THE idea that the Rowville line can’t be built without a $5 billion metro tunnel is nonsense (”Monash Uni train line plan derailed”, The Age, 9/3). The line was included in the 1969 transport plan, which gave us the City Loop, but did not say an extra tunnel from South Yarra was required: only some lesser upgrades at a fraction of the cost. It also suggested the Dandenong line would have 24 peak-hour services in 1985. Today it has 16, including two V/Line trains.
Level crossings on the Dandenong line must be eliminated, regardless of when the Rowville extension is built. This was to have been done 40 years ago when Sydney did the same, but a succession of state governments used the money for freeway projects.
This government was elected on a promise to act on these decades-overdue public transport improvements. The public will not thank it for continuing to rely on bad advice from a bureaucracy that can’t do anything except find excuses for inaction.
Tony Morton, Public Transport Users Association