Suburban Rail Loop to find $2b in savings through station changes

Premier Ben Carroll has pared back his predecessor’s grand designs for new train stations along the Suburban Rail Loop to shave $2 billion from the cost of the state’s largest infrastructure project.The Victorian government will also dismantle the top-heavy bureaucracy responsible for overseeing the SRL as Carroll vows to prioritise the delivery of basic services above building very expensive rail and road tunnels.The Clarinda Suburban Rail Loop site.Victorian governmentCarroll will on Tuesday announce changes to two multibillion-dollar station contracts the government has been negotiating for Suburban Rail Loop East, an underground rail line planned to run between Cheltenham and Box Hill.He has also committed to abolishing the standalone Suburban Rail Loop Authority and absorb its work into the Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority.“I respect your money,” Carroll said on Monday.“The SRL will be built on time. Today’s changes mean it will be built under budget.”Premier Ben Carroll says his government has identified SRL savings it can make.Justin McManusCarroll said the government had identified $1 billion in savings it could make now, which would take the estimated price tag down to $33.3 billion. Another $1 billion in savings would be found through an independent technical review.All current works will continue as scheduled, but no more contracts will be awarded until the review is complete.The immediate savings will be found by scrapping underground station interchanges at Box Hill and Glen Waverley, abolishing a second planned station entrance at Clayton, and ditching pedestrian bridges at Burwood and Cheltenham.The rail loop was enthusiastically promoted by former premier Jacinta Allan, who was initially the minister responsible for the project and, once it was announced publicly, oversaw its early development as a signature project of her time in government.Since replacing Allan in July, Carroll has been more circumspect. He is critical of the fact the rail loop had a limited “gestation period” when it could be debated by the public – in contrast to his passion project, Melbourne Airport Rail – and has promised to provide better value for taxpayer money.Carroll has also vowed not to rip up the $14.5 billion in construction contracts already signed, which has prompted senior government figures to look for ways to reduce the rail loop’s impact on the budget without blocking the progress of tunnel boring machines already in the ground at a Burwood launch site.The costs of the project will come under fresh scrutiny this week as parliament resumes for the final sitting weeks of the term.The Victorian Auditor-General is preparing to release on Wednesday the results of a years-long deep dive into SRL East – the $34.5 billion, first stage of the proposed 90-kilometre rail line – to determine whether the work is “on track to meet the government’s cost, time and benefit targets”.The state’s top bureaucrat, Department of Premier and Cabinet secretary Chris Barrett, told a budget estimates hearing earlier this year that the SRL was expected to drain $15.1 billion from Victoria’s finances over the next five years.Carroll flagged during a series of media interviews on Monday that he would make an announcement shortly on his government’s revised plans for the SRL.“I’ll have more to say, but I want to be a premier that is focused on the basics, focused on health, focused on education, focused on local roads, not big expensive projects,” he told ABC Radio.Opposition Leader Jess Wilson told 3AW that Carroll should make all SRL contracts public, so Victorians could understand what they’d been signed on to.Building a new SRL station at Box Hill is one of the project’s biggest challenges.Joe ArmaoAs deputy premier, Carroll was a member of the budget and finance committee which oversees major spending commitments.“I’m a bit confused about what he has been doing, sitting around the cabinet table for all these years, if he is suddenly discovering the Suburban Rail Loop is going to cost an absolute bomb and Victoria can’t afford it,” Wilson said.“To come on this morning and to talk about the fact that he is now going to respect taxpayer money, I think is absolutely disgraceful.”A multibillion-dollar package of works, to build underground stations at Glen Waverley, Burwood and Box Hill, was due to be signed by now. The tender has a preferred bidder, Place Alliance, a consortium of companies John Holland, Arup, Kellogg Brown and Root.The existing Box Hill station sits under a busy shopping centre.Eddie JimA second package of works, to build stations at Cheltenham, Clayton and Monash University, is subject to competing bids from Eastern Stations Precinct Alliance, made up of Lendlease and WSP, and Connexus Alliance, comprising CPB, Multiplex and GHD.The Age last month revealed the government had also been conducting negotiations on how to best connect SRL stations with existing suburban stations.One of the biggest challenges is connecting the current station at Box Hill with the proposed new SRL station, which is to be built under a busy shopping centre.The Suburban Rail Loop Authority has promised a “convenient connection to the existing station”, but a tunnel would be a logistical nightmare, as builders would have to dig around the shopping centre’s foundations without shutting down shops and restaurants.Contract documents also showed plans for a large public space at Cheltenham to serve as a connection between turnstiles of the rail loop and the station at Southland. These two areas had been proposed to be linked by a dedicated pedestrian overpass across Bay Road.The authority is currently overseen by the state’s infrastructure tsar, Kevin Devlin, who has been serving as acting chief executive since December. Devlin was moved to the role after the departure of former chief executive Frankie Carroll, who was paid $900,000 annually and travelled back to Queensland most weekends.Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.From our partners