From a \u2018Trojan horse\u2019 to a new dawn<\/p>\n
The Metro Tunnel has cost $15 billion and taken almost nine years to build. Parts of the city have been shut for years at a time as 1.8 million cubic metres of rock and soil were dug from under the CBD to construct five new underground stations.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the most significant change to Melbourne\u2019s public transport network in almost four decades.<\/p>\n
Now retired and able to reflect on more than a decade championing the project within the public service, Kinnear says the Metro Tunnel only made it off the whiteboard due to a series of fortunate coincidences.<\/p>\n
At first, Kinnear\u2019s superiors instructed him not to waste time on a project that wouldn\u2019t be needed for another three decades and no government would fund.<\/p>\n
So instead, Kinnear says he broke with bureaucratic convention and started canvassing the idea with transport industry consultants, hoping it would permeate their thinking and they would become \u201cTrojan horses\u201d that would smuggle it back inside government.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s breaking the rules. But if you don\u2019t do that sort of thing, you\u2019ve got no hope changing the direction that things are heading in,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Those involved in the early stages of developing the tunnel have differing recollections about when and how they first heard about the idea. It is possible the notion of a rail tunnel developed independently among various people, too.<\/p>\n
What is clear, though, is that by the early 2000s, the idea of a second rail line under Melbourne was fermenting and would soon bubble to the surface.<\/p>\n
In 2002, Steve Bracks\u2019 Labor government published the Melbourne 2030<\/a> strategic plan. It included an ambitious target to grow public transport usage from 9 per cent of all motorised trips to 20 per cent by 2020.<\/p>\n The infrastructure department engaged consultant William McDougall to investigate improvements to the tram network which could help this shift in travel patterns.<\/p>\n The Age reported on the call for a \u2018tube\u2019 line under the city on its front page on November 7, 2005.Credit: The Age Archives<\/p>\n Although never made public, McDougall\u2019s resulting draft May 2003 Tram Plan said the Swanston Street tram corridor \u2013 the world\u2019s busiest \u2013 would eventually reach capacity and the solution could involve building \u201ca north-south underground rail link\u201d under Swanston Street from the Domain.<\/p>\n This is the earliest documented mention The Age has been able to find of the concept that would evolve into the Metro Tunnel.<\/p>\n McDougall says he started looking at the rail tunnel a year earlier as part of a study into transport in the inner north, but that piece of work \u2013 the Northern Central City Corridor Study \u2013 was not finalised until August 2003.<\/p>\n The idea was thrust into Melburnians\u2019 imaginations not long after, when the City of Melbourne hired transport planner Graham Currie to review options for the city\u2019s transport network.<\/p>\n The brief included considering a proposed road tunnel linking the Eastern and Tullamarine freeways \u2013 which came to be known as the East West Link.<\/p>\n Currie had worked on the inner-north study three years earlier with McDougall and developed the Swanston Street rail tunnel further in his report, calling for a \u201cnorth-south underground\u201d.<\/p>\n The review generated a front-page article in The Age on November 7, 2005.<\/p>\n \u201cFrankly, at the time people thought I was a nutter,\u201d Currie says.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were messing around with tiny little changes because it\u2019s all we could afford, when the problem was getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. We needed something game-changing.\u201d<\/p>\n Graham Currie proposed the idea of a north-south underground for Melbourne after working in London.Credit: Eddie Jim<\/p>\n Currie says his thinking had been partly influenced by time spent working on London\u2019s Crossrail.<\/p>\n Crossrail, since renamed the Elizabeth Line when it opened in 2022, connected two existing commuter rail corridors to the east and west via a new tunnel under central London \u2013 just like the Metro Tunnel will connect the Sunbury and Cranbourne\/Pakenham lines.<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n A question of politics<\/p>\n In 2004, train use started to grow dramatically, rising 40 per cent by 2008 and more than 60 per cent by 2011. The network was struggling to cope. Chronic overcrowding and delays were becoming a political crisis.<\/p>\n All of a sudden, a new underground rail line looked more like a priority.<\/p>\n Kinnear hired consultancy Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) and McDougall to work on an initial scoping and costing of the concept for the north-south rail tunnel in 2006.<\/p>\n The Age obtained a copy of the report through a freedom of information request. In January 2007, it published a front-page story revealing the Department of Infrastructure had favoured an option that included stops at North Melbourne, Parkville, the Domain and extensions to Flinders Street Station and Melbourne Central.<\/p>\n By 2007, Kinnear was armed with enough work on the Melbourne Metro to present it to newly-appointed public transport minister Lynne Kosky.<\/p>\n Kinnear says Kosky was enthusiastic and asked him to give the same presentation to a cabinet meeting a few days later.