On the hunt for cars illegally parked outside of the lines.

Across the dirt.

In no standing zones.

Or being absolute twunts and blocking in people who are legally parked.

The “Parking Inspectors Unit” are actually just Metro Trains Authorised Officers, and they leave a Metro Trains branded ‘Parking Infringement Advisory Notice’ on the car windscreen.

Informing the owner that they are parked in contravention of the Road Safety Rules 2009, and their details have been forwarded to the Department of Transport who may then issue a Parking Infringement Notice by post.

So what legislation backs these infringement notices?

The notices left by Authorised Officers are backed by the Section 87 of the Road Safety Act 1986, which states.

Service of parking infringement notices

(1AD) Subject to subsections (1AE) to (1AG), if an authorised officer within the meaning of section 208 of the Transport (Compliance and Miscellaneous) Act 1983 (as authorised under section 221AB of that Act) has reason to believe that a parking infringement has been committed in respect of any vehicle that is on or in a park and ride facility, the person may serve or cause to be served, in accordance with the regulations, a parking infringement notice.

(1AE) Before serving or causing to be served a parking infringement notice, an authorised officer within the meaning of section 208 of the Transport Act 1983 (as authorised under section 221AB of that Act) may serve a parking infringement advisory notice.

(1AF) A parking infringement advisory notice must state that a parking infringement has been reported to the Department of Transport by the authorised officer.

(1AG) A parking infringement advisory notice must be served by affixing or placing the notice on the relevant vehicle in a conspicuous manner.

Enforcement of these new rules by Authorised Offices commenced in December 2011, with The Age writing about the number of fines issued in 2013.

Commuters who park at their local railway station and catch the train to work are being fined in their thousands because they cannot find a car parking space.

Metro-authorised officers fined almost 5000 motorists in the 2012-13 financial year for illegal parking at just 12 Melbourne stations, government data shows. The rail operator’s authorised officers – who also fine fare evaders – issued a total of 4784 infringement notices to motorists who had illegally parked at one of the network’s 12 most overstretched stations last financial year, netting the state government more than $265,000 in consolidated revenue.

Werribee, which has a car park with 582 spaces, was the station at which the highest number of fines were issued. In total, 1115 fines were issued there last financial year, costing commuters $32,589, Department of Transport, Planning and Local Infrastructure data reveals. Commuters at Watsonia station were fined even harder, with 721 fines issued, totalling $42,286.

Metro’s authorised officers started patrolling railway station car parks in December 2011. Previously it was the job of Victoria Police. Fines they have issued range from $29 for failure to park completely within a bay to $144 for stopping in a no stopping area.

The legislative backing having been added in March 2010 via the Transport Legislation Amendment (Compliance, Enforcement and Regulation) Act 2010.

And being fined for not catching a train

For years railway station car parks have had signs at the entry, stating ‘Parking permitted only in defined bays for commuters directly interchanging to rail or other public transport system’.

But that message didn’t have any legislative backing behind it, until 2014 when Public Transport Victoria launched a trial where drivers using a railway station car park without travelling by public transport could receive a fine. The Age wrote about the trial in October 2014.

Motorists who park in railway station car parks but who do not catch a train could face fines next year.

Authorised transport officers will begin patrolling station car parks in the new year, and will check myki cards to make sure the drivers are genuine commuters.

The punitive approach to tackling Melbourne’s chronic shortage of railway station car parking will be trialled at six stations, before potentially being introduced more widely.

Non-commuters caught parking at the stations will be slugged with an $89 fine.

Initially, six stations will be patrolled by authorised officers from January 1: Box Hill, Burwood, Camberwell, Heidelberg, Highett and Murrumbeena.

These are all stations where commuters have had to put up with non-commuters taking precious free commuter car parking spaces, the Napthine government says. The freshly gazetted legislation follows feedback from local MPs who have received complaints from constituents, the government said.

The new regulations will be enforced by authorised officers conducting random checks at car park exits. If drivers or passengers in the vehicle do not have a valid ticket that shows they used public transport while the vehicle was parked, they risk an $89 fine.

If successful, the trial will be extended to other free commuter car parks in 2015.

The restriction will apply on weekdays between 6am and 7pm. Motorists will be free to park in a station car park for up to one hour provided they remain inside the station car park area, so it is possible to drop off or pick up a passenger.

