04 December 2008

Leaked plan: Too little, too late?

Leaked details of the long awaited Government transport plan have been reported in today's papers. The Age and Herald-Sun. More trams and trains are on the shopping list, and the rail line to South Morang gets a tick. Public transport supporters will be very keen to see the details, especially the construction timetable. No doubt there will be disappointment about Doncaster and Rowville rail.

(Pictured: The end of the Epping line)

What do you think? Do these leaks make you feel positive about the looming transport plan?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Sunbury line is not as bad as Melton, If the leak is true and Sunbury gets electrified, and not Melton, its a disgrace. And labor will loose votes in Melton, because they will have lost mine and a few others.

Anonymous said...

I was just talking to my friends about the proposed link from Deer Park to Werribee. Our greatest concern with this proposal is that not many commuters use Deer Park, Melton is a much better link as more passengers are likely to use the link, than at Deer Park. As it currently stands people from Melton for example who travel to Werribee have to catch a Vline to say Footscray then a Connex to Werribee. This will save them time with the link. However, people like myself who travel on the Werribee line but do not go to Werribee (I go to Altona) will need to catch three trains (Vline from Melton, train from Deer Park to Werribee and a Connex from Werribee to Altona) that is three trains I have to rely on, it might be a quicker root, I don't know. Lets say the root is quickest going by the link rather than at Footscray, it means I will now be catching a peek train from Werribee to Altona to get to work, as well as a peek train from Melton to Deer Park, its a bit of a convergence, as currently I travel to Altona via a non peak service. The link is useless for me traveling to Melton as some peak hour services bypass Deer Park all together, which limits the number of peak trains I can catch to get home.

My solution is to create a link from Melton to Werribee, it can go through Deer Park if they wish, this creates a number of avenues.

1) The Melton to Werribee train could then after reaching Werribee go to the city and, vice versa, creating a loop effect.This adds more trains to the Werribee line and also provides more trains to Melton, with Melton becoming electrified in the process.
2) The link can also be used by Vline to run Ballarat to Werribee to Geelong services, which enables Ballarat passengers to travel by train rather than bus, also allows the western suburbs to travel to Geelong without having to travel anywhere near the city, as they can travel to Melton or even Deer Park, which is better than Footscray or Southern Cross.

From my point of view, as I travel on the Werribee line from Melton, as the plan currently stands I will not use the link as I feel it is a hassle, especially as I rather catch one peak service to work, instead of two.

I am interested to hear what you have to say regarding my two points I listed above. Maybe I am wrong about the link and it might be benefit to me, I am sure you will advise me of the facts if I am wrong.

Kind Regards,

Tim.

Anonymous said...

i travel from melton to werribee qiiet a lot it would be benificial if the melton line become electrofied and becomes part of the whole network with a link from melton to werribee. i saw in this report a person has to got altona your best plan is get to footscray and wait for the the werribee train via altona you dont have to go all the way to werribee to change and come back to altona.the link thats going in between werribee and deer park would be good if you could connect to electric and deisel train services such as from deer park connection to geelong and a new to link to the bendigo and shepparton lines our infrastructure planners need to plan now for the year 2050 and work out what melbournes needs are for then and it would be time to start planning for intersection less rail lines such as they have in england.we need to plan now for connex trains to run to ballarat,geelong ,seymourand possibly kyneton its about ime the turkeys pulled their heads out of the sand and join reality of what our needs are