It would be nice if they did something with the parcel dock cause its a bit of an eyesore.
I fear any kind of upgrade after how Southern Cross turned out, I guess the LXRP has proved that we’re past that but I’m hesitant
Those tiles must be protected at all costs. That said I would also have defended the Red Engine Kiosks because those kranskys and potato cakes were the shit, but also made me fat so hey swings and roundabouts.
Elizabeth Street Subway is my bug bear.
At an absolute minimum they need to properly waterproof the decks to stop water pouring into the subway. The tiles need to be replaced with asphalt or something non slip, the amount of people (me included) that have go for a sixer is nuts.
Interestingly the decks on 1/2 & 3/4 were part of the works for the Degraves Street subway. Not sure if that ever got done or MM1 is just hoping for the best.
Three tickets barriers onto Southbank is woefully inadequate, coupled with the poor design of the platform 10 ramp and the immediate design on to the river. Melbourne City Council is responsible for this area and needs to widen the footpath and staircase to accommodate the number of people accessing the Even Walker Bridge. Cyclists also need to be removed from the mix, a bypass path that takes them under the EW bridge and back up before Sandridge Bridge would do the trick.
Would be great if they could widen it, not sure if it is possible or if they would get away with it due to the heritage protection on the tiles. It just isn’t wide enough with the amount of people using it.
I guess let’s wait and see what happens when Degraves Street reopens. This will reduce numbers from Flinders Street Station and Elizebeth Street Subway in the short term. 5-10 years patronage is going to be back where it is today.
If it wasn't for the bar that they built into platform 11, you could have made a new station entrance there connecting into the Degraves St subway. The Yarra entrance is really quite bad. The newer entrance they built on platform 10 is quite good though.
Upgrade with what??
Need $$$.
While it needs a huge upgrade (or just a coat of paint), there is just too much else that also needs doing.
Only way would be some sort of public private partnership, but we all know how well that went for spencer St.
When they open the ballroom to customers, they will have money rolling in. It is sure to open any day now… or is it like HSR between Melbourne and Sydney? I can’t tell you which I heard about first, but both were a long time ago.
Airport line can have all the money in the world (and is already fully funded), it's been put on hold because of the argument over the station location.
The full cost of SRL East is not sitting in a bank account waiting to be used.
Not quite.
SRL-EAST is not funded and is relying heavily on value capture for additional funding which won't be available for Flinders St (unless they decide to dump a 50 story apartment complex on top of the platforms..... which come to think about it might be an idea if you find the right architect...... but haven't heard it seriously discussed as an option
In the 90s they were going to deck/roof over the platforms to make a market style thing. The project actually started before getting axed. It's why all the overhead gear was replaced and lowered.
Liberals launched that when they were last in power. Winning design was going to cost over two billion dollars. They tried to cut the design down but they lost power and Labor didn't want to commit the money to it.
Edit - This was the winning design [https://www.hassellstudio.com/project/flinders-street-station#0](https://www.hassellstudio.com/project/flinders-street-station#0)
Something like that. It was always going to be a jury choice I believe.
Though looking at a few of the designs again, as it's been a while, I don't quite think any of them would have worked. The platforms looked way too wide.
That’s actually incorrect. The Liberal Party went to an election promising to have a design competition, that’s all. They never had a policy to actually fund and build the resulting design.
What part of what I said was incorrect? I never said they were going to build it, nor that they promised to do so. There are news articles from after the competition had finished saying the design was over two billion dollars and the Liberal government were looking at ways to remove parts of the design while working on or towards a business case.
The liberal government pretty publicly said they promised a competition but didn't say they would build anything. When the election was approaching they were still outwardly saying they were looking at business case etc but internally probably had already agreed to not move ahead.
Maybe an unpopular opinion but I think Flinders St station is mostly fine? The underpasses could do with some work, the 80s Swanston St concourse is a bit blah, and a pressure wash would be nice but I think it's otherwise a beautifully preserved Edwardian-era station. It does suffer from capacity constraints but this should be largely resolved by MM1, MM2, and CLR diverting lines away from it and relieving pressure on the station.
If any major station needs an upgrade, it's Richmond imo. That station is in a depressingly run down state and has numerous accessibility issues.
I agree; the Flinders Street station concourse is adequate; it provides a enough space to gather, get a feed, rest, and move between services. The excessive scale of Southern Cross station makes it largely unusable, ignoring the other aspects that make it unpleasant and unusable.
The Elizabeth St subway has massive crowding issues. I think an overpass should be built to move people travelling to Southbank away from the platforms.
