COMMENT: A fast rail link between Sydney and Melbourne was first proposed in 1984. So why haven’t we done it yet? Peter Newman investigates.
The front-page headlines generated earlier this month by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s promise to link Australia’s major eastern cities by fast rail may be seen by many voters as yet another major infrastructure pledge made hurriedly in the run-up to a federal election that is likely to evaporate just as quickly afterwards.
Fast intercity rail certainly has form when it comes to being put on the table only to be whipped away again. Linking Australia’s two biggest cities by rail would be in the same nation-building category as the Snowy Mountains Scheme, yet we have been talking about it for decades without actually doing it.
How different might things be now if Australia had built the Very Fast Train (VFT), first proposed in 1984 by the then CSIRO chairman, Paul Wild. The plan (on which I worked) attracted the support of leading companies of the day, including BHP and Elders IXL, but was bogged down in taxation issues and eventually scrapped in 1991.
If it had gone ahead, we would have had an infrastructure capable of shaping the new century for Australia’s densely populated east coast, instead of still waiting for it today.
The route
The first choice was a coastal route running from Melbourne through the Latrobe Valley (and what a boost that would have been to a region that even then was struggling with its over-reliance on brown coal), the Gippsland lakes (with a branch line to the mountain resorts), the southern New South Wales coastal towns and into Sydney via Wollongong (a rust-belt city at that time that would also have benefited from this investment).
This was later replaced by an inland route identified by the CSIRO and the VFT consortium, after a series of localised environmental protests. Canberra became one of the designated stations on the inland route and the rest is history – there has never been a return to the original route, despite the fact that more than 90% of Australians live near the coast.
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Fast rail route proposed in 1987, after being diverted inland via Canberra. Source: VFT consortium / Author provided.
The funding
Perhaps unsurprisingly, finance was the original project’s downfall. It became a private-sector joint venture in 1987 but collapsed in 1991 when the federal government decided against easing the tax burden on the project’s initial major outlays in return for higher tax overall.
Australian governments have struggled ever since to find ways for public-private partnerships to fund big projects. Until now, perhaps.
This time around, Turnbull has touted the prospect of “value capture”: the financial benefit that the private sector could gain from the boost to urban development around stations – as seen, for example, near Japan’s Shinkansen (bullet train) stations.
In tax increment financing (TIF) schemes, which are more common in the United States for financing infrastructure projects, value capture by governments via increased property rates and taxes has provided a basis for public sector funding. But this has not proved popular in Australia.
The challenge
We have even more urban and regional challenges than we did three decades ago. Sydney and Melbourne are each facing rapid population growth and will need to avoid the damaging consequences of urban sprawl and car dependence. Both cities will need to redirect growth inwards, to brownfield and greyfield sites.
Another consideration is how to disperse the population into regional cities, so these areas can also benefit from improved economic activity. Fast rail can potentially help regional cities become part of a “mega-metropolitan” economic region.
For example, a 350km/h service connecting Melbourne with Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo and Warragul would transform these provincial centres into the equivalent of Melbourne’s middle-ring suburbs, where 30-minute commutes are the norm.
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Travel times in minutes from Melbourne. Source: CSIRO / Australia State of the Environment Report, 1997 / Author provided.
This route would also be the beginning of an inter-capital fast rail route, from Melbourne to Canberra (possibly via Shepparton), and then running through various population centres, via Badgery’s Creek (Sydney’s proposed second international airport) to the Sydney CBD.
The carbon case… and a bump in the track
Almost 8 million passengers flew between Melbourne and Sydney in 2015, making this route the world’s fourth busiest (ahead of Beijing-Shanghai). The carbon savings from a Melbourne-Sydney fast rail link therefore represent a major potential reduction in greenhouse emissions, especially if it is powered significantly by renewable energy.
This obviously wasn’t part of the business case back in the 1980s. But in 2016 it is surely a candidate for the federal government’s Emissions Reduction Fund.
The government’s proposed value capture funding model has a sting in the tail. Privately held land near the rail link and its stations will need to be rezoned and handed to private firms to build facilities (and surrounding developments) that they would then own and operate.
Land acquisition, even with compensation at market value, is generally not welcome in Australian cities. This is just one example of what makes transformational urban change so hard. But this kind of transformation will be critical to the creation of 21st-century cities that are productive, competitive, sustainable and liveable.
Peter Newman is Research Professor in Sustainable Urbanism, Swinburne University of Technology. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original here.
A long article which totally avoids the two important questions:
1. How many passengers will there be?
2. What will the fares be?
Waffling about carbon savings etc is not helpful.
You couldn’t have too many stops otherwise your train would struggle to get up to speed. It would be unfeasible to have any HSR branch lines except one to Canberra so the route would need to wriggle between the urban centres that you want to put stations in. It is very expensive since you have to tunnel or raise the railway line to be separate from the urban networks and you would need a wide, fenced, rail corridor along its length (let’s hope the wildlife learns to use the crossings provided). Also, it will not be able to run when there are fires and floods, or idiots walking on the tracks, anywhere along the line. It would be a damn easy target for a terrorist attack. And you would need a lot of growth in the regional towns with stations, making them (guess: 500,000+ population) cities to make it worthwhile stopping. The existing residents would be VERY unhappy about that. Oh, and did I mention the cost?
Mystery Idiot “said”, and I (ADH) say:
“You couldn’t have too many stops otherwise your train would struggle to get up to speed.”
ADH – Correct – which is why there would not be too many stops.
“It would be unfeasible to have any HSR branch lines except one to Canberra”
ADH – which is why Canberra is the only proposed branch line – unless the coastal route is chosen in which case it will be on the main line.
“so the route would need to wriggle between the urban centres that you want to put stations in.”
