Re: Airport rail link

["Alex Pout" <alpout@optusnet.com.au>]

Anthony Morton <amorton@mullian.ee.mu.oz.au> wrote in message
8ug098$q17$1@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU">news:8ug098$q17$1@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU...
> Alex Pout <alpout@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>
> >So a ring line would be useless, considering that the Northern/Western
Ring
> >Rd has just been built in the last few years, and never seems short of
cars,
>
> Actually there are a number of radial trips that are catered for by the
> Western Ring Road:
> - People all the way from Brunswick to Frankston use it to access the Hume
>   Highway, as an alternative to Sydney Rd.
> - People from the eastern suburbs use it to access the Western Highway, as
>   an alternative to Ballarat Rd.
> - People from the western suburbs use it to access the central city via
the
>   West Gate Freeway.  (Ever notice how much West Gate traffic has
increased
>   since the southern section of the ring road opened?)

Got to agree that the WRR does take a fair bit of radial traffic.  But how
many people would take the radial option if others were available?

> These are all popular trips and account for much of the traffic on the
Ring
> Road.  But if they were being made by rail, they would be most
appropriately
> done using the radial network.  The only reason this isn't true for roads
is
> that we don't have freeways slicing through the inner city, and that roads
> can only carry a relatively small level of traffic before becoming
congested.
>
> >and that the Scoresby Fwy was still reasonably high on the planning
agenda
> >when I left Melbourne in July? (I know it was cancelled, or is that
really
> >just postponed?)
>
> There is no good reason why the Scoresby Fwy should still be on the
agenda,
> except that a Vicroads-dominated DoI bureaucracy and a powerful road lobby
> wants it built.
>
> >Or that Springvale Rd, Stud Rd, Punt Rd, etc are always busy?
>
> If you track the individual vehicles on Springvale Rd or Stud Rd you'll
find
> that relatively few stay on the road for very long.  On those occasions
when
> I drove a car to Frankston from the city (a radial journey) I'd use the
> southern end of Springvale Rd.  Many people in that area have to travel
> north-south for a small distance even if their trip is predominantly east-
> west, because of the hierarchical grid layout of the arterial roads.  What
> you observe is a large number of short trips adding up to heavy traffic
> throughout.

OK, so wouldn't a link railway with regularly spaced stations (not to
mention connections with all the main radial lines) be accomplishing the
same goal, ie lots of short journeys?  Wouldn't that lead to a large
utilization of the equipment, ie 80% or greater?  I could just jump on a
train and go from Glen Waverley to Bayswater, if that was where I needed to
go.  That would get me off the road, and stop me blocking space on two
radial trains, the inbound and the outbound, while avoiding the unreliable
bus services (which would probably become a lot more reliable with the
reduction in traffic.... another chicken and egg situation...)

Also, with the exception of St Kilda Rd, Queens Parade/Kings Way, Royal
Parade, and Flemington Rd, all the major roads in Melbourne are on a grid
that does not aim for the city (try taking Burwood Hwy, for example,
straight from FTG to the city).  So there's a case here where the radial
train network is good enough because everyone wants to get into the city (or
can have journeys satisfied by a network with this layout), but the road
network is designed to keep you away from and around the city.  Could this
have something to do with the heavy traffic experienced on a regular basis?

> >That Citylink was built to connect the West Gate, Tulla and Monash
> >Fwys?  It always struck me as being pretty useless at accessing the city.
>
> Yet you'll find that's what it's predominantly used for.  The amount of
> traffic wanting to access the city is disproportionately higher than the
> amount wanting to bypass the city.
>
> >I know that there isn't much across the north east, out towards Bundoora,
but
> >that area is still expanding, so wouldn't it make sense to provide the
> >access for it now, while there's time and space?
>
> That's what the rail extension to South Morang is for.

So extend to Craigieburn as well.  Also, when I looked into staying in
Melbourne, I wanted to live in the northwest area (ie Greenvale), but go to
uni at RMIT Bundoora.  How would a radial train/tram network help here?

> >I'd also argue, that as more of an occasional public transport user
(being
> >stuck in the country doesn't help), being able to get on one mode of
> >transport to get to my destination would be preferable to using 2 or 3,
such
> >as bus/train interchanges.  For example, in Melbourne, I would prefer to
> >travel by train from say Coburg to Balaclava the whole way (after
changing
> >somewhere in the loop), rather than jump on a tram at FSS to go down St
> >Kilda Rd.
>
> Of course, because the train gets to Balaclava quicker than the tram does.
> Nevertheless, large numbers of people do change from trains at FSS onto
trams
> to access the intermediate destinations along St Kilda Rd that aren't
served
> by rail.  If you want to improve the PT access for this important area you
can
> do two things: build an entirely new railway down St Kilda Rd (costly and
> difficult), or make the train-tram option more convenient (with tram
priority
> and better interchange facilities at Princes Bridge).
>
> >I think that's one thing that holds public transport back, that
> >personally I'd spend say an hour driving straight to my destination,
rather
> >than 15 minutes on a bus, change for a train, wait 5 minutes for it,
spend
> >40 on it, then tram/bus at the other end to get to my final destination.
>
> Actually, you've just described what I put up with every day.  But I
prefer
> this (marginally) to driving because I can read the newspaper or a good
book
> en route, and it's cheaper.  Still, de gustibus.....

If only.. my last weeks in Melbourne were spent living in Boronia, and
working in Port Melbourne.  I used the train and bus to get there one day,
it took almost an hour and a half.  Driving would take me 40 mins.  I'd use
the extra time I saved by driving to read said paper...

> >Final point: if the options are there for people to use, then they'll use
> >them, IMHO.  To get cars out of cities, then the PT has to at the least
be
> >comparable to driving in both convenience and time factors.
>
> Very true.
>
> >Now, for the
> >eastern suburbs of Melbourne, the trains are popular because they take a
> >similar time to get into the city, there's a fair few stations, and
avoiding
> >some of the roads out that way is a bit of a mission, but out to the
> >northeast around to the west, where the freeway network is more developed
> >and the population is smaller, then trains can't compete.  Rings around
> >cities at least give people the option of how close they want to go
before
> >changing.
>
> If trains can't compete it's not because of some innate advantage of car
> travel, it's just that governments have built so many roads (perhaps to
allow
> middle-class Melburnians to avoid the western suburbs) while leaving
public
> transport to rot.  It's still true that most travel is radial; the missing
> link that stops people using PT is the local bus networks that could take
> people to the railway station.  At the moment you have to drive to the
station,
> and if you've driven that far it's easier to just go the whole way.
>
> Regards,
> Tony M.

Believe me, I'm all for increased public transport in all major cities.
Actually, I'm all for increased public transport being provided nationwide
(passenger and freight).  Would the XPT really take the best part of 13-odd
hours to get from Sydney to Brisbane if just one tenth of the money that had
been spent on highways had gone to rail instead?  If I lived in Sydney
(which, luckily enough, I don't) then I would train it everywhere, and ditch
the car at the first opportunity.  The same could be said for Brisbane,
although it suffers from a similar problem to Melbourne, in having the
radial train network, but at least the trains there are a bit nicer than
either Cityrail or Melbourne (or so my Melburnian girlfriend commented to
me, when we were up north in September).

Regards,
Al