THE state government body responsible for managing the separation of road level crossings from rail lines across Victoria denies any final decisions on elevated rail along sections of the Frankston line.
Level Crossing Removal Authority CEO Kevin Devlin suggested elevated rail may be the “best outcome” as keynote speaker at a Committee for Economic Development function about cities and infrastructure this month and his comments were reported by The Age.
Mr Devlin noted many bayside residents oppose any form of raised rail on the Frankston line.
“They’re concerned about elevated rail solutions on the Frankston line, and we need to feed that into our assessment of our recommendations to government,” he reportedly said.
“But we need to balance other competing issues. Is it feasible in an engineering sense?”
The LXRA is adamant ‘sky rail’ has been ruled out along the Frankston line but says rail over road bridges are being considered as are rail under road trenches at specific level crossings along the line.
“No decisions have been made about the final designs of the further nine level crossing removal projects on the Frankston line,” project director Brad Smits said.
“All feasible options for the removal of each level crossing are being considered and were provided to the community through our extensive consultation process over the past eight weeks. All those options remain on the table.
“We will consider this community feedback in conjunction with dozens of complex engineering and technical assessments over coming months before determining how the level crossings will be removed.”
A ‘rail trench’ and ‘rail bridge’ are being considered for level crossings at Seaford, Bonbeach, Edithvale, Mentone and Cheltenham.
A rail bridge may be built at a new crossing at McLeod Rd in Carrum and the Station St crossing could be shut and a new rail bridge built at Eel Race Rd.
A new ‘road connection’ at Station St over Patterson River is also being considered by the LXRA.
The state government says a trench cannot be dug at Carrum due to the nearby Patterson River.
The Labor state government says there is no option at Skye Rd in Frankston – rail over road must be built due to an overland flood plain.
Final decisions will be announced early next year.
Critics of any moves to build elevated rail at any point along the line have dubbed such plans ‘rollercoaster rail’.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 9 November 2016
