By Victoria Stone-Meadows
Casey Council will be renewing calls for the State Government to extend the Cranbourne rail line following an item of urgent business at the last council meeting.
Councillor Amanda Stapledon raised the item, citing latest statistics showing Cranbourne East as one of the fastest growing suburbs in the country as reason to apply more pressure on the government.
Council passed a motion on Tuesday 4 April to host a briefing with State Government representatives to discuss moving plans to extend the train line to a more immediate timeline.
The latest report from Infrastructure Victoria released in September 2016 outlined plans for a rail extension of the Cranbourne line would be made a priority over the next 15 to 30 years.
“There is great advocacy going on in this space, but it isn’t enough,” Cr Stapledon said.
“We need a train line to Cranbourne East, Clyde, and Casey Fields and one day a rail link to Gippsland.”
The first-ever Casey people’s panel also identified the need for the rail line to be extended as a priority.
“People can’t get a car park at any station any more despite 500 spaces at Merinda Park and Lynbrook station; it’ a mess,” Cr Stapledon said.
“The community is ripping its hair out launching very strong advocacy from Cranbourne and beyond, but not getting anywhere.”
Councillor Rex Flannery did raise the question if council had investigated building multi-storey car parking at train stations in the municipality.
However, manager of Transport for the council Paul Hamilton said the cost of building multi-storey parking would outweigh the return.
“We need better access to current services and better connections for services,” he said.
“The cost of a ground level car park is about $7000 per space with no income other than myki whereas the cost of a deck structure is about $30,000 per space.”
“Unless we start charging for parking, a deck structure is not cost effective, we need to try to make sure people have access to buses and buses are meeting the trains.”
Cr Stapledon also said while it was unfortunate many people had been fined for not parking in the bays at train stations, it was State Government’s responsibility to fix and not council’s.
“The fines are unfortunate, and the State Government needs to look at it,” she said.
The meeting between council and the State Government to discuss the train line extension will be scheduled for May 2017.
