The west has Melbourne's worst commutes - four hours a day across town

It's 8.56am and Victoria Rogan is already anxious.

She’s on the first leg of a hellish, two-hour journey from her Wyndham Vale home to Monash University in Clayton: a cross-city trip involving a car, two trains and a bus.

It’s been 45 minutes since she boarded the crowded V/Line Geelong train, and commuters have been warned of a 15-minute delay.

If her train doesn’t make it to Flinders Street within 10 minutes, the 22-year-old marketing student will miss her connection and run late to her first class of the year; three late arrivals can trigger a fail in her subject. She estimates that a third of her journeys are plagued by delays, which have caused her to miss tests and assignments in the past.

"It's so stressful," says Victoria, as she nervously checks the time on her phone.

Victoria is one of many thousands of people in Melbourne’s rapidly growing west who, thanks to a lack of alternatives, are forced to rely on cars to get around. Call them the “transport poor”.

Victoria spends about four hours a day commuting on public transport. Tomorrow, she will cut her travel time in half, when instead of a myki, she’ll pick up her keys and drive.

Victoria Rogan outside Wyndham Vale station.Credit: Chris Hopkins

It will cost her hundreds of dollars in university car parking, petrol, tolls and servicing, but it will be cheaper than paying for rent in a property close to university.

"It's way too expensive to move out," she says.

"Especially if I want to be able to buy a house or apartment."

Plus, she will claw back valuable time spent commuting on public transport, with the 55-kilometre drive along the congested Monash Freeway proving faster, even in peak-hour.

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Car-bound

Dal Zomi lives in Rockbank, a sprawling new suburb about 20 kilometres north of Hoppers Crossing, and he had no choice but to take out a $6000 loan to buy a Toyota.

Dal walked about 35 minutes every dawn to his local station for weeks, because the bus service to the station arrived after his train left.

Dal Zomi has to drive, take a train and a bus to get to his work in Port Melbourne.Credit: Simon Schluter

An Uber or taxi ride to the station was too pricey for the automotive industry apprentice, so two weeks ago, he bought a car.

"Walking made me very tired in the morning," says Dal, a refugee from Myanmar. "It was not very good for my health; it made me cough.”

Dal lives in the municipality of Melton, which, along with Wyndham, has been listed among five spots in Melbourne where public transport is least accessible, an analysis by RMIT’s Centre for Urban Research reveals.

Bulging satellite suburbs on Melbourne's western edge such as Rockbank have developed faster than anyone predicted, and outpaced the supply of basic services - most crucially, public transport.

About half of Melbourne’s growth to 6 million people by 2031 will see people move to growth areas in the west, north and south-east, but official figures show the greatest surge will hit Melbourne’s west, which, by 2051 will have absorbed an extra 920 000 people. That’s the size of five Geelongs.

Only 13 per cent of people in Wyndham and 4 per cent in Melton live 400 metres from a public transport service that runs every half hour.

It's a far cry from the leafy inner-city suburbs where, in the cities of Port Phillip, Melbourne and Yarra, more than 80 per cent of people live within walking distance of a reliable train, tram or bus.

And it’s certainly miles away from reaching a state government target of 95 per cent of residences in each local area located within walking distance from public transport.

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Building on a mounting backlog

Back to our student, Victoria. She travels to the city on a new rail line that runs through a new station, Wyndham Vale, which opened in 2015 as part of the $3.7 billion Regional Rail Link to meet the west’s soaring demand.

But in the two years since the Regional Rail Link opened, patronage has skyrocketed, and trains have become so crowded that Victoria often can’t board, let alone find a seat.

Rail services from the west are so stretched, that even if one extra train was added to the Wyndham Vale line during the peak period, this would transport just 900 extra people. That’s a fraction of what’s needed for the 230 people moving to Wyndham every week.

Railway lines aren’t built overnight; the Regional regional rail link took six years to build, and the Melbourne Metro Tunnel, which will free up capacity on the Sunbury line, will be completed by 2025.

Victoria has given up on public transport and bought herself a car instead.Credit: Chris Hopkins

But experts warn that booming suburbs in the west can’t wait seven years to receive the benefits of the new underground rail, with the Andrews Government promising to electrify the Melton line after the tunnel is built.

The influential Rail Futures Institute is now calling on the government to electrify the lines to Melton and Wyndham Vale before 2025, which would allow for larger suburban trains to replace V/Line trains.

But investing in Melbourne’s rail network is not enough to stop the growing isolation of Melbourne’s newer western suburbs.

Many of the bus routes in the west bypass old and new estates, leaving entire suburbs cut off from jobs and services, says Craig Rowley, chief executive of LeadWest, a nonpartisan advocacy group representing six councils in the west.

Only two bus routes cross the west’s industrial area covering sections of Laverton, Laverton North and Altona. They run once every 45 minutes, in the peak.

Employer Essendon Fields and the developers behind 700-hectare Woodlea estate have now started chartering their own private buses to get people to and from stations.

The $6.7 billion West Gate Tunnel has been backed by councils in the west as it provides an alternative to the congested West Gate Bridge and widens the West Gate Freeway, yet Mr Rowley says the project should have been built in conjunction with a high capacity bus service along the freeway, while a much greater number of buses on better suburban routes was urgently needed.

“The government has allowed for the growth in population to happen, so they need to meet this challenge,” said Mr Rowley, who is launching a state election campaign calling for better public transport in the west.

When asked for their vision for transport in the west, the Andrews Government listed the Metro Tunnel, upgrades to the Ballarat Line, the West Gate Tunnel, and a $1.8 billion roads package.

The Coalition blamed previous Labor governments for neglecting the region, and said its controversial plan to rip up 55 intersections would ease traffic.

Even if radical investments were made now to expand Melbourne’s public transport in the west, this won’t change Dal or Victoria’s commute tomorrow, or the next day.

Can you blame them for choosing to stick to cars?