Commuters face a disjointed connection between Box Hill station (pictured) and the new loop line.Credit:Eddie Jim
The government calls the Suburban Rail Loop “city-shaping” and argues we need it to complement the hub-and-spoke train system that takes passengers into the CBD. It sounds like a good idea,but there has been a litany of problems.
The mayors are right:the project needs a rethink – not just stations,but lock,stock and barrel.
The Suburban Rail Loop is a 90-kilometre passenger rail line that will arc around the city,from Cheltenham,through the eastern and northern suburbs,to the airport and around to Werribee. The sections from Cheltenham to the airport are scheduled for completion several decades from now,at a cost somewhere between $30 billion and $50 billion. It’s the largest public transport project ever to get going in Australia.
Suburban Rail Loop is not only the largest,but also one of the least scrutinised projects in recent Australian history. The project did not appear on Infrastructure Australia’s priority list. It wasn’t in the state government’s ‘Plan Melbourne’ blueprint. Infrastructure Victoria did not recommend the project and was not consulted before the government’s announcement. Neither was cabinet,nor the Department of Transport. Instead,the project had been worked on by Development Victoria,reportedly with the knowledge of only four ministers.
The Andrews government’s planned Suburban Rail Loop.Credit:
It still hasn’t made it to even the most preliminary stage of Infrastructure Australia’s priority list,but that didn’t stop Anthony Albanese,in the heat of the recent election campaign,from promising $2.2 billion of federal government money for the project.
This project is riddled with risk. Grattan Institute research shows thatbigger projects are riskier projects;projects with first-announced costs of more than a billion dollars have a cost overrun almost half of the time,and the average increase in costs is 30 per cent. And if the project is announced close to an election,the average cost overrun is 23 per higher than for similar projects announced at other times.