The legislative backing for this trial was included in the Transport (Compliance and Miscellaneous) (Conduct on Public Transport) Regulations 2015.

51 Person who leaves motor vehicle parked must use public transport

(1) A person must not leave a motor vehicle parked in a public transport parking area at any time between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. on a business day unless—

(a) any of the following persons validly uses public transport at any time between 12 a.m. on that day and 2 a.m. on the next day while the motor vehicle remains parked—
(i) the person who parks the motor vehicle;
(ii) a person who is a passenger in the motor vehicle when it is parked;
(iii) a person who removes the motor vehicle from the designated park and ride facility at which the public transport parking area is located;
(iv) a person who is a passenger in the motor vehicle when it is removed from the designated park and ride facility at which the public transport parking area is located; or

(b) regulation 52, 53 or 54 applies.
Penalty: 3 penalty units.

(2) If a person leaves a motor vehicle parked in contravention of subregulation (1) for longer than one day—
(a) only one criminal proceeding in respect of an offence against subregulation (1) may be commenced in respect of those circumstances; and
(b) only one infringement notice in respect of an offence against subregulation (1) may be issued in respect of those circumstances

With the list of “designated park and ride facilities” being the six stations listed in the trial – Box Hill, Burwood, Camberwell, Heidelberg, Highett and Murrumbeena.

But there was an interesting clause at the bottom:

64 Expiry of Part

This Part expires on 30 June 2017

Come 2017, the Transport (Compliance and Miscellaneous) (Conduct on Public Transport) Amendment Regulations 2017 extended the date.

12 Parking at designated park and ride facilities

In regulation 64 of the Principal Regulations, for “30 June 2017” substitute “30 June 2019”

But in 2019 it expired, rather than being extended again.

Pt 5
(Headings and regs 48–64) amended by S.R. No. 49/2017 regs 10–12, expired by force of S.R. No. 72/2015 reg. 64 (as amended by S.R. No. 49/2017 reg. 12).

And in 2022 the definitions of “designated park and ride facility” were also removed:

Reg. 5(1) def. of designated park and ride facility revoked by S.R. No. 2/2022 reg. 5(c).

So now the only offence you need to worry about when parking in a railway station car park is failing to park between the lines – but you know how to drive a car, don’t you.

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Regional Rail Link

Work on the Regional Rail Link project was continuing, with the new track connections to the North Melbourne flyover taking shape to separate V/Line and suburban trains.

The launching truss was also in place at the new Maribyrnong River bridge.

Forming a third pair of tracks between North Melbourne and Footscray.

Including a flyover outside Footscray to swap the position of the V/Line and Werribee line track pairs.

At Footscray station work continued on the expanded station concourse.

With two new platforms being built on the north side of the station, to allow V/Line and suburban trains to be separated.

The bridge at the west end of the station was also being widened for the extra pair of tracks.

As well through the cutting towards Middle Footscray.

The first stage of Regional Rail Link between the city and Footscray opened in July 2014, with the project completed in June 2015.

Car parking – cheap at twice the price

At North Williamstown station a $530,000 car park upgrade had just been completed.

The gravel forecourt being turned into an asphalt car park with 50 spaces.

Another screw up by V/Line

In mid-2013 V/Line discovered cracked bogies beneath their fleet of 1950s-era locomotive hauled carriages, which also happened to be the only wheelchair accessible carriages in their long distance fleet.

A total of 22 carriages were impacted by the bogie cracks, with 13 returned to service by June 2014 when new bogies were sourced, the last finally fixed by the end of 2016. Fast forward to today, and the carriages are now retired.

Touring Melbourne’s train control centre

I somehow managed to wrangle a tour of ‘Metrol‘ – Melbourne’s train control centre.

Inside train controllers were busy directing trains across the network.

Each controller being responsible for one part of the network.

With an array of screens showing the location of trains, and a control panel to set which route they would take.

And next door was the shiny new Train Control and Monitoring System room – ready to go, but not yet in everyday use.

But there was one low tech system still in use – stringline graphs.

Depicting the timetabled services running on each line, the hand drawn annotations show where ad-hoc changes needed to be made following delays and disruptions.

Buses

On Queens Bridge I found a Melbourne Free Visitor Shuttle bus.

A victim of competition from the Free Tram Zone, the City of Melbourne finally killed off the service in August 2017.

