Doncaster railway line
As a result, a rail line to Doncaster along the middle of the Eastern Freeway will become virtually impossible to build, barring a conversion of the busway.
[2]: 40 In 1928, the Railways Standing Committee of the Victorian Parliament recommended a plan which also involved an extension of the Kew branch line, this time to terminate at Doncaster itself.
[2]: 41 The line was part of the 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan, but no timeline for construction was set, whereas the building of the freeway was to start in the following year.
By December the same year the Parliamentary Public Works Committee had begun to re-examine the outer section of the line, considering three routes.
[2]: 41 By March 1974, the cost of the full line was reported by The Age to have increased to $73 million, but that none of the proposed routes could be considered viable on economic grounds, with a busway being a better investment.
[2]: 42 The final nail in the coffin was a revelation in August 1984, by Liberal shadow transport minister, Rob Maclellan, that the Cain Labor Government had sold the land set aside for the railway beyond the Eastern Freeway to Doncaster.
Authored by Professor Bill Russell, three options were examined in the report:[8] The longest of the plans involved six kilometres of tunnel, and seven stations, four of them underground.
The report found that a heavy rail line would be "desirable but too expensive to consider unless major economies in tunnelling and station construction costs can be made".
[3] Despite construction of the line being raised on a regular basis by public transport advocates and political hopefuls, there was no firm commitment to build it.
[9] Transport in the region provided by private motor vehicles on the Eastern Freeway, and bus routes which operate along dedicated lanes from the Doncaster Park and Ride.
[11] During the 2006 state election, the Victorian Liberal Party claimed that constructing the heavy rail line would cost around $1 billion and was deemed too expensive an option in the short term.
[12] In mid-2008, the Victorian Greens released a transport discussion paper, "The People Plan",[13] which includes the Doncaster rail line.
However, unlike its DART and BART cousins in Dublin and San Francisco, the scheme was merely an increase in bus services in the Manningham area.
[14] Leading up to the 2010 state election, which they subsequently won, the Victorian Liberal Party promised to commit $6.5m to complete another study into building the railway line to Doncaster.
In 2008, the Australian Greens Victoria released a transport discussion paper, The People Plan, which costed the construction of the line at $450 million.
They also argue that peak time patronage is close to saturation, with more growth off peak[21] Average weekday patronage is predicted to be 56,000 boardings by 2031 with 98% of passengers coming from existing public transport, from sources such as the DART busses (Doncaster Area Rapid Transit) and the Ringwood line (shared section of the Belgrave and Lilydale lines).
