East West Tunnel

[crashlander]

Heavily invest?
We live in one of the biggest cities in the world area wise.
We have a modest population per sq km.
Who gets the public transport?
You cannot provide it to everyone without spending our grand kids pensions.

Back to reality, we wasted $1b on nothing.

Melbourne has never been in a position to make the most of public transport. As a city it has always had a spread out population to deal with. Even in its infancy, the people who came to Melbourne like room and moved to where it was as quickly as they could. Granted that they did grow where the public transport was (very good planning 130 years ago - wonder what happened since?), but they did move out as quickly as they could. Melbourne has always had a very low population density.
The problem with putting public transport in now, as the population is becoming somewhat more concentrated, is that it has NOT be planned for. The spaces for the it don't exist. Much of the ground once covered by train tracks was long ago sold and built on. Remember, there was a train track only 100 m North of Princes Park for a long time: some of that still remains today, but not much.
Hence the problem the Andrews' Government has at the moment with their effort to replace level crossings. There is no place to go but up or down, and down is expensive.
To be honest, building underground is the way to go. Just have a look at London's tube system, which is a really good transport system. But we don't yet have the population density to make this viable and we don't have the money to do it. Nor are we likely to any time soon.
There are simply some things that governments cannot do (although very few have ever thought of admitting it).

The other good thing about the Tube in London is that it is not relatively expensive. The system can make a profit while still not breaking the bank. That is not the case here. Companies do not see the way to make a profit and fares are not cheap. The fare system is illogical and confusing. If they do not invest, then it is harder to make public transport work at all.

The other thing we really lack is long term planning. Back in Melbourne's infancy there was money (from Gold) and some reasonable planning (at least in the Eastern Suburbs). The idea then was to design a system that allowed traffic to quickly and efficiently. That model died some time ago. Governments rarely look past the next election - after all, if they look further ahead, then it is likely that the other mob gets the credit for it coming to fruition on their watch.
For example, Labour didn't like freeways. They twice sold the land that was to join the 2 sections of what is now the Monash Freeway. Twice the Libs, who like freeways, had to buy it back, at great cost.

For the East West Link to work as it should, the land the Libs acquired was necessary. That that they may not get access to it, then the East West Link will forever have major issues, even if the rest gets built at all.

The Ring road is another case of very poor design. It has built in bottlenecks that become very obvious most afternoons. More ring roads should have been planned into Melbourne after WWII. But they were not, so we have about half a ring that suffers each day.
London's Ring road is much better designed that ours, and it still has major issues. It simply wasn't designed to handle the number of cars that use it. Ours was never adequate and wasn't on the first day it was opened.

To conclude, I can't see transport in Melbourne getting any better. It needs money that can't and won't be spent. It needs good design and long term planning, neither of which are likely. It needs the sort of major overhaul that Paris experienced in the 2nd Empire, turning Paris was the most disgusting city in Europe into one that still impresses. Baron Hausmann got a free hand and plenty of money from Napoleon III. Parisians hated it until they saw how good it was. We have no Napoleon III, no Baron Hausmann and no resources. We have 'residents' groups' that fight any change just about anywhere. We have a distinct lack of planning and a total hatred of the straight line in roads. That just doesn't look good as more people are coming here every day.