Trams

A decade ago there were still no platform tram stops on Elizabeth Street.

They were finally built in late-2013.

And the B1 class ‘light rail vehicles’ were still in service.

They were eventually withdrawn in 2016, following a farewell tour.

The clunky old Z1 class trams were also still kicking around.

They were also withdrawn in 2016, having also had their own farewell tour.

And finally, the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant was still trunding around the streets of Melbourne.

The service last ran in October 2018, when Yarra Trams banned the fleet of the network citing safety concerns.

Stupid motorists

I found this old man driving down through the tram stop on Swanston Street – did he think his beat up Mercedes Benz was a bike?

While this motorist figured they could actually take their Toorak Tractor off road, and decided that instead of squeezing out of the bike line, driving off the edge would be quicker.

And the cost of living

A decade ago you could travel anywhere in Melbourne on a weekend for just $3.50.

But fast forward to today – public transport fares are now $10 a day, which on weekends is discounted to ‘just’ $7.20.

Footnote

Here you can find the rest of my ‘photos from ten years ago‘ series.

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The early years

The first multi-deck car park at a Melbourne railway station opened in 1984 as part of the rebuild of Box Hill into a transport interchange and shopping centre. On the lowest level of the shopping centre car park, there is an area dedicated to all day parking by public transport users.

But it took two decades for the next one to be built – in inner suburban Elsternwick on the Sandringham line. There a 156-space, five-level car park was built in 2003 beside the railway station, as part of a $10 million residential and commercial development on 4000 sq metres of publicly owned land.

And it took another decade for the third multi-deck car park to be built – a $10.8 million four storey structure at Syndal on the Glen Waverley line, which added 250 car spaces to bring the total at the station to 590.

And it’s on

With the launch of the Level Crossing Removal Project in 2015, there has been one iron clad commitment followed in every single project they have completed across Melbourne – “no net loss of car parking”.

Initially this requirement was met by expanding at grade car parks at nearby railway stations or on land freed up by the relocation of railway tracks, but as the project moved into more densely populated areas, this was not possible.

And so Cheltenham station gained a four storey 220-space car park in 2020.

And Mooroolbark station gained a four storey 900-space behemoth in 2022.

And doubling down

In the lead up to the 2019 federal election the Morrison Government launched their ‘Urban Congestion Fund’ – intended to fund car parks at railway stations, it was widely criticised as a way to buy votes in marginal seats.

Australian National Audit Office diagram

But the Andrew’s Government in Victoria had already been playing that game, following the launch of the $150 million ‘Car Parks for Commuters Fund’ in 2018. Multi-deck car parks being built as part of this program include –

Frankston: 500-space multi-deck car park, jointly funded by the Victorian Government and the Australian Government, and delivered by the Level Crossing Removal Project.

Greensborough: 100-space car park and bus interchange, jointly funded by the Victorian Government and the Australian Government, and delivered by the Level Crossing Removal Project.

Sunbury: 300-space car park, funded by the Victorian Government, Australian Government Urban Congestion Fund, and the Growth Areas Infrastructure Contribution (GAIC) Fund.

Watsonia: 60-space car park as part of the North East Link project.

Belgrave: 640-space car park funded by the Victorian Government and delivered by VicTrack.

Footnote: meanwhile in Sydney

Up in Sydney they’ve building multi-deck car parks at railway stations for decades – one example is the $29 million expansion of the Revesby station car park, which added three storeys to the existing car park, providing 385 additional car spaces.

Further reading

It’s surprisingly hard to find how many car parks actually exist at Melbourne railway stations, but back in 2016 Public Transport Victoria published a dataset, which Philip Mallis has plotted in map form here.

The Office of the Victorian Government Architect also has a Design principles: Multi-deck commuter car parks document, to describes how they can “can support and contribute to a well-connected, enjoyable, safe and vibrant public realm”.

Daniel Bowen has also written about Melbourne’s station parking problem, and the poor state of alternatives to driving to the station.

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Down in Docklands

We start down in the windswept streets of Docklands.

Where I had a look over the last remaining part of Melbourne Yard – the heritage listed No. 2 Goods Shed completed in 1889.

And looked across to 67 Spencer Street – the former Victorian Railways head office.

Then walked home past the ‘Wailing Wall‘.

