It’s a $34.5b train line, but how will you get to the station?

3 months ago 21

The Suburban Rail Loop may struggle to coax Melburnians out of their cars and onto public transport because of a failure to build walking and riding connections to stations along the $34.5 billion project.

The Allan government released plans to radically reshape suburbs around each of the six stations along the SRL East project earlier this year, including ambitious targets to enable 70,000 new homes and also reduce residents’ private motor vehicle usage.

David Blom says better bike connections – like the one earmarked along the Clayton South Main Drain – would improve access to the new SRL stations.

Car travel would reduce from being 74 per cent of trips around Cheltenham today to 56 per cent by 2041, and from 70 per cent to 53 per cent in Clayton. At Box Hill, car travel would fall from 60 per cent of trips to just 35 per cent.

But local councils and sustainable transport advocates say the draft structure plans do not include the necessary infrastructure, so people can get to and from the new underground stations on foot, bicycles or e-scooters.

Tunnelling on the 26-kilometre rail line between Cheltenham and Box Hill is set to start next year. The SRL is scheduled to open to passengers in 2035.

David Blom, from the Metro East Bicycle Users Group, said the SRL had the potential to be a “game-changing” project that could “take many thousands of cars off the road and get people where they are going quicker that they would by driving”.

But Blom said the current plans would fail to make the most of the $34.5 billion rail investment because they considered bicycle links only within about a kilometre of the stations.

That missed the opportunity to increase the potential catchment area by planning for bicycle trails within five kilometres of the new stations, he said, which would vastly increase the number of people who could use the SRL East without having to first drive to a station.

“Building the strategic cycling corridors, and links to all the neighbouring activity centres – the places where people work, the places people shop and places where people go to school – would drive value into the SRL,” Blom said.

“Places that aren’t 100 per cent connected by the SRL could be accessible to an SRL station with a quick five- or 10-minute bike ride.”

This combination of trains and bikes is used most successfully in the Netherlands, where about half of all train passengers arrive at stations by bicycle. The main train station in Utrecht has parking for 12,500 bikes.

Blom said one missed opportunity was to build the long-planned but never-built bike path along the Clayton South Main Drain, which would connect thousands of homes between Moorabin and Clarinda to the SRL station at Clayton.

An SRL Authority spokesperson said the project would include 15 kilometres of new or upgraded walking and bicycle paths, and almost 3500 bike-parking spaces near the new stations.

An artist’s impression of the SRL station at Monash University.

“Extensive community consultation has shaped the draft structure plans … and we’ll keep working with locals and stakeholders before the plans are finalised,” they said.

Monash City Council – which takes in Clayton, Monash and Glen Waverly SRL stations – has also cast doubt on the SRL’s aspirations for a transport “mode shift”.

“Achieving modal shift also relies on significant investment in active transport improvements to the bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure within the precinct,” the council said in its submission on the draft structure plans.

“The active transport mode split targets included in the documents are ambitious, and council is not convinced the recommended active transport projects will achieve these targets.”

Whitehorse City Council also raised concerns that the SRL’s plans would not deliver the intended shift away from driving towards sustainable transport in Box Hill and Burwood, given the “out of kilter” level of investment planned for walking and riding infrastructure.

“There is limited information for how safe, quality cycling infrastructures are to be provided in areas where road space is limited and modal priorities are not explicitly clear or fully resolved,” the council said in its submission.

The lack of shade planned for key walking and cycling routes would also prevent people from getting to the stations, the council said.

Monash Council said it had been left on the hook to pay for the walking and riding projects identified in the draft plans, and wants the SRL Authority to pay for more of this infrastructure.

A Planning Panels Victoria advisory committee will next hold public hearings into the draft structure plans starting on August 25, and specifically examine whether the plans “facilitate a suitable and achievable” shift away from car travel in the SRL precincts.

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