Level crossings: Which are funded to be removed, which are promised?

To be a pedant, the ‘Metro’ / ‘Non-Metro’ classifications are not of much use, as many of the ‘Non-Metro’ level crossing are on freight railways in suburban Melbourne.

For example, the Footscray Road level crossing to the Port of Melbourne was classified as ‘Non-Metro’ – yet the amount of delays caused by 1.5 kilometer long freight trains passing through it at 25 km/h were massive. Compare that to the delays caused by a suburban train every ~40 minutes at the far end of the Hurstbridge line.

It does seem very spurious to claim credit for grade separations where no level crossing previously existed. How far would this extend? Will someone go as far as to take credit for the Peninsula Link bridge over the Mornington line?

Further thought: based on the current Government’s apparent definition of “Grade Separation”, how many would they count if they agreed to deck over the rail lines between Federation Square and Batman Avenue?

Number 32 on that list (Clyde rd, Berwick) really should of been done when they were duplicating Clyde road. Seems like such a waste of money to be doing work they could of done in one big hit.
Even its ranking is surprising. Given that southbound there are traffic lights that go red before a train comes.

I guess the re-opening of the rail/road crossing in New Street Brighton last year counts as a minus one?

Utopia, anyone?

@Jase number 9 on the list has the problem of City Link above and Mooney Ponds Creek below which basically make grade separation next to impossible. the next down is Union Rd which is a local road with a grade seperated crossing within about 350m. Aviation Road at number 16 might be justified but once again is a local road and you would question doing it ahead of an arterial.

@Brad. Clyde Road will be done via rail lowering due to the hill for the rail. Meaning the station etc. needs a rebuild. The significant skew on the crossing and nearby access means road over or under isn’t an option. The duplication still divides the road and improves safety and capacity until the rail can be justified. Im surprised to see it so high up the list compared to other crossings on the Dandenong line.

@Flanders – Thanks for the correction. It seems having 2 on Macaulay Road in close proximity with 1 being in the very hard/near impossible would justify leaving them off the priority list given its a local road.

The ranking of some of the crossings shows the skew or visibility of approaching trains really pushes up the ranking in spite of a crossing having boom gates. Whilst it seems fair that the scores would be lifted slightly to account for this factor it seems to have a very high weighting given the all the crossings up the high end of the list are boom gate controlled crossings.

Its also amazing that Clyde Road with less trains and I imagine less cars could be within 2 of Heatherton Road.

With Reservoir station. If we bury it, we can connect Broadway with Edwardes St. That would be a treat.

I agree with @Tranzit Jim. And at 1/3 the cost per crossing, by using elevated rail wherever possible, the state will be able to have three times as many for the same budget, and perhaps also in much less time with far less disruption. There are many other benefits of elevated rail over trenched rail. While most of the time, level crossings and grade separations are seen as a transport issue, primarily for private cars and trucks etc by the wider community, and as an impediment to better PT by those in the know, there are significant issues to do with urban amenity of the precincts around them that should be considered as part of every grade separation project.

Lets start with the ‘as existing’ conditions. An at-grade railway is a barrier to crossing at all points along its length apart from those places that are legally sanctioned and surveilled. Of course, people can, if they wish, still cross the line at many places, so the severance between communities on either side of the line isn’t total. But any cursory analysis of the connectivity across rail lines will show that for pedestrians and cyclists the severance can be severe, forcing people to travel much greater distances than otherwise to get from one side of the line to the other. With trenched rail lines, along the length of the trench, this situation is usually made worse. The trench makes the track alignment totally impassable due to the changes in level, and the anti-suicide fences along the tops of the retaining walls make the danger clear. The length of the severance is significant – often up to a kilometre either side of the ‘buried’ station, with the new bridge over the station being one of the few places to cross the tracks. Bridging and decking over trenches is expensive, so there are few additional crossing places provided beyond the station itself.

With an elevated rail line, the space beneath the viaduct allows as many crossing places to be provided as required to meet the local communities’ needs for pedestrian and cyclist connections, and even, additional vehicle connections. The land beneath the viaduct is effectively ‘free real estate’, since the state already owns the land, and it can be put to a wide variety of uses to meet the needs and aspirations of the local community. While it is true that at the ends of the viaduct where the inclined sections return to grade, there will be a length that will have insufficient headroom to provide new connectivity at ground level, but the overall potential to provide ground level connections and improved amenity for local communities will be far greater with elevated rail than *any other* grade separation approach (other than fully-tunnelled alignments, but these are too expensive to ever be used in anything other than CBD and other very high-value land locations).

