Victoria’s Level Crossing Removal Project (LXRP) is supporting community sport with a $400,000 investment to upgrade cricket and baseball fields near the Union Road, Surrey Hills and Mont Albert Road, Mont Albert project site.
Construction is underway on removing the two dangerous and congested level crossings, which will be replaced with a 1.3km rail trench as well as a new Union Station next year. The project team has been using the ovals at Elgar Park, Box Hill North and at Surrey Park, Box Hill as a staging ground for materials and equipment while construction is underway.
To thank the community for their patience, the project will upgrade the Mont Albert Primary School cricket oval with a new pitch, which will not only benefit students but also provide a playing field for the Mont Albert Cricket Club juniors while their oval at Elgar Park is unavailable.
New lighting will also be installed at the Surrey Park baseball diamond, ensuring the Melbourne Baseball Club junior and senior teams can train into the evenings while the park’s north-west oval is unavailable.
It will also allow the club’s junior players to continue using the main baseball diamond beyond LXRP’s temporary use of Surrey Park’s north-west oval.
Meanwhile, the project team at Union and Mont Albert roads is powering ahead with major works to prepare for the final major construction blitz early next year.
Buses will replace trains on sections of the Lilydale and Belgrave lines from February 17, 2023 to late May 2023, which includes excavating the trench and building Union Station.
The massive works will include removing 80 Olympic-sized swimming pools of dirt to form a rail trench that will be up to 10m deep, 1.3km long and will carry trains beneath Union and Mont Albert roads.
With boom gates down for up to 40 per cent of the morning peak, when 61 trains pass through, these congested level crossings cause traffic chaos for more than 22,000 vehicles a day. The Union Road level crossing is also the site where two women were tragically killed in 2016.
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