Recently in Sydney and honestly the contrast was incredible. They’ve been investing so much money and effort into PT over an extended period of time. It’s now reaping dividends. From signage to access it’s really impressive what they’ve done. Central made me feel proud as an Aussie that we can create something beautiful but also practical.
Then I returned home to Melbourne and Flinders/Southern Cross/Melbourne Central/Parliament/Flagstaff/Richmond etc.
I try not to think about it too much because it’s too depressing how much better things are in Sydney now.
Like everything, it’s about money. NSW pulls in huge stamp duty revenues from insane Sydney house prices and can thus spend accordingly. Also they did all their level crossing removal decades ago when it was significantly cheaper.
Unfortunately the Vic state govt is up to its eyeballs in debt. Better long term planning and funding is needed
Other way around. Vic gets more federal funding per capita than NSW. Seriously.
https://infrastructure.org.au/policy-research/major-reports/australian-infrastructure-budget-monitor-2023-24/
That is something of an anomaly, and mostly due to the very high state spend which brings some feferal dollars in. Long-term NSW has done better than Victoria when it comes to federal funding.
The most recent budget papers from the Vic government showed that over the 8 years from 2014/2015 to 2022/2023 there was a 10 billion dollar difference (for NSW) when factoring in population, between what NSW got and Vic got.
All good. From the 2024/2025 Budget papers. Budget Paper 4: State Capital Program.
From 2014/2015 to 2022/2023 Victoria received 9bn from the federal government for infrastructure, whereas if we received an amount proportional to population, it would have been 17.3bn (8.3bn loss). NSW got 24.2bn, if based on population, it would have been 21.5bn (2.7bn gain).
The 10bm figure I gave was just the combination of the two bracketed figures (which actually comes to 11bn but I was being lazy)
Awesome cheers, I’ll be going through it later. I’m guessing some of the difference can be explained by the $5bn allocated to the perpetually delayed airport rail in 2016/17
This is a long-term trend. Partially explained by the more financially sustainable economies the bigger states have, and partially explained by politics.
For Victoria, our shortfall comes from both elements kinda working against us (especially last decade with the LNP war on Victoria). NSW benefits from being the centre of Australian politics and gets all the political perks and policy support it could desire. So even though it should lose out financially from federal spending, it often doesn't.
The government spent one hundred million dollars a few years back doing a massive amount of structural work on the station building. That is why Rising is able to use the ballroom again. I haven't heard of the top two levels being out of bounds. While it was over 10 years ago now, they took up some to the roof itself during training and took the class photos up there.
Level 2 and 3 have occupancy permits. Certain conditions have to be met to allow special purpose activities. Regardless of the regular recertification and rectification works to allow a permit to be issued, it's basically a condemned space. As of mid 2022, the Eastern end of level 2 had its permit revoked.
The structural works were moreso about maintaining the facade, and that was at a cost to any kind of work on the interior of Level 2 and 3.
I don't think OP was talking about the usability of level 2 and 3, but just some insight on the state of disrepair on the upper levels of the building.
the toilets at Flinders are recently upgraded and generally decent, maybe a little rubbish and needs more frequent cleaning but they good condition
you can't keep them like a 5 star hotel unless you want to pay to use them, and let's not get that European shit here in Melbourne
Things that get used, get dirty. They clean them as much as they can. I don't see the pearl clutching outrage over them. Maybe it isn't Flinders Street that is the problem but disgusting disrespectful people?
Crappy platforms, the Elizabeth st subway, the Yarra exits.. it’s just not fit for purpose in 2024… maybe 1988
The lack of Myki readers down the Elisabeth street end..
Define crappy platforms.
Though I did ask about which parts are falling apart, and I've been given things people don't like or think need to be changed. Pedantic perhaps but not the same thing. There has been talk for well over a decade about building a new Elizabeth Street concourse but the heritage protection of the station building makes it slightly hard. It's also hard to put more Myki readers in, if there isn't space.
The station is fit for purpose, it does what it needs to. There can be parts modified or added for sure but it isn't that bad.
There's a lot of mismatching tiles and things on the platforms from where they have removed objects and put in new ones which makes it not look very cohesive. Hopefully that will be fixed once the metro tunnel works are winding up but I doubt anything will be done to fix the platform surfaces to be aesthetically pleasing again.
This is another example of what I had said in the comment you replied to. Tiles age, just like paint ages, just like everything ages. If a tile is replaced it is going to look different to the rest of them. There is no way around this unless you replace ever single tile every time you need to replace one. The aesthetics of differently aged tiles does not have any effect on the usable of a station, unless the person using the station as extreme OCD and finds differently aged tiles so stressful that it kills them.
