A new train station will be built on WA’s Mandurah line at Lakelands, 60 kilometres south of Perth, under a $10 million commitment from the Morrison Government.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, urban transport minister Alan Tudge and federal member for Canning Andrew Hastie announced the funding as part of a $96 million ‘congestion-busting’ package for the Perth region.
The Mandurah line stretches south of Perth, 70 kilometres to the state’s second-largest city, Mandurah. At present the final 23 kilometres of the line, prior to Mandurah, are without a station.
The new Lakelands station would be built approximately 7 kilometres north of Mandurah, around 16 kilometres south of Warnbro station.
Tudge said the funding fit into the $96 million congestion package because a new station at Lakelands would alleviate congestion on surrounding roads.
“The Urban Congestion Fund is designed to eliminate congestion issues where they are hurting the most – not only the major freeways but the local pinch points which can provide daily headaches to commuters,” he said last week.
Hastie said a new station at Lakelands was much-needed, noting many residents had moved into their first home in the region with the promise that a station would be built – a promise which has so far not been fulfilled.
“A train station in Lakelands means that residents from the north of Mandurah won’t have to travel south by car before catching a train north into the city,” Hastie’s Facebook page said last week. “That will mean fewer cars clogging up our roads and less pressure on the Mandurah train station car park.”