Fishermans Bend – new suburb raises the transport question

The Baillieu Government announced its ‘inner-city revolution’ today, with the go-ahead for the development of 200 hectares of land around Fishermans Bend, near the West Gate Bridge – as announced in The Age – Baillieu plans inner-city housing revolution

Good idea, but only if they sort out the transportation.  Properly.  It should be seen as an opportunity to provide another rail corridor to Melbourne’s west.

There is talk of 10-15,000 dwellings. This equates to around 20-30,000 people.

How will these people get out of there?  Fishermans Bend at the moment is a dead end. People won’t be dissipating in different directions, like they do from the MCG after a footy game. They will all be travelling in the same direction, towards the city. And one can expect a high proportion of the new residents of this area to be working in the CBD and surrounds.

With the sort of numbers being talked about, you are starting to get towards the limit of what light rail can cater for.  Heavy rail would be the ideal option, but it would need to go somewhere.  If you’re going to do it properly, you’d use the opportunity to put a long needed rail crossing under the Yarra and provide trains through to Werribee.

A big vision will need some equally big transport decisions.