Do you want to know what voting for what party will mean for Melbourne Rail infustrucure? Here’s the quick low down before Saturdays election.

 

 

Labor

Labor is relying on its record for huge transport and infrastructure projects – more than $60bn of rail and road projects are in the pipeline – to win this election.

But it is pledging more, particularly its $50bn suburban underground rail loop, “the biggest transformation of public transport in Australian history”

Labor says it would be completed in 2050 and include 12 new underground stations. The only firm money pledged so far is $300m for a business case.

Labor’s big promise at the last election was to remove 50 of the most dangerous level crossings over eight years, and it is ahead of schedule, removing 29 this term. The promise is for 75 to be gone by 2025.

Many of its big projects are under way or have start dates including the $11bn metro tunnel project, the North East Link and the West Gate tunnel, and Labor says work on the long-awaited rail link to the airport could begin by 2022. There are pledges to upgrade arterial roads and country rail lines, and $100m for planning towards fast trains to Geelong and Ballarat.

Coalition

The Coalition has a promise it says is a higher priority than Labor’s rail loop – a $19bn “European-style” regional rail network. It would rebuild the entire network and include high-speed rail on four lines, travelling up to 200km an hour.

It is the key to the Coalition’s commitment to decentralise the state, encouraging people to move to the regions to take pressure off Melbourne’s record population growth.

In Melbourne, the Coalition supports the West Gate Tunnel and the North East Link and has resurrected another giant highway project – the East West Link. That was the proposed project that dominated the 2014 election campaign, with Labor promising to scrap it, which it did after it won.

Greens

The Greens oppose the big new road projects. It would upgrade the busiest routes in a $2.3bn pledge over a decade and build 30 high-capacity trams a year for the next 10 years. It wants new tram routes for suburbs which do not yet have lines.

It pledges a metropolitan bike network to include cycling routes connecting major destinations, on-road separation if possible and upgraded bike lanes.

 

Information sourced from: www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/20/victorian-election-what-the-parties-are-promising