None of these views are possible today – the Melbourne Quarter development covers the block bounded by Wurundjeri Way and Collins Street, the retained wall partially demolished to provided vehicle access.

Taking off

October 2010 saw me pay a visit to Essendon Airport.

Where the terminal looked much the same as when it served as Melbourne’s international gateway.

But the scene is different today – a $4 million renovation completed in 2019 has converted the main arrival hall into office space.

An even more dramatic transformation was at RAAF Williams in Laverton.

Once empty paddocks between the Princes Freeway.

A decade later the airfield is gone, turned into the suburb of Williams Landing.

Big road spending

Work on the $371 million West Gate Bridge Strengthening project was well underway, with scaffolding covering the bridge while work was completed to add a fifth traffic lane in each direction.

Another road project was the $48.5 million Kororoit Creek Road duplication, which removed a level crossing on the Werribee line.

And Laverton station received yet another car park extension, taking it all the way to the Princes Freeway overpass.

At the rate the car park is being extended, it will soon join up with Aircraft station!

New trains

Delivery of more X’Trapolis trains was starting to ramp up during 2010, the imported body shells waiting outside the Alstom plant in Ballarat awaiting final fitout.

And a new stabling yard had just opened at Newport to park all of these extra trains.

A decade later the new HCMT fleet is being built at Newport, the Alstom Ballarat plant mothballed due to with no work, the workers redeployed to the V/Line maintenance workshops down the road.

Forgotten heritage

I made my way up to the Seymour Railway Heritage Centre.

Where I found a tine capsule from the 1980s.

Buffet carriage ‘Tanjil’.

The carriage remains in storage today, awaiting a future restoration to service.

Meanwhile in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, the Preston Workshops was a dumping ground for retired W class trams.

But the scene today is different – in 2014 the old trams were moved out and given away to new homes, making way for the ‘New Preston Depot‘ that opened in 2016 for the fleet of brand new E class trams.

Meanwhile Flinders Street Station was a dank and crumbing place.

The only upside being a dance party happening in the Campbell Arcade subway.

A decade later the tiles have finally been fixed, part of the $100 million Flinders Street Station upgrade project, but for the Campbell Arcade the future is not as rosy – half the shops are due to be bulldozed by the Metro Tunnel project to provided a connection to the new Town Hall station.

And things that never change

Promotional crap blocking access to Melbourne Central Station.

It just keeps on happening.

Footnote

Here you can find the rest of my ‘photos from ten years ago‘ series.

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Remember Connex and Metcards? Here we see the ticket gates at Glenferrie station.

Down at North Melbourne station the new concourse at the city end was almost complete. This massive steel deck was required to protect the gas mains underneath from the heavy crane used to remove the last bits of formwork.

Down the line at Footscray station, rail replacement buses were running, thanks to a damaged section of overhead wiring on the track towards Newport – all thanks to a scrote who threw a chair over the edge of the station footbridge.

Note the lack of low floor buses – you can blame Sita Buslines for that.

The footbridge in question was still the rickety timber and tin structure dating back to the 1900s.

But the bridge’s days were numbered.

With construction on the $14.7 million dollar replacement about to start.

Another upgrade was the introduction of ‘Parkiteer‘ bike cages around the network.

Launched in February 2008, initially $1 million in funding was allocated for the installation of up to 20 bike cages.

But $1 million is a drop in the ocean in the money spent on railway station car parks.

In 2009 the massive car park at Laverton station was undergoing yet another expansion – stretching halfway to Aircraft station.

By 2014 the car park was rated the ‘worst in Melbourne for finding a space‘, with local residents getting sick and tired of motorists from elsewhere clogging their suburb, but the 2018 State Election saw the promise of still more parking spaces made by the Andrews Government.

July 2009 also saw me take a wander around the back blocks of Docklands.

There were plenty of abandoned railway tracks running around the wharves – this is now the corner of Collins and Bourke Street.

While the other end was shed 21 – since demolished, erasing the last trace of Victoria Dock.

Closer to North Melbourne station was the former ‘Hump’ at Melbourne Yard.

Opened in 1968, the yard was used to sort freight wagons. Each wagon would be pushed to the top of the ‘hump’ and then released, being allowed to roll into a destination track.

The entire yard was controlled by a primitive computer, with remote controlled brakes and points ensuring that each wagon ended up on the correct train.

