Updated designs for Deer Park Station

The latest render of the new Deer Park Station (via LXRA)

LXRA have released updated designs for the new Deer Park Station to be built as part of the removal of the Station Street/Mount Derrimut Road level crossing. Let's take a close look at the details. 

The first big change is that they've added a big bus interchange in the middle of the carpark, underneath the elevated tracks. Bringing the buses into the station precinct itself, rather than leaving them out on Tilburn Rd, will make it much easier to interchange between services, which is definitely a good thing. It does mean a slower journey for through-passengers, since they have to sit on the bus while it pulls into the station precinct, goes round the loop, and comes back out again - but on balance I think this is probably the right move. 

My feeling is that a large percentage of bus passengers will be interchanging at Deer Park - back when I used to live there, I used these buses to connect with Metro trains at Sunshine in the 2-hour gaps between V/Line services, but nowadays those gaps are like 20 minutes off-peak, so it probably makes sense for most to get the train. 

Aerial diagram of the new precinct layout (via LXRA)

My main question about this change is - what will the traffic lights be like? The buses will have to make some awkward movements across traffic, so I'm hoping they'll get lights to make those movements quickly and without delays. 

Also noteworthy is that they've largely fixed the issues with the footpaths in the previous designs. The paths south of the station now basically conform to the desire lines for people walking from Hemsley Drive and both legs of Eagle Way. Unfortunately the insertion of the bus interchange has shifted a bunch of parking further south, which means the desire line from Tee Court hasn't been fixed with footpaths - but if the carpark's half-empty, walkers should be able to cut across the bitumen fairly directly, so it's not a bad outcome even for them. After my last post I submitted detailed feedback to LXRA on the desire-line issue, so I'm really glad to see they've listened. 

North of the station, a wombat crossing over Railway Parade is another nice addition to help pedestrians and cyclists move into and through the precinct. 

The "virtual information room" (via LXRA)

In their "virtual information room" they've also provided a PDF "roll plot" of the works, which shows very specifically the horizontal layout of the rail bridge, but also its elevation relative to ground level at any given point on the line. I tend to roll my eyes at these pointless VR-esque "engagement rooms", because I don't think they actually improve the customer experience over a simple webpage or document - but providing this kind of detailed engineering document is rare to say the least, and it provides a lot of real insight into exactly what they're planning, so I really do commend them for that. 

Part of the "roll plot" (via LXRA)

This document reveals a few interesting tidbits, the first of which is that the rails at the new station platforms seemingly won't be dead flat, like you'd expect - it's a 1% gradient at that point. The second one is that, at the eastern edge of the Bon Thomas Reserve, the line is planned to be about 1.5m above the existing ground level. Unfortunately it looks like they are still planning for the whole elevated section west of the station to be on solid earth rather than pylons, which makes crossing the corridor here more difficult. But still - by digging down a little bit to provide some more headroom, it should be relatively cheap and easy to build an underpass for cyclists and pedestrians here, to link people who live south of the line with the Reserve, kindergarten and primary school - something that's sorely needed. 

Render of the station at night (via LXRA)

Aesthetically I think the new design looks good - a nice bit of colour certainly makes it look nicer than the early monochrome drafts. It's interesting to see that only the north side gets the colour treatment, though; I suppose the plan is to ultimately build a second express track pair on the south side, when the line is electrified, but my assumption is that they'd go around the stairs rather than knocking them down and rebuilding (though I guess the new tracks would block the view somewhat). Still, let's hope the final version looks as nice as the renders do.