Trains will be taking passengers on Suburban Rail Loop (SRL) East by 2035, delivering immediate and substantial benefits to people across Melbourne’s south east and east, and the Gippsland region.
SRL East from Cheltenham to Box Hill will slash congestion, deliver huge public transport travel time savings and significantly improve access to jobs and housing options in Melbourne’s growing suburbs. It will also create up to 8,000 direct local jobs during construction, with the start of construction underway in 2022.
Trains will run every six minutes in peak periods and the journey from Cheltenham to Box Hill will take just 22 minutes, opening up access to key employment, health and education centres outside the CBD, including Monash and Deakin universities, Monash Medical Centre, Monash Children’s, Box Hill Hospital and Box Hill Institute.
Around 70,000 passengers are expected to use the new line every day – and the benefits will be felt across every mode of transport. The Business and Investment Case shows nearly half of all SRL East passengers will shift from their cars, helping to ease congestion on Melbourne’s roads. About a third of passengers will come from other public transport modes, and around 20 per cent from other transport and new trips.
Regional Victorians will also see huge early benefits, with faster and more convenient travel across Melbourne and improved access to a more diverse range of employment opportunities. For example, people travelling from Moe will have access to twice the number of jobs in Melbourne's middle suburbs within a 120-minute journey. Clayton will become a transport superhub, providing a quick and easy interchange for those travelling to and from the Gippsland corridor.
The benefits extend far beyond transport connections. Investment and new initiatives in the broader precincts around new stations will attract more businesses to these areas, and opportunities for new housing, including affordable and social housing - enabling more Victorians to live closer to where they work.
By 2036, SRL East Precincts will be home to 192,500 jobs (up from 120,500 in 2018), and 73,000 households (up from 48,500 in 2018). People from Bayside, Monash, Greater Dandenong and Whitehorse will be able to access an extra 100,000 jobs within an hour on public transport. In Monash alone — Melbourne’s second biggest employment centre after the CBD — there’ll be an additional 19,000 jobs within a short walk from the new SRL Station.
SRL will also deliver significant environmental and lifestyle benefits, with 3,450 cycle parking spaces across the six SRL East stations, and 15km of new and upgraded cycling and walking tracks in the neighbourhoods around the new stations.