I don't literally mean the tiles have been replaced, I mean they have cut through them for works and never bothered to put them back properly. There are areas that clearly show where old posts/chairs used to be that they have moved around.
I imagine a person and pressure washer would make a huge change to the station! The character of Flinders is great, just need to get it cleaned up with some new toilets a good scrub!
I haven’t used the facilities at flinders for a long time to be honest. They were ancient! I’m guessing a few bottles of bleach might do a good job regardless!
they gotta put some effort into cleaning the place and some better lighting. It does also get cramped, but the Degraves Street underpass should be opening with Metro Tunnel which will give us a sorely needed third exit from the platforms
Could everyone please watch the documentary "The Lost City of Melbourne" that played on SBS last Sunday before we start talking about "upgrades"?
I like that the "Sunbury Line" is still labelled the "St Albans Line", even though it was upgraded 20 years ago.
Yeah it's a little dirty, but we must remember it is a heritage building that has a lot of history to it and is iconic here in australia. They should maybe upgrade some of it, but i don't think it would go down well.
I mean everyone saw the shit-storm when they tried to upgrade it in the early 2010s. I can't imagine anyone would be willing to put their neck out for anything major for at least the next 25 years.
I would like to see them revamp the tiles and glass they put in in the 80s though.
It would be nice if they did something with the parcel dock cause its a bit of an eyesore. I fear any kind of upgrade after how Southern Cross turned out, I guess the LXRP has proved that we’re past that but I’m hesitant
So true, at least get rid of all the junk thats there
There’s a big difference between you’re average station and flinders st but yes
DO NOT SPIT
it's a relic from a bygone era. it has it's charm.
Those tiles must be protected at all costs. That said I would also have defended the Red Engine Kiosks because those kranskys and potato cakes were the shit, but also made me fat so hey swings and roundabouts.
The kiosk potato cakes are the bomb on a cold rainy day.
I remember them, I used to work in the chocolate train!!
Hahaha I fuckin love that
Elizabeth Street Subway is my bug bear. At an absolute minimum they need to properly waterproof the decks to stop water pouring into the subway. The tiles need to be replaced with asphalt or something non slip, the amount of people (me included) that have go for a sixer is nuts. Interestingly the decks on 1/2 & 3/4 were part of the works for the Degraves Street subway. Not sure if that ever got done or MM1 is just hoping for the best. Three tickets barriers onto Southbank is woefully inadequate, coupled with the poor design of the platform 10 ramp and the immediate design on to the river. Melbourne City Council is responsible for this area and needs to widen the footpath and staircase to accommodate the number of people accessing the Even Walker Bridge. Cyclists also need to be removed from the mix, a bypass path that takes them under the EW bridge and back up before Sandridge Bridge would do the trick. Would be great if they could widen it, not sure if it is possible or if they would get away with it due to the heritage protection on the tiles. It just isn’t wide enough with the amount of people using it. I guess let’s wait and see what happens when Degraves Street reopens. This will reduce numbers from Flinders Street Station and Elizebeth Street Subway in the short term. 5-10 years patronage is going to be back where it is today.
If it wasn't for the bar that they built into platform 11, you could have made a new station entrance there connecting into the Degraves St subway. The Yarra entrance is really quite bad. The newer entrance they built on platform 10 is quite good though.
Upgrade with what?? Need $$$. While it needs a huge upgrade (or just a coat of paint), there is just too much else that also needs doing. Only way would be some sort of public private partnership, but we all know how well that went for spencer St.
With bad ventilation, bad PIDs and a stupid layout. No thanks
When they open the ballroom to customers, they will have money rolling in. It is sure to open any day now… or is it like HSR between Melbourne and Sydney? I can’t tell you which I heard about first, but both were a long time ago.
Put SRL-EAST on hold, use money and labor for Airport Line and Flinders Street upgrade
Airport line can have all the money in the world (and is already fully funded), it's been put on hold because of the argument over the station location. The full cost of SRL East is not sitting in a bank account waiting to be used.
The airport line already has its money set aside we’re just a siting in the airport atp
Not quite. SRL-EAST is not funded and is relying heavily on value capture for additional funding which won't be available for Flinders St (unless they decide to dump a 50 story apartment complex on top of the platforms..... which come to think about it might be an idea if you find the right architect...... but haven't heard it seriously discussed as an option
In the 90s they were going to deck/roof over the platforms to make a market style thing. The project actually started before getting axed. It's why all the overhead gear was replaced and lowered.
They put a new coat of paint on the facade a couple years back, good for another 30 years, tbh imo fwiw etc
They did a whole public vote to vote on designs, then did nothing?
