Metro Tunnel
The Metro Tunnel (sometimes also known as the Melbourne Metro Rail Project or the Metro Rail Capacity Project) is a metropolitan rail infrastructure project currently under construction in Melbourne, Australia. It includes the construction of twin 9-kilometre rail tunnels between South Kensington station (north west of the Melbourne City Centre) and South Yarra (in the south east) with five new underground stations. The southern portal for the tunnel is to be located to the south of South Yarra station. As a result, the tunnel will connect the Pakenham and Cranbourne lines with the Sunbury line, and allow these lines to bypass Flinders Street station and the City Loop while still stopping in the Melbourne central business district.
Metro Tunnel
Outside the state government, support grew for a more substantial augmentation of the rail network, with many such ideas based on new underground lines through the CBD. In 2005, "The Age" reported that it had received a number of proposals from planning experts and engineers for rail "loops and arcs" in the central city, and publicised a plan published by Monash University professor Graham Currie for a tunnel between the University of Melbourne to the north of the city and South Yarra station to the south-east. Currie's plan also envisaged extensive improvements to the Melbourne tram network, including upgrading lines along St Kilda Road and Chapel Street to light rail standards. In 2006, the state government considered a plan to construct a combined road and rail tunnel beneath the Yarra River to provide an alternative to the West Gate Bridge, but the idea was deemed unfeasible.