Level crossing-free lines

Union Rd, Surrey Hills (via Philip Mallis)

The government recently announced they'd be grade separating ten more level crossings, bringing it to a total of 85 pledged and/or delivered under the Andrews government. They also announced they'd be closing four crossings, so it's sort of 89, but their messaging consistently says 85 so let's stick with that. As Daniel Bowen pointed out on his blog, this means about half the level crossings in suburban Melbourne on the 2008 ALCAM list will have been eliminated - very impressive. 

This also means that we're reaching the point where some lines will be completely level crossing-free by the time all the pledged works are completed. This is something observers had noticed quite early on - crossings on the MM1 corridor often seemed to be prioritised - and it's a feature of LXRA's prioritisation framework developed before the 2018 election. But for the first time that I'm aware of, their promotional material explicitly mentions this - noting that the Lilydale and Cranbourne/Pakenham lines will be crossing-free, and highlighting the progress made on the Frankston, Belgrave and Sunbury lines in their graphics. 

Level crossing removals, with crossing-free corridors in yellow (via LXRA)

The phrasing used in the prioritisation framework is "corridor completion". Doing a whole line is obviously the end goal, but doing a meaningful section of a line may also be beneficial. For example, the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines join at Dandenong, and there's also short-starter trains commencing at Westall in the peaks - so being completely crossing-free to Dandenong was a meaningful achievement even before they announced the final crossings on the Pakenham line. In fact, just getting to the turnback at Westall was. 

The level crossing removal program has clearly been a winner for the Andrews government, so it's odds-on they'll announce more crossings in the leadup to the 2022 election. They seem to like big round numbers, so I'm guessing they'll announce 15 more to bring it to a round 100. Given these assumptions, and what we know about the prioritisation framework and the remaining crossings, which 15 are they likely to be? And what does that mean for completing crossing-free corridors? 

Taking the 2008 ALCAM list of crossings ranked by danger, and taking out the ones that have already been removed (or are pledged or under construction) gives us the below - the most dangerous level crossings in the state. (1)

2008 rank	Location	Road	Suburb	Risk score	Line	2021 rank
9	Metro	Macaulay Rd	Kensington	3,686.73	Craigieburn	1
21	Metro	Riversdale Rd	Camberwell	2,882.48	Alamein	2
24	Metro	Station St	Fairfield	2,680.65	Hurstbridge	3
39	Metro	Tooronga Rd	Malvern	2,042.40	Glen Waverley	4
44	Metro	Gaffney St	Coburg North	1,869.75	Upfield	5
47	Metro	Maidstone St	Altona	1,839.90	Werribee	6
51	Metro	South Rd	Brighton	1,721.93	Sandringham	7
53	Metro	High St	Glen Iris	1,674.00	Glen Waverley	8
58	Metro	Puckle St	Moonee Ponds	1,559.52	Craigieburn	9
61	Metro	Prospect Hill Rd	Riversdale	1,495.72	Alamein	10
62	Metro	Normanby Av	Thornbury	1,486.49	Mernda	11
63	Metro	Box Forest Rd	Glenroy	1,481.30	Upfield	12
65	Metro	Bunswick Rd	Brunswick	1,414.85	Upfield	13
66	Metro	Hampton St	Hampton	1,398.54	Sandringham	14
70	Light rail	Bridport St	South Melbourne	1,355.85	96 tram	15
71	Metro	Glenferrie Rd	Kooyong	1,317.60	Glen Waverley	16
73	Metro	Hudsons Rd	Spotswood	1,308.99	Werribee	17
76	Metro	Madden Gv	Burnley	1,240.17	Glen Waverley	18
77	Metro	Macaulay Rd	North Melbourne	1,235.52	Upfield	19
78	Metro	Glen Eira Rd	Ripponlea	1,212.07	Sandringham	20

For whatever reason, this government hasn't made any attempt at crossing removals on the Sandringham line, and the "Light Rail" crossings seem to be out of scope too, so I've removed these from consideration. 

Grade separating the top fifteen crossings listed above would complete the whole Alamein line AND the whole Glen Waverley line, as well as eliminating the only remaining tram squares in Melbourne (a "very high" priority elsewhere in the framework). It would also eliminate the innermost two crossings on the Craigieburn line, but unfortunately this doesn't get you to a turnback so it wouldn't complete a corridor. Lastly, it would eliminate one crossing each on the Werribee, Mernda and Hurstbridge lines, and three on the Upfield line - none of which help with corridor completion. 

What about approaching it from the other angle - picking the 15 most-useful crossings for corridor completion, and seeing what their danger rankings are like? 

The black dots are unpledged crossings (via Google Maps (2))

As Daniel mentioned in his post, the two left on the Sunbury line are very quiet, so they're hard to justify in the short term. The Hurstbridge, Mernda and Upfield lines all have tons of crossings left, and there's not much low-hanging fruit from a corridor completion perspective - except maybe Ramsden St in Clifton Hill, on the shared Hurstbridge/Mernda section, which is #61. 

The remaining crossings on the Alamein and Glen Waverley lines are all in the top 20, so they're clearly justifiable from either angle. 

The two remaining crossings on the Belgrave line, Hilltop Rd and Alpine St in Ferntree Gully, are ranked #83 and #101 respectively, so perhaps a little hard to justify on safety grounds alone. However, they bookend the innermost section of single track on the Belgrave line, so packaging crossing removals with duplication would be a worthwhile project. And when combined with the Alamein/Glen Waverley works, this would make the whole Burnley Group crossing-free, which could have implications for future purchases of driverless trains etc. 