<\/p>\n The late former transport minister Lynne Kosky, pictured with then premier John Brumby in 2007, was an early supporter of the plan that would become the Metro Tunnel.Credit: Pat Scala<\/p>\n Kosky was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011 and died in 2014<\/a>. Her husband Jim Williamson remembers her sitting at their dining table one night and drawing a diagram of the City Loop on a piece of paper. \u201cShe used the expression, \u2018It\u2019s spaghetti, and it needs to be lasagne,\u2019\u201d he says.<\/p>\n There were three major projects Victoria needed to untangle that pasta bowl, she explained: first the Regional Rail Link through the outer western suburbs to separate V\/Line and Metro trains.<\/p>\n Then would come Melbourne Metro, which Kosky called the \u201cknowledge line\u201d because it linked universities and hospitals in Parkville, Monash and regional Victoria. After that, a direct train line to Melbourne Airport could be built.<\/p>\n Despite the growing political and public interest, the Melbourne Metro remained a distant prospect.<\/p>\n Sir Rod Eddington bulldozed it into reality.<\/p>\n The Rhodes Scholar who grew up in Western Australia and went on to run Cathay Pacific, Ansett and British Airways, completed an influential transport study for the British government in 2006.<\/p>\n In March that year, faced with growing concerns about congestion on the Monash and Eastern freeways, Steve Bracks\u2019 Labor government commissioned him to study transport options to improve links between Melbourne\u2019s eastern and western suburbs.<\/p>\n It was widely believed among transport experts that the Eddington study was set up to help the government justify building the East West Link road tunnel under Alexandra Parade.<\/p>\n McDougall was brought in as a transport consultant and says it was clear on the first day where the study was heading.<\/p>\n \u201cEngineers from VicRoads were already drawing copious lines on maps to see what was possible,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n But he successfully argued that public transport and the new rail tunnel needed to be considered.<\/p>\n Eric Keys, a consultant who had been working on the Melbourne Metro with Kinnear within the department, says Eddington\u2019s study was a golden opportunity to bypass senior bureaucrats who had been blocking its further development.<\/p>\n All their work on the tunnel up to that point described it as a \u201cnorth-south railway\u201d, reflecting the alignment under Swanston Street.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we went through all our documents with search and replace and \u2018north-south\u2019 was replaced with \u2018east-west\u2019,\u201d Keys says.<\/p>\n \u201cWe packaged it all up and as soon as Eddington started work, we took it in and sat down and briefed him on it. It was an exact fit with his terms of reference. Once he endorsed it, people started listening.\u201d<\/p>\n Sir Rod Eddington in 2008 with a copy of his report recommending the construction of the Melbourne Metro.Credit: Joe Armao<\/p>\n Eddington handed down his report in March 2008. His top recommendation was to build the Melbourne Metro: a 17-kilometre underground rail line linking the western suburbs to the south-east. The report\u2019s second recommendation was to build the Regional Rail Link.<\/p>\n Eddington says that at the time, population growth across greater Melbourne and the increase in residents and jobs in the inner-city made a new underground rail project an urgent priority.<\/p>\n \u201cYou just can\u2019t put any more roads in the inner city than you currently have, so you have to provide better public transport. And again, because of congestion, you\u2019ve got to go underground,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Keys \u2013 who would later be appointed Metro Tunnel builder Cross Yarra Partnership\u2019s chief operating officer \u2013 recalls that those who had been working on the Melbourne Metro were \u201cabsolutely elated\u201d when the report was published.<\/p>\n \u201cWe felt extremely vindicated for probably what was then coming up to at least five, if not 10 years of working below the radar. That was a very exciting moment for us,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Former premier John Brumby says that the pressure on the transport system was becoming a critical political issue without an easy solution.<\/p>\n \u201cPopulation growth occurred much more rapidly than anyone considered. In hindsight, strong economic and population growth had begun to overrun us,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n In late 2008, Brumby\u2019s government released the Victorian Transport Plan, which committed $38 billion to projects including the Metro Tunnel and Regional Rail Link.<\/p>\n Getting funding for them was another matter. Eddington again played an instrumental role.<\/p>\n The global financial crisis had unleashed on Australia and Kevin Rudd\u2019s federal Labor government launched initiatives to keep the economy alive.<\/p>\n One was to direct the newly-formed Commonwealth adviser, Infrastructure Australia, to find \u201cshovel-ready\u201d projects to fund.<\/p>\n Infrastructure Australia\u2019s inaugural chair happened to be Eddington. His advice unlocked $4 billion to build the Regional Rail Link and $40 million to develop detailed designs for the Melbourne Metro.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a whole series of things that created the circumstance where it was the right project for the right time,\u201d Keys says.