Engineering, Passenger Rail

Metro Tunnel EES shows ‘significant disruption’ will reap ‘decades of benefits’

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has welcomed the release of the Environment Effects Statement (EES) for the Melbourne Metro Tunnel project, saying it shows that the disruptions in the heart of the city to deliver the project will be well worth it in the long run.

The EES details the significant impacts to open space, roads and other transport expected during construction of the north-south rail tunnel.

The project will add capacity to the Victorian capital’s Metro Trains system, by linking the Cranbourne-Pakenham line in the south-east with the Sunbury line in the north-west, via a new cross-city rail tunnel.

Expressions of Interest are currently being invited for prospective bidders to deliver the PPP contract, which is worth roughly $6 billion.

The EES, released on the Melbourne Metro Authority website on Wednesday, details the concept designs, exact locations and depths for the five new underground stations being built on the line.

It also outlines how the stations will be built.

A cut-and-cover approach will be used to install the new Domain station, 15 metres below St Kilda Road. A similar approach will be used to build the new Arden and Parkville stations.

The CBD stations – CBD South, next to Flinders Street station, and CBD North, next to Melbourne Central – will be built through a mined cavern approach, designed to reduce impact on Swanston Street and the city.

While construction is set to create significant disruptions in the Melbourne CBD, the Melbourne Metro Authority argues the project will be invaluable in the long run.

“On its first day of operations, Melbourne Metro would expand the capacity of the network by over 39,000 additional passengers in each of the morning and afternoon peak periods,” the EES states.

Roughly a third of this capacity would come from the new line itself, while the remaining two-thirds of new capacity would simply come from better use of the existing capacity freed up by the new line, the paper argues.

“Melbourne Metro provides the backbone for further improving the network in the future by incorporating features such as long platforms and high capacity signalling that allows a staged approach to expanding the metropolitan rail network,” the EES continues.

“If further investments are made in the medium term including extended High Capacity Metro Trains, longer platforms, Melton quad track, Melton electrification, and power and signalling upgrades, this would enable further capacity for 41,000 passengers per peak period to be introduced on the Sunshine-Dandenong Line progressively from 2031 as required.”

Premier Andrews said the EES showed the benefits of the project significantly outweighed the short-term inconveniences.

“The Metro Tunnel is the biggest transport project in Australia,” he said.

“There will be years of disruption getting it done, but the benefits for Melbourne will last for decades.

“Just like London, New York and Tokyo – the Metro Tunnel will give us the turn-up-and-go service a world class city needs.”

1 Comment

  1. “The Metro Tunnel is the biggest transport project in Australia,” he said.

    Premier Baird said the same thing about Sydney’s North West metro. By distance I would think that is a bigger project.

    I suppose that the Qld Premier will say Brisbane’s Cross River Rail is the biggest transport project in Australia!

    Hey they can’t all be biggest.