SRL: Provision for extra stops

While we’re all getting used to the Metro Tunnel, the State Government is pushing ahead with the suburban rail loop, with a big $6.7b contract announced in December to provide driverless trains, associated signalling and control systems and platform screen doors, and recent social media updates about Tunnel Boring Machines arriving and preparing for work.

This week, the Federal body Infrastructure Australia put the project on their priority list, which paves the way for the Federal Government to give it funding.

The line’s route seems to be pretty much what State Labor took to the 2018 state election.

But there’s one key thing that was missing then and still seems to be missing now, and that is provision for future additional stations.

This is particularly important between Southland (Cheltenham) and Clayton, with a long distance between those two stations.

You can see from the map above that the distances are far longer than on the existing rail network.

As the crow flies it’s about 7km, which would make it the fourth longest distance between stations (based on the excellent list by Phillip Mallis.)

In terms of track length, this section of the actual SRL route is more like 9km long, ranking it second longest. All the others in the top ten (apart from Newport to Laverton, which arguably should be discounted as it’s an express bypass route) are in the outer suburbs, on Melbourne’s fringe.

I’m not suggesting they should add lots of stops and compromise the quick cross-suburban trip. Nor am I suggesting they build an intermediate stop right now. They seem very focussed on containing costs (which is probably why the promise of paid area interchange at all connecting Metro stations has gone out the window).

But they should be including provision for future extra stations.

For an underground railway, including provision is cheap to do during construction, but near impossible to do later, as it requires a section of tunnel to be built flat and straight, with extra space that can be used later to build a station.

Trying to do it later would not just close the line for months or years, it would be prohibitively expensive.

Locking these options out forever would be a huge missed opportunity. The government claims SRL is “More transport, more homes, more jobs” – so surely allowing for additional future development precincts should be an no-brainer.

One obvious spot for an extra station would be in the Warrigal Road area. It’s an area of mostly low density light industrial, ripe for urban renewal if it has good transport links.

This point has been made to the State Government repeatedly over the years – I assume by others as well as me.

But looking at the plans, it appears that the only provision for a potential additional station is in Heatherton near the stabling yard, alongside Kingston Road.

This is a location which is also in a green wedge (putting the depot here is part of what makes the whole project controversial for locals) and so is probably not a great spot for large scale housing development.

The plans also show a straight section near Warrigal Road, and there’s a long section parallel to Clayton Road which is straight, but it’s not clear if either of these are designed to be level, and being made suitable for future stations.

If Government isn’t planning for future stations now, they’re locking out options for the future. And that really would be short-sighted.

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You can view the exact route in the SRL East EES: Surface and Tunnel Plans document