Tunnel raises the bogie of cut and cover

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Editor - David Palmer

A couple of months ago I wrote that an east/west cross city tunnel recommended by Infrastructure Australias Sir Rod Eddington in a report on Melbournes transport infrastructure, would likely pass about 100m from where I live in Parkville, and almost certainly demolish a $5m wetland built for the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
But if it goes ahead, it looks like it could just miss 5.6ML of underground water storage I wrote about at the time, only now being completed on two Royal Park cricket grounds.
However the whole tunnel project, likely to cost $2bn or $3bn, goes right across Royal Park which I wrote about in that earlier editorial.
So in mid November I received in my letter box a glossy, colour, two page handout showing a Google Earth view of the area where the tunnel was likely to go. Part of it carried premier John Brumbys name and address and could be detached and mailed as a protest to the tunnel.
But the whole thing was very deceptive because it said that much of the tunnel would be built as a cut and cover construction. Considering the terrain though, that would be hugely more expensive that using tunnel boring machines, for most of its length.
Rather than protest that the tunnel should not proceed, because the cut and cover method will disrupt the area for several years, surely a better protest would focus on getting as much of it as possible excavated using TBMs.
The protest website is at www.ellinghaus.com.au

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