Some may be skeptical about elevated rail, partly because experience of it in Melbourne is limited. People ask: What about the noise? What about the space under the viaducts? What about the visual intrusion of the stations and the viaducts? In answer to these concerns, let me first say, these questions can best be answered by the evidence available from the many instances of elevated rail across the world – from North America, Europe and Asia, all places that have built elevated urban rail systems in the contemporary era with outstanding success.

Firstly, the noise. Sound abatement technology is well-developed, there are many ways of achieving the necessary sound reductions, in short, it is not a problem. It is however an opportunity for designers to make the viaducts more attractive through innovative approaches to the form, texture and shape of railway sound barriers – much in the same way that Victoria builds the world’s most artistic sound walls, we could do the same for our urban rail alignments, though they would not need to be so sizeable!

Second – the space beneath the viaducts. Many have indicated concern that this space could be unattractive, dark, dingy and attract anti-social behaviour, most likely due to experience with the spaces beneath freeway and other arterial road viaducts in Melbourne and elsewhere. However, unlike road viaducts, rail alignments require much less space to move the same quantity of people per hour. This means rail viaducts in general will be much narrower than road viaducts. Also, the quality of the space beneath the viaduct is determined by the height and shape of the structure. There are many ways of ensuring that viaducts can be attractive to the eye and sufficiently high above the ground to achieve a sense of space and light beneath. For example, in Vancouver which has an extensive elevated rail system, many of the spaces beneath the viaducts pass through are attractively landscaped reserves and parks.

Third – the visual impact of the stations and viaducts. One of the problems for many suburban stations across Melbourne is that they lack civic presence, as well as providing low passenger amenity, difficult way finding and poor intermodal connectivity. Elevated stations are an opportunity for taking station design, and importantly, the precincts around them, much more seriously. Given the significant savings of elevating rail lines (1/3 the cost of trenching for grade separations), then it could reasonably expected (and convincingly argued) that some of the savings overall should be re-allocated to better station design. To this end, this would mean complete protection from wind and rain with shade from the sun. It should also mean complementary facilities at stations – like cafes (not just kiosks), newsagents, groceries and supermarkets, key cutters, heel bars, libraries and even, childcare and other facilities used by local communities and commuters alike. Such accommodation could easily be built on the land that becomes available beneath the viaduct – at much less cost, and far more financially plausible than on top of expensive decking over the top of a trench. Such stations would transform the perceptions of PT as well as the actual, everyday, lived experience of public transport in Melbourne – it would be a pleasure rather than a chore. And of course, if really necessary, some of the land left over beneath the viaduct could be used for station parking … though that’s another story.

And there is one last point about elevated rail, well, actually two.

Firstly, thinking about grade separations as opportunities to improve the overall level of amenity and connectivity means that they need to be seen beyond a collection of one-off technical exercises. Once the implications of grade separations as elevated (or for that matter, trenched – the inclines and the lengths of track affected are pretty much the same) are looked at in detail, it becomes clear that cherry-picking them is likely to result in some negative urban outcomes on the ground, beyond those already identified for trenching above. In many instances, stations and roads crossing the line, whatever their designation, are too close together to allow the ‘one off’ grade separations to occur without impacts up and down the line. To achieve the required inclines, some smaller roads may have to be closed, or if not, then the elevated or trenched rail section must be longer, and this may then, in many instances, pick up more stations along the way. The alternative is to do a road-over or road-under rail separation. But in any urbanised situation where the rail line and station are close to or part of a local centre, however small, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible to achieve a decent urban outcome this way. It is notable that VicRoads earlier this year rejected the ‘Grade Separation Lite’ proposal for road-under rail along the Dandenong corridor. The conclusion to be drawn from this is that grade separations, if they are to provide the best long-term urban outcomes possible, need to be considered as part of a strategy of looking at entire rail corridors as integrated urban ensembles. And if elevated rail is 1/3 the cost of the business-as-usual trench, then there could be three times as many, and thus, elevating entire sections of line becomes a possibility, with a range of attendant benefits that multiply. After all, if we are to think about grade separations purely from a public transport perspective, then the we need to think about what the impact of level crossings is on rail service frequencies as well as buses, a few trams and private vehicles. Which level crossings need to be removed to ensure that PTV can run as many trains as the 2012 Network Development Plan says it would like to do? And which level crossings need to be removed to run as many buses as possible to achieve the aims of the PTUA, the Greens and BZE for enhanced PT mode share? The ALCAM list is all very well, but its assessment criteria have little do with improving public transport services.

