There have been calls for a rail link to the airport for decades, but the state government must also address the dire needs for vastly improved public transport in Melbourne’s booming west, writes John Hearsch | Opinion
Rail to Melbourne Airport was planned by Sir Henry Bolte in 1963 before the new airport at Tullamarine even opened. A 1990 Melbourne Airport Strategy identified the need for a rail link from the CBD. In February 2000, the Bracks government instituted studies of alternative routes to the Airport resulting in land being reserved in 2005 for an airport rail link via Albion.
Significantly, the Premier added, “it can create the extra capacity that we need in the congested rail corridor between Melbourne and Sunshine – which means we can untangle the regional and metropolitan network on the Geelong and Ballarat lines. It can give Melbourne’s booming west access to electrified metro rail services.”
An unsolicited private sector proposal to construct and finance a separate, partly underground pair of tracks between Southern Cross, Sunshine and the airport and provide a fast service with dedicated rolling stock came to the government in September 2018. This would have provided badly needed additional capacity in the Sunshine corridor and facilitated provision of metro services to both Melton and Wyndham Vale.
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