{"id":177902,"date":"2025-02-20T10:51:01","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T00:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=177902"},"modified":"2025-02-20T18:31:33","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T08:31:33","slug":"north-east-link-works-shutdown-until-further-notice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=177902","title":{"rendered":"North East Link works shutdown until further notice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Last week a significant sinkhole was identified on the <a href=\"https:\/\/bigbuild.vic.gov.au\/projects\/north-east-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">North East Link<\/a> project bringing the construction of this unwanted and expensive project to a halt. As a result construction workers have been sent home on full pay for approximately 3 weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>it is unclear what impact this shutdown will have on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=170556\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">current works around the Hurstbridge Rail Line <\/a>also shutdown and unavailable making it very difficult for many passengers in the North East suburbs of Melbourne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today sees rumours circulating of a second and even larger sinkhole now being found on the construction with the decision being taken to cease all works on the project until further notice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The North East Link is a project that adds little value to productivity for Melbourne and instead will lead, if ever finished, to a heightened level of congestion not just on a north south route the road and tunnels provide but onto what was an uncongested eastern freeway which will be clogged with traffic that would not normally have taken this route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also take into account the business case of this road project was very marginal at best at the original investment. Now we have a $16b uplift in the cost of the project making the business case very negative meaning the investment will never return a positive outcome for the taxpayers of Victoria. Knowing this the Albanese Government still injected $billions into a loss making project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is now very possible the cost of this disastrous white elephant causing signifant damage to the environment will now cost north of $40b to complete. There is also the ongoing cost to the people and schools in the area, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marcellin.vic.edu.au\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Marcellin College<\/a> for example where emissions from the tunnels will be spewed into the valley and the area. How could this project ever have been signed off?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is a disaster for Melbourne and the State of Victoria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is a disaster for Melbourne and the state of Victoria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":177921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,999,35,47],"tags":[993,7590,8],"class_list":["post-177902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-australia-politics","category-breaking-news","category-rail-news","tag-melbourne","tag-north-east-link","tag-victoria"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=177902"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178071,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177902\/revisions\/178071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/177921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=177902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=177902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=177902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}