Finally, then, what about the experiential differences afforded by elevated rail over putting trains in trenches? One of the wonderful things about riding a train in Melbourne is that the majority of it is at or above grade. The passenger experience includes awareness of the seasons, the weather, the time of day, the locations being travelled through. This is far superior to the kind of passenger experience available on an underground railway, no matter how glamorous the city one might be in. The trouble is, it sometimes seems, with the penchant for trenching in Melbourne that the desire is to bury our rail lines as much as possible, to put them out of sight of the general public, while appealing to a misplaced notion of cultural superiority drawn from ideas about the underground lines in London, Paris, or New York. But unlike those proud traditions of urban transit platemaking, with their highly distinctive station designs, the enormous investments by the Victorian community in trenches have primarily given passengers hundreds of metres of grey shotcrete!

We can do so much better!

The story about St. Albans gets more interesting the more I hear about it. Perhaps the elevated option didn’t get up in the end (pardon the pun) due to inadequate representations to explain its merits; perhaps, if the brief had been to think about the Sunshine-Sydenham corridor as a whole rather than a single level crossing, the merits of elevated rail would have been clearer to all concerned. I’m keen to know more about what happened there, for research purposes, since I’m writing about the process of dragging Melbourne’s 19th century rail system into the 21st century.

The thing about people’s perceptions of elevated rail that I omitted to mention above (although it was in my mind) is that it’s not actually true that people lack experience of it in the Melbourne context. There is quite a lot of elevated rail in Melbourne, but people tend to forget it’s there it’s so much a part of their ‘taken for granted’ sense of place. Of course, most of it isn’t on viaducts, it’s on embankments, but it’s elevated all the same, with many rail bridges in many, many places. And what’s more, large parts of it run through some of Melbourne’s most desirable suburbs – Canterbury, Chatham, Hawthorn for example. Glenferrie, Auburn and Canterbury are all elevated stations in heritage protected, leafy suburbs. Swinburne University has an elevated rail line running through the middle of it – does anyone complain? No-one is calling for these stations to be sunk into trenches or buried away out of sight. And we know all too well how the people of Camberwell demonstrated passionately when it was proposed to build over the top of their local station. The rail-travelling public of Melbourne know very well the pleasures of elevated stations and the richness of the connections, visual and social, that they can afford with their locales.

I like those clips, Tony Smith! If you have the time, it would be great to try a similar exercise going east from Richmond (to showcase the elevated sections out that way) and north east from Jolimont to pick up the elevated sections in heritage-rich Collingwood …

As for architecture design studios, I am hoping to run some of those again, and yes, we did run a series of three of them from 2013-14, culminating in an exhibition of the work and a (limited print run) of a catalogue summarising the results. Thankfully, luckily, Adam Carey of The Age took a keen interest in the project and gave it a double-page spread when the show was on. Here’s the link:

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/drab-train-stations-come-to-life-in-university-design-project-20140616-zs9r7.html

Daniel, interesting list, and Labor’s is an interesting list too! Some of those Frankston line annoucements make absolutely no sense! Station St, Bonbeach, Station St/Edithvale Rd, Edithvale? How is that going to work? And of course, while it would be impossible, no mentions of the two crossings in Mordialloc or on Station St (Mordi? Aspendale?) next to the creek/Mordialloc College, or in Carrum (up side, but close to the sidings); those ones are the busiest for trains or for cars, and also seem to be some of the most dangerous from noting the number of crashes/deaths along the line (Carrum is particularly bad).
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I have spent a lot of long journeys to Frankston wondering how the line could be grade separated. Mordialloc is impossible without losing the stabling sidings (although sell the land and build them elsewhere and it could be an asset). Same with Carrum. And the stretch between Mordi and Carrum is just weird, two roads (Nepean Hwy and Station St) paralell with many crossings, all on a sand dune near the beach. Going down/under would be a geotechnical nightmare from the seepage in the area. Sand near a beach does not sound like fun to permanently dig into (even though apartment basements do); would assume it needs very good pumping. Going over would cut the (visual aspect) of the existing communities in half (but there are sections where the line is much higher than the surrounding houses, but that is old and mostly natural).
So I have no idea how they’ll do it. Or if it is even needed along that section of the line at all (some road congestion at points, but it is MUCH worse elsewhere!)

