Article: Baillieu's western 'CBD' to fail without rail

[ozbob]

From the Melbourne Age click here!

Baillieu's western 'CBD' to fail without rail

Baillieu's western 'CBD' to fail without rail
November 21, 2012 Adam Carey

A PLANNED new ''CBD'' for Melbourne's west that the Baillieu government hopes will house 20,000 people and create 50,000 jobs will fail without high-quality public transport, planning experts warn.

The government on Tuesday announced plans for a new suburb and employment centre, to be built on 770 hectares of state-owned land between Werribee and Point Cook.

A draft master plan for the precinct - which Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu spruiked as ''the capital of the new west'' - includes provision for a new town centre with retail and office space, high-rise dwellings, schools and a possible new hospital and university.

''That will give an opportunity for people to live and work here and not join the ever-growing ranks on the freeway,'' Mr Baillieu said.

The first infrastructure to be built is a new freeway interchange at Sneydes Road, which the government has costed at $40 million, connecting it to the West Gate Freeway and better linking Werribee and Point Cook.

Planning Minister Matthew Guy said the interchange would make Point Cook more liveable and improve the viability of the planned East Werribee precinct.

''We're putting in place first of all a good road network to support an integrated bus network with Point Cook, East Werribee and the two [railway] stations that exist,'' he said.

The government also launched a statewide competition to name the new suburb, which will be built over the next two decades. Mr Guy said: ''The $700 million plus that will be made from land sales on this site, all of it will be delivered back to the western suburbs.''

But there is no commitment to build a new railway station for the suburb, although the draft plan includes a proposal for one at Derrimut Road on the Werribee line. Mr Baillieu said the proposed station would not be built before the suburb had developed to the extent that there was demand.

Planning experts warned that without an early investment in good public transport, the government's vision for the new suburb would fail.

''I don't know of any alternative jobs cluster in the world which might be located 35 to 40 minutes from the CBD and doesn't even have a train station,'' said Chris Hale, a transport strategist at Melbourne University.

''Job markets don't work that way. It's not the Soviet Union. You don't mandate that you're going to have 50,000 jobs in a certain location regardless of who lives there and what skills and education they have.''

Dr Hale said Parramatta was evolving into a successful alternative CBD because it was a short 15-minute train ride from central Sydney.

Melbourne University planning expert Alan March said the suburb's new residents would be consigned to car-dependency.

''Making a car-based employment hub seems like a very outdated idea and I'm frankly surprised that we are continuing to do that,'' Dr March said. He warned that a recent ''green'' housing development at Aurora in Epping North had failed because the government developers had broken their promise to extend the rail line.

Labor's roads spokesman, Luke Donnellan, warned that the new suburb would further clog the congested West Gate Freeway, unless a new road tunnel was built under the inner western suburbs.

''This will only add to gridlock unless the government starts dealing with the need for a second river crossing immediately,'' Mr Donnellan said.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/baillieus-western-cbd-to-fail-without-rail-20121120-29o1e.html

[Jonno]

God help us if that is the level of political leadership from both major parties. Planning to create more congestion oblivious to reality around them.

[somebody]

Norwest Blvd in Sydney has around 10k jobs and isn't located near a train station, even if one is planned.