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
By 2015, with planning work for the first Metro Tunnel underway, the "Herald Sun" began referring to the second tunnel as "Metro 2", as the state government confirmed that the new Parkville station would be designed with provision for future expansion to an interchange. At the same time, the newspaper reported that the state government of premier Daniel Andrews was broadly supportive of the need for a second major rail project at the completion of the Metro Tunnel.