Agreeing Persistent Keystone Elements

Can’t separate planning for Melbournefrom planning for Geelong

TransportCamp Melbourne, 1 November 2014

Tony Smith, @ynotds, Kororoit Institute

?

?

• Melbourne + Geelong population from 1.32 million to 4.65 million in my life time

• Consistent historic doubling time around 40 years

• Should be planning for at least 10 million, learning from London and New York City

• Hopefully that will get us through more than 50 years to some signs of slowing down

• Melbourne was a major world city in 1890 — these numbers are just getting back near curve

Fixing planning deficit• Break down the silos

• One size does not fit all

• Keystone elements facilitate, beneficially constrain • Must have agreed understanding, timing flexibility

• Connecting steps proceed in confident anticipation

• Geelong’s well known issues, keystone possibilities

• Focusing here on heavy rail and some highways

Geelong Rail Bandaids• (Pending) Regional Rail switchover • (Once promised) Avalon Airport connection • North Geelong, North Shore & Corio stations • Rail Revival to Ballarat, Maryborough, Castlemaine • Geelong Station Heritage & Disability compliance • New Waurn Ponds station (just open) • Proposed new line to Armstrong Creek & Torquay • Breakwater to Drysdale restoration (elevated?)

• RRL • Avalon • Corio • North Shore • North

Geelong • Rail Revival • Geelong

Station • Waurn

Ponds • Surf Coast • Bellarine

🚉

🚉

🚉

🚉

🚉

Regional Rail Link switchover

Meet Wyndham Vale, Tarneit, Sunshine

Authorised by the Victorian Gove rnment, 1 Treasury Place, Melbou rne

Avalon Airport Rail Link preferred alignment

Lara

Little River

You Yangs Rd

Peak School Rd

Branch Rd

Peak School Rd

Calvert Rd

Edga

rs R

d

Farra

rs R

d

Perk

ins

Rd

Gille

ts R

d

Flin

ders

Ave

Fore

st R

d N

orth

Fore

st R

d So

uth

Ren

nie

St

Min

ns R

d

Hug

hes

Rd

Che

rry S

wam

p R

d

Che

rry S

wam

p R

d

Pous

ties

RdAirp

ort D

r

Aval

on R

d

PRINCES FWY

MELBOURNE – GEELONG R

AIL LINE

PRINCES

FWY

Old Melb

ourne R

d

Mill Rd

Old Melb

ourne

Rd

Beach RdBeach Rd

McIntyre Rd

Windermere Rd

Plains Rd

McClelland Ave

Cozens Rd

0 200 600 1000

N Scale: Metres

PRINCES FWY

AVALON AIRPORT

TO MELBOURNE

TO GEELONG

Legend

Preferred Alignment

Study Area

Avalon Airport

Avalon passenger terminal

Built up areas

Railway stations

Rail line

Freeway

Castlemaine – Bendigo

Geelong

Melbourne

Ballarat

Melbourne – Bendigo Railway

To Warrnambool

To Ararat

Lethbridge

Meredith

Lal Lal

Creswick

Tourello

BannockburnGheringhap

Clunes

Talbot

To Ararat

To Seymour

Distance: 87 km

N

Melbourne – Ballarat Railway

Distance: 69 km

North Geelong

Bell Post Hill

Melbourne

– Geelong Railway

Rail Revival to Ballarat, Bendigo

Armstrong Creek Urban Growth Zone

Ring Road connector to Surf Coast Hwy under construction

Apple Maps, nearmap & Victorian Government Planning Maps views

Breakwater-Drysdale Rail Trail/Reservation

Potential Keystones• Bay West Port of Melbourne replacement

• Outer Metropolitan Ring (road & rail)

• Newport to Fishermans Bend rail alignment

• 1876 single track tunnel & downtown Geelong

• Power easement (NW) Melbourne to (NW) Geelong

• Eastern bypass across Corio Bay, drawbridge

• Direct peninsulas connection Bellarine-Mornington

🚢

★Bay West

★OMR

★Newport Tunnel

★Central Geelong U’ground

★Power Easement

★Eastern Bypass

★Nepean Bay Bar

• Hastings v Bay West likely to be faux battle • If freight volume stays near curve, value of real estate

occupied by current Port of Melbourne will kill it • Neither new site big enough, so will need both • Which one first? • Would Bay West survive more than one development

cycle?Adam Carey in Fairfax papers, 20

August 2014: Third option emerges for Labor's Bay

West port

Outer Metropolitan Ring• In 2010 even VicRoads was treating the then newly

minted Transport Integration Act seriously enough

• Multiagency information sessions for Regional Rail Link, Urban Growth Boundary expansion, Werribee Plains grassland reserves and OMR+E6 (to east)

• Planning for 8 freeway lanes + 4 rail tracks Kalkallo to further west of Werribee than RRL junction

• What in/via G21 Region would use that capacity?

