Melbourne is growing faster than it has been willing to add essential services including train stations, buses, health facilities and libraries. In few places is this lag more apparent than in the City of Melton, especially on the new estates fast filling the plains west of Caroline Springs.
One such estate is Mt Atkinson. People might have bought expecting a town centre and train station but these are as far away as ever. The Ballarat Line Upgrade brought large infrastructure and service improvements but still no station (although Infrastructure Victoria has recommended one). And no one knows if or when Melton will ever see rail electrification.
Mt Atkinson's 'middle of nowhere' location disconnects it from more established suburbs with shops and other services. You can walk 3km and still not get to anything much. Severance caused by the freeway isn't helping either.
No adult can live in Mt Atkinson without their own car. Children must be driven almost everywhere. Issues with cost of living and social isolation are acute. If you lose your job, health or ability to drive you basically have to move out. The same goes if rising interest rates bite as selling a car to trim costs is impractical.
Barring the occasional booked developer bus, Mt Atkinson doesn't even have buses. The nearest bus stop from parts of the estate is 45 minutes walk away. And, from a planning perspective, the area is neither easy nor cheap to serve with no existing route that could be simply extended. This might explain why other growth areas have got buses while Mt Atkinson has waited.
Residents are starting to demand better with involvement in an FOE campaign for better buses. The area is in the seat of Kororoit represented by Labor's Luba Grigorovitch (who asked a question on Mt Atkinson transport to the minister last month).
Bus network options
Bus routes need to link homes to useful destinations. The more useful destinations near a terminus the better. Unlike the more transit-friendly Sunbury rail corridor where you can do both, choices need to be made as to whether you terminate a bus at a station or shops.
You also need to think about wider network needs, such as cross-suburb connections which could induce network demand beyond just that generated from the estate it was established to serve.
You also need to think about wider network needs, such as cross-suburb connections which could induce network demand beyond just that generated from the estate it was established to serve.
Places that you might start or finish a Mt Atkinson bus route could include:
* Caroline Springs Town Centre (shops, schools, buses but no station)
* Caroline Springs Town Centre (shops, schools, buses but no station)
* Caroline Springs Station (station but nothing else)
* Deer Park Station (station, buses and potential for route to operate via shops)
* Rockbank (station but nothing else)
* Tarneit (station, buses, shops, cross-town route potential but distance with poor catchment)
Routes should perform multiple roles, for example they should work as both train feeders and connections to shops. Thus you would likely never have a route that runs between two shopless stations (eg Rockbank and Caroline Springs) or two shopping centres that lack trains.
You might consider routes that allow bus-bus connections for significant out of area destinations like Woodgrove Shopping Centre and Sunshine (both served by Route 456). Additional coverage of other estates would also be a plus.
I'll present three concepts for a potential Mt Atkinson bus route. They're rough so don't pay too much attention to the exact alignments. Development and new road connections may make variations better for coverage and directness.
All options feature a route 20 to 22 kilometres long. Hence each would cost about the same to run. With usual bus travel speeds two buses would enable an hourly service, three buses one every 40 minutes and four buses a trip every 30 minutes.
Option 1
The concept here is to provide access to trains at Rockbank and shops and services at Caroline Springs.
It includes coverage of parts of Rockbank, Fieldstone and Mt Cottrell as well as Mt Atkinson. That's a plus as these areas also have no buses. Deanside also gains with a direct bus to the Caroline Springs Town Centre (which Route 456 in the area misses).
A disadvantage is that Mt Atkinson people need to take an indirect bus away from the city to catch a train towards the city, significantly adding travel time. People hate travelling backwards so they're not going to like it. Still it's better than now where there's no service. Secondly we are using scarce service kilometres to run a bus along Hopkins Rd despite little development along it (according to the above photo). However as more roads gets connected it may be possible to shorten the route (and potentially permit higher peak frequencies).
It includes coverage of parts of Rockbank, Fieldstone and Mt Cottrell as well as Mt Atkinson. That's a plus as these areas also have no buses. Deanside also gains with a direct bus to the Caroline Springs Town Centre (which Route 456 in the area misses).
A disadvantage is that Mt Atkinson people need to take an indirect bus away from the city to catch a train towards the city, significantly adding travel time. People hate travelling backwards so they're not going to like it. Still it's better than now where there's no service. Secondly we are using scarce service kilometres to run a bus along Hopkins Rd despite little development along it (according to the above photo). However as more roads gets connected it may be possible to shorten the route (and potentially permit higher peak frequencies).
Option 2
The western portion of this route from Rockbank is identical to Option 1. The difference is that it runs south to Tarneit instead of east to Caroline Springs. That's got advantages and disadvantages.
Firstly the disadvantages. The most notable is there's no easy connectivity to Caroline Springs. Instead someone from Mt Atkinson must backtrack to Rockbank and catch either the train or 456 bus east. Then they need to catch the 460 bus north. It's a lot of messing around to go a fairly short trips.
Firstly the disadvantages. The most notable is there's no easy connectivity to Caroline Springs. Instead someone from Mt Atkinson must backtrack to Rockbank and catch either the train or 456 bus east. Then they need to catch the 460 bus north. It's a lot of messing around to go a fairly short trips.
However others in Mt Atkinson would value the option to catch trains at two stations, not just one. Weekend trains on the Geelong line will be boosted to every 20 minutes in 2024 while plans for Melton are merely to every 40 minutes. Tarneit also has shops, buses to numerous schools and a direct route to the large Werribee Plaza Shopping Centre.
Why is there a kink north of Tarneit? This is to provide coverage in the Tarneit North area which just has a FlexiRide. This can be unreliable especially during peak times. A new fixed route would add needed extra capacity. Even though this route was mainly intended to benefit Mt Atkinson this is an example of a new route bringing wider benefits for other areas.
Another benefit of this alignment is that it (indirectly) connects two train lines. It may still be quicker to change at Deer Park if you are travelling between stations. But if you aren't then the bus may be useful.
Option 3
The third option is Caroline Springs Town Centre to Tarneit. This provides coverage of Mt Atkinson but not Fieldstone or southern parts of Rockbank which will need their own routes. It is relatively direct and would make currently difficult trips like Caroline Springs to Tarneit vastly easier than now.
For Mt Atkinson residents this alignment would provide access to jobs, shops and other buses at both ends (including to Melbourne Airport if all this happens). However it doesn't meet trains on its local train line unless a station was built at Mt Atkinson. But once done this route has the potential to be an excellent feeder from multiple directions.
What about that Tarneit North kink? You might have it initially but you'd eventually remove it with local Tarneit North fixed route buses providing coverage. As well as supplementing (or replacing) the less inherently productive FlexiRide this could serve important but unmet needs such as a direct bus connection from Tarneit Station to Laverton North jobs.
Summary
There's enough people in Mt Atkinson and surrounds for it to have bus services. Haphazard leapfrog development with limited road connectivity makes bus planning complex and has potentially contributed to delays in it getting service. Compromises when service does start are inevitable but these are better than the nothing that currently exists.
I've presented three rough concepts for a new bus route through the area. Which do you prefer? Is there a variation that would benefit even more people? Or maybe a stop-gap 'swings and roundabouts' measure like diverting the 456 off the freeway to be nearer homes to the south? Comments are invited and can be left below.
