Page Text: Cut the noise, planners for new railway are ordered
Adam Carey
April 7, 2012
THE authority in charge of building a major rail line through Melbourne's west has been ordered to come up with a new plan to cut noise levels after experts found that thousands living near the line would be condemned to excessive noise from high-speed trains.
The advisory report into stage two of the $5.3 billion regional rail link was uploaded, without an announcement, onto the website of the Department of Planning and Community Development late on Thursday, on the eve of the Easter break.
It found that noise mitigation plans for the 30-kilometre stretch of track through existing and planned suburbs between Deer Park and Werribee's west, were ''extremely limited and … an inadequate response to the anticipated levels of noise''.
''While already there is some limited housing abutting the project area … it is proposed that, within a few decades, along perhaps half of its length, there will be thousands more nearby dwellings,'' it said.
''Without significant mitigation measures being adopted along the project area boundary, much of this housing will experience unacceptably high levels of train noise.''
The report by four government-appointed planning experts was given to Planning Minister Matthew Guy in January. Last week he wrote to the Regional Rail Link Authority directing it to come up with a new plan by March next year.
The report's authors said their findings had implications for the start of the railway's construction and that the state would have to pay the cost of cutting noise, such as building barriers and cuttings.
Mr Guy was unavailable for comment yesterday, but a government spokesman blamed the previous state government for the planning failure, which is set to add further cost to a project that has already blown out by about $1 billion.
Former planning minister Justin Madden spared the regional rail link from an environmental effects statement on the condition that a satisfactory noise mitigation plan was put in place. But the opposition said that as the Coalition went ahead with the project it had inherited it must make sure to lessen the impact of noise.
The report predicts that the promised rail link to Avalon airport will also use the regional rail link and so contribute to the high noise levels, as will an expected increase in V/Line trains that are expected to travel at up to 160km/h along the line. It found the Regional Rail Link Authority's noise mitigation plan did not take into account future increases in V/Line patronage.
When completed in 2016 the regional rail link will separate Geelong and Ballarat trains from metro lines, reducing rail congestion in the western suburbs.
Regional Rail Link spokesman Simon Breer said the panel's report would not delay the project's completion, because the authority would write a new noise mitigation plan during construction.
''The minister has determined that the authority can respond to the requirements in two parts. This will enable construction works to proceed while post-completion operational noise management is being finalised,'' Mr Breer said.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/cut-the-noise-planners-for-new-railway-are-ordered-20120406-1wh5l.html
Demolition Postscript
posted Apr 7, 2012, 6:02 PM by Site Editor
The houses and businesses compulsorily acquired for the RRL project were demolished by December 2011. Only two buildings remain at this time - the old Pedders buiding on Buckley St and the Sidelink Transport depot at Joseph Road.
For the residents affected, people are getting on with their lives, as people do. Some have coped with the upheaval well and some less well. As predicted, a number of people were forced to move further afield from Footscray because the compensation was insufficient to buy back into the area.
See the comprehensive photo gallery at the 'Rail Geelong' rail enthusiasts web site.
Slatered...
Just when people had started to put the experience behind them, wounds were reopened by one of the legal firms (Slater and Gordon) issuing a media release boasting of their efforts in obtaining 'six-figure sums' for the residents they represented.
"After nearly two years, a David and Goliath struggle between a group of close to 20 Footscray homeowners and the Department of Transport is over. The residents, who in 2010 discovered their homes sat in the path of the new Regional Rail Link project, have each received six-figure sums in compensation for the compulsory acquisition of their homes. Slater & Gordon commercial litigation lawyer Ben Hardwick said the Buckley St residents had received significantly more than the Department’s initial offer..."
This release was picked up by a couple of radio stations, which led to some of the affected residents receiving calls of congratulations from friends and aquaintences who heard the reports.
The fact is that most people were not pleased with the settlement. The compensation in some cases was insufficient to allow people to buy back into Footscray. To say that people have received 'six-figure' sums makes it sound like everyone hit the jackpot. One would certainly hope nobody received a five-figure sum for their homes!
Nor is it altogether true to say that people received significantly more than the initial offer. This too makes it sound like people did really well in the negotiation, whereas people generally received a pretty average market rate.
This press release seems like a clumsy effort by Slater to promote the firm, without thought as to how this information will be inferred by the public at large. It's bad enough that people experienced the trauma of losing their homes without now having to deal with the perception that they've struck it rich in the process. Nice bit of work, Slater and Gordon.
Trains Gone Missing
posted Nov 9, 2011, 3:10 PM by Site Editor
According to the latest figures provided in the RRL Noise Impact Assessment report, only four extra peak hour trains will be added across the overcrowded Sydenham, Werribee and Williamstown lines by 2024 despite the multi-billion dollar Regional Rail Link project planned to improve rail travel for western Melbourne’s booming population.
Regional Victorians will be no better off: Geelong commuters will gain just three additional peak hour trains in the decade after Regional Rail Link opens, and only an extra half a train is planned for each of Ballarat, Bacchus Marsh and Bendigo. The figures come from the Regional Rail Link Noise Impact Assessment report released last month by the Department of Transport and have surprised Footscray residents living on the rail corridor because they are at odds with the Government’s previous statements.
