{"id":30003,"date":"2024-03-26T09:40:18","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T23:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/infrastructuremagazine.com.au\/?p=51719"},"modified":"2024-03-26T09:40:18","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T23:40:18","slug":"75-level-crossings-removed-across-victoria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=30003","title":{"rendered":"75 level crossings removed across Victoria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Victorian Government has completed the removal of a 75th level crossing with the completion of works on Bedford Road in Ringwood, allowing trains to start running in the new rail trench more than a year ahead of schedule.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan announced the major milestone as new data shows that, on top of easing congestion across Victoria\u2019s suburbs, level crossing removals have made roads much safer \u2013 preventing more than 100 crashes and near misses every year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Metro Trains data indicates that the number of train and vehicle collisions and near misses across the metropolitan network has fallen by almost three quarters, from an average of 21 incidents a month in 2017 to just five incidents a month in 2023 as a result of the Level Crossing Removal Project.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Removing the crossings has also slashed commutes \u2013 saving close to 50 hours of boom gate down time during the morning peak each day and allowing additional train services without more congestion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Project has averaged one crossing removal almost every six weeks since the first set of boom gates were removed at Burke Road in Glen Iris in 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">More than 91 million hours have been worked across the program, making it one of Victoria\u2019s biggest employers supporting almost 6,000 jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">More than 13,500 vehicles used the busy Bedford Road crossing every day, experiencing delays when the boom gates were down for 23 minutes in the morning peak \u2013 including families and school buses dropping students at Ringwood Secondary College, which sits next door to the crossing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With the level crossing gone, the Belgrave Line is now boom gate free from the city to Ferntree Gully. The Lilydale Line will be the first rail line to be boom gate-free later in 2024 when level crossings at Dublin Road in Ringwood East, Coolstore Road in Croydon, and Cave Hill Road in Lilydale go a year ahead of schedule.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Boom gates at Brunt Road in Beaconsfield, Keon Parade in Reservoir, Warrigal and Parkers roads in Parkdale, plus three level crossings in Pakenham, are all set to go in 2024 \u2013 with the Pakenham Line extended 2km and two new stations being built.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ms Allan said that the State Government is getting rid of these dangerous and congested level crossings that frustrate thousands of drivers every day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe promised, we delivered \u2013 and we\u2019re not done yet,\u201d Ms Allan said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Victorian Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Danny Pearson, said, \u201cThe results are significant \u2013 fewer incidents, reduced congestion, more rail services and thousands of jobs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Victorian Government has completed the removal of a 75th level crossing with the completion of works on Bedford Road [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"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":[471,1291,1433,163,8211,8203,5,8205],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-projects","category-rail","category-rail-industry-news-australia-new-zealand","category-safety-and-training","category-spotlight","category-transport","category-vic"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30003","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\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30003"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37924,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30003\/revisions\/37924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}