But by the time of my visit the yard was long closed – the last train passed over the top in 1987.

The bulk of the yard was demolished in 1997 to make way for the Docklands Stadium, but the ‘hump’ crest lasted until 2010, when it was demolished to make room for the new Regional Rail Link tracks.

I also swung past the Melbourne Steel Terminal, used to tranship freight for the BlueScope Steel plant on the Stony Point line at Hastings.

Located in the middle of the ‘E’ Gate urban renewal precinct, the freight terminal was closed in 2015 and cleared of tracks soon after.

But all of those plans have come to naught – the land has been handed over to Transurban for city access ramps connecting to the West Gate ‘Tunnel’.

And finally, we end down on the outskirts of Geelong, where the railway towards Warrnambool passed through anonymous empty paddocks.

But in 2013 this spot was chosen as the site of the new ‘Grovedale’ station, which opened to passengers as ‘Waurn Ponds’ on October 2014.

Footnote

Here you can find the rest of my ‘photos from ten years ago‘ series.

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It’s a sea of car parking.

The car park has spread south from the university campus on Ballarat Road.

And then taken over the adjoining neighbourhood.

The original street network still remains, complete with footpaths and streetlights.

And cul-de-sacs.

But bollards and ticket machines have replaced the houses.

Except for a handful of holdouts who refuse to sell.

The three remaining houses are easily spotted when the land titles of the area are examined.

Much like the nail houses of China.

These houses of Footscray have car parks either side.

And across the back fence.

Houses along Geelong Road are still being acquired to expand the car park.

With no block too small to turn over to parked cars.

But the residents of Federal Street are yet to fall victim to the advancing cars.

So where to next?

In 2015 the northern edge of the car park was closed to make room for the ‘UniLodge@VU’ student accommodation complex.

With work starting on sealing the rest of the gravel car park.

But with high density development of Footscray taking off, replacement of the car park by more apartments is the most likely outcome.

Or it was, until the October 2018 announcement that the State Government would spend $1.5 billion to build a new Footscray Hospital on the car park site.

Footscray’s crumbling hospital would be rebuilt opposite Victoria University’s Footscray Park campus under a $1.5 billion election pledge by the state government.

Premier Daniel Andrews announced on Sunday that a returned Labor government would fund a new 504-bed hospital that could accommodate an extra 20,000 emergency department admissions and 15,000 patients each year.

The new hospital would be built on the corner of Geelong and Ballarat Roads, a site chosen from a shortlist of three locations including the current hospital site on Eleanor Street.

Construction would begin with two years and the hospital would be open by 2025.

But will the slow and infrequent route 82 tram be upgraded to cater for the extra passengers – I doubt it!

Footnote

In 2017 Stephanie Convery also wrote about the car park at Victoria University:

At Victoria University in Melbourne, where I worked, car parks have slowly swallowed entire blocks of residential properties save for one or two isolated outposts; in one case, a house, a shed and a garden surrounded on three sides by a vast concrete wasteland, divvied up for hire at $10 an hour. Handwritten signs hang on the fence, chastising users for noise, rubbish, graffiti. Part of me can’t imagine who would want to continue to live with such inhospitable surroundings – a sentiment I’m sure developers exploit as often as possible – but another part of me thinks, if this place were the product of my hard labour, if this was where I had made my home, I probably wouldn’t want to leave it either.

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The garage hidden under San Francisco house did the rounds back in 2011:

This video shows the garage door in operation.

With Curbed San Francisco giving the backstory.

Can You Spot the Hidden Parking Garage on This San Francisco House?
Sally Kuchar
April 20, 2011

The problem, you see, is that the city planning department had recently started enforcing its mandate to limit changes to the character of historic building’s front facades– especially when it came to converting bay windows into garage doors.

Corey McMills, who’s got a background in mechanical engineering, thought of an idea to covert the walls of the bay window into door panels that would fold into the garage space to allow cars to enter. The planning department accepted it. McMills Construction teamed up with Beausoleil Architects to help with the details.

This house reminded me of a similar looking garage conversion in the Melbourne suburb of Ascot Vale.

As well as this example from Auckland.

