Article: New stations, longer trains tipped for Melbourne rail

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From the Melbourne Age click here!

New stations, longer trains tipped for Melbourne rail

New stations, longer trains tipped for Melbourne rail
March 26, 2013 - 8:46AM

Melbourne will have to move towards high capacity, nine-carriage trains carrying 1800 people and build new train stations in growth areas to meet expected demand in coming years, Metro boss Andrew Lezala predicts.

Mr Lezala said on Tuesday morning that if Melbourne was to remain prosperous, the number of people using trains would need to grow from about 10 per cent to 40 to 50 per cent of journeys.

He said the proposed Metro rail tunnel would need to be first of "16 underground lines in this city in 100 years".

Mr Lezala said a decline in train use in the past 12 months was a blip, and Melbourne train patronage would surge in line with population growth.
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He said train use would grow, because it had to for Melbourne to remain prosperous.

Mr Lezala said in the next 10 years there would need to be new stations.

"We want to extend to the west to Melton, Wallan in the north and to Baxter in the south – that's all in the plan," he said

He said government funding was needed for the new extensions.

The train boss said there was also a lot of work being done on trains, with much more capacity on the Dandenong corridor.

"We ought to be running nine car trains, really, nine car high capacity trains, so 1800 people per trains instead of the 800 we have today," he said.

He said we also had to use our buses much smarter and not duplicate, tram and train routes. He said buses must be feeding trains stations.

Mr Lezala said the long term aim was to have all train line groups separated to ensure that one fault did not close down the network.

He said the aim was to have all lines on five or 10 minute timetables, so people did not need to think about when the next train was coming. "That would drive patronage growth," he said.

Mr Lezala said Flinders Street Station would also need to be upgraded to improve passenger flow with an "upper level western concourse" connecting to Elizabeth Street.

... He said we also had to use our buses much smarter and not duplicate, tram and train routes. He said buses must be feeding trains stations ...

Tell that to BCC ...