Been going to prepare this for a while, then volunteered a half baked attempt at Planning Camp Melbourne, so really needed to get together my thoughts on why Geelong and Melbourne planning can no longer be separated and potential keystone elements to frame their joint planning.

1. Agreeing Persistent
Keystone Elements
Can’t separate planning for Melbourne
from planning for Geelong
TransportCamp Melbourne, 1 November 2014
Tony Smith, @ynotds, Kororoit Institute

2. ?

3. ?

4. • Melbourne + Geelong population from 1.32 million
to 4.65 million in my life time
• Consistent historic doubling time around 40 years
• Should be planning for at least 10 million, learning
from London and New York City
• Hopefully that will get us through more than 50
years to some signs of slowing down
• Melbourne was a major world city in 1890 — these
numbers are just getting back near curve

5. Fixing planning deficit
• Break down the silos
• One size does not fit all
• Keystone elements facilitate, beneficially constrain
• Must have agreed understanding, timing flexibility
• Connecting steps proceed in confident anticipation
• Geelong’s well known issues, keystone possibilities
• Focusing here on heavy rail and some highways

6. Geelong Rail Bandaids
• (Pending) Regional Rail switchover
• (Once promised) Avalon Airport connection
• North Geelong, North Shore & Corio stations
• Rail Revival to Ballarat, Maryborough, Castlemaine
• Geelong Station Heritage & Disability compliance
• New Waurn Ponds station (just open)
• Proposed new line to Armstrong Creek & Torquay
• Breakwater to Drysdale restoration (elevated?)

7. • RRL
• Avalon
• Corio
• North Shore
• North
Geelong
• Rail Revival
• Geelong
Station
• Waurn
Ponds
• Surf Coast
• Bellarine
🚉
🚉
🚉
🚉
🚉

8. Regional Rail Link switchover
Meet Wyndham Vale, Tarneit, Sunshine

9. Authorised by the Victorian Gove rnment, 1 Treasury Place, Melbou rne
Avalon Airport Rail Link preferred alignment
Lara
Little River
You Yangs Rd
Peak School Rd
Branch Rd
Peak School Rd
Calvert Rd
EdgarsRd
FarrarsRd
PerkinsRd
GilletsRd
FlindersAve
ForestRdNorth
ForestRdSouth
RennieSt
MinnsRd
HughesRd
CherrySwampRd
CherrySwampRd
PoustiesRd
AirportDr
AvalonRd
PRINCES FWY
M
ELBO
URNE
–
G
EELO
NG
RAIL
LINE
PRINCES
FW
Y
Old
M
elbourne
Rd
M
ill Rd
O
ld
M
elbourne
Rd
Beach Rd
Beach Rd
McIntyre Rd
Windermere Rd
Plains Rd
McClelland Ave
Cozens Rd
0 200 600 1000
N Scale: Metres
PRINCES FWY
AVALON
AIRPORT
TO
M
ELBOURNE
TO
G
EELO
NG
Legend
Preferred Alignment
Study Area
Avalon Airport
Avalon passenger terminal
Built up areas
Railway stations
Rail line
Freeway

11. Castlemaine – Bendigo
Geelong
Melbourne
Ballarat
Melbourne–BendigoRailway
To Warrnambool
To Ararat
Lethbridge
Meredith
Lal Lal
Creswick
Tourello
Bannockburn
Gheringhap
Clunes
Talbot
To Ararat
To Seymour
Distance: 87 km
N
Melbourne – Ballarat Railway
Distance: 69 km
North Geelong
Bell Post Hill
M
elbourne – Geelong Railway
Rail Revival to Ballarat, Bendigo

14. Armstrong Creek Urban Growth Zone
Ring Road connector to Surf Coast Hwy under construction

15. Apple Maps, nearmap & Victorian Government Planning Maps views
Breakwater-Drysdale Rail Trail/Reservation

16. Potential Keystones
• Bay West Port of Melbourne replacement
• Outer Metropolitan Ring (road & rail)
• Newport to Fishermans Bend rail alignment
• 1876 single track tunnel & downtown Geelong
• Power easement (NW) Melbourne to (NW) Geelong
• Eastern bypass across Corio Bay, drawbridge
• Direct peninsulas connection Bellarine-Mornington

17. 🚢
★Bay West
★OMR
★Newport
Tunnel
★Central
Geelong
U’ground
★Power
Easement
★Eastern
Bypass
★Nepean
Bay Bar

