Melbourne’s $14b Metro Tunnel quietly doubles travel times between stations

The estimated travel time on Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel has more than doubled between Parkville and the new Arden precinct, despite years of state government promises that trains would not be slowed due to nearby medical facilities.

The Age on Wednesday revealed trains would have to run slower near the new Parkville station to limit interference with sensitive cancer and medical scanning equipment.

The new Parkville station.Credit: Penny Stephens

A government spokesman on Wednesday insisted that “minimising [electromagnetic interference] has had no impact on travel times between stations”.

But the estimated journey between the new Parkville and Arden stations has quietly doubled.

The government had for years explicitly stated this trip would be just two minutes.

But Premier Jacinta Allan started referring to it as a four-minute journey in May, a day after the state budget dumped the Arden hospital precinct because electromagnetic interference was proving more costly to overcome than expected.

Nobody had questioned Allan about the travel time until Thursday, when she was asked whether trains would need to run slower past Parkville and how long the train trip to Arden would take.

“It’s expected to be between a four- to five-minute journey,” she said.

Asked to explain – given her previous public statements – whether the travel time had more than doubled, Allan said testing was still being done.

“It will depend ultimately on the timetable,” she said.

When Labor promised to build the new hospital precinct at Arden during the 2022 election campaign, a press release quoting then-premier Daniel Andrews, Allan and Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas said it would be a two-minute journey between the health hubs.

“The Parkville and Arden medical precincts will also be linked by the Metro Tunnel. From 2025, both will have brand-new train stations, making it a two-minute trip between hospital campuses,” the statement said.

The Victorian government’s precinct opportunity statement, the Development Victoria website and an explanatory document for interested developers all put the journey at two minutes.

“Arden and Parkville will be connected by just one Metro station, two minutes away,” the Development Victoria website still says.

Development Victoria Minister Colin Brooks told the parliament’s budget estimates in May that the trip was two minutes. Allan, however, told the same inquiry it would be four minutes.

The delay could also extend the travel time to and from the CBD.

But Allan, who was previously in charge of the project as the transport infrastructure minister, said the Metro Tunnel would save some commuters up to 40 minutes a day.

“Let’s remember what we’re delivering here,” she said.

The new rail line is expected to open to the public late next year, with peak-hour trains running every three minutes beneath the hospital precinct.

Flaws in the $14 billion project were exposed after a report to the state government’s Infrastructure Development Committee was leaked to The Age, revealing construction delays, potential compensation claims and plans to dump elements of the project to cut ballooning costs.

Trains running through the Metro Tunnel cause electromagnetic interference with medical equipment, an issue that planners began warning politicians in 2015 would need to be managed – particularly with an eye to sensitive magnetic resonance imaging machines.

The leaked report says that “based on advice from international experts and modelling of electromagnetic interference levels”, mitigation strategies will include an amperage limit “in the electrical section [of the rail tunnel] through Parkville, restricting High-Capacity Metro Trains’ acceleration and deceleration performance”.

Mitigation has so far cost taxpayers $181 million, the report said.

Allan said the Metro Tunnel was a critically important but large and complex project.

“The Parkville precinct is a place where tens of thousands of people come in and out of every single day,” Allan said.

“They go there for university, they are healthcare workers going to work, they’re people visiting sick family and friends in the hospital area, there’s researchers and other activity in that very busy precinct.

“You currently can’t catch a train to the Parkville precinct. When the Metro Tunnel is completed next year, a full year ahead of schedule, you will be able to do so.”

She said comprehensive testing was ongoing.

“The challenges around electromagnetic interference have been known since the beginning of this project,” she said. “It was identified as one of those challenges we just have to roll our sleeves up and work through, to deliver both the project and absolutely have no impact on patient care. And that is exactly what we’ve achieved to date.”

Opposition transport infrastructure spokesman David Southwick said the Metro Tunnel had become a train wreck.

“Now they want to run slower trains, what a disgrace.”

Get the day’s breaking news, entertainment ideas and a long read to enjoy. Sign up to receive our Evening Edition newsletter here.