https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/new-tram-line-planned-to-run-from-caulfield-to-rowville-via-chadstone-20180409-p4z8lo.html
Instead of Rowville heavy rail, a tram line instead?
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/new-tram-line-planned-to-run-from-caulfield-to-rowville-via-chadstone-20180409-p4z8lo.html
Almost as stupid as a light rail service to Adelaide Airport.I don't think that plan is stupid, Their Airport is pretty close (IIRC someone said that they could easily walk to the Airport from the CBD in an hour) and would be able to provide coverage in the cbd for that city.
Didn't they plan to do this in the 80s or something?It'll crawl to and from Monash Clayton; should connect with the heavy rail service at Huntingdale so that people have the transfer option. Otherwise it will easily take two hours from one end to the other.
According to google maps the median on Dandy road doesn't look possible either, most of the middle is very narrow and it disappears when the road passes through a major intersection with the right turn lanes and all that.
Wellington road and Stud road do look like they can handle trams for most of the way the route I assume would go.
Still, I don't light rail is the answer, a suburb as big and far away as Rowville probably needs a train line, I can't see trams handling this very well.
It's an excellent idea, the airport by bus is less than 20 minutes. I guess the taxi industry is dead against it though.Almost as stupid as a light rail service to Adelaide Airport.I don't think that plan is stupid, Their Airport is pretty close (IIRC someone said that they could easily walk to the Airport from the CBD in an hour) and would be able to provide coverage in the cbd for that city.
Rowville on the other hand is IMO way too far away to be reliable.
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* My preference here is to use this oppurtunity to completely rethink the track & signalling layout between Caulfield and South Yarra. Build 2 flyovers, the first near Richmond, and the 2nd near Caulfield. Rearrange the signalling so that we have 2 Down tracks next to each other, then 2 up tracks next to each other. Completely demolish Caulfield station, and re-build it with 2 double sided island platforms a la Burnley.
This would turn Caulfield into a proper Interchange station, which it will need to be. A passenger coming from the Frankston line wanting to get to say Parkville can get off a train at Caulfield and simply cross the platform and board a train from Dandenong that will go through the Metro Tunnel. Similarly a passenger from Dandenong wanting to get to either Richmond (MCG) or Southern Cross would have an equally simple cross platform connection.
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Excuse me. We don't have money just to waste.Instead of Rowville heavy rail, a tram line instead?
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/new-tram-line-planned-to-run-from-caulfield-to-rowville-via-chadstone-20180409-p4z8lo.html
We just don't get it here in Victoria. A tram is not going to replace the convenience and speed of a heavy rail service. More let's do the bare minimum to keep the punters happy, well maybe.
Almost as stupid as a light rail service to Adelaide Airport.
Let's start acting like an international city and get the heavy rail project delivered.
I digress, the point is, completely rebuilding Caulfield station with a better layout could easily provide a real 21st century multi-mode public transport hub.I'm an alumni of Monash Clayton AND Caulfield. If there's light rail down Dandy Road then it should at least connect the two campuses but my concern is the end-to-end Rowville to the City is just stupidly long and tram journeys aren't suited to that. Eastern Melbourne is actually getting too large to consider trams crawling for many miles picking up and dropping off people every few blocks, stopping at traffic lights. Eastern Melb is simply getting to dense and full of traffic for that kind of route, heavy rail would have been the way to go.
They were against the establishment of the current Adelaide Metro bus service to the airport too, but didn't manage to stop it.It's an excellent idea, the airport by bus is less than 20 minutes. I guess the taxi industry is dead against it though.Almost as stupid as a light rail service to Adelaide Airport.I don't think that plan is stupid, Their Airport is pretty close (IIRC someone said that they could easily walk to the Airport from the CBD in an hour) and would be able to provide coverage in the cbd for that city.
Rowville on the other hand is IMO way too far away to be reliable.
This Caulfield-Rowville tram line is an interesting proposal and there's no reason why it couldn't work. Obviously with money allocated to a study to work out specific route alignments they might find something sensible. Building down the middle of Dandenong Rd is the easy part - building interchanges and hooking it up to the existing network will be the harder challenges - I can't really see E class trams negotiating the S bend under the Smith St bridge (for example). And there's also finding additional depot space - I doubt Malvern or Glenhuntly could handle any more trams especially trams the size of the E class so a depot will have to be built alongside the Wellington Rd corridor. Fortunately, most of the area out that way is semi industrial and land becomes available all the time so building a depot out that way shouldn't be a problem.If the aim is to connect to the rail network with Monash and Rowville, wouldn't another option to build an extention down the napean highway after the 67 turns down Glenhuntly Rd, and then follow North Rd onto its continuation of Wellington Rd?
Hooking the new line up to the new network will be a challenge. At Caulfield the tram layout is full of turns. Pure speculation but you could build a three track layout in Derby St with a terminating track for the new line and have the Route 3 run around the outside of this. Derby street is reasonably wide but you might consider closing the whole street off to cars and just leave it as a mall of some kind with island level access tram stops. There's lots of eateries in Derby St so turning it into a mall might actually work as a kind of vibrant area and transport interchange.
Personally though, if they were wanting to link this new line to tracks that go to the city, I would extend it further up Dandenong Rd to that it links into the network at the Dandenong & Glenferrie Rd intersections. This would give it a through route to the city on an existing reservation.
I guess we will have to wait and see what is planned from this study into route options.
I would assume that the route taken would be the most obvious, Straight down Dandenong Rd (Princess Hwy) then a soft left into Wellington Rd, past Monash Uni, Waverley Pk, down the hill, over Eastlink, and left into Stud Rd with a Terminus at Stud Park Shopping Centre.Dandenong Road (Princes Highway) between Burke Road and Wellington Road would most likely would need to be rebuilt, to match what Dandenong Road looks like between Chapel Street and Glenferrie Road, with a nice wide median strip (for the light rail tracks) the service roads on each side of the Highway would be consumed, no reduction of through traffic lanes (though If possible a 4th lane would be most welcome)
What would be even better, but highly unlikely, is if it were then extended further North to a terminus at Westfield Knox, where it could perhaps meet up with an extended Rt75.
And again, as I said earlier, do it properly. Grade seperation for the more significant crossroads, stops that aren't too close, longer version of the E class, traffic light priority for at grade crossings and high frequency.
Now that would be the ultimate.
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