- In short: Data detailing the air quality at Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station has been released for the first time.
- It shows nitrogen dioxide levels in parts of the station have regularly been more than 90 times the guidelines set by the World Health Organization.
- The Victorian government and the station’s operator say they’ve been meeting Australian workplace standards.
Yea well, putting a bunch of buses and diesel trains under an enclosed roof was always going to have problems like this. That sort of thing should be at an open air station.
As much as I like the design, this seems like some precious architect was allowed to do what they wanted and no one actually engineered the problem.
Seems similar to fed square actually (it’s clearly not a well designed public square however much you like the design of the buildings).
What’s wrong with fed square?
- it faces or looks onto a road and tram stop.
- a bunch of buildings obstructs any view of or access to the much more pleasing river and kings domain and st Kilda rd, which should be the focus of attention.
- it’s slanted down toward swanston as though you’re not supposed to be there. Additionally, there’s no central focus or attraction to make it seem like a place you can just hang out in. The back of the square feels and looks exactly like that, the back of some area. The stage and screen kind of make it a place but only when they have something on.
- all the eateries are expensive and “fancy” rather than providing just normal stuff for people to consume not as an event but an act of gathering and communing with each other. Beer deluxe might be an exception but that’s literally outside the square.
- no shade or trees or greenery.
- only sitting area is on the swanston street edge looking, again, at the tram stop rather than the river or anything interesting inside the square.
- the building designs are fine, I don’t mind them, but I don’t think they’re interesting or special, there’s nothing about them that make you want to be there and look at them IMO.
I’d compare it Southbank with IMO works better. It’s in the river, has trees, places to just be (sitting on the river) and more varied dining options.
I’ve heard from people as well that sloping towards Swanston means there are all those wide steps on the way down to the street.
There are not enough flat surfaces for people to put up tables and properly run a market.
Yea, just another example. The local Sunday market instead runs on the west side of swanston st near the arts precinct but would actually work very well in fed square if it were flat … and if there were shade … and if the buildings were more interesting.
Kinda highlights how fed square is a very self centred design, it’s not meant to be anything other than fed square. We’re not meant to add to it or modify it.
Fair point, now you mention it the lack of shade is something I hate
Yea, as with my points, there’s sure few things like that where once you notice it you realise you dislike it. Like food or drinks, why isn’t there anything normal and decent to get there?
Truth is, apart from when the screen or stage is being used, it’s a glorified footpath.
Is safe work Australia asleep at the wheel on air quality standards? Or are they gimped by our fossil fuel sponsored politicians I wonder.
I ended up ranting about this in the other thread before realising this one existed too, so I guess in the interests of ranting at people rather than to myself I’ll copy paste here
The entire station is a colossal fuck up imo. For starters, putting a roof with no ventilation over a place full of diesel fumes is absolutely stupid. Just about every city has agreed it’s not wise to do that, except us for some reason.
Secondly, what kind of dumb arse donkey privatises a public space? It sits on publicly owned land, with publicly owned train tracks running through it, and is serviced by publicly owned trains, and is the primary terminus for a publicly owned train operator (just vline - metro isn’t public). I’m sure they get government grants to operate the station, and I’m sure the redevelopment of it was partially paid for by the government. A private company should have nothing to do with it, plain and simple.
Thirdly, the station amenities are pretty shit. The lack of rubbish bins is what gets me the most. Apparently this is because after a spate of bomb threats, someone wanted to be seen to be doing something so ordered all bins be removed from the stations, and when the decision was made to reinstall them, but with clear bins instead, the idiots running southern cross decided to just…not. I have zero faith that all the cleaners they’ve hired instead of just having fucking bins is probably funded through taxes. And it doesn’t even do anything lol. Almost everyone just dumps their rubbish anyway, so if you were smart enough to build a bomb, I’m sure you could figure out how to disguise it in a hungry jacks bag, or empty zinger box and nobody would notice. Even if you couldn’t, the fucking hungry jacks upstairs has enclosed and non see through bins anyway, but I’m just ranting at this point.
Fourthly, I’ll probably sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but I really do believe that breathing in all of those fumes can’t be good for you in the long run. I’m sure it’s probably fine in the short term, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the poor people working their day in and day out develop some sort of medical issues, and when they do I really hope they or their families sue the shit out of this dodgy company that runs the damn thing, followed by the government for allowing a dodgy company to run a public service and killing everyone
Sorry, that all turned into a rant. I have a lot of anger and hatred for southern cross, and also idiotic and selfish deciaions
Also how they renamed it Southern Cross from Spencer Street. The name has nothing to do with where it is geographically so visitors to Melbourne get completely lost getting to and from it
Yeah. To be honest though, I think it would’ve been a good idea to just call it Melbourne Central, and rename actual Melbourne central to southern cross, or something else. When I was younger/before I moved into the city, looking at the PTV journey planner and trying to figure out how to get to Melbourne by putting in “Melbourne” always confused me
On vlines journey planner at least they call it Melbourne Southern Cross, unlike PTV.
Naming Melbourne Central and Watergardens stations after shopping centres was always a stupid idea. Shopping centre branding changes, and people want to know where a station is located in terms of suburbs, roads, other landmarks, etc.
North Melbourne Station is also poorly named. It originally served the northern lines, when they still only had access to the CBD via the Inner Circle line, and was near the North Melbourne freight yard before that was closed. But it isn’t actually in North Melbourne, and the two reasons for calling it North Melbourne are no longer applicable. They were going to rename it to West Melbourne and call the new station on the corner of Arden and Laurens streets (which is actually in North Melbourne) North Melbourne, but now they’ve decided to keep the name for North Melbourne Station and call the new station Arden Station.
Renaming Spencer St Station to Southern Cross was always stupid, and I always said putting a roof on a station with diesel trains was going to be a health issue for workers and anyone else who has to spend substantial time there. But Bracks wanted a bigger monument to himself than Jeff’s Shed, so here we are.
That project was an absolute disaster. Builder lost millions and then substituted everything out for cheaper products. I swear, there’s stuff there that’s not to code.
The biggest travesty of all? Closing off the completely accessible underground pedestrian tunnel, forcing you to wait at the traffic lights.
Guys it’s ok we didn’t really care about NOX emissions in 2006 relax. It’s more of a gen z problem.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A representative from Southern Cross Ptd Ltd, a subsidiary of Civic Nexus, told him the station met government project requirements and compliance and it would not enter any further discussion with him.
Lou Irving is one of Victoria’s leading respiratory doctors — head of the Lung Tumour Stream at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and a physician at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
When Professor Irving read through the Southern Cross air monitoring data, he immediately noticed how high the nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels were in the bus terminal area.
A health and safety log from workers for three years up until 2010 shows staff at that time were routinely reporting sore throats and eyes, nausea and some vomiting while working in noticeable diesel fumes.
Those workplace standards for NO2 are 3,000 parts per billion averaged over eight hours and haven’t changed in more than 30 years, despite scientists’ understanding of the effects of air pollution developing a great deal.
“Where we have not yet been in a position to convert the fleet to battery electric buses we monitor performance such as idle times to avoid unnecessary pollution and fossil fuel consumption,” said Michael Sewards, co-CEO of Kinetic, which owns SkyBus.
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