Innovative Garage for Historical Home in Auckland
Louise O’Bryan
24 January 2018

The front aspect of this stunning heritage home looks completely untouched, aside from a fresh lick of paint. But on closer inspection, there’s something ultra-modern lying beneath the period bull-nose verandah. At the touch of a button the hinged weatherboard door opens to reveal a drive-in garage, complete with a car stacker.

“We wanted to retain the strong aesthetic and heritage of Ponsonby homes, while also combating the issue of parking,” says Jonathan Smith, founder of Matter architects and owner of the property. “Garaging provision in the traditional sense was impossible on this cramped site.”

To achieve the faux facade, Smith explains how portions of the villa were carved out, while masonry retaining-wall structures were constructed inside to facilitate the car stacker installation. “We cut through the joinery and lined up the boards so that from the front, the facade is seamless,” says Smith.

But this house really takes the cake – the entire front facades hinges upwards.

Exposing a shed large enough to park a light aircraft! The owner writes:

Our home sits on a grass runway on the shore of Lake Harney in Florida. The lawn in front of the home is actually the taxiway. Our home was included on HGTV Extreme Homes episode 201. Our goal was to take what could have been an ugly facade and make it more “neighbor friendly” and appealing.

The other side of the home enters directly into the living areas. On the left side you can just see three small aircraft, two gyroplanes and a powered parachute. Although the door size is larger than needed for these aircraft, when we sell the home it is likely that a person with a full size aircraft would need the door size to accommodate his aircraft.

The full video is here.

And the reverse?

How about using a garage to hide an illegal addition to your house?

It worked for a while, until the local council paid a visit.

Couple fined for using fake garage door to hide house in Leicester
Press Association
13 February 2018

A couple have been fined after using a fake garage door and high fence to hide a residential property from a council.

Planning permission was granted for a development in 2007, with conditions stating that car-parking facilities, including the garage, should remain available permanently.

The garage will be restored to its former use after follow-up visits by the council resulted in the discovery of a series of planning breaches.

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Williams Landing railway station opened in 2013 with 500 parking spaces, with the surrounding area designed as a ‘transit oriented development’.

But even before the station opened, transport links from neighbouring suburbs were flagged as inadequate.

Being built at a cost of $110 million, a new railway station at Williams Landing will help fill a deep need for better public transport in Melbourne’s outer west when it opens in April. It is predicted that up to 1000 passengers will use the station each day in the morning peak, adding to the swelling commuter numbers on the crowded Werribee line.

But some of those would-be commuters are wondering just how they will get to the new station, even as they look forward to its opening.

Jammed local roads, infrequent and indirect bus services and a deficit of parking spaces mean reaching Williams Landing station will not be simple for the residents of Melbourne’s burgeoning western suburbs.

Just south of the freeway is Point Cook, population 32,500 and growing, and to the north is the developing suburb of Truganina, home to 39,000. Closest to the station is the suburb of Williams Landing, a masterplanned suburb that will in future have 2500 homes but is today occupied by just 3000 people.

Passengers flocked to the new station.

A revamped network of bus routes serve the station, but are an unappealing option, given they get stuck in the same traffic that commuters are trying to avoid.

As a result commuters stayed in their cars, illegally parking around the station.

In recent months Wyndham City has started fining motorists who illegally park near the station. The council issued more than 900 fines last year. It also issued almost 1300 fines around Hoppers Crossing, the next station down the line.

As well as creating their own unofficial car park in a paddock to the south.

The government announced a ‘solution’ in July 2016.

The Andrews Labor Government will build up to 150 new car parks for commuters at Williams Landing Station.

The new spaces will be built on land between Wallace Avenue and Palmers Road, which is currently used as an informal car park. The area will be paved, so it doesn’t get muddy when it’s wet, and will include new lighting, signage and CCTV.

Every new space is expected to be built and available to commuters by the end of next year.

But property developer Cedar Woods, responsible for the neighbouring Williams Landing complex, offered their own solution.

Parking woes at Williams Landing train station may soon be a thing of the past, with property developer Cedar Woods offering to help Public Transport Victoria find a solution.

Cedar Woods development director Patrick Archer confirmed the company had proposed an interim commuter carpark to alleviate some of the stress experienced by commuters.

“It’s up in the air at the moment,” Mr Archer told Star Weekly. “We’ve offered to extend our existing carpark at the shopping centre, leading down to the same street the carpark is on.

“We’re open to other options as well.”

As well as an operator of a commercial car park next door to the station.

