Melbourne’s city centre has changed dramatically over the past six years as a construction blitz altered the streetscape and added towering new buildings to the skyline.
But there’s been just as much going on beneath our feet, out of sight.
Two tunnels – each a touch larger than the body of an A380 superjumbo jet – have been bored nine kilometres from South Kensington, under Parkville and the length of Swanston Street to South Yarra.
Trains will roll through these tunnels for the first time later this year when track testing begins on the new underground train line, which is expected to carry 12,000 commuters a day when it opens in 2025.
The Age’s Underground Melbourne series is exploring what lies beneath our city. And the Metro Tunnel is the CBD’s biggest subterranean development since the first sod was turned on the original City Loop half a century ago.
Construction work has caused significant disruption, closing some streets since 2017 and driving customers away from nearby traders.
But Metro Tunnel project director Linda Cantan says limiting disruption to the city while building something this big was one of her team’s biggest achievements.
Five new stations
“We’re essentially walking down on Swanston Street at the moment with the trams above us, and they’re all blissfully ignorant to everything that’s going on,” she says during a tour of the Town Hall Station site, one of five new underground stations…
