Residents along Melbourