Forget the tunnel. Build a rail line to Doncaster instead.
Victorian desal plant and east-west link disasters are off the rails, by Kenneth Davidson, The Age November 25, 2013
The key fact is that the people of Victoria will pay $11.25 billion for a traffic jam being shifted into the middle of a hitherto magnificent park –
Secrecy in public policy-making involves the corruption of proper process. Victorians would be horrified if they knew more about the costs of the water desalination contract and the disaster involved in the (apparently bipartisan) determination to enter an equally disastrous contract to build the east-west road link.
Here are some things we do know.
Unless the major political parties come to their senses, Victorians, either as taxpayers or water users and motorists, will be paying a billion dollars a year for two to three decades for a desalination plant from which we are unlikely to draw water, and for a road link that will shift the peak-hour traffic jam at Hoddle Street to a new traffic jam at Royal Park.
The architects of the east-west link have decided in their wisdom to increase the number of lanes each way from two to three. And therefore, the Eastern Freeway ”funnel” into the tunnel will have its lanes increased from two to three. Continue Reading…
“We’re waiting for the Doncaster train, not an East-West Tunnel”
Manningham Leader: Flash mob of ‘ghosts’ visit Westfield Doncaster and wait for train as part of Trains Not Tolls campaign (25 November 2013)
Media Release: The Doncaster rail – an ode to inaction – Saturday 23 November 2013
Video from Saturday 23 November 2013 A4tnt Artists for Trains Not Tolls: “We’re waiting for the Doncaster train, not an East-West Tunnel”
Ghosts of Promises Past. Fifteen ghosts from 1888 Melbourne were seen shopping at the Doncaster Shopping Centre this Christmas.
After shopping, they queued and waited for the train, and waited and waited. So polite and quiet these Victorians, so well dressed. “What are they doing?” the watchers whisper to each other. “I think they are waiting for the train,” someone says…and the rumour goes around the shopping centre.
“We’re waiting for the train.”
This four minute film records the event, the crowds, the ghosts, the queues, the newspaper headlines, the looks, the costumes. The crowds loved it. The performers…they were just waiting for the train… Continue Reading…
The Doncaster rail – an ode to inaction – Saturday 23 November 2013
Doncaster Rail, wherefore art thou? Successive Victorian governments have neglected Melbourne’s north-eastern suburbs at the expense of their residents. And now the rest of us
Message from Artists for Trains Not Tolls:
We are planning an event/happening to highlight the fact that the planned Doncaster railway has been a long time coming.
This Saturday we will be reminding shoppers at the Westfield Doncaster centre that the railway was first proposed in 1880. Dressed in Victorian costumes, we’ll be milling around and queuing in unlikely places. Why? We’re waiting for the train! It has had 127 years to get here, so we know it must be arriving soon!
Manningham is the only Melbourne municipality without a train or a tram service. A 2012 study led by Curtin University’s Peter Newman found that, if it were connected to the planned Melbourne Metro rail tunnel, the Doncaster train should attract around 100,000 passengers per day. This is all that the east-west tunnel is planned to take in passenger cars, at a cost of between $5 and $9 billion. By contrast, the cost of the Doncaster rail and its connection to the Melbourne Metro tunnel has been estimated at $1140 million.
‘An Ode to Inaction’
This Saturday, 23 November, around lunchtime (11.30am-2pm), a group of 15 ghosts from 1888 will be shopping at Westfield Doncaster Shopping Centre. And after they’ve shopped, they are going to politely queue up and wait for their train – and wait – and wait – and wait. Continue Reading…
