Article: Train in vain: how will commuters get to Williams Landing station?

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Train in vain: how will commuters get to Williams Landing station?

Train in vain: how will commuters get to Williams Landing station?
December 13, 2012 - 6:42PM
Adam Carey

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.

The station is being built on the northern side of the Princes Freeway.

Just south of the freeway is Point Cook, population 32,500 and growing, and to the north is the developing suburb of Truganina, home to 39,000. Closest to the station is the suburb of Williams Landing, a masterplanned suburb that will in future have 2500 homes but is today occupied by just 3000 people.

Nick Michaelides is one Point Cook resident who plans to use the new station from day one. But he predicts that most will struggle to get there early enough to find a space in its 500-space car park. And he does not rate the two local bus services, which run every 40 minutes, even in the peak.

"It's great that they're going to open a new train station but they've only put in 500 car parks," says Mr Michaelides, a spokesman for the Point Cook Action Group.

He drives to Laverton station, leaving home at 6.30am to nab a parking spot. Its car park usually fills by 7am and many of those who arrive later park in their hundreds on a long, grassy strip of land along the railway line. When it rains, the strip turns to mud, Mr Michaelides says. "In winter it's just a complete quagmire and I've seen cars bogged in there that can't get out."

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."

The social problems created by developing new suburbs without providing adequate transport has become increasingly obvious as Melbourne has expanded.

An inquiry into the liveability of outer suburban Melbourne, tabled in State Parliament on Wednesday, found that "planning for transport services and infrastructure has not received sufficient priority in Melbourne's land-use planning over recent decades".

"While this is true of planning for both new road and public transport infrastructure, planning for public transport infrastructure has been a particular blind spot. The effects of this 'blind spot' in Melbourne's land-use planning have been and continue to be felt most acutely in Melbourne's outer suburbs," the inquiry committee found.

"Recent years have seen a growing recognition of the need to integrate the provision of transport infrastructure and services at the heart of land-use planning rather than as a separate process after land-use decisions have already been made."

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/train-in-vain-how-will-commuters-get-to-williams-landing-station-20121213-2bbka.html