The tram square at Glenferrie Rd, Kooyong on the Glen Waverley line (via Liamdavies)

The innermost two crossings on the Frankston line, Highett Rd and Wickham Rd in Highett, would get you to Cheltenham, where a lot of extra peak trains originate - they're #22 and #63 respectively, and are sufficiently close together to be packaged in the same project. So it's probably justifiable to do one as low-ranking as Wickham Rd alongside Highett Rd. 

The direct Werribee line only has five crossings left in total. On current operations, the innermost two (Hudsons Rd, Spotswood and Anderson St, Yarraville) are #17 and #36, so fairly justifiable - this would get you to Newport, where the Williamstown line splits off, crossing-free. But if the plan is ultimately to build MM2 and send Werribee trains via Fishermans Bend, then the other three crossings are the relevant ones - Maidstone St, Altona (#6), and Champion Rd (#30) and Maddox Rd (#52) in Newport, the latter two of which are close enough together to be packaged. 

The Craigieburn line also only has five crossings left in total. Almost all of them rank pretty high, and Park St, Moonee Ponds (the lowest one at #54) is about 600m from Puckle St (#9) so might need to be packaged with it. You'd need to do all five to, in any sense, complete a corridor - three would get you to Essendon station, which has a turnback, but it isn't in regular use for short-starters, it's just used in disruptions. 

Trains only stop at Platform 1 at Essendon when there's disruptions

Another big consideration is cost. The budget has been stretched by COVID-19, and crossing removals only seem to be getting more expensive, so I'm sure they'll prefer cheap and easy crossings to expensive ones. I won't go through the full list, but to give some examples - Maidstone St, on the direct Werribee line, is in an industrial area with few obstacles around it, so it'll probably be cheap to do as a road bridge, whereas the two crossings in Spotswood and Yarraville are right next to their respective stations, as well as a bunch of shops and houses - probably very expensive. Likewise, Macaulay Rd, Kensington is by far the most dangerous crossing on the list and has been for ages - it was #9 even in 2008 - but it's a very difficult site, so I wouldn't be surprised if it gets passed over again. 

With all this in mind, which projects should be selected? Here's my top fifteen, with ten backups I wouldn't be surprised or disappointed if they chose. 

2008 rank	Location	Road	Suburb	Risk score	Line	2021 rank
21	Metro	Riversdale Rd	Camberwell	2,882.48	Alamein	2
61	Metro	Prospect Hill Rd	Riversdale	1,495.72	Alamein	10
39	Metro	Tooronga Rd	Malvern	2,042.40	Glen Waverley	4
53	Metro	High St	Glen Iris	1,674.00	Glen Waverley	8
71	Metro	Glenferrie Rd	Kooyong	1,317.60	Glen Waverley	16
76	Metro	Madden Gv	Burnley	1,240.17	Glen Waverley	18
86	Metro	Highett Rd	Highett	1,006.54	Frankston	22
86	Metro	Wickham Rd	Highett	252.25	Frankston	63
176	Metro	Hilltop Rd	Upper FTG	159.09	Belgrave	83
197	Metro	Alpine St	Ferntree Gully	101.02	Belgrave	101
9	Metro	Macaulay Rd	Kensington	3,686.73	Craigieburn	1
58	Metro	Puckle St	Moonee Ponds	1,559.52	Craigieburn	9
89	Metro	Devon Rd	Kensington	976.18	Craigieburn	23
107	Metro	Gaffney St	Kensington	670.32	Craigieburn	37
134	Metro	Park St	Moonee Ponds	381.67	Craigieburn	54
47	Metro	Maidstone St	Altona	1,839.90	Werribee	6
162	Non-Metro	Hopkins Rd	Truganina	210.24	Melton	70
62	Metro	Normanby Av	Thornbury	1,486.49	Mernda	11
173	Metro	Woolton Av	Thornbury	168.22	Mernda	80
24	Metro	Station St	Fairfield	2,680.65	Hurstbridge	3
65	Metro	Brunswick Rd	Brunswick	1,414.85	Upfield	13
103	Metro	Park St	Parkville	732.25	Upfield	34
157	Metro	Union St	Brunswick	228.85	Upfield	67
95	Metro	Station St	Seaford	825.25	Frankston	27
100	Metro	Armstrongs Rd	Seaford	750.36	Frankston	31

Which ones would be your priorities? 

1. Using the 2008 ALCAM list and just getting rid of the removed crossings doesn't factor in changes to train or road traffic levels since 2008, or changes to crossing design (since approaching the tracks at a better angle can help visibility etc). So this mightn't be 100% as accurate as the 2021 data the government will be using, but should hopefully be fairly representative. The main exception to this is the Melton line, which has seen huge increases in both rail and road traffic, so these crossings probably rank higher than they did in 2008, relative to other unpledged crossings. 

2. Several years ago, I came across a map someone else made that showed the status of all level crossings in the state. It was saved to my own Google profile and I've subsequently modified it to add missing single-track sections, add 'crossing free' sections, and update it as new projects were announced and old projects progressed - but the base map and the level crossing icon thingies are from the original map. I have no idea who made it, so please let me know if it was you and I'll happily credit you.