By Charlene Macaulay
Labor has promised 11,000 new car parking spaces at train stations if it is re-elected come November – but it will not reveal which Wyndham stations, if any, will benefit.
The government last week said it would spend $150 million building new carparks at some of Melbourne’s busiest metropolitan and regional train stations to unclog neighbouring streets and prevent commuters from driving from station to station for a park.
It is likely the program would involve a mix of ground-level and multi-storey carparks.
A total of 1500 new spaces have already been promised along the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines but similar announcements have yet to be made for any of Wyndham’s five train stations, despite Tarneit train station being the second busiest V/Line station behind Southern Cross.
Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan did not answer Star Weekly’s question about how many, if any, of the promised spaces would be built in Wyndham.
She also did not answer how the government would allocate car parking spaces across the train network, or the timeline for the project.
“Additional stations across the network will benefit from the fund with more announcements to be made soon,” she said.
Wyndham council city economy director Peter McKinnon said the council had yet to receive a local commitment.
“Each of our stations requires as much additional car parking as possible.”
Mr McKinnon said a business case for multi-storey, multi-use carparks at Williams Landing, Tarneit and Werribee train stations backed by the private sector, as reported by Star Weekly in July, was still in a development phase.
The consortium conducting the business case is expected to report back in coming months.
