Public transport pains that have been ignored in Victorian Budget

THERE were billions splashed about for public transport in Melbourne, but nothing to fix the three things that drive commuters crazy.

ANNOYING public transport gripes have been ignored and Melburnians will have to buck up and deal with it.

While the Victorian Government has thrown a heap of cash at the Melbourne Metro Tunnel, which won’t be operational until 2026, it’s state Budget has overlooked many of the daily frustrations commuters face.

* DON’T expect a seat on trams during peak hour. Expect to continue being short-shunted.

* DON’T think your myki will be a world-leading travel smart card. Expect it to continue to malfunction.

* DON’T hold onto hope of travelling to the airport on a train. Expect to continue to sit in traffic for up to an hour.

In the today’s Victorian Budget, the Andrews Government has been generous to train users in the long-term with its $10.9 billion Metro Tunnel, but what is there for frustrated commuters right here, right now?

Opposition transport spokesman David Hodgett was fired up this afternoon about the lack of funding for a rail link to Tullamarine Airport.

He said he was fed up with the Andrews Government claiming Melbourne would soon be on the same level as New York and London when it came to public transport, and said Labor wasn’t serious if it wouldn’t commit to the project.

“They are just not committed to the airport rail link,” Mr Hodgett told news.com.au. “The (former) Liberal government had plans to build it and it had a way of funding it, which could have been continued.

“Everyone wants it and Sydney has one, Brisbane has one and everybody talks about it.

“The Andrews Government is bragging about this massive surplus; if they’ve got it, why don’t they fund an airport rail link?”

A spokesman for Transport Minister Jacinta Allan said the government needed to focus on the Metro Tunnel first, to even out congestion in the middle of the train network.

The tunnel would be the step towards building a rail line to the airport, but with the tunnel not due for completion until 2026, does that mean Melburnians will be without that rail link for a decade?

Not again.

Public Transport Users Association spokesman Daniel Bowen said while there was some good news for commuters — the announcements of the Metro Tunnel and the $1.46 billion Western Distributor project — the government overlooked massive frustrations.

“There’s very little for tram users,” he said.

Tram cram has been a huge problem and some commuters have lately been “short-shunted”, which sees passengers kicked off the light rail system before their destination so trams could make up for lost time.

Mr Bowen thinks money could have been invested into giving trams traffic-light priority, helping take away some of the bitterness of commuters.

“The issue of short-shunting can really disrupt people’s trips,” he said.

“It doesn’t appear there is any great plan to resolve the causes of that.”

Mr Hodgett said the government had to address the issue because people couldn’t just be chucked off trams.

“People are just being dumped at tram stops and clearly the Andrews Government’s priority is not on trams,” he said.

“Melbourne’s population is growing by more than 1000 people a week and trams need to be invested in, not just rail and buses.”

The government has also put $25 million into creating new bus routes, but public transport peak bodies say it wasn’t the most generous investment.

Mr Hodgett said the government was also “silent” when it came to the troubled travel smart card myki, and he believed the system was still plagued with glitches, despite being in place for years.

“There’s still a massive amount of complaints about myki to Public Transport Victoria,” he said.

“People will be on their way to the station and realise they need to top up, but there’s nowhere to do that.

“We need an app to do it instantly or look at investing in trialing phone scanning or credit cards.”

While myki is up for tender later this year, Mr Hodgett believed there was no reason to wait for better infrastructure.

He said while there was a huge commitment from the Andrews Government to fully fund the $10.9 billion Melbourne Metro Tunnel by 2026, he doubted the money was there to see the project through to completion.

He also predicted the project would blow out to about $15 billion and believed it wasn’t the best way to deal with Melbourne’s growing population.

“As Melbourne becomes the most populated city in Australia, we will have to build one of these projects every couple of years just to keep up. How are they going to fund it and make sure it will cater to the future capacity?” Mr Hodgett said.