But, on the point of how to approach these projects, Ian raises something I only came to think about seriously after seeing his work in the paper (interesting it was!). I had always seen rail embankments as being nice for rail users and elevating the visual status a lot, but being a detriment to the communities around them (noise, overlooking, etc). A historical thing that we had, and people accepted. I still think most people would see it like that, and complain to the bitter end about being overlooked by a new railway.
But there are significant advantages from railways being at or above the surface through Melbourne. One being that mobile phone reception isn’t quite as bad (and travel travellers sure love their mobile devices these days). Another is that the amenity of the journey is much greater, with natural light, a view, looking over the suburbs and seeing the greater extent of the people and places we live in, and not being within a metre of drab concrete/shotcrete wall (which makes everything seem much less safe/crime-ridden and less pleasant).
The elevation of the railway above street level also means that people acknowledge that it is there. It is very hard to miss the railway on Glenferrie Rd or Auburn Rd, Hawthorn, for instance. It is an integral part of the landscape and the experience of the area. It is intruding, but you also know instantly that there’s a station nearby.

The station designs shown in the concept work for that architectural studio study are very interesting. The idea of completely transforming the urban environment by elevating stations and making them an architectural centrepiece is very NOT Melbourne so far, but it would make the role of rail and the station itself in the community more obvious, more anchored. I found many of the designs weren’t workable, they are not good designs from a practical standpoint (but much of architecture doesn’t seem to work like that), and I don’t think they studied the wider transportation context and integration into a continuous urban framework of the road network, surrounding PT network, train line in totality. But I never thought that was the point. The point was to explore ideas, and potentially inspire people like me to think differently.

Comments about the good/bad aspects of rail above road in urban areas, particularly through residential and commerical-shopping neighbourhoods are interesting. Somewhere like Springvale I don’t think it would have mattered much, and as it stands the new station design does seem to be compromised (and cost a LOT of money). The land around the area is either industrial or lower-quality, lower-income, lower-density suburban housing, or the giant station carpark. The noise aspects of the very short section of sunken line wouldn’t make a huge difference overall if elevated, and there was heaps of space. If it were elevated, most of it wouldn’t have been on a viaduct, but probably on an embankment (also, less maintenance required).
Something I have found interesting is that no one is worried about vehicles falling off road bridges in the trenched rail line any more (this seemed to be a concern a few years back?). Rail over road mostly fixes that (but adds the potentially much less deadly bridge-strike to the equation).
There are locations where rail over road is probably not a good option. Ormond is probably like that due to the local geography. But along the Dandeong corridor it doesn’t seem like it greatly matters either way. If the space above the line isn’t appropriately developed (allowing for quadruplication!) then it is wasted if the line is lowered, given the additional costs.
Whatever the outcomes, developments like the road overpasses at West Footscray, Oakleigh or Huntingdale are not ideal (and really split communities, and even roads), and I hope we don’t end up building more examples like that. I genuinely think that Oakleigh could and should be redeveloped to remove that overpass, probably sink the line (depends) and completely change the entire precinct, but I know it will never happen due the cost of fiddling with something that already works. We do seem to be very good at now burying our pesky railway lines below roads to allow cars to drive more freely and to put them out of sight (and out of mind?). Let’s hope it isn’t to our detriment.

Interesting David, and a thoughtful and wide analysis on a large number of sites.
That design for Mordialloc was all I could think of, too. Grades at the up and down ends would work well. And yes, pointless to retain yard (still not sold on the Baxter stabling yard, given how far it is from the current network, but I guess it would have a huge amount of space).
I can understand possibly having a larger number of platforms at Mordialloc, given it is a natural terminating point for short run services. But why would you ever need more than two tracks beyond Mordialloc to Frankston? Even if suburban services were extended down the Peninsula (why? It isn’t likely to grow very much, it isn’t a growth corridor), it would be illogical to run normal express trains beyond Mordialloc. We are constrained by three tracks further up the line anyway, and that is unlikely to be expanded upon for decades, if ever (so many more worthy projects first, too).
As far as I know any frieght route from a potential Port of Hastings are to go via Dandenong, because it would be more useful: inter-modal terminals in that region, and need to expand Dandenong corridor anyway. That would be the only use case for more tracks on Frankston corridor, and unlikely.

