Article: Full steam ahead for our new port at Hastings

[ozbob]

From the Herald Sun click here!

Full steam ahead for our new port at Hastings

Full steam ahead for our new port at Hastings

    by: Peter Rolfe and Mitchell Toy
    From: Sunday Herald Sun
    October 16, 2011 12:00AM

A NEW 30km road or rail link through Melbourne's southeastern suburbs is the key to the Baillieu Government's multi-billion-dollar development of a new deep-water port at Hastings.

Releasing key details of the project for the first time, Ports Minister Denis Napthine described it as the biggest infrastructure project in Victoria in a century.

The development will see the Port of Melbourne replaced as the state's main port and the engine room of the Victorian economy.

A dedicated road or rail link, running parallel to the existing Western Port Highway, would potentially link the port to a new distribution centre, or "inland port", near Dandenong.

Giant driver-less trucks, similar to those used in mines, are one of the options under consideration to move millions of containers and other freight from Hastings to the new inland port for distribution across the city and state.

A soon-to-be-appointed Port of Hastings Authority will be ordered to evaluate building the first Australian electric truck link between the port and the land likely to be set aside between Dandenong and Lyndhurst for the freight hub.

Remote-controlled trucks driven by computer and powered by electricity are being considered for the route, as the Government takes a state-of-the-art approach to an election commitment it believes will be the centrepiece of Victoria's economic future.

In a major shake-up of the state's jobs and industrial base, the Government next year will appeal to the Gillard Government for urgent funding to fast-track the development.

Dr Napthine said the port and its transport links - to be up and running within 10 years to 15 years - would define the Baillieu Government and shape the state's future for the next 100 years.

"In terms of significance to the growth and development of Victoria, this will be the biggest project since CityLink, and I think it will even be bigger than CityLink in terms of the opportunities it creates for Victoria," he said.

"It's one of the biggest projects in the state's history. It is a project that is about the next 100 years of Victoria, and it's absolutely vital to our state."

But critics say it is likely to lead to widespread commuter chaos on the state's rail and road networks, with industry experts predicting traffic gridlock, unless costly major changes are introduced.

In an exclusive briefing to the Sunday Herald Sun, Dr Napthine confirmed:

PRIVATE property owners will have their land compulsorily acquired to make way for the port. But it has not yet been decided where and when.

THE Government will consider dropping tolls on EastLink at off-peak times in a bid to get freight moving outside peak periods.

THE port's main operations centre could be built off-site, with workers operating infrastructure remotely.

HIGH costs, transport links and environmental impacts will present major challenges to the Government in the port's construction.

POSITIONS on the Port of Hastings Authority board have been advertised and will be filled this year to start work on January 1, with their first job a cost-benefit analysis.

NO DETAILED costings or mapping have been conducted since the former Labor government released reports on the port last year and in 2006.

Treasury last year estimated the cost of constructing the port in the decade at $9.4 billion and the State Opposition said it would put 6000 more trucks a day on our roads and 16 new trains on rail lines. Dr Napthine (above) dismissed both estimations, but could not provide alternate figures.

He said privatising the port "was not part of the plan", but did not rule it out.

The Government has dismissed two transport options, advised by the former government - a rail link to Gippsland and use of the Frankston-Stony Point rail line - and settled on the Western Port Highway as the preferred corridor for goods transport.

Dr Napthine said a decision had not yet been made about exactly how and where containers would move to and from the port, but said it would definitely flank Western Port Highway.

"There are potentially options to have a dedicated truck route that runs parallel to the Western Port Highway, but doesn't have any disruption of the Western Port Highway," he said.

"Or it may be that there is a dedicated rail shuttle that would use that same corridor to and from the inland port that you then distribute goods from there in var- ious ways."

The "inland port" - a hub for trucks and rail - is likely to be built about 30km north of the port, between Dandenong and Lyndhurst.

Dr Napthine predicted minimal development on the coastal area and more construction on quarantine, storage, customs and logistics facilities in the city's southeast.

Plans for the port, which will handle more than two million shipping containers a year, have sparked fears of traffic mayhem, as road and rail networks are deemed too weak to handle the extra pressure.

A port authority study released this year shows most containers would need to be delivered to Melbourne's west, meaning a widespread overhaul of rail and road passages across the city is needed to avoid traffic chaos.

The Victorian Transport Association called for bigger limits on truck sizes so more containers can be moved per vehicle.

VTA deputy chief executive Neil Chambers said the M1 should be part of a large-scale upgrade or the city's major arteries could clog with the added traffic.

The Port of Melbourne's container logistic chain study, conducted by the Port of Melbourne under the former Brumby government, shows western and northern areas, such as Laverton North, Somerton, Altona and Tullamarine, rank among the most common places where containers are delivered.

"Containers will be ... stevedored at Hastings, but will need to travel to Altona and Campbellfield," he said.

[Golliwog]

If you're taking everything (or nearly everything) from the port to the one location for distribution, and you need to build new infrastructure to do so, why the heck would you go with giant trucks? I understand thats only one of the options, but surely it would become clear quite quickly that rail would be the best option here?