Railways in Melbourne
In February 2015, the State Government established the Melbourne Metro Rail Authority to oversee planning for new twin 9-kilometre rail tunnels through the central city between South Kensington station and South Yarra. The new Metro Tunnel will have five new underground stations and connect the Pakenham and Cranbourne lines with the Sunbury line, creating a new route through the CBD as an alternative to the City Loop. New underground stations will be created at Arden, Parkville, Domain and two new CBD stations, State Library and Town Hall. Enabling works were underway by 2016 and major construction work on the tunnel and stations began in 2017.The project has an estimated cost of $11 billion and is scheduled to be complete by 2025.
Melbourne Metro 2
A report by Melbourne City Council in early 2018 stated its support for the entire MM2 project, and urged the state government to begin planning as soon as possible. It also suggested that Melbourne Metro 3 could be an entirely new line, combining a Melbourne Airport rail link and Doncaster line via a new tunnel in the central city connecting with existing stations. Then, at the end of May, a report commissioned by Infrastructure Victoria and produced by engineering consultants Arup found that MM2 would be more beneficial to the city than either of the two road projects being promoted ahead of the state election in November. The analysis suggested that MM2 would have a transformative impact on road congestion and consequently on the efficient transport of freight, but would be unlikely to ever produce a positive cost-benefit ratio using traditional methodology. The report attributed this in part to the enormous capital cost of the project, which it estimated at $20.3 billion.