Landscape Architecture Australia – August 2019

The Caulfield to Dandenong Level Crossing

Removal Project demonstrates how integrated

urban design thinking can shape progressive

built outcomes.

Text Ricky Ray Ricardo

E

leven MCGs of new public open space – this was

the promise delivered to Melbournians in the city’s

preferred metric when the Victorian state government

announced that the method of removing nine level crossings

along the Caulfield to Dandenong rail corridor would be to go

up, rather than down.

While the public space promise wasn’t enough to offset all

displeasure among locals, who would have their mostly low-

rise suburban skyline interrupted by twin nine-metre-high

concrete rail viaducts, it did spark some fruitful discussion

about the merits of each method (rail under or rail over) and

the urban design and landscape architectural opportunities

they offered.^1

Now that the $1.6 billion project is more or less complete, the

opportunities offered by “rail over” are just as compelling

in the flesh as they were in theory – a testament both to the

efforts of the project’s design team led by Aspect Studios and

Cox Architecture, and to the benefits of having a government

client that, from the outset, understood that good urban

design outcomes would be critical to the project’s success.

On the final day of autumn I rode my bicycle from Caulfield

to Dandenong along the Djerring Trail, a new cycle route

created by the project that runs below the twin elevated rail

lines. Along the journey I pass dog parks, basketball courts,

parkour equipment, fitness stations, bike repair points, skate

parks, wetland swales, new gardens and tree plantings a

war memorial, new car parks and bus turn-around lanes.

The level of amenity this corridor now accommodates is

staggering.

The first thing that hit me was that the “stitching” effect is

real. Where neighbourhoods previously existed separately,

on either side of the rail line, they have now been united

by welcoming train stations, generous and well-detailed

plazas, brightly coloured recreation nodes and expansive

green parklands.

While each station appears similar on the surface, their

design was complex. Kirsten Bauer, director of Aspect

Studios, explains that the design team had to work closely

with local councils along the route to draft urban design

frameworks for each of the neighbourhoods, which meant

they were able to integrate a lot more into the project and that

its contributions extend well beyond the immediate site.

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LANDSCAPE ISSUE 163 030 — 031