Level crossings – November 2022 update

The number of crossings in Melbourne removed or bring removed is up to 112 as of today. They are saying 110 but they are not including Anderson Street and Champion Road on the Werribee line, as they don’t want to draw attention to road closures, even though many have already been counted in the list until now. Being election season, closures are suddenly sensitive.

Quite a few of the level crossings on your list shown as Underway are already gone, e.g. Bell St, Cramer St, Oakover Rd and Murray Rd in Preston, Cherry St Werribee, Glenroy Rd Glenroy, Gap Rd Sunbury, Fitzgerald Rd Ardeer, etc. Landscaping etc. for the projects may not be complete (although I thought Cherry St was well and truly done and dusted) but the crossings are gone and the lines are running as normal.

“.. not a single crossing on the Sandringham line has been planned or pledged.”
Grrrr. Guess which line I live on! OK, there is nothing like self interest to get people fired up.

The benefits of removal aren’t so clear cut in all areas. Ours in Williamstown North – we measured in 2017 prior to the boom gates being removed, and again just recently. In 2017 the down time – boom gates and pedestrian crossing lights – was 38 minutes in the 2 -hour morning peak, measured on a Wednesday. The recent survey showed that stoppage time had INCREASED to 44 minutes in the 2 hour morning period, a 21% increase in delays. This is due to pedestrians having access to a second pedestrian-activated crossing. Whenever you go near the station precinct now you can be sure you will be facing a red light. The community argued strongly that pedestrians were the main source of delays prior to boom gate removal, and we sought a pedestrian link from the other side of the road to the underground platforms. This was refused on the grounds that it ‘couldn’t be done due to DDA compliance’. We argued that DDA access was available at the station entrance and that surely not EVERY entry point needed to be DDA-compliant? We were fobbed off by the ‘experts’ and no one in Govt responds to emails….

AS for URBAN DESIGN aspects, I suspect that many of these crossing removals have caused new problems for communities, not to mention the horrible bulk and appearance of some of them. In my view, they have been done in haste, and with little regard to all aspects, not simply the engineering aspects. I feel very sorry for communities such as around Buckley St Essendon, where the road trench has cut the area in half and isolated the local shopping strip. Also for the communities of Mont Albert and Surrey Hills who have lost their stations in favour of a new station which has worse access. There truly needs to be a wide-ranging evaluation of the Level Crossing Removals Program that assesses a range of parameters.

Some other abolished level crossing on the 2008 ACLAM list between 300 and 473:

303. Anglesea Rd, Mount Dundeed.

357. Princes Highway, Warncoort.

389. Hovell St, Wodonga.

431. McCarten St (Roughead St), Leongatha.

463. Murray Valley Hwy(Thomas Mitchell Drive), Wodonga.

@Anna
“This is due to pedestrians having access to a second pedestrian-activated crossing.”
That second crossing is synchronised to the first crossing though – i.e. they both go red and green at the same time, so I’m not sure that the increase in delays is due to that reason.

One to watch in Geelong, Reserve Rd, Grovedale could be a closure when Stage 1 of the Geelong Ring Road, Bellarine Extension is built. It’s not clear if they will leave it operating for the few houses between the crossing and where reserve rd will be cut off and replaced with the Ring Road.

https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/projects/mrpv/geelong-ring-road-extension-bellarine-link