There was once a time when SkyBus would whisk you from the Melbourne CBD to the airport in just 20 minutes – but thanks to traffic congestion and a lack of bus priority, that is now a distant memory. So what went wrong?

Born out of the airline operated shuttle bus services that operated out of Franklin Street at the north end of the Melbourne CBD, in 2000 the city terminus moved to Spencer Street Station, which combined with upgrades to the Tullamarine Freeway as part of the CityLink project, saw the travel time to Melbourne Airport cut to just 20 minutes.

As late as 2008 the 20 minute travel time was front and centre on the SkyBus website front page.

By 2010 the 20 minute reference was dropped from the front page, but still appeared on their FAQ page. There it remained through 2012, 2014 and 2015 – but with the addition of an asterisk – “times may vary due to traffic conditions”.

By 2016 the SkyBus FAQ admitted that travel times had blown out by 50% in peak periods, to 30 minutes.

And by 2017 it had blown out further – 30 minutes the best case scenario, with a 45 minute journey expected in peak periods.

My recent SkyBus trip took 50 minutes to travel from Southern Cross Station to the airport.

Why is SkyBus taking longer?

The short answer – traffic congestion.

During the 2000s upgrade of the Tullamarine Freeway as part of the CityLink project, an ‘express lane’ for buses and taxis was added between Flemington Road and Bulla Road, operating between 6:30 am and 9:30 am inbound and 3:30pm and 6:30pm outbound, weekdays only.

As traffic congestion increases this lane is the key to reducing SkyBus travel times, allowing buses to bypass other vehicles, as The Age reported in 2011:

SkyBus was designed to provide a 20-minute run between Southern Cross Station and the airport but is consistently failing to do this during peak periods, with times blowing out to as much as 51 minutes in the morning and 59 minutes in the afternoon peak. A study by engineering and consulting firm Parsons Brinckerhoff found that “the future will see a continuation of the significant but relatively gradual degradation of travel time on the CBD-airport bus route”. The study provided three options for improving travel times, with the department’s preferred one involving creating an express bus lane and putting SkyBus on a public transport fare. A 2011 briefing to Transport Minister Terry Mulder said: “Putting SkyBus on a Met fare and enforcing express lanes would significantly reduce travel time on the express lanes without significantly affecting travel times on the non-express lanes.” The SkyBus lane would be created relatively cheaply by removing the emergency lane and nominally narrowing the other lanes. However, Transurban is believed to be bargaining hard to ensure it is not locked out from any extra lane on CityLink. A spokeswoman said: “Transurban supports any further augmentation of CityLink for the benefit of all the travelling public.” Public Transport Victoria spokeswoman Andrea Duckworth said: “The government does not have immediate plans to install myki readers on SkyBus or widen CityLink.”

Despite the “no plans to widen CityLink” line, what did the government decide to do a few short years later? More roads, of course!

Throwing good money after bad

Approval for the CityLink Tulla Widening project was given in 2015, adding an extra lane to the Tullamarine Freeway between Melbourne and the airport, at a cost of $1.3 billion.

The section of elevated viaduct opened by CityLink in the 2000s as the ‘Western Link’ has had the emergency lanes removed and the speed limit dropped to 80 km/h, allowing an extra traffic lane to be squeezed in.

An additional lane has also been added to the five lane section north of Flemington Road.

As well as the four lane section north of Moreland Road.

But on the bus priority front, nothing has changed, despite the addition of a new lane for general traffic – limited operating times, no enforcement when it is active.

And it still comes to an end at Bulla Road – only half way to the airport!

And to make matters worse, there are no emergency lanes on the upgraded section of freeway.

Broken down taxis are a common sight on the Tullamarine Freeway.

As are rear end crashes.

Today a mere inconvenience, but without emergency lanes any minor incident will result in an entire traffic lane being closed down. $1.3 billion well spent?

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