18. • Hastings v Bay West likely to be faux battle
• If freight volume stays near curve, value of real estate
occupied by current Port of Melbourne will kill it
• Neither new site big enough, so will need both
• Which one first?
• Would Bay West survive more than one development
cycle?
Adam Carey
in Fairfax
papers, 20
August 2014:
Third option
emerges for
Labor's Bay
West port

19. Outer Metropolitan Ring
• In 2010 even VicRoads was treating the then newly
minted Transport Integration Act seriously enough
• Multiagency information sessions for Regional Rail
Link, Urban Growth Boundary expansion, Werribee
Plains grassland reserves and OMR+E6 (to east)
• Planning for 8 freeway lanes + 4 rail tracks Kalkallo
to further west of Werribee than RRL junction
• What in/via G21 Region would use that capacity?

20. • OMR’s southwestern terminal
well aligned to serve Bay West
• Is there a chance for Geelong
to serve western growth areas
alternative to Melbourne CBD?
• Double catchment of Geelong
• Increase value of brownfield
sites Corio and North Shore
• Impact on Princes Freeway
West of OMR-bound traffic?
• Direct route to Tullamarine
negative impact on Avalon?
• Viable staging priorities for
project of size of OMR?

21. Stephen Moynihan
in The Age,
9 August 2007:
Rail City:
blueprint looks
at city's options
• Many of the
suggested
new lines
well known
• Many more
just fanciful
• First hint of
RRL route
• Newport via
Fishermens
Bend crucial

22. All trains heading to or returning from south of Geelong
Station must pass through this single track tunnel opened
in 1876 which is too low for modern container freight

23. • Rather than trying to duplicate
1876 tunnel, create new pair &
station under Geelong CBD
• Start on closed pier alignment
• Station beneath Moorabool &
Ryrie bisecting arc to Yarra St
• Reposition South Geelong
station in cutting in car park
• When new line operational,
lower tracks in tunnel to take
full height container freight
• Triplicate South Geelong to
Breakwater and duplicate
beyond in all directions

24. Old Pier tracks crossing
Brougham St underpass
Bridge on Mercer St
over closed Pier line
View north down
Moorabool crossing Ryrie
Old Pier line resurfacing
cnr Gheringhap & Corio

25. Powerline Reservation Route
As too frequent traveller from Melbourne’s
northwestern suburbs to & past Geelong,
I’ve long wanted alternative to Princes Fwy.
A powerline reservation route from bend in
Deer Park Bypass to bend in Geelong Ring
Road is 10 Km shorter than Apple Maps’s
best current route between those points.
Easy interchange with OMR would further
expand choices in ways which could keep
lid on demand/congestion on Princes Fwy.

26. Marine charts and satellite maps suggest practical route for
eastern Geelong bypass between Inner and Outer harbours
but only with deployment of drawbridge technology that is
common place in NSW but seemingly unknown in Victoria

27. ?

28. ?

29. Nepean Bay Bar
• Won’t let 3 Km of water stop connecting a million in
G21 region with a million on Mornington Peninsula
• Bridge to rival Golden Gate?
• Tunnel to rival Marmaray beneath the Bosphorus?
• Or reconsolidate Nepean Bay Bar which kept Port
Phillip Bay almost empty 1,000 years ago?
• Potential climate/sea level change amelioration strategy
• Move on from Bay West to Bay South
• G. R. Holdgate, B. Wagstaff & S. J. Gallagher 2011

31. • Where have we got re opening/implicit assertions?
• Agreeing Persistent Keystone Elements
• The seven Keystone Elements outlined feed off each other and
creatively constrain more detailed planning decisions
• Some will need multigenerational staged implementation
• Port Phillip Bay following comparable path to Zuiderzee in The
Netherlands may be unavoidable game changer
• Can’t separate planning for Melbourne from
planning for Geelong
• Jurisdictional lines in the sand have their uses and their downsides
but, history aside, they are no longer helpful here

32. Additional Acknowledgements
• Plan Melbourne
• G21 Regional Growth Plan
• Regional Rail Link
• Avalon Airport Rail Link
• Rail Revival Study: Geelong-Ballarat-Bendigo
• Outer metropolitan ring/E6 transport corridor
• Port Phillip Recreational Boating Guide - Parks Victoria
• Apple Maps, nearmap, Planning Maps Online
• Separately linked Fairfax papers, Nepean Bay Bar paper and
Wikipedia for info on Eaolianite limestone, Zuiderzee
• Robert Whitehill's Rye Line for Mornington Peninsula side
Tony Smith, @ynotds, ts@meme.com.au, Kororoit Institute