People with disabilities ‘locked at home’ as brakes slammed on tram accessibility

Not a single stop on Melbourne’s tram network has been made more accessible in the past 12 months and only four were delivered over the past three years, as work grinds to a halt on upgrades to meet the needs of people with disabilities or limited mobility.

The delay comes almost six months after Victoria sailed past the legally binding deadline to make all tram stops in the network accessible as required by the Disability Discrimination Act after delivering just 458 – leaving close to 1200 non-compliant stops across the city.

Christian Astourian said he will be locked out of the public transport network when his local train station closes in Brunswick because there are no accessible tram stops along Sydney Road. Credit: Jason South

The rollout of elevated “level access” platforms – which make it easier for the elderly, people pushing prams or anyone with restricted mobility to step onto a tram – slowed from 10 upgrades in 2019, 13 in 2020 to just two stops a year in 2021 and 2022, Department of Transport annual reports show.

The Andrews government committed to upgrading six stops along La Trobe Street in the 2022-23 budget but none have been completed, and the 2023-24 budget released last month makes no mention of tram stop upgrades.

Brunswick resident Christian Astourian said he will be left without public transport access when stations on the Upfield train line close for upcoming Level Crossing Removal Project work, because there are no accessible tram stops for a 5.5-kilometre stretch along Sydney Road between Brunswick Road and Bakers Road, in Coburg North.

The 53-year-old uses a wheelchair and travels by train to his job as a disability advocate in St Albans, and is leading a rally on Sydney Road on Saturday calling for accessible tram stops to be built before the Upfield lines closes.

“It’s not just about me, it’s about many people in the community that are going to be affected – mothers with prams, elderly people,” he said.

Astourian said Victoria had 20 years to meet the requirements of the federal Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport but made such little progress it made him feel like he was not a valued or equal citizen.

“Most people with disabilities don’t have a car, so they rely on public transport for their everyday mobility – to go to work, education, for everyday community inclusion,” he said. “If they cannot take public transport it means they are locked at home, they can’t go anywhere.”

Disability Resources Centre projects manager Ally Scott said the upgrades had slowed to an all-time low and now that the government had missed the 2022 deadline the issue had been “swept under the carpet”.

Victoria is now on track to also miss the deadline to ensure all rolling stock is accessible by 2032, which would only be achievable if its current rate delivering new Next Generation trams was doubled, she said.

The Victorian Auditor-General’s Office found in 2020 that 38 per cent of trams on the network were accessible, and only 15 per cent of services connected a low-floor tram with a level access stop.

The Department of Transport has estimated it would cost $2 billion to upgrade all 1660 or so tram stops on the network. Scott said that was a relatively small expense with huge benefits to the community when compared to the Andrews government’s $16.6 billion Level Crossing Removal Project and other transport projects in its $184 billion Big Build pipeline.

“Seventeen per cent of the population identify as having a disability ... and that doesn’t include our older community members, so there’s an oversight here in terms of priorities,” she said.

Council on the Ageing CEO Chris Potaris said inaccessible tram stops restricted the ability of older Victorians to travel around the city, which was unfair, especially as the state’s population ages.

“We want to see positive ageing at the heart of city design going forward, including tram stops and trams,” Potaris said.

An Andrews government spokesperson, responding on behalf of the Department of Transport and Public Transport Minister Ben Carroll, said it would soon start consultation on designs for the La Trobe Street stop upgrades as well as plans for more stops on other tram corridors.

The government had also committed $60 million in last month’s budget to prepare routes in Melbourne’s west for the deployment of Next Generation low-floor trams from 2025, they said.

“Making our public transport network accessible to all is a priority, and our Big Build program is creating more accessible public transport options across Victoria,” the spokesperson said.

The Auditor-General found in 2020 that even if the Victoria maintained its pre-2020 average of building 18 stops a year, it would take until 2066 to finish upgrading the whole network.

Merri-bek City Council has also called for a commitment to building accessible tram stops on Sydney Road before the Upfield line closes. Councillor Sue Bolton said the council believed it would be another two years before the train stations closed for the Level Crossing Removal works, and that the stations could remain closed for 18 months or more.

A rally will be held opposite Barkley Square on the corner of Sydney Rd and Wilson Avenue at 11am on Saturday, calling on the government to commit to building accessible tram stops in Brunswick.

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