Comments about the wonderful road over rail projects are interesting. Many suck. Forgot about Newport et al. I assume Broadmeadows, Strathmore (?) on Pascoe Vale Rd fall into that category?
But an example like Westall is actually a good construction. Was very very needed, rail raised or lowered would have sucked. Road could be lowered, but I assume easier to go over. There are some residential areas but they aren’t impacted by the overpass. Generally not a terrible urban design.
Same at Frankston. I assume Fletcher Rd overpass is actually 1980s by the design. And it doesn’t have a terrible impact on the environment around it. Works well for traffic, and for trains. Site would be just awful without it, because trains would he waiting for road signals to meet some sort of sync before the could leave. So I don’t think that is an example of a poorly designed project either. Rest are universally terrible though! Heh.

Ian,

Back in the 90’s, Westall was surrounded by rail sidings to a plethora of industries. Those yards would need to be flat for safety during shunting and stabling, and ground-level access would have made wagon loading/unloading much easier. This diagram is from 1975:
http://signaldiagramsandphotos.com/mywebpages/vr/Metropolitan/6%2775.gif

Cal,

Re stabling on the Frankston line, the original scheme was for a yard at Langwarrin in 1981 – http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/3327/langwarrinstation.jpg

That can’t be built today because standards have changed – we need to allow for longer (straight) platforms and trains, for example, and the 1-in-8 ramp onto the platform is not compliant with the current disability/access legislation. I’m not sure when the plan changed to but the yard at Baxter, though I suspect it has something to do with the early 90’s advocacy for restoration of the Mornington Line, hence arguments for electrification to Baxter rather than to Somerville.

(Of course Mornington restoration will never and should never happen, given the lack of population at Moorooduc and that any train would only save a few minutes over a bus along Nepean Highway.)

I’m allowing provision for four tracks to Frankston as a rule of thumb – two tracks should be limited to one average speed (i.e. stopping trains) and any third track is and will be useless, ever since we abolished Jolimont stabling yards as a location to hold the extra trains between peaks. Also worth considering is that Frankston could still grow considerably; it’s been marked as a place of interest as far back as MOTC and that’s still true in PlanMelbourne. I’m also not sure of the current status of plans for the rail line down the side of the Westernport Highway.

Re Broadmeadows, I’ve only been able to determine that the grade separation occurred sometime between 1969 and 1979. I gather the crossing was upgraded from gatekeeper to flashing lights in 1961 as part of the Standard Gauge project.

It seems Pascoe Vale Road, north of Strathmore station, was grade separated sometime between 1963 (diagram 6’63) and 1966 (Melway Ed1, 1966).

Thanks David and Cal for your answers about Westall. I can understand why you make that case now. Mind you, whether an area is industrial or any other use, elevated rail lines allow much greater possibilities for change and development as time passes than tracks at grade. Thinking about elevated rail also means that additions and extensions to the system become much easier, since the alignment can pass through many areas that would be difficult/impossible at surface level. Of course, tunnelling also has this advantage, but it’s prohibitively expensive in all but the central city and other high-value commercial areas.

If one imagines Melbourne’s future long term – say, 50 to 100 years ahead, with 2, 3 and 4 times the population of today, then strategies that allow maximum expansion of rail services, with potential for urban renewal and transformation at stations need to be considered a priority rather than short-term solutions.

Seems strange to include Nth Williamstown as it is a branch line with lower transits. Then I cannot see Spotswood on the list at all. Which is high traffic and closed more than open for peak periods. A new crossing one block north at the Avenue across to Simcock Ave would be a no brainer as the grades alter and it would take the trucks out of the shopping strip near the station that use Hudson rd now.

Daryl – the decisions around costs versus value in relation to PT projects are hard to fathom. The Southland Station debate – a toilet-less, shelter-less, minimalist version for $13M versus a $45M design with the full compliment of facilities and amenity – left us without anything while the Southland mall sits mere metres from the tracks. However, in terms of the strategic transport planning issues, such things are a distraction. The focus on removing level crossings in the metropolitan area is (or at least, should be) about improving the overall performance of the entire PT system (trains, buses and trams) as an integrated network. Level crossings make it difficult, if not impossible to increase rail frequencies – because more trains would mean boom gates being down for more time, causing more traffic congestion. More congestion means that improvements in bus services become difficult, if not impossible, because a very large number of bus routes cross rail lines, and so the timetables would become unworkable with buses stuck in tail-backs all the time.