ADH – Look at the map – the route would follow the Hume Highway – missing Cootamundra and Wagga, or follow the existing line, passing near to those places, or going via the cost as in the map above. No need to wiggle. Following the Hume Highway would save about 90 km.
“It is very expensive since you have to tunnel or raise the railway line to be separate from the urban networks ”
ADH – Note that the TGV use the existing networks to enter and exit Paris and other main centres. For Sydney and Melbourne this would also be the case – a small amount of tunneling may be needed in Melbourne. The Sydney terminal is likely to be between Parramatta and Strathfield, roughly the centre of the conurbation (because of the possibility of continuing north, but there is no reason the trains could not use the fast tracks to Central, especially if some junctions were improved.
“and you would need a wide, fenced, rail corridor along its length (let’s hope the wildlife learns to use the crossings provided). ”
ADH – Fenced, yes, wide, no. Wildlife does learn to use the crossings, just like the “Koala” tunnels over and under the Pacific Highway.
“Also, it will not be able to run when there are fires and floods, or idiots walking on the tracks, anywhere along the line. ”
ADH – rail lines are near immune to fires if surrounding vegetation is properly controlled. Rail lines are sited to be above flood level – as George Stephenson pointed out to early detractors of railways. Idiots walking on railways get killed, just as they do on roads.
“It would be a damn easy target for a terrorist attack. ”
ADH – No more so than an airport, consider someone with an AK47 shooting out the tyres of an aircraft as it passes the end of the runway coming in to land.
“And you would need a lot of growth in the regional towns with stations, making them (guess: 500,000+ population) cities to make it worthwhile stopping. The existing residents would be VERY unhappy about that. ”
ADH – One would think that Albury Wodonga – pop about 105 000, and Wagga Wagga pop 55 000 would justify a stop – the quoted ‘500 000+’ is a ludicrous guess. Some may not like growth, but they would be about 1% of the population, though no doubt very noisy!
“Oh, and did I mention the cost?”
ADH – No. The cost for rail track and infrastructure in easy conditions is less than two motorway lanes. In difficult terrain it would be more, but how much more depends on what speed you wish to average, and how bad the terrain is. When the original Sydney Melbourne line was completed in 1883, most of the earthworks were by manual labour and spoil was carted away by horse or mule. Labour intensive and very expensive. In comparison, machines make the job of earthmoving comparatively cheap – witness the earthworks needed for the rebuilding of the Pacific Highway.
1. not enough
2. extremely high
Let’s not forget that HSR does nothing for our more important freight rail task. Planes will still be faster and more affordable.
I’ve actually read the 1,000+ pages of the HSR Phase 2 study and beg to differ on a few points there Dudley. It costs a lot to slow the train down for a stop (both financial cost and detracting from the end-to-end speed of service that is a major selling point) and you’d need a lot of passengers getting on or off to make it worthwhile. Successful HSR typically links cities about 100-300kms apart with populations around 0.5m.
As to reliability: Hopefully flood issues can be avoided but trains always stop for an idiot walking on the tracks; while I’d like to take the Darwinist approach that’s not what they do in Australia. Plus if people die from smoke inhalation when you run a train through a fire that’s generally considered bad. You could put a bomb anywhere on the line and blow it as a train approaches, much easier than “shooting the tyres from a plan about to land…”(!).
The comparison with the motorway is misleading – the railway is not well connected whereas the motorways are: you can go almost anywhere in Australia on roads. You have a much more limited choice on HSR unless you build HSR branch lines). Also the motorways carry freight.
Finally, you couldn’t use the metro network unless you want to add 40 minutes to the journey time at each end. If you located the Sydney stop outside of the city you wouldn’t get any business users and they’d be the people most prepared to pay for the service.
For those who can’t be bothered reading any of the reports nor do any basic research.
1. MEL-SYD is in the top-ten passenger corridors in the world.
2. Comparible to flights plus cab fares.
Let’s not forget that HSR will go CBD to CBD. The trip time will be comparible to flying and the operating* costs (dominated by fuel and staffing) will be comparable if operated properly. Plane suck fuel, (literally) .
If you only read one item, read the ZeroCarbon/German Aerospace Centre/UniMel paper at http://bze.org.au/zero-carbon-transport-high-speed-rail
*An airport costs ~$4B (Badgerys estimate) and the freeway there costs $4B (WA highway upgrades x 2). You need to do that at each end. And there’s nothing in that to excite the planners – whereas any intermediate stations on MEL-SYD-BNE will create massive opportunities.
Big whoop it is in the top ten passenger corridors. 7 million people a year doesn’t warrant wasting $100billion on a train line. For a vhst to be viable it needs to move the same amount of people that the Melbourne and Sydney suburban train networks move in a year which is in excess of 120 million for Melbourne (equivalent to France’s TGV network) and 300 million for Sydney (equivalent to Japan’s bullet train network).
I have read that BZE article and attended one of there seminars. There is no way that their numbers are even remotely viable. The huge tunnels, bridges and cuttings needed in and around Sydney alone will cost $60-80 billion. It is also not a regional railway because to achieve the Sydney to Melbourne travel times means no stops in regional areas.
The VHST also does not help the rail industry in Australia which needs it the most. It completely forgets the freight industry. The rail freight industry in Australia is struggling at the moment because of all the old steam age era alignments. Fixing these alignments for freight is way more viable for the country then wasting $100+ billion on a VHST network.
If Melbourne actually got there act together there would be a train line to the airport like in Sydney. Due to the huge tunnelling requirements it has also become apparent that any viable Melbourne to Brisbane VHST would not actually be capable of going all the way into the Sydney CBD and would more then likely connect at Badgery’s creek. So there goes your CBD to CBD solution.