By NOEL MURPHY
A PROPOSED rail link to Torquay will compete with traffic on other lines unless planners can overcome a single-line bottleneck south of Geelong station, Public Transport Users Association has warned.
State Government’s this week announced a $300,000 study to test the feasibility of new lines between Torquay and Grovedale and Drysdale and South Geelong.
The Torquay line would continue south from a new $26 million station at Waurn Ponds, tipped to open mid-2015.
But Public Transport Users Association said the line faced an uphill battle providing sufficient services to lure commuters from their cars and into trains.
Association Geelong convenor Paul Westcott said the great challenge for rail services to Torquay and Drysdale alike was providing enough carriages at regular intervals to satisfy demand.
He said the immediate sticking point was the single line south of Geelong station, linking South Geelong and Marshall stations and further west to Colac and Warrnambool.
“Putting a line in doesn’t necessarily give you a useable service,” Mr Westcott told the Independent.
“Providing lines and station doesn’t give good services – they have to be frequent enough to attract people from their cars and provide better services than buses can now.
“At the moment, trains run to Marshall and they will eventually run to Armstrong Creek but how do you service it properly if every second one goes to Drysdale?
“That’s always been the query when this is raised: how to provide decent service. You have to treat Drysdale as separate,” he said.
“The line branches off at South Geelong but again there’s the problem of a single line through the tunnel from Geelong. Every train can’t be sent to Marshall at peak and that’s the problem.”
Surf Coast mayor Libby Coker said her council would be “very supportive” of establishing a rail link.
“It could be very important. We definitely want to be a part of it but it’s matter of how we do it and where it goes,” she told the Independent.
The Independent revealed five years ago that planners had set aside an 80-metre-wide corridor for the Grovedale-Torquay line as part of work on plans for urban development of the Armstrong Creek area.