There aren’t many places where trains and trams share crossings, but again, the same principle applies: increasing service frequencies would become very difficult for those lines that cross. However, at the same time, the fundamental principle of network planning in PT is the effective operation of the nodes where services inter-connect – trains, buses and trams ideally should be as close to each other at these nodes for ease of passenger transfer, yet at the same time, there should be clear grade separations at these nodes to allow as many services to be run as possible. This is the case whether services are planned according to pulse time-tabling or ‘turn up and go’ timetabling.

Pulse timetabling relies on all of the services that are intended to interconnect arriving at the node at their scheduled time – the model is based on minimising the ‘transfer penalty’ of the time taken to interchange between services, whatever their frequency – and on the reliability of the timetable. Delays create havoc with these key principles and the system breaks down. With ‘turn up and go’ the idea is to run so many services that timetables become un-necessary because waiting and transferring are minimised. This requires the ability to run as many services as possible – trains every 90-180 seconds is not uncommon; buses and trams every 5-10 minutes or less in some cases. Both of these approaches to network planning require planners to be able to guarantee their services. Without grade separations, and in many cases, the implementation of dedicated lanes for buses and reserves for trams (making them into light rail), it will be impossible to create the conditions for this kind of integrated, networked public transport system.

The regional lines that connect to the metropolitan system largely use the same corridors, and there would be flow-on benefits from a better metropolitan system for these services. Passengers arriving from regional areas would benefit from a better metropolitan PT network – after all, they arrived on PT at Southern Cross, they will want to get somewhere else after that: hire cars and taxis are expensive, being collected by hosts in cars is time-consuming – far better to continue to their destinations via high-quality PT. And once that experience becomes possible, then the demand for regional PT would rise and services could be improved and extended. That’s not to say they shouldn’t be improved and extended now, but there are constraints on such improvement until the metropolitan system is significantly upgraded.

Regional Rail link also knocked off Anderson Road on both the Freight lines and the Sunbury Line.
It all started in the “modern times” with Boronia Road grade separation in 1998 (a wet Cup Weekend) and then onto the others after a spell of a few years… Great information, I have a similar list with all the old grade separations in it… Warrigal Road at Oakleigh is Vic Roads main disaster and good example of what not to do… Cheers

I should add that Station St Bonbeach is 41 on the list and Bondi Rd is only 90…

But then there was accident in mid 2013 – http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/heavy-delays-on-frankston-train-line-after-crash-at-bonbeach-level-crossing-20130829-2suab.html

Having said that, trains pass through Station St at a greater speed as it’s between stations so it’d remain a higher risk.

Hi Daniel.
An idea has occurred to me regarding the proposed skyrail along the Frankston line corridor which I’d be interested in your feedback.
The thrust of my proposal incorporates several stages.
Firstly leave the crossings as they are (more later) and dig road underpasses , eg , halfway between stations.
Secondly, construct four long ramps parallel to the underpass from both directions either side of the existing railway tracks.
Thirdly, develop a sophisticated traffic light signal system to cope with the traffic. Lastly, put extra boom gates at existing and still-operational crossings.This will stop illegal passage but allow emergency vehicle and oversize/height trucks to be able to pass through under Metro Rail camera management.

@Rob I think you’ve hit the nail on the head at the start of your comment – when it’s done right, elevated rail is efficient, quieter and can blend in pretty well within it’s environment. Sadly though, there’s a long list of public projects done poorly in Melbourne and I don’t think many people have the confidence our version of elevated rail will be any different. Based on the dreaded ‘artist impressions’ for CD9 the designs aren’t all that inspiring and given that’s all we have to go on so far the fear of elevated rail is understandable.
I lived in London for a couple of years and spent way too many hours underground on the Tube! But I’m not sure passenger experience should be prioritised over the experience of people living around the line itself. In terms of noise, light rail tends to be quieter wherever it is but with freight/diesel trains being serviced as well on the Dandy line I’m not convinced there will be a lot of difference (I remain hopeful though :-))