Great news for those battling for a parking spot each morning: a new commuter car park at Williams Landing train station will be operational as of tomorrow.

A parking lot offering an additional 300 parking spots on Overton Road between Palmers Road and Kendall Street, adjacent to the train station, will be opened by Ace Parking as of 6am Thursday morning.

Ace Parking commercial business manager Richard Curtain said the project had been in the works for more than a year, with a goal of easing the stress of commuters who are forced to walk up to 700 metres each morning and evening.

“I started chasing this after seeing a media report about the lack of parking at the station,” he said.

“The situation was obviously upsetting for commuters, with the existing car park filling up by 7am.”

Mr Curtain said parking would be free of charge tomorrow, but a $2 fee would be introduced later this week, allowing cars for a 12-hour period.

Said ‘car park’ was just a dirt paddock, with an advertised price of ‘just $2’.

But that requires buying a seven day pass.

$3.00 Flat Rate (12 Hours)

Or buy a $12 for 5 Day Pass (valid for 5 consecutive days) – That’s just $2.40 per day – a saving of $3.00!

Or buy a $14 for 7 Day Pass (valid for 7 consecutive days) – That’s just $2.00 per day – a saving of $7.00!

Which explains the average one star rating on Google.

Pay 4 dollars for the privilege of parking in a field, try to pay and none of the machines work.

The parking machines don’t work most of the times. Today out 4 parking machines only 1 worked resulting into big lineups. Missed 2 trains due to this.

Transforms from parking area to Lake in no time, Forget about the entrance , half your car tyres are entirely under water. Muddy and water pools during rain and lots of dust on dry days as its just crushed rock and dust. To our wonder, the ticketing machines take money and don’t give out tickets many times and this is always there. No marked lines.

I can’t believe anybody would pay to park here. It’s full of pot holes, rocks and mud. If you do have to park here, avoid doing so on a day expecting rain or you might not get your car back out.

I wish I could vote negative stars because it’s ridiculous that they should charge for parking here. There’s a massive, massive pit right at the entrance and the ground is unpaved, so after a rainy night the pit at the entrance becomes a pond and the ground is all muddy. There’s no light source of any kind in the car park itself, because what’s better fun than trek through the muddy ground under the moon light?

With the construction of the Target head office building north of the station, this car park has since closed, replaced by a nicer gravel car park on the other side of the road.

A sea of car parking forever?

This aerial view of Williams Landing station shows a sea of car parking, with four different car parks visible:

• Williams Landing shopping centre to the top left,
• Ace Parking to the centre,
• the abandoned Masters store to the top right, and
• the ‘official’ railway station car park to the bottom right.

The recently upgraded 150 space ‘official’ car park is located on the south side of the freeway.

But the masterplan for the Williams Landing will see a mix of office and retail developments north of the station, joining the Target Australia head office currently under construction.

Hopefully some bus priority measures are put in place soon, as continuing down the same car dependent path is not going to work.

Further reading

Philip Mallis has created the Melbourne Train Station Carparks Project – it shows how many parking spaces there are at each railway station in Melbourne.

Back in 2013 Daniel Bowen took a look at the pros and cons of paid railway station parking in Melbourne, while in 2016 Alan Davies examined alternate options to expanding station car parks.

Donald Shoup’s 2005 book ‘The High Cost of Free Parking‘ provides a background to the side effects of not charging for parking, while Reinventing Parking looks at ways of addressing it.

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Just take a look at the projects currently underway or in planning.

Heatherdale Road, Mitcham (Heatherdale station)

optimising the car parking to ensure there is no net loss of parking spaces.

Mountain Highway and Scoresby Road, Bayswater (Bayswater station)

Reconstructing the station car park with no net loss of spaces across the line

Blackburn Road, Blackburn (Blackburn station)

There are currently 112 car parking spaces at Blackburn Station. Detailed plans for car parking will be finalised when a contractor has been selected. It is expected that there will no net loss of parking at/near the station.

Furlong Road, St Albans (Ginifer station)

relocating the car park to the east of the rail line, maintaining at least the same number of spaces.

Main Road, St Albans (St Albans station)

reconstructing the station car park providing the same number of spaces as a minimum

North Road, McKinnon Road and Centre Road (Ormond, McKinnon and Bentleigh stations)

reconstructing the station car parks providing the same number of spaces across the three sites.

