{"id":215961,"date":"2025-05-13T10:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T00:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=215961"},"modified":"2025-05-13T10:42:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T00:42:30","slug":"this-new-york-train-station-was-the-worlds-most-expensive-sunshine-may-have-it-beat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=215961","title":{"rendered":"This New York train station was the world\u2019s most expensive Sunshine may have it beat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When the architecturally splendid Oculus opened in 2016 as the new transport hub for New York\u2019s World Trade Centre, its $US4 billion price tag ($5.3 billion at the time) made it the most expensive train station<\/a> in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The New York World Trade Centre Oculus station was the world\u2019s most expensive to build when it was completed in 2016.CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The cost for Sunshine station in Melbourne\u2019s west is already up to $4 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If it follows the budgetary path of the West Gate Tunnel, the Metro Tunnel, North East Link and most major projects in Australia, its final cost will put the Oculus\u2019 gleaming white steel and glass structure in the shade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can you spend $4 billion on a train station?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even within the extravagant context of major projects in Victoria, the price tag for works at Sunshine station and its surrounding rail yards is enough to make the Fat Controller choke on his morning tea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, on the day Anthony Albanese and Jacinta Allan announced this boiler-bursting sum of combined Commonwealth and state funds to rebuild a train interchange in Melbourne\u2019s west, no one so much as raised an eyebrow, let alone thought to ask the PM or the Victorian premier why it will cost so much.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Sunshine train station pictured in 2017.CREDIT: PAUL JEFFERS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Have we arrived at a point, after a decade of the Big Build, that a billion here, a billion there and you\u2019re still<\/em> not talking about real money? Or did the fiscal harakiri of the COVID years disembowel our capacity for rational budgeting?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To answer these questions, you\u2019d need a team of psychiatrists to put the entire state on the couch. In the meantime, there is welcome evidence this week that someone with the ear of government is trying to bring a level of financial reality back to how a debt-ridden state needs to think about infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within Infrastructure Victoria\u2019s latest iteration of its 30-year strategy, you won\u2019t find recommendations for expensive new cross-city tunnels; massive, multi-lane highways; or big, vote-grabbing public transport projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, there are recommendations<\/a> to re-route Melbourne\u2019s tired bus network and to extend train routes west and tram routes east to provide more public transport options in poorly serviced parts of a fast-growing city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a strong case made for more social housing and for governments to deliver more of the social infrastructure that newer suburbs on the edge of Melbourne and regional centres need. This includes kindergartens, TAFEs, public libraries and swimming pools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A proposed 30km\/h speed zone<\/a> in residential streets, although ripe for talkback callers to lampoon, is less about managing local traffic than encouraging more kids to get on their bikes or walk to school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Age<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How can you spend $4 billion on a train station?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":180345,"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":[35,47],"tags":[993,11593,8,16690],"class_list":["post-215961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-rail-news","tag-melbourne","tag-sunshine-railway-station","tag-victoria","tag-world-trade-centre"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215961","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=215961"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215966,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215961\/revisions\/215966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/180345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=215961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=215961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=215961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}