Plans to provide for up to 1 million residents around Melbourne Suburban Rail Loop (SLR) stations, are being criticised by planning and transport academics.
SLR is designed to deliver a 90km rail line which links every major train service from the Frankston Line to the Werribee Line via Melbourne Airport.
It will create 15 new stations and medium or high-density precincts across middle Melbourne, between Cheltenham and Werribee.
RMIT environment and planning expert, Professor Michael Buxton, says the project is a “$200bn thought bubble” which will result in suburban skyscrapers.
“They will radically transform Melbourne into a high rise city around these 15 precincts,” he says.
Prof Graham Currie, who is Chair of Public Transport at Monash University where says there needs to be some more “solid and appropriate planning behind it”.
While Prof John Stanley, an adjunct professor at the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies at the University of Sydney Business School, says Melbourne can not really afford such an expensive project.