Burke Road, Glen Iris (Gardiner station)

There are currently 220 car parking spaces in addition to disabled parking spaces at. Gardiner Station. Although the location of the car park will change, there will be no net loss of car parking numbers.

Gardiner station is a real standout to me – 220 car parking spaces is the equivalent of a single carriage of passengers, and the area surrounding the station now has apartment blocks so tall they require a tower crane to build. So why is precious open space being wasted on ground level car parking?

Meanwhile in a different part of the State Government, VicTrack used surplus railway land at Glen Waverley to build apartments, and plans to do the same at Jewell, Hampton, Essendon, Windsor, West Footscray, Victoria Park, East Richmond, Ringwood and Watsonia stations.

You’ve got to love how Melbourne does transport planning, don’t you?

2020 update

And I’ve found some more!

Station Street and Eel Race Road, Carrum (Carrum station)

There will be no net loss of commuter car parking, which will be located under the new Carrum station to improve commuter safety and access.  

Station Street and Bondi Road, Bonbeach; Edithvale Road, Edithvale (Bonbeach and Edithvale stations)

Ensure no net loss in station car parking for rail users upon completion, and car parking must be replaced or reinstated at the earliest opportunity.

Charman and Park Roads, Cheltenham; Balcombe Road, Mentone (Cheltenham and Mentone stations)

Overall, there will be no net loss of parking when works are complete at Cheltenham and Mentone.

Based on our preliminary planning, a multi-level car park (up to four storeys) will be required in order to maintain the current parking capacity.

We will continue the conversation with the community about the best way to incorporate parking requirements at each station precinct.

Resulting in an even worse money pit – a four-storey high 220 space car park in the middle of Cheltenham.

LXRA artist’s impression

Behind the names

Notice anything about the names of the grade separation projects? They all feature the name and suburb of the road being removed, but don’t mention the railway station at all! it just goes to show – these projects are all improvements to the road network, with any benefits to rail being accidental.

A historical footnote

Back in 2006 a $4 billion proposal titled ‘Operation Double Fault‘ hit the news – it would have created 100,000 square metres of new land for 1500 apartments by grade separating the Glenferrie, Toorak, Tooronga and Burke Roads level crossings, and rebuilding the railway stations at Heyington, Gardiner, Kooyong and Tooronga.

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She said:

The reality is that most people have cars. If you’re elderly or have small kids or have to do a lot of travelling for whatever reason, you’re going to need a car.

Obviously Ms Garrett has never driven down the shops with a newborn baby – at our house it looks like this:

1. gather all of the baby paraphernalia and put it into a bag,
2. put baby somewhere safe and take the bag out to the car,
3. head back inside the house, pick up the pram, then load that into the car,
4. head back inside again, but this time for baby,
5. open the car, get the car seat ready, and strap baby in,
6. get into the driver’s seat and drive away.

And if the above activities wasn’t complicated enough, you have to do it in reverse when you arrive at the shops – but with the added complication of somehow moving baby from car seat to pram while the car is squeezed into your typically narrow shopping centre parking space!

Compare this to just walking down the shops – just strap baby into the pram, dump the bag of baby kit into the bottom, and away you go.

Even catching the bus down the shop or the train to the city is easier that driving – the only tricky bit is getting the pram up the step and through the doorway, thanks to inconsistent platform heights and bus drivers who don’t pull up right to the kerb.

On newborns, public transport, and car seats

Apparently there are hospitals in Canada where the thought of transporting baby without a car is a foreign concept:

Our doctor confirms that when we leave the hospital with our new-born, we'll need a car seat even if we don't have a car. What do you think?

— Brent Toderian (@BrentToderian) February 14, 2015

Apparently there are hospitals in Australia with similar policies, as well as some in the United Kingdom.

When we brought Baby Wong home from the hospital, we did have the option of taking the train instead of driving, but the 20 minute frequencies that pass for the off peak “service” made driving home the much faster option.

And insipid television commercials

And still on the topic of people who think you need a car to be a parent, a few months ago Volvo ran a series of asinine television commercials with “Makes Parenting Look Easy” as the tagline.

Fancy technology like rear view cameras didn’t exist in the old days, but it was also a time when people walked their kids to school each day, instead of driving them there in the road-legal version of a M1 Abrams tank.

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