The Metro Tunnel is open. But the City Loop still needs ‘untangling’, infrastructure boss says

2 months ago 14

Melbourne’s City Loop needs to be rebuilt as two cross-city rail lines that mirror the new Metro Tunnel to boost train services to the rapidly growing northern suburbs, the state’s infrastructure advisory agency says.

The $15 billion Metro Tunnel will start running full timetable operations on February 1 after a two-month “soft-launch”, marking the biggest uplift to the city’s rail network in four decades.

The underground concourse connecting the new State Library station to Melbourne Central.

But Infrastructure Victoria says the state needs to start work to further ease congestion in the City Loop or risk it being overwhelmed by demand from the northern suburbs within a decade.

The independent agency says service on the Craigieburn and Upfield lines – which have some of the least frequent services across the Metro network – could improve significantly by “reconfiguring” the City Loop.

“The real opportunity is to continue to disentangle the City Loop,” Infrastructure Victoria chief executive Dr Jonathan Spear said. “That would get us lots of benefits at a relatively small cost to really improve the reliability and frequency of services.”

The City Loop, which opened in 1981, comprises four sets of underground tracks shared by multiple metropolitan lines. Trains travel into the CBD, around the Loop and back to their suburban termini.

The Craigieburn, Upfield and Sunbury lines currently share a set of tracks, limiting train frequency on each.

The Metro Tunnel will free up some capacity by taking Sunbury trains out of the Loop. These services will instead run through the new nine-kilometre tunnel and continue through to Cranbourne and Pakenham in the city’s south-east.

But Spear said Craigieburn and Upfield trains would still be restricted by a bottleneck in the Loop.

Infrastructure Victoria supports addressing that problem with two short sections of tunnel, one between Flagstaff and North Melbourne stations and the other connecting Parliament and Richmond stations.

That would connect the Craigieburn line to the Frankston line and the Upfield route to the Glen Waverley line, and turn two of the City Loop’s four tunnels into new cross-city lines.

Spear said that with other track upgrades, trains could run every 3½ minutes – the same peak-hour frequency promised on the Metro Tunnel – compared to a maximum of every 10 minutes on the Upfield line and every five minutes on the Craigieburn line.

“You basically get two more metro-style services,” Spear said. “You are disentangling the system further and unlocking capacity in the rail network where it’s most needed in a very cost-effective way.”

Infrastructure Victoria has estimated rebuilding the City Loop would cost between $2 billion and $5 billion, plus another $1 billion for new trains and other infrastructure.

Infrastructure Victoria chief executive Jonathan Spear.

Spear said the proposed Loop project would take about five years to complete and would be needed to meet demand on the Craigieburn line by the mid-2030s. That meant, he said, the state should start work on a business case now.

In the interim, the independent agency wants the state’s rail priorities to be extending the Upfield line to Kalkallo, on Melbourne’s northern fringe, and duplicating sections to unlock better frequency, as well as completing the long-awaited electrification of the Melton line.

Public Transport Users Association spokesman Daniel Bowen said he agreed the work of the Metro Tunnel should continue to separate each suburban line.

However, Bowen said the proposed Melbourne Metro 2, which would link Melbourne’s western suburbs to the north-east through a new tunnel via Fishermans Bend, could be a better project to prioritise.

“Metro 2 is a bigger project but has more benefits,” he said. “I’d almost put Metro 2 ahead of the Loop, if only because something’s got to be done about access into Fishermans Bend. As that area grows, trams and buses aren’t going to cut it.”

An Allan government spokesperson said Craigieburn and Upfield lines would have timetable improvements later this year, including running services at least every 20 minutes.

“The Metro Tunnel is the biggest transformation of Melbourne’s rail network in more than 40 years and frees up space in the City Loop to run more trains, more often, on more line,” the spokesperson said.