By Brendan Rees
City of Casey will lobby the State Government to provide more a reliable train service on the Cranbourne line.
Casey’s Deputy Mayor Amanda Stapledon led an urgent business motion at a council meeting on 15 May calling for drastic actions to fix the issue.
The motion was in response to Cr Stapledon receiving an email from a disgruntled Lyndhurst resident who faced regular train delays and cancellations on the Cranbourne line.
Cr Stapledon said there was a number of “really hardworking residents that are just trying to get from A to B, get to their places of work, get home to their families, get home ton their volunteer committees and constantly frustrated with so many issues.”
Councillors resolved to write to the Minister for Public Transport Jacinta Allen outlining a “significant number of issues” on the Cranbourne line that was impacting commuters daily.
Metro spokesperson Marcus Williams said Metro understood the importance of a reliable network for passengers and “Our teams are literally working around the clock to keep improving our service,” he said.
“The State Government is making significant investment in modernising the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines, which will provide lasting benefits for passengers once complete.
“Old infrastructure on the rail corridor is being replaced and upgraded to boost capacity and reliability,” Mr Williams said.
Mr Williams added services were only ever altered to “avoid further disruption to more passengers” due to a range of factors including ill passengers, trespassers, infrastructure faults and vandalism.
Member for Cranbourne Jude Perera said the State Government has invested $572 million to deliver further upgrades to the Cranbourne train line.
“(We are) delivering power upgrades, and modern signalling from the city to Cranbourne and Pakenham – paving the way for the Cranbourne line duplication, and undertaking detailed design work to enable new high capacity metro trains,” he said.
According to Public Transport Victoria, 98 per cent of Cranbourne’s train timetable was delivered on time in the year to April with 1.3 per cent of trains cancelled, equating to 570 trains being cancelled in the year.
Shadow Minister for Public Transport David Davis said commuters had been made to wear the brunt of “Labor’s incompetent management of our train services.”
“Commuters cannot rely on the punctuality and reliability of train services on the Cranbourne line – they’ve deteriorated since Labor came to power and are less punctual than they were in 2014,” he said.
Lyndhurst resident, Nathan Ottobre said he found it difficult to get to and from work on time using the Cranbourne line.
“I’m constantly paying money for my life to be ruined as Metros actions or lack of are ruining my personal and professional commitments, causing me and thousands of others great stress, and all because I travel on the Cranbourne line,” he said.
“Cranbourne is by far the worst performing line in the Metro train service and nothing is done to fix it.”
Cr Damien Rosario said: “If we don’t have reliable public transport our only option is to go on the road to get to where we need to go. If we do that our roads are clogged up because people have no alternative.”