• OMR’s southwestern terminal well aligned to serve Bay West

• Is there a chance for Geelong to serve western growth areas alternative to Melbourne CBD?

• Double catchment of Geelong

• Increase value of brownfield sites Corio and North Shore

• Impact on Princes Freeway West of OMR-bound traffic?

• Direct route to Tullamarine negative impact on Avalon?

• Viable staging priorities for project of size of OMR?

Stephen Moynihan in The Age,

9 August 2007: Rail City:

blueprint looks at city's options

• Many of the suggested new lines well known

• Many more just fanciful

• First hint of RRL route

• Newport via Fishermens Bend crucial

All trains heading to or returning from south of Geelong Station must pass through this single track tunnel opened

in 1876 which is too low for modern container freight

• Rather than trying to duplicate 1876 tunnel, create new pair & station under Geelong CBD

• Start on closed pier alignment

• Station beneath Moorabool & Ryrie bisecting arc to Yarra St

• Reposition South Geelong station in cutting in car park

• When new line operational, lower tracks in tunnel to take full height container freight

• Triplicate South Geelong to Breakwater and duplicate beyond in all directions

Old Pier tracks crossingBrougham St underpass

Bridge on Mercer Stover closed Pier line

View north down Moorabool crossing Ryrie

Old Pier line resurfacingcnr Gheringhap & Corio

Powerline Reservation RouteAs too frequent traveller from Melbourne’s northwestern suburbs to & past Geelong, I’ve long wanted alternative to Princes Fwy. A powerline reservation route from bend in Deer Park Bypass to bend in Geelong Ring Road is 10 Km shorter than Apple Maps’s best current route between those points. Easy interchange with OMR would further expand choices in ways which could keep lid on demand/congestion on Princes Fwy.

Marine charts and satellite maps suggest practical route for eastern Geelong bypass between Inner and Outer harbours

but only with deployment of drawbridge technology that is common place in NSW but seemingly unknown in Victoria

?

?

Nepean Bay Bar• Won’t let 3 Km of water stop connecting a million in

G21 region with a million on Mornington Peninsula

• Bridge to rival Golden Gate?

• Tunnel to rival Marmaray beneath the Bosphorus?

• Or reconsolidate Nepean Bay Bar which kept Port Phillip Bay almost empty 1,000 years ago? • Potential climate/sea level change amelioration strategy • Move on from Bay West to Bay South • G. R. Holdgate, B. Wagstaff & S. J. Gallagher 2011

• Where have we got re opening/implicit assertions?

• Agreeing Persistent Keystone Elements• The seven Keystone Elements outlined feed off each other and

creatively constrain more detailed planning decisions • Some will need multigenerational staged implementation • Port Phillip Bay following comparable path to Zuiderzee in The

Netherlands may be unavoidable game changer

• Can’t separate planning for Melbourne from planning for Geelong• Jurisdictional lines in the sand have their uses and their downsides

but, history aside, they are no longer helpful here

Additional Acknowledgements• Plan Melbourne

• G21 Regional Growth Plan

• Regional Rail Link

• Avalon Airport Rail Link

• Rail Revival Study: Geelong-Ballarat-Bendigo

• Outer metropolitan ring/E6 transport corridor

• Port Phillip Recreational Boating Guide - Parks Victoria

• Apple Maps, nearmap, Planning Maps Online

• Separately linked Fairfax papers, Nepean Bay Bar paper and Wikipedia for info on Eaolianite limestone, Zuiderzee

• Robert Whitehill's Rye Line for Mornington Peninsula side

Tony Smith, @ynotds, ts@meme.com.au, Kororoit Institute