Airport line axed under Labor’s inferior rail plan
Labor’s inferior rail plan announced yesterday has axed the airport rail link that was to be built as part of the Coalition government’s Melbourne Rail Link.
Labor’s plan is basically the same Metro Rail Link that John Brumby announced when Labor was last in office. The Coalition government replaced it with the Melbourne Rail Link because Labor’s plan didn’t include an airport rail link, failed to provide for the new Fisherman’s Bend development, and involved massive expense…, disruption and delay in having Swanston Street dug up for several years on end.
With just $40 million committed out of the estimated $9 billion to $11 billion needed – to be spent on setting up a new bureaucracy to plan the project – Daniel Andrews is saying that construction of his rail plan won’t start until 2018, two years later than when work was due to start on Melbourne Rail Link.
To make matters worse, Mr Andrews has admitted that Labor’s plan will only happen at all if he can get the Commonwealth and the private sector to provide two thirds of the cost.
There’s an interesting discussion and assessment of Labor’s plan at http://blogs.crikey.com.au/theurbanist/2015/02/17/is-it-full-steam-ahead-for-melbourne-metro-or-is-it-hot-air/
For details of what Victoria would have gained under the Coalition’s Melbourne Rail Link – for which $830 million was provided in last year’s state budget – see http://archive.premier.vic.gov.au/2014/media-centre/media-releases/9853-melbourne-rail-link-a-generational-change-to-public-transport.html