Katrina Marques, who is raising three school-aged children, says the lack of public transport is the most important issue to her before Saturday’s byelection. But she isn’t expecting much after years of empty promises.

“A train line to Rowville in Melbourne’s outer east was first proposed in 1969. But five decades later in the federal electorate of Aston, the car is still king.”

  • AJ Sadauskas@aus.social
    3·
    2 years ago

    @ajsadauskas@lemmy.ml A railway connecting Chadstone, Monash Uni and Rowville to the city is an idea whose time has well and truly come.

    Unfortunately, despite billions of dollars spent on new roads and countless lies from both sides of politics, it’s never been built.

    Just like the Doncaster train line, and the light rail extension to Knox.

    From The Age:

    "A train line to Rowville in Melbourne’s outer east was first proposed in 1969. But five decades later in the federal electorate of Aston, the car is still king.

    "After rail through Knoxfield and Rowville to Ferntree Gully was proposed in 1969, several state governments toyed with the idea.

    "Ted Baillieu’s Coalition government revived the Rowville link a little over a decade ago and identified a route, but the project was shelved until a central city rail line was built.

    “Premier Daniel Andrews promised to plan a light rail Rowville link ahead of the 2018 state election, but it was soon put on the backburner and overshadowed by the Suburban Rail Loop – which does not run through Aston – and now federal Labor’s trackless rapid transit proposal.”

    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/a-rowville-train-line-was-proposed-54-years-ago-aston-residents-are-still-waiting-20230308-p5cqkt.html

    #VicPol #AusPol #Politics #Aston #Rowville #Monash #MonashUni #Railway #Railways #Train #Trains #Rail #Tram #Trams #LightRail #MassTransit #PublicTransport #Melbourne

    • TomMelaide@aus.social
      1·
      2 years ago

      @ajsadauskas @ajsadauskas@lemmy.ml Rowville rail line is a largely redundant not very useful idea. It’s never been built because it just does not have the catchment needed to make it work. Rowville itself can never gather the patronage required, and as Monash will now be served by the SRL there is effectively no point in its construction. There are more pressing missions in suburban Melbourne like the SRL, Airport Rail and a Tunnel from Newport to the City that deserve attention and billions of dollars. Building the light rail is a fine idea (sorta, it’s never gonna happen), but we should not pretend that we should build a rail line due to a hole in a map

      • AJ Sadauskas@aus.social
        1·
        2 years ago

        @AussieWirraway @ajsadauskas@lemmy.ml I’ll have to respectfully disagree on a few of your main points.

        First, the population of the City of Knox alone is around 160,000. Even assuming around 60,000 of those residents in Bayswater, Boronia, and Ferntree Gully are served by the Belgrave line, that leaves around 100,000 people without good access to public transport.

        To put that number into context, the entire population of Ballarat was 101,588 in 2016, and Bendigo is around 100,991 people.

        It’s also roughly 1/10th the population of the entire Adelaide metro area, and roughly equal to the population of Darwin.

        That’s not counting Chadstone or Monash Uni, both of which are major destinations.

        That’s not counting the suburbs between Monash Uni and Rowville.

        That’s also not counting the opportunities for densification and transport-oriented developments if it were built.

        So the catchment is there.

        1/2