Impressive progress at Parkville

Major construction at Parkville Station is now complete, as the opening of the Metro Tunnel in 2025 draws nearer.

Parkville will be connected to the rail network for the first time when the station opens, making transport easier for thousands of medical staff, students, patients, and family members.

The station – the second of five new state-of-the-art stations to be finished as part of the Metro Tunnel Project – will provide a quick and easy rail connection for Victorians to the busy health and education precinct.

Since construction began back in 2018, crews have worked to remove 80 Olympic-sized swimming pools worth of dirt, opening space for the station to be built beneath Grattan St.

The station has a footprint around the size of one-and-a-half MCGs, carefully designed to fit among the area’s existing health, research and education institutions.

Passengers will enjoy an open, well-lit station concourse, with the Grattan St entrance’s 54-metre-long and 6.5-metre-wide steel and glass entrance canopy allowing the station to fill with natural light.

The station’s landmark artwork Vernal Glade by internationally acclaimed Melbourne artist Patricia Piccinni was installed in March on the concourse, allowing the art to be bathed in natural light from the skylight canopy above.

Parkville Station will include a pedestrian underpass beneath Royal Parade that will be accessible and free for all pedestrians during station operating hours, allowing people to easily walk from The Royal Melbourne Hospital to the University of Melbourne without needing to wait for traffic.

Outside the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre is an entrance to Parkville Station.

Complete with lifts at all four entrances, the new station will make it easier for everyone moving through the station and around Parkville.

As major construction comes to an end below ground, crews have begun returning space to the public.

In mid-May the project reopened a single lane of traffic in each direction on Grattan St between Flemington Rd and Royal Parade. This section of Grattan St has been upgraded with wider footpaths, new bike lanes, more bike parking spaces, seating and new bus shelters.

The Metro Tunnel team is making excellent progress on train testing in the tunnels and on the Cranbourne/Pakenham and Sunbury lines, with trains undergoing more than 2000 hours of testing so far.

The Metro Tunnel will connect the busy Sunbury and Cranbourne/Pakenham lines via a new tunnel under the city, creating an end-to-end rail line from the north-west to the south-east, freeing up space in the City Loop and better connecting all Victorians to jobs, healthcare, and education. •