An image of the Williams Landing station.
Being built at a cost of $110 million, a new railway station at Williams Landing will help fill a deep need for better public transport in Melbourne’s outer west when it opens in April. It is predicted that up to 1000 passengers will use the station each day in the morning peak, adding to the swelling commuter numbers on the crowded Werribee line.
But some of those would-be commuters are wondering just how they will get to the new station, even as they look forward to its opening.
Jammed local roads, infrequent and indirect bus services and a deficit of parking spaces mean reaching Williams Landing station will not be simple for the residents of Melbourne’s burgeoning western suburbs…
No bus passes Williams Landing station but Public Transport Victoria says it plans to extend an existing route to the area once the station opens.
“The new Williams Landing station will feature a car park with approximately 500 spaces, cyclist facilities and a new bus interchange,” says Public Transport Victoria spokeswoman Andrea Duckworth.
“PTV will review bus services in the Point Cook area as part of the network planning for the new Williams Landing station. Service details will be finalised closer to the completion of the new station…”
But Western Metropolitan Greens MP Colleen Hartland says unless bus services are improved, residents will inevitably drive and the car park will fail to meet demand.
“Unless there’s a really frequent bus service, and I’m talking a 10-minute shuttle into the station, people are going to drive there,” Ms Hartland says.
“It’ll be exactly like when they opened South Morang station: the car park will fill up straight away and it won’t necessarily be people at Williams Landing; it will be people from Point Cook who can’t get to Hoppers Crossing or Laverton…”
Adam Carey, The Age, December 13, 2012