<\/p>\n But all the momentum ground to halt in November 2010 when the Coalition won the election and stopped the project. <\/p>\n Melbourne Metro sat in stasis for three years. In 2014, then premier Denis Napthine announced a revised project called the Melbourne Rail Link.<\/p>\n Rather than travel through the heart of the CBD, to meet greatest demand, the tunnel would divert west from the Domain to Fishermans Bend then north to Southern Cross Station and on to Melbourne Airport.<\/p>\n This route \u201cwould have been a disaster\u201d, says Evan Tattersall, who worked on its early plans.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were doing things like analysing all the high-rise buildings on Yarra\u2019s Edge, thinking, \u2018All the piles go down to rock \u2026 how the hell are we going to get a tunnel through there?\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cIt just wouldn\u2019t have worked\u201d.<\/p>\n Luckily for him, the Melbourne Rail Link plan was short-lived.<\/p>\n Labor regained power in November 2014. New premier Daniel Andrews pledged to restart the original Melbourne Metro with a tentative 2026 completion date and ripped up the contract for the $5.3 billion East West Link.<\/p>\n A look to the future<\/p>\n Tattersall was appointed chief executive of the Melbourne Metro Rail Authority in early 2015 and ran the Metro Tunnel project for its first seven years.<\/p>\n One of his biggest challenges, he says, was \u201cmanaging up\u201d to help Andrews and his ministers understand the enormity of what they had just committed to.<\/p>\n \u201cIn fairness to the government \u2026 this project is as complex as you would ever get anywhere in the world. They had no idea of how challenging it was going to be,\u201d he says. \u201cI say that in the nicest way and with respect. They matured, I\u2019ll call it, very quickly as we went on.\u201d<\/p>\n In December 2017, the state government signed a $6 billion construction contract with Cross Yarra Partnership, made up of John Holland, Bouygues Construction, Capella Capital and Lendlease.<\/p>\n Metro Tunnel project director Ben Ryan (left) and inaugural chief executive Evan Tattersall at State Library station.Credit: Eddie Jim<\/p>\n The first tunnel-boring machine launched at Arden station in August 2019. Just four months later, Cross Yarra Partnership downed tools and threatened to quit the project unless the government agreed to help pay for up to $3 billion in cost overruns.<\/p>\n The COVID-19 pandemic<\/a> added further strain, causing supply chain and worksite havoc, along with cost inflation exacerbated by the war in Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n A further settlement with the builders brought the total cost to Victoria to $13.48 billion, compared with $10.9 billion when announced in 2016. CYP wore a share of the cost overruns, bringing the project\u2019s total cost to around $15 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tattersall defends the Metro Tunnel\u2019s management by pointing to projects of a similar scale. London\u2019s Crossrail<\/a> was 3.5 years late and \u00a34 billion ($8.1 billion) over its \u00a318.8 billion ($38 billion) budget. Melbourne\u2019s West Gate Tunnel Project is set to open in December \u2013 three years late and at a cost of $10.2 billion, compared to its original $6.7 billion budget.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reality is, most projects would be four or five years late,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re a couple billion dollars over budget, which sounds bad, but it\u2019s not compared to what you see all over the world where the budget blows out double.\u201d<\/p>\n From Sunday, the Metro Tunnel will operate with a limited timetable<\/a>. From February 1, full services commence with a promised \u201cturn-up-and-go\u201d timetable.<\/p>\n Time will tell how Melburnians respond. Metro Tunnel\u2019s current project director Ben Ryan says that London\u2019s Crossrail and Sydney\u2019s new Metro have far exceeded patronage expectations, and the same could happen here.<\/p>\n \u201cCrossrail opened three and a half years ago, and they\u2019re at their 30-year patronage forecast, three years in,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re now in London, going, \u2018Wow, we need to accelerate our next investment because we\u2019re just decades ahead of where we thought we\u2019d be.\u2019 It\u2019ll be very interesting to see the take-up here. I suspect it\u2019ll be overwhelming.\u201d<\/p>\n Kinnear retired in 2015, having seen the Regional Rail Link built and a commitment to the Metro Tunnel, projects he says will nudge Melbourne towards a more sustainable future.<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n His concern now is whether that momentum will continue. He laments that a proposed follow-up project \u2013 the MM2, linking the south-west to the north-east<\/a> \u2013 has been put on ice in favour of the massive Suburban Rail Loop<\/a>, which he says is ill-conceived and will monopolise public transport funds that could be better spent.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we may be halfway down the path of getting a better balance. We\u2019ve still got a long way to go, but we\u2019re certainly in a better position than we were 20 or 30 years ago,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ea5b3eb8542f45f030d1522126a8e57bc9c821de.jpeg\")
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