Victoria’s tunneling for pork takes another turn today, from the ABC:
A proposed road tunnel through Melbourne’s west appears to be in line for federal funding after Prime Minister Tony Abbott indicated he supported the idea “if it stacks up”.
…Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said he was “delighted” by the Prime Minister’s comments, after doubts were raised about the Commonwealth’s involvement in the Western Distributor project.
“This is fantastic news for our state,” Mr Andrews said.
“It’s the Prime Minister delivering on the commitment he made to me to sit down and work together to make sure we do something meaningful about congestion on the West Gate Bridge.
Mr Abbott said he believed Victoria should contribute to the project as well, but Mr Andrews would not say whether Victoria was prepared to do so.
“We’re going to get the best deal for Victorian taxpayers and I don’t want to compromise that via the nightly news, giving Transurban a sense of what our bottom line might be,” he said.
“When we secure a deal with Transurban I’ll be happy to answer all those questions.”
Now, are we going to see some modelling for this damn thing? As Leith wrote recently:
According to the article, Deloitte Access Economics estimated that the project would deliver net benefits to the state of some $1.60 per dollar invested using Infrastructure Australia’s preferred methodology, which is more than triple the paltry $0.45 cents for every dollar invested estimated for the dumped East-West Link project.
…It is appropriate that the Victorian Treasury undertake further due diligence before any decision. With a significant share of Melbourne’s future growth likely to take place in the West, along with ongoing increases in freight through the Port of Melbourne, providing further road capacity – including a second river/bay crossing – will be essential. But the project must add economic value not take it away.
Transurban is not in it for the taxpayer yet here we have the Premier celebrating the proposal before we’ve even seen the numbers.
This project directly effects my area and there are two very large unanswered questions about it.
If it is to be toll road, are trucks going to be compelled to use it and pay a toll? If so, is that included in the economic modelling? If not, then it is going to be next to useless and will very likely be another public private partnership white elephant.
If trucks are compelled to use it then how is it going to overcome the very obvious bottleneck over the Bolte Bridge where the two freeways will meet and existing traffic volumes are already a choke point?
Working on answers for ya.
