‘Sink station’

By Jim Mynard
BERWICK Village Chamber of Commerce has mooted building the Berwick railway station further east and underground as part of the long talked about Casey Technology Park (CTP).
Chamber president Mike Hall put the view in a discussion paper presented at the Tuesday 4 October CTP steering committee meeting.
Mr Hall said that by undergrounding the station, as much as 123,000 square metres of commercial floor space could be captured.
“The railway station may need to be dealt with in depth and include the idea of the move to make available a much larger area around the railway station,” Mr Hall said.
He said this was needed to provide a bus interchange and pedestrian traffic flow through to Monash University, Chisholm Institute and Casey Hospital.
“We need to consider the railway line going underground beneath Clyde Road,” he said.
“This would allow that major traffic choke to be dealt with much easier than taking the road under the railway line.”
Mr Hall stressed that it was essential for the structure plan involving the technology park should include a sophisticated and in depth investigation of the pedestrian, vehicle, rail and bus transport throughout the park and into the Berwick High Street.
He said also that there was need for some kind of rapid transport throughout the technology park.
The Berwick Village area, including the technology park has been classified under Melbourne 2030 as a major activity centre.
The park concept involves developing the land between the Monash Freeway and the railway line as an integrated technology, research, learning, commercial, medical and higher densityhousing precinct.