It’s the morning peak in Melbourne’s booming northern suburbs, but trains on the Upfield line only run every 15 to 20 minutes.
Merri-bek City Council Mayor Helen Davidson says when a train is cancelled, it means waiting 40 minutes to get to work.
“Residents talk about this all the time, it’s such a problem,” she said.
“Waiting on this train with unreliable and infrequent trains means they’re not getting to their doctor’s appointments, they’re not getting to the universities and the cities — and they become car-reliant.”
The “problem” is the last 4-kilometre section of the line, which is single-track from Gowrie to Upfield station.
This means multiple trains can’t run in both directions, limiting the number of trains that can run at a time.
Victoria’s independent expert advisory body, Infrastructure Victoria, is calling on the state government to duplicate, upgrade and extend the line by 2030, as part of its broad pitch to government for strategy for the next 30 years.
“People in Fawkner, Coburg and Brunswick can wait up to 20 minutes for trains during peak times,” Infrastructure Victoria’s strategy found.
“These wait times are four to five times longer than stations in Melbourne’s south-east that are a similar distance from the city centre.”
Inner-north the site of population growth
Infrastructure Victoria costed duplicating that 4km of track, along with upgrading power and signalling between North Melbourne and Upfield, at $650 million to $1.4 billion.
“When assessed, as part of a larger investment program, the Upfield duplication helps deliver benefits of between $1.10 and $1.90 for each dollar invested,” the report found.
Chief executive Dr Jonathan Spear said the project was critical to creating new homes around transport hubs in the north.
“We know that at the moment there’s lots of population growth in the inner north and that’s going to continue in the outer north as well,” he said.
“What the Upfield improvement does, it unlocks around 11,000 new homes, and makes much more reliable public transport services available to people in the north of Melbourne.”
