The differences in public transport could not have been more obvious than when Chris Ashmore made the move with his wife and daughter from Tokyo to Ballarat three years ago.
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The media producer, who is also the man behind the Ballarat Talks podcast, is up at 5.30am two or three days a week to make the two-hour commute to a studio in Hawthorn, which requires him to get from Southern Cross to Flinders Street Station before catching the Glen Waverley line to Toronga Station.
Mr Ashmore is one of a number of Ballarat based workers not only making the commute to the CBD, but then travelling on to reach their final destination.
The 42-year-old said while his family had chosen Ballarat for its affordable housing, one late V/Line service had the potential to throw a day’s work off course.
The whole time I was in Japan there was only an issue with the train when there was a typhoon or an earthquake.
- Chris Ashmore - commuter
“Because the travel is a fair whack I try to work at home two or three days a week, so when I’m there I try to ensure interviews are doubled up on the same days so they’re not staggered,” Mr Ashmore said. “If the (Ballarat) train is a bit late it means I might miss the connection which means another 15-minute wait.
“I know even with my commute there’s two or three others who get off at the same stop as me on the Glen Waverley line so there is a lot of us who travel further.”
Mr Ashmore tries to do what work he can during his four hours of commuting, whether it be responding to emails or organising interviews. Like many Ballarat commuters, he is eagerly awaiting the introduction of a host of new base stations along the line to improve mobile signal which currently falls in and out along the journey. He said the most obvious difference between his current commute and his experiences in Japan was the service’s reliability.
“The difference in public transport is another planet in terms of things running on time. There’s never an issue with the train there,” Mr Ashmore said. “The whole time I was in Japan there was only an issue with the train when there was a typhoon or an earthquake.
“It’s amazing how rarely trains arrive on the scheduled time here, where it’s the opposite in Japan.” With V/Line failing to meet its punctuality target on the Ballarat line since October 2016, the commuter frustration is evident.
Committee calls for double track by 2030
Improving Ballarat’s train service was at the top of the priority list earlier this week when Committee for Ballarat members joined other representatives from the city in lobbying the state parliament.
While front and centre of the lobbying effort was the request for a sub-hour express service from Ballarat to Southern Cross by 2019, costings supplied by Committee for Ballarat show full duplication from Melton through to Ballarat Station could be achieved for less than $800 million.
Committee for Ballarat connectivity team chairman Nick Beale said while the immediate major investment priority was electrification from Sunshine to Melton and quadruplication between Melton and Sunshine.
Committee for Ballarat costings estimate all three tasks could be completed for less than $3 billion.
While the state government’s $518 million project is being carried out further down the line, neither the government, opposition or federal government have made any further commitments despite Melton electrification being highlighted by Infrastructure Victoria and Australia as a priority project.
Earlier this year Premier Daniel Andrews alluded to future investment, saying the existing $518 million upgrade was “paving the way” for electrification.
“I think it’s really important the investment commitments come now and I think the Sunshine to Melton electrification is the first one from a government point of view,” Mr Beale said. “However electrification is all about the western suburbs and it’s a metro issue not a V/Line one, so the real thing for me of the $760 million full duplication and the quadruplication between Melton and Sunshine.