Caroline Springs has been waiting a long time for a railway station but it is almost here – construction is well underway and the station due to open sometime in 2016. However the project has not been a simple one, and a lack of forward planning has resulted in a critical piece of infrastructure bring rendered almost useless – the access road!
There are many reasons to oppose development in your backyard – some reasonable, others plainly ridiculous. An example of the latter is the ‘paedophile card’ – a new weapon in the NIMBY arsenal.
Back in 2010, then leader of the Liberal Party, Ted Baillieu said “Victoria badly needs a new, independent, statutory authority to plan, co-ordinate and manage our public transport system”. So how well has this commitment to taking politics out of transport planning fared?
In recent years patronage on Melbourne’s rail network has skyrocketed – 94 per cent over the 12 years from 1998-99 to 2010-11. So how did all of these passengers get moved on a fleet of trains that has stayed relatively constant?
