Dozens of trains were cancelled on all lines for over 2 hours. Over 400,000 commuters were delayed on their way to work and across the rail network. The cost to the economy has been estimated at $12 million dollars.
The root cause appears to be a chronic lack of investment in basic maintenance, including:
- many old trains
- wooden sleepers still abound, many of which are decades old
- signals and associated cable conduits
- the power wire system
There is obviously also no redundancy in the power system - what we saw today was a single point of failure.
The funding allocated to maintenance of Melbourne's rail system is a tiny proportion of that allocated to roads, yet every day in Melbourne the rail system moves more people to and from the CBD.
As I have mentioned previously, no new suburban train line has been built in Melbourne since the Glen Waverley line in 1930. Since that time Melbourne's population has increased from 1 million to over 4 million.
The privatised system is clearly a failure. The government blames the operator (Metro) for "delivering poor service" and Metro (and previously Connex) blames the government for not investing enough in upgrading rail infrastructure. Nobody is actually accountable any more, which is just not good enough.
As compensation, the Metro operators and the State Goverment will let people travel for free on Friday and share the $1m loss of revenue.
Here is what we need to do:
As compensation, the Metro operators and the State Goverment will let people travel for free on Friday and share the $1m loss of revenue.
Here is what we need to do:
- Allocate $2b per annum to upgrade existing rail infrastructure
- Build new rail lines to suburbs that have no rail, including the Rowville and Doncaster lines.
- Plan a metro circle system for inner Melbourne that connects Parkville, Brunswick, Fitzroy, Richmond, South Yarra, South Melbourne and North Melbourne.
- Return the system to public management with clear accountability for service delivery.
- Spend no more money on the Myki card - and ditch it doesn't work. The system really only benefits private operators - for whom it has been designed to provide revenue. It is too complicated and the stupid "touch off" requirement impedes users greatly.
- Stop building ridiculous "roads to nowhere" projects such as Westlink and the Frankston Bypass
The total cost of $15m would have been much better spent on prevention and proper maintenance.
External links
- Shame Metro, shame, The Age
- Frustrated commuters to travel 'free' after Metro rail meltdown, The Age
- Rail chaos imperils Brumby, The Age
- Stranded by a wire, The Age
- Call to invest in rail powerlines, The Age
1 comment:
Evening Peter
Additional maintenance spending is required, but as rail users will have to pay, I suggest that they may be somehat upset to have the $2 bill per year divided between them through major fare cost increases. I doubt the Fed Gov would pay.
As for additional lines, unless rail corridors have been left during new suburb development, there will be nowhere to put additional lines. Add to this the bottlenecks on the existing rail network, eg. Caulfield to Sth Yarra, which cannot be expanded, you would only reduce the capacity on existing lines.
On another point, rail users are only a small number (percentage wise)of people using transport to get around, either to work, shopping etc. so the Gov needs to spend major funds on road upgrades for the majority.
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