Greener Government Buildings Program, slashing CO2 emissions significantly and helping to power Melbourne’s tram system,” Mr Carroll said.
Yarra Trams chief executive Julien Dehornoy said the solar panel installation was a “natural next step” after the move in 2019 to offset the power need of all trams with energy from solar farms.