Budget: Victoria receives largest portion of BAF funding

Regional Rail Link, the centrepiece of the Brumby Government’s $38 billion Victorian Transport Plan (VTP) has received the largest amount of Federal funding out of all of Infrastructure Australia’s (IA) priority list of critical projects that were announced in the Rudd Government’s Federal budget on May 12th.

By Jennifer Perry

Receiving $3.2 billion from the Building Australia Fund (BAF), the Regional Rail Link was Victoria’s highest priority project that was submitted to IA.
With works that will increase services and improve capacity across the V/line and metropolitan rail networks set to start at the end of the year, Premier John Brumby said that the Regional Rail Link will for the first time, separate Victoria’s regional and metropolitan trains.
Victoria’s budget starts the delivery of the VTP, with the State investing $3 billion to deliver new rail lines, more stations and new roads.
However the Alliance of Councils for Rail Freight Development said that Victoria’s budget is a “city centric response” to the State’s infrastructure priorities and Victoria’s rapidly growing freight task.
The Brumby Government will invest $342 million in transport infrastructure for regional and rural Victoria. Of this, $55.1 million is allocated to the ongoing maintenance of Gold and Silver freight lines identified in the Regional Rail Freight Review, with other key investments including $27.6 million for enhancement of Maryborough rail services and $8.8 million to upgrade regional stations.
“The Brumby Government’s $3 billion spend will do little to tackle the fundamentals in terms of public safety, the environment and economic development in regional Victoria,” the Alliance of Councils for Rail Freight Development’s chairman Vernon Knight said.
The Victorian Freight and Logistics Council’s (VFLC) chief executive officer Rose Elphick told Rail Express that while Federal and State money totalling $1.2 billion has been put into rail and modal projects identified by the VFLC, there are still a number of projects that at this point, remain unfunded.
“The VFLC is concerned that work is not more advanced on the planning for the rail connection for the port of Hastings, the two regional rail upgrades for Gippsland, the rail and intermodal to Dandenong, the Heywood to Mount Gambier rail connection and the improvements to the Geringhap to Geelong section,” Elphick said.
“A number of key road and rail projects are being held over by the Victorian Government subject to Federal support; the projects are significant and expensive and that’s the difficulty, the States can’t do it on their own.”
Elphick said that just as the VFLC predicted, Federal investment for Victoria's rail that was announced in the budget on May 12th is primarily concerned with the issue of public transport congestion.
“We had hoped that the truck action plan money, the alternative to Westgate bridge and work on the Northeast connector from the M80 to EastLink might be in the budget but it looks like we’ll have to wait until either later this year or next year,” she said.
Key public transport projects announced in Victoria’s budget to get underway this year include:
.$650.6 million for 20 X-Trapolis trains as part of the rolling stock investment program
.$562.3 million to extend the Epping line to South Morang
.$204.7 million to electrify the Sydenham line to Sunbury
.$152.6 million to build four new train stations in west and south-east Melbourne
.$60.8 million in partnership with the Federal Government (contributing $480 million), for the grade separation of the Springvale level crossing in Nunawading
.$114 million for metropolitan train station upgrades
.$8.8 million for regional train station upgrades
.$132.1 million for measures to improve reliability and capacity of rail services across Melbourne
.$5 million to commence the procurement of up to 50 new trams

For a report on the Federal budget and what rail projects received Federal funding, see next week’s Rail Express.