Eddington Transport Report, Victoria

The "Investing in Transport - East West Link Needs Assessment" or Eddington Transport Report' or Sir Rod Eddington Plan was a major transport study undertaken in Victoria, Australia, by Sir Rod Eddington in 2007 concentrating on solutions for transportation in Melbourne with a primary focus on reducing congestion of road transport in Victoria.

The report was commissioned by the Government of Victoria following the model of the Eddington Transport Study in the United Kingdom and generated a substantial amount of controversy including several public protests.

The focus of the report was an east-west needs assessment, studying transport demand between the east and west of Melbourne. Part of the concern was the limited options for travel across the city and congestion on the West Gate Freeway and Eastern Freeway.

Findings

Eddington made several assumptions based on predictions of growth in car and public transport use. His report assumed a scenario in which private car mode would substantially increase (or at the very least stay the same) and that public transport usage would stay the same (or possibly even decline).

He claimed that car owners were not sensitive to rising fuel costs and would continue to pay for the convenience of point-to-point travel.

Summary of recommendations

The proposal totaled over A$18 billion in costs.

Some key points included:

• A controversial 18 km road tunnel network linking inner city Footscray, Victoria, and Abbotsford, Victoria (a road proposed by road lobby groups and the EWLNA)
• Peninsula Link freeway system
• A road freight tunnel linking to the Port of Melbourne
• 17 kilometre rail tunnel between Footscray, Victoria, and Caulfield, Victoria, running through the CBD and the Domain interchange
• A new rail line from Werribee to Deer Park

Criticism

See also: Maglev (transport)#Melbourne Maglev Proposal

Prepared in response to the Eddington Report. The Melbourne Maglev proposal connects Geelong to Melbourne through Metropolitan Melbourne's outer suburban growth corridors, Tullamarine and Avalon domestic in and international terminals in under 20 mins and on to Frankston, Victoria in under 30 minutes.

The Eddington report drew substantial criticism:

• Residents in Kensington, Victoria, feared losing their homes and public parklands along the Maribyrnong River and Royal Park and there were several public protests
• Environmental groups criticised a lack of regard for greenhouse emissions, which would substantially increase under the Eddington plan
• The continued imbalance favouring road spending over public transport was criticised by transport and environmental groups, including the RACV
• The rail tunnel idea was opposed by the Public Transport Users Association who said it was not needed and that a less costly but more effective option would be to upgrade signalling and build more extensions into car-dependent regions. The PTUA criticised the report for failing to consider suburban rail options still not implemented from the 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan including the Rowville Railway Line and the Doncaster Railway Line which would have relieved much of the eastern congestion and cost less than the proposed rail tunnel. Others questioned why an Airport Rail Link was also overlooked.
• The Eddington report neglected to investigate above ground options. A competing proposal for a Maglev train was prepared in response to the Eddington report which would have achieved mass transit covering a much larger area for a much smaller cost ($8 billion as opposed to $8.5 billion for the East-West road tunnel) (see Melbourne Maglev Proposal). However, the government was quick to dismiss the Maglev mass transit option as unnecessary and impractical.

Implementation

The government released its final decisions in the Victorian Transport Plan.

The key Eddington proposal, the controversial road tunnel, was ignored by the state government in the short term. Instead the government proposed to complete the outer metropolitan ring road first proposed in the 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan, including a tunnel through Greensborough.

The government did, however, pursue some of Eddington's ideas as part of the plan, including the large inner city rail tunnel, requesting funding from the Government of Australia, and also the Port of Melbourne freight road tunnel.