By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
Residents rail against train as plans leave them up in the air…
FOR one Noble Park resident, there’s no way the State Government can make its sky rail project palatable.
“You can’t polish a turd,” he said with venom.
He said he does not want to stare at towering concrete and passing trains over his back fence.
The man has painted a political protest on his family’s back fence, brightly visible to train commuters: “How dare you destroy my home and community with ‘sky rail’ Mr Andrews”, it reads.
The man and his family have lived metres from the Corrigan Road level crossing’s frequently jangling bells and closing boom gates for 40 years.
Under the State Government’s plan, the intersection and Noble Park’s other maligned level crossings at Heatherton and Chandler roads will be replaced by a nine-metre elevated rail section by late 2018.
“The level crossing doesn’t bother me because it wasn’t imposed on me after we moved in,” the resident said.
“But when someone imposes something upon me without saying a word to me and they don’t listen to me…
“I was expecting it to go underground.”
The man pointed to a Level Crossing Removal Authority calling-card left at his home four days after the announcement. It states: “Sorry we missed you”.
“You weren’t sorry to miss me a few months ago,” the man tersely responds.
Noble Park Community Action Forum member Ian Laidlaw said the suburb had been held back by the three level crossings and the ensuing traffic delays for 90 years.
“It’s fantastic to get rid of the level crossings. It will change the community but I’m disappointed it’s not underground.”
Mr Laidlaw said he didn’t want spaces under elevated rail lines, which had become “wastelands” in other parts of Melbourne, such as Queen’s Bridge and Huntingdale Road.
Dawn Vernon, who lives 12 houses from one of the level crossings, said the project would bring together parts of Noble Park which have been long separated by rail tracks.
She supported the concept “as long as it’s not too noisy”.
Others at the community action forum on 10 February railed at the lack of meaningful consultation, claiming the Level Crossing Removal Authority had made no mention of sky rail in a meeting with residents last year.
None of the residents at that consultation wanted rail tracks elevated above roads, a forum member said.
There were hopes for more car parking at the Noble Park railway station to be revamped and shifted closer to Heatherton Road under the project.
“The devil will be in the detail,” an audience member said.
Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan defended the community consultation in Parliament and at a launch at Noble Park on 8 February.
She told Parliament that hundreds of residents near the rail corridor were doorknocked the night before the 7 February announcement.
At Noble Park, she said the community wanted to get rid of the level crossings as quickly as possible with more public open space and car parking.
When asked if the public wanted rail above roads, there were a range of views collected at each of the nine removed level crossings between Dandenong and Caulfield.
Ms Allan alluded to a flaw in underground rail projects, such as the Springvale Road level crossing removal.
“The challenge with that outcome is it continues to divide the community. It continues to have communities divided by a rail line.
“What this option does is allow for communities to be connected in a way they never have been before and provide along the corridor 11 MCGs of open space.”
Ms Allan confirmed the project would allow for additional rail lines to be added to what is the most congested line in metro Melbourne.
Southern metropolitan region Liberal MP David Davis warned that the sky rail would “rumble out over many kilometres impacting families and communities”.
“Labor didn’t promise sky rail; they promised road over rail – nobody voted for sky rail.
“This is the biggest shock to people.
“This is like the 1950s revisited – an ugly, intrusive eyesore.”
