Re: Airport rail link

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

Anthony Morton <amorton@mullian.ee.mu.oz.au> wrote in message
8ucu5u$9ac$1@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU">news:8ucu5u$9ac$1@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU...
>
> >"Michael" <usenet.spam@gunzel.net> wrote in message
>
> >> I totally agree with you there, but try explaining that to our "public
> >> transport activists". They seem to think that 99% of everyone's
journeys
> >> either originate or terminate in the city, so for the 1% that may go
from
> >> say Reservoir to anywhere else in Melbourne, make them travel via the
city
> >> or catch a bus. I would personally drive if I had to go from Reservoir
to
> >> Ringwood (assuming I had a car in the first place), the Ring Road is
> >> useful for that (almost).
>
> Dave Proctor <daproc@spambait.ozemail.com.au> wrote:
>
> >If it was based on Sydney (and I know Sydney and Melbourne are different,
> >but they are also very similar) there are a large number of
cross-suburban
> >journeys which would be rail carried *if* the transport links were
adequate.
>
> Actually Melbourne and Sydney are quite different in their urban form.
> Sydney has well-developed cross-suburban travel patterns supported by
cross-
> suburban rail links such as through Epping and Bankstown.  Melbourne on
the
> other hand has developed on a 'corridors and wedges' model.  The
long-standing
> planning framework for Melbourne had development occurring along radial
> corridors, defined by the railway lines, and separated by 'green wedges'
with
> comparatively little development.
>
> Some of these green wedges have filled in over time (most notably
Doncaster/
> Templestowe which still lacks decent public transport services), but it's
> still true that most travel in Melbourne occurs in the radial direction.
You
> have to distinguish this from the naive 'everyone wants to go to the CBD'
> notion.  That's not what the 'public transport activists' believe; rather,
> they point out that when you count people travelling _towards_ (but not
all
> the way into) the city, such as from Ringwood to Box Hill, you pick up a
lot
> of journeys that can still be served by a radial rail network.  Local and
> radial travel together account for around 80% of trips in Melbourne.
>
> A look at the census journey-to-work figures shows that the number of
people
> commuting from Reservoir to Ringwood across the Yarra Valley is
vanishingly
> small.  Ditto for travel from Ringwood to Dandenong or Frankston, which is
> why the Scoresby Freeway shapes up as an expensive solution in search of a
> problem.  The way to cater for Melbourne's particular travel needs is with
a
> high-capacity radial rail and tram system supported by a cross-suburban
bus
> network (albeit with frequencies and hours of operation similar to trams).
>

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,
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?)  Or that Springvale Rd, Stud Rd, Punt Rd, etc are always
busy?  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.  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?

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.  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.
Also, think of the congestion on all types of transport that could be
reduced by not funneling people into one area to change, whether people are
going to the city, part of the way there, or past it.

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.  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.

So for Melbourne, then why not expand the Albion-Jacana line and run
services on it? It would at least then give some experience on how people
would take to services like that.  Then, plan an eastern ring line to go in,
preferably before the Eastern RR does, along the same basic route, or maybe
say from Mentone, through Oakleigh, to Box Hill.