The surprising drop in expectations for Regional Rail Link has caused residents to question whether the government is downplaying projections in order to side step its responsibility to protect trackside communities from noise. Alternately, the government is backtracking on previous commitments to increase rail services to the west - underutilising the 5 billion dollar RRL investment.
Based on the report’s scaled-down modelling, the Department of Transport report claims that train numbers going through Footscray will barely rise and therefore any increase in noise will be negligible. It says no action is needed to protect local residents from noise disturbance.
But residents have doubts about these claims, since the government has previously projected that Regional Rail Link will pave the way for a massive increase in rail capacity, more than doubling the number of services on regional lines and adding 50% more trains on western metropolitan lines.
The original RRL funding submission to Infrastructure Australia and the subsequent Environmental Effects Statement said there would be 30 extra trains on Footscray corridor in peak hours, but this has now been revised downward to just eight additional trains in the Noise Impact Assessment report.
Railway Place residents last week submitted a petition to the Minister for Transport Terry Mulder requesting that a noise barrier be constructed along their street and the neighbourhood park, Fordham Reserve. They support calls by Fair Go For Footscray Rail for the government to set legal noise limits for people living beside railway tracks, consistent with other Australian jurisdictions.
References:
Environmental Effects Referral Noise and Vibration Assessment
RRL Submission to Infrastructure Australia
Noise impacts report released
posted Oct 19, 2011, 11:20 PM by Site Editor [ updated Oct 20, 2011, 1:34 AM ]
The long-awaited RRL ' Noise Impact Assessment Report ' was released yesterday (19th Oct) following the decision by the Minister for Planning that the report satisfies the conditions set by the former Minister for Planning in his decision of 7 October 2010.
The report concludes that noise barriers would be an effective mitigation measure, reducing noise levels by up to 12dB. Noise barriers are a proven and robust means of noise control and are used for railway noise mitigation in Europe, Asia and other states in Australia. The report costs noise barriers at between $21m and $50m, depending upon the particular solution implemented. This represents a relatively small expenditure in relation to the total RRL project budget of $5.3 billion.
However, in the absence of Victorian policy on railway noise emissions, the report determines that RRLA will not include noise barriers or any additional noise mitigation measures because the RRL project is not responsible for existing noise emissions in the rail corridor. In effect, the Government and Department of Transport are 'slicing and dicing' the rail noise issue to allocate noise on a per-project basis. With this approach, no authority is responsible for corridor noise levels as a whole. For the people enduring the problem, the splitting of noise calculations is meaningless - noise is noise.
The report references the recently released Victorian government draft ' Framework for Noise from Future Passenger Rail Investments in Victoria ', a 'principles-based' framework intended to inform the management of noise emissions from future passenger rail projects. This draft framework is welcome as a starting point for a Victorian policy, but it is certainly inadequate as it stands if it hasn't served to mandate a proper level of noise mitigation for the RRL project. The draft framework continues the pattern of treating noise as a per-project or per-service attribute by excluding consideration of non-passenger train noise emissions.
In 2012, 733 Footscray properties adjacent to the rail alignment are predicted to experience noise levels which exceed the NSW guideline limits, while 519 properties are predicted to exceed the Queensland limits. With peak noise levels already up to 105dB and increased levels expected in line with increased train traffic, the Environmental Protection Agency determined that, 'In Footscray, for the most exposed residents, a vast majority of the population will experience chronic noise-induced sleep disturbance, with very significant proportions 'highly disturbed. For the most exposed residents in other areas, almost half the community will experience chronic noise-induced sleep disturbance.'
The Victorian Government is once again treating Footscray residents as second-class citizens. Other states have adopted rail noise standards, freeways in Victoria are built with extensive noise barriers, even the RRL tracks in Wyndham Vale will be dug into a cutting to prevent noise. Why should Footscray residents be treated differently?
Importantly, the report does not close the door on the possibility of implementing proper noise mitigation measures, 'A noise barrier scenario may nevertheless be feasible for RRL1. However, in the absence of a settled Government policy which provides guidance on what noise barriers are appropriate in the context of RRL1, RRLA has not incorporated noise barriers into the Reference Design. However, this does not exclude the provision of noise barriers in the future by RRLA or a third party. Once the outcome of further policy development in this area is known, further consideration of the feasibility of installing noise barriers may be considered by Government.'
We can only hope that the Victorian government and the Department of Transport take heed of the more enlightened approaches on rail noise found overseas and within Australia. The NSW rail noise guidelines are a good place to start... "The growth of our rail transport network brings many benefits to the wider community but is accompanied by other factors such as increased train movements, extended rail operating periods and residential development along transport routes. These impacts need to be managed and balanced against protecting the amenity and wellbeing of the local community living beside rail lines." NSW Interim Guideline for the Assessment of Noise from Rail Infrastructure Projects.
We urge the government to provide the policy direction necessary to protect Victorian communities (the Footscray community in the immediate instance) in the process of expanding rail services. Solving this problem now will allow rail projects to move ahead in the future in greater cooperation with local communities.
See also: