“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.”
“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.”
@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
@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
@AussieWirraway @ajsadauskas@lemmy.ml Since it was first proposed, there have been a number of reports that have looked into it.
A fatal flaw is that many assumed that modal share for public transport would not increase over the buses.
So in that time, the state and federal governments have wasted literally billions on building EastLink, widening the Monash freeway, Wellington Rd, Ferntree Gully Rd, Stud Rd, and other stroads in the area.
And during peak hour, they’re all congested because of induced demand.
It’s still happening
The state government is either currently, or has recently, looked at a number of road upgrades in the area, including an extension of Dorset Rd, widening of Napoleon Rd, Henderson Rd and Wellington Rd.
https://engage.vic.gov.au/dorset-road-extension-napoleon-road-upgrade
https://investment.infrastructure.gov.au/projects?Project_id=100910-18VIC-UCO
https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/planning-and-projects/melbourne-road-projects/henderson-road-and-kelletts-road-intersection-upgrade
So the state has wasted billions of dollars by not building the Rowville railway, and is in the process of throwing good money after bad with more roads.
Rail to Rowville shouldn’t be a higher priority than the Airport link or a tunnel from Newport to Clifton Hill, but it should definitely be on the list.
As for SRL, it substantially improves the value proposition of that project by strengthening the network effect. (2/2)