Work to soon ramp up on new Parkville tram stop

Major work will soon start on a new tram stop on the edge of the CBD as part of the city-shaping Metro Tunnel Project.

The new stop on Royal Parade outside the Royal Melbourne Hospital will be improved with level access and better passenger amenities, including shelter and service information.

Work will ramp up in late November when route 19 tram services will be disrupted between stop 7 (Queen Victoria Market) and stop 19 (Brunswick Rd/Sydney Rd).

Parkville Station will slash travel times for people travelling between Melbourne’s inner north and south. 

Currently a tram trip from the Parkville Station location to the Anzac Station location is 25 minutes or more during the peak hour – Metro Tunnel trains will take eight minutes.

There will continue to be temporary changes for vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists around the station area for the rest of 2023 and into next year, as the Metro Tunnel project team works to reinstate and improve streets and public spaces.

Parkville Station, on the city’s northern fringe beneath Grattan St, will provide rail access to Melbourne’s world-leading health and education precinct for the first time.  

Crews have finished glazing the station’s signature 54-metre-long, 6.5-metre-wide entrance canopy, which will sit about 22 metres above concourse level. All 16 of the station’s escalators and seven passenger lifts have been installed and are progressively being tested.

The station will include a new pedestrian underpass under Royal Parade, providing a safe connection to the doorsteps of the University of Melbourne, Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. 

Train testing is now underway inside the Metro Tunnel, with trains reaching full speed just weeks after the first test trains entered the twin tunnels. 

Since the first 1.7km journey at low speed in late July, test trains are now running at 80km/h – the speed they will travel at between all five stations when the tunnel opens in 2025.

The Metro Tunnel is the first major metropolitan rail investment since the City Loop opened in 1981 and will give Victorians more connections and faster journeys. •