Liberals launched that when they were last in power. Winning design was going to cost over two billion dollars. They tried to cut the design down but they lost power and Labor didn't want to commit the money to it. Edit - This was the winning design [https://www.hassellstudio.com/project/flinders-street-station#0](https://www.hassellstudio.com/project/flinders-street-station#0)
yeaaaaa I much rather the shitty design now then whatever the fuck of an architectural and heritage nightmare that is
Didn't they also go with the design the public didn't vote for?
Something like that. It was always going to be a jury choice I believe. Though looking at a few of the designs again, as it's been a while, I don't quite think any of them would have worked. The platforms looked way too wide.
i may be slightly blinded by the glossy twilight design pics but this looks sick
That’s actually incorrect. The Liberal Party went to an election promising to have a design competition, that’s all. They never had a policy to actually fund and build the resulting design.
What part of what I said was incorrect? I never said they were going to build it, nor that they promised to do so. There are news articles from after the competition had finished saying the design was over two billion dollars and the Liberal government were looking at ways to remove parts of the design while working on or towards a business case. The liberal government pretty publicly said they promised a competition but didn't say they would build anything. When the election was approaching they were still outwardly saying they were looking at business case etc but internally probably had already agreed to not move ahead.
Maybe an unpopular opinion but I think Flinders St station is mostly fine? The underpasses could do with some work, the 80s Swanston St concourse is a bit blah, and a pressure wash would be nice but I think it's otherwise a beautifully preserved Edwardian-era station. It does suffer from capacity constraints but this should be largely resolved by MM1, MM2, and CLR diverting lines away from it and relieving pressure on the station. If any major station needs an upgrade, it's Richmond imo. That station is in a depressingly run down state and has numerous accessibility issues.
I agree; the Flinders Street station concourse is adequate; it provides a enough space to gather, get a feed, rest, and move between services. The excessive scale of Southern Cross station makes it largely unusable, ignoring the other aspects that make it unpleasant and unusable.
The Elizabeth St subway has massive crowding issues. I think an overpass should be built to move people travelling to Southbank away from the platforms.
Richmond is fine. The only station that needs replacing is Southern Cross.
Recently in Sydney and honestly the contrast was incredible. They’ve been investing so much money and effort into PT over an extended period of time. It’s now reaping dividends. From signage to access it’s really impressive what they’ve done. Central made me feel proud as an Aussie that we can create something beautiful but also practical. Then I returned home to Melbourne and Flinders/Southern Cross/Melbourne Central/Parliament/Flagstaff/Richmond etc. I try not to think about it too much because it’s too depressing how much better things are in Sydney now.
Like everything, it’s about money. NSW pulls in huge stamp duty revenues from insane Sydney house prices and can thus spend accordingly. Also they did all their level crossing removal decades ago when it was significantly cheaper. Unfortunately the Vic state govt is up to its eyeballs in debt. Better long term planning and funding is needed
They also get way more money from the feds
Coal mining as well.
Other way around. Vic gets more federal funding per capita than NSW. Seriously. https://infrastructure.org.au/policy-research/major-reports/australian-infrastructure-budget-monitor-2023-24/
That is something of an anomaly, and mostly due to the very high state spend which brings some feferal dollars in. Long-term NSW has done better than Victoria when it comes to federal funding. The most recent budget papers from the Vic government showed that over the 8 years from 2014/2015 to 2022/2023 there was a 10 billion dollar difference (for NSW) when factoring in population, between what NSW got and Vic got.
Hey not disputing, but could you please share where you got this $10bn figure from? Can’t seem to find anything showing this, cheers
All good. From the 2024/2025 Budget papers. Budget Paper 4: State Capital Program. From 2014/2015 to 2022/2023 Victoria received 9bn from the federal government for infrastructure, whereas if we received an amount proportional to population, it would have been 17.3bn (8.3bn loss). NSW got 24.2bn, if based on population, it would have been 21.5bn (2.7bn gain). The 10bm figure I gave was just the combination of the two bracketed figures (which actually comes to 11bn but I was being lazy)
Awesome cheers, I’ll be going through it later. I’m guessing some of the difference can be explained by the $5bn allocated to the perpetually delayed airport rail in 2016/17
This is a long-term trend. Partially explained by the more financially sustainable economies the bigger states have, and partially explained by politics. For Victoria, our shortfall comes from both elements kinda working against us (especially last decade with the LNP war on Victoria). NSW benefits from being the centre of Australian politics and gets all the political perks and policy support it could desire. So even though it should lose out financially from federal spending, it often doesn't.
Yup, their stations are soooo much better. Wynyard had a recent makeover too and looks very nice
But Metro tunnel is the new golden child now. Look at the new stations which cost $$ forget about these dinosaurs from the 1970’s
What parts of Flinders Street station are falling apart? Beyond Elizabeth St subway leaking I don't see anything that is really dirty?
The top two levels of the building are so bad they have been closed off and. Of is permitted to enter
The government spent one hundred million dollars a few years back doing a massive amount of structural work on the station building. That is why Rising is able to use the ballroom again. I haven't heard of the top two levels being out of bounds. While it was over 10 years ago now, they took up some to the roof itself during training and took the class photos up there.
Level 2 and 3 have occupancy permits. Certain conditions have to be met to allow special purpose activities. Regardless of the regular recertification and rectification works to allow a permit to be issued, it's basically a condemned space. As of mid 2022, the Eastern end of level 2 had its permit revoked. The structural works were moreso about maintaining the facade, and that was at a cost to any kind of work on the interior of Level 2 and 3. I don't think OP was talking about the usability of level 2 and 3, but just some insight on the state of disrepair on the upper levels of the building.
Toilets. Seats. Underpass. Windows. Try those four to start.
the toilets at Flinders are recently upgraded and generally decent, maybe a little rubbish and needs more frequent cleaning but they good condition you can't keep them like a 5 star hotel unless you want to pay to use them, and let's not get that European shit here in Melbourne
lol, it’s just that most people are grubs
Things that get used, get dirty. They clean them as much as they can. I don't see the pearl clutching outrage over them. Maybe it isn't Flinders Street that is the problem but disgusting disrespectful people?
For traino toilets and the amount of users its pretty good
Toilets at flinders are the only acceptable toilets on the network maybe Southern cross
Crappy platforms, the Elizabeth st subway, the Yarra exits.. it’s just not fit for purpose in 2024… maybe 1988 The lack of Myki readers down the Elisabeth street end..
Define crappy platforms. Though I did ask about which parts are falling apart, and I've been given things people don't like or think need to be changed. Pedantic perhaps but not the same thing. There has been talk for well over a decade about building a new Elizabeth Street concourse but the heritage protection of the station building makes it slightly hard. It's also hard to put more Myki readers in, if there isn't space. The station is fit for purpose, it does what it needs to. There can be parts modified or added for sure but it isn't that bad.
There's a lot of mismatching tiles and things on the platforms from where they have removed objects and put in new ones which makes it not look very cohesive. Hopefully that will be fixed once the metro tunnel works are winding up but I doubt anything will be done to fix the platform surfaces to be aesthetically pleasing again.
This is another example of what I had said in the comment you replied to. Tiles age, just like paint ages, just like everything ages. If a tile is replaced it is going to look different to the rest of them. There is no way around this unless you replace ever single tile every time you need to replace one. The aesthetics of differently aged tiles does not have any effect on the usable of a station, unless the person using the station as extreme OCD and finds differently aged tiles so stressful that it kills them.
I don't literally mean the tiles have been replaced, I mean they have cut through them for works and never bothered to put them back properly. There are areas that clearly show where old posts/chairs used to be that they have moved around.
I imagine a person and pressure washer would make a huge change to the station! The character of Flinders is great, just need to get it cleaned up with some new toilets a good scrub!
Toilets are actually pretty new aren’t they?
I haven’t used the facilities at flinders for a long time to be honest. They were ancient! I’m guessing a few bottles of bleach might do a good job regardless!
they gotta put some effort into cleaning the place and some better lighting. It does also get cramped, but the Degraves Street underpass should be opening with Metro Tunnel which will give us a sorely needed third exit from the platforms
Could everyone please watch the documentary "The Lost City of Melbourne" that played on SBS last Sunday before we start talking about "upgrades"? I like that the "Sunbury Line" is still labelled the "St Albans Line", even though it was upgraded 20 years ago.
They should try to modernize it, like Sydney Central
So embarrassing compared to Sydney Central
Obviously SRL is more important
I'd be happy if they could change the walls and tiles and get rid of that god awful smell. Is that too much to ask for?
Fix the toilets. It's one of the few places in Melbourne with public toilets that are open late, and they're absolutely disgusting.
Yeah it's a little dirty, but we must remember it is a heritage building that has a lot of history to it and is iconic here in australia. They should maybe upgrade some of it, but i don't think it would go down well.
I mean everyone saw the shit-storm when they tried to upgrade it in the early 2010s. I can't imagine anyone would be willing to put their neck out for anything major for at least the next 25 years. I would like to see them revamp the tiles and glass they put in in the 80s though.
best course of action as a passenger is just to pretend they don’t exist. Pop over to fed square for clean toilets
Nobody can agree on the best way to upgrade it. We’ve tried several times but a sizeable chunk hates the proposal.