Prior Transit & Citizen Growth

Transportation Infrastructure Follows Population Growth, But Melbourne's Train Lines Have Remained Stagnant

From left to right, the transportation projects that started construction are shown in various colors. Yellow markers represent major road projects, green markers represent rail extension projects, red markers represent future projects, the blue marker represents the NDP Plan, and the green marker with blue lines represents NDP projects. From left to right, the rail projects are City Loop, Dandenong to Cranbourne Rail Extension, Epping to South Morang Rail Extension, Werribee to Deer Park Rail Extension, Regional Rail Link, and the Melbourne Metro 1. From left to right, the road projects are represented by the grey markers are the M80 Ring Road, CityLink Freeway, EastLink Freeway, and the Frankston Bypass Freeway. The last two are projected start dates for transportation projects in 2022. Respectively from left to right, the projects are the Suburban Rail Loop and the Melbourne Airport Rail.

Since the 1950's, Melbourne's population has grown on average about 1.8% a year to this day; a healthy growth rate per city is about 1%. From 2005 to 2020, the growth rate increased to 2.2% a year. As the city has been exponentially growing in population, the city's transit infrastructure has grown with it, especially since 2010. With the population looking to continue growing, with Melbourne looking to hit 6 million people by 2025, efficient and effective transportation will be needed more than ever to keep up with the population growth. More substantial rail projects since the NDP have been the priority and we hope to create the case that the Melbourne Metro 2 ends up as one of those projects as well.

Rail Expansion has been limited since 1986

This is a map of Melbourne's train lines since 1986. This incorporates the City Loop transit project that started back in 1971.

The map below is from 2019 and we can see a few changes made since 1986. Most notably, the V/Line trains are now on the map, along with the extension to Mernda in the North (red line) and the Stony Point extension in the South (green line). The only other change made between 1986 and 2019 is the removal of the St. Kilda and Port Melbourne line south of the City Loop. Excluding the regional rail lines that are shown in the 2019 map (they existed in 1986 but were not shown), only two extensions were created and two lines were removed. Investing in new rail or upgrading current rail lines will be key to having the ability to move mass groups of people around the city without increasing traffic and congestion significantly.

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