Unit 606
178-182 Wellington Parade
East Melbourne
Vic 3002
2 September 2019
The Premier of Victoria
Parliament House
Melbourne
Vic 3000
Dear Premier
It is understood that the options for rail services to Tullamarine Airport are under consideration. May I advise you of a further, better option?
Interstate High Speed Rail would connect all major airports on the east coast: Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and in addition Adelaide, Canberra and New Castle. It would serve major cities and nearby regional cities as population increase distributes more people into the regions to save the capital cities from gross overcrowding, greater congestion and loss of liveability. Growing regional passenger numbers would have ready, rapid access to airports, and short commuting time to major city CBDs.
The interstate HSR project would include a loop to Tullamarine Airport and another loop to Avalon Airport on the mainline from Melbourne CBD to Geelong and Adelaide CBD.
The service to regions, airports and CBDs would be reliable and fast, and frequent to airports. Similar options to Tullamarine apply to other airports like West Sydney Airport to the Sydney CBD.
The interstate HSR standard gauge tracks would be dedicated and separate from broad gauge and narrow-gauge tracks. The HSR project would avoid new problems of “different state railway gauges” being embedded in tracks, signalling, rollingstock and safety.
The whole HSR project would be self-funding during its 10-year construction period from sale of 400,000 dwellings built above the tracks in inner-city suburbs at an average price of $500,000. (Please see www.veryfasttrain.com.au) This would avoid charging the much higher fares necessary to recover total capital costs over 40 years of operations as is traditional railway practice.
The Federal/foreign funded interstate HSR would cut the Victorian Government’s expenditure of $5billion on Tullamarine rail. There would be large savings for more expenditure on other infrastructure. The cost of the Tullamarine and Avalon airport rail services would be included in the total cost of the HSR project.
Yours sincerely
Peter J Knight B. Com (Hons) (Melb), MBA (Melb)
Chairman, The VFT 2 Project
Recently Founder, Chairman and CEO, The CEO Circle Pty Ltd
Former BHP Member of the Advisory Board, the original VFT Consortium
Former Manager Corporate Planning, BHP H.O.
Former Economist, RBA
Copy to Mr Alan Tudge MP
