This month marks 10 years since the Level Crossing Removal Project removed the first set of boom gates in January 2016, boosting safety and easing congestion across Melbourne.
The dangerous and congested level crossing at Burke Road, Glen Iris marked the project’s first removal, lowering the rail line under the road and opening a new Gardiner Station.
Burke Road consistently ranked as one of the city’s most congested intersections, with more than 25,000 vehicles, 150 trains and 180 trams travelling through the junction every day.
Since then, the success of the project has seen it expand to become one of the largest rail infrastructure programs of its kind in Victoria’s history, committing to remove 110 dangerous and congested level crossings across Melbourne by 2030, with 88 already gone for good.
Rail safety data shows the groundbreaking project has made travel safer for road and rail users, preventing 117 crashes and near misses every year by getting rid of some of Melbourne’s most dangerous level crossings.
This includes level crossings at Main and Furlong roads in St Albans, the scenes of 2 fatalities, 3 collisions, and close to 80 near misses in the decade before their removal in 2016, and fast tracking the level crossing removal at Union Road, Surrey Hills, where 2 women were killed when their car collided with a train in 2016.
The project has also transformed travel across Melbourne’s road network, easing congestion by eliminating more than 58 hours of boom gate down time in the morning peak alone.
Other program benefits include:
- 54 new and upgraded stations;
- more than 20 MCGs worth of new open space and 70km of walking and cycling paths;
- planting 29,000 trees and approximately 4 million shrubs and grasses; and
- 7000 new and upgraded station car parking spaces.
The infrastructure program has also been instrumental to Victoria’s jobs and skills growth, with more than 110 million hours worked on level crossing removals over the past 10 years and jobs created for close to 6000 workers during peak construction.
It has also presented new opportunities for skilled workers from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds through the award-winning Engineering Pathway Industry Cadetship (EPIC) program, helping 54 cadets to secure roles on level crossing removal projects to deliver critical upgrades to our transport infrastructure.
Four metropolitan lines are now entirely boom gate free – Lilydale, Pakenham, Cranbourne, Sunbury – with the Frankston and Werribee lines set to follow in 2029 and 2030, respectively.
This year will see more big milestones, with a further 8 level crossings set to be removed and 2 new stations opened.
In addition to level crossing removals, VIDA Rail is also delivering other key projects, including station upgrades in Boronia and Ballarat and building a brand-new West Tarneit Station, opening in 2026, the Melton Line Upgrade, and the Sunshine Superhub as the first stage of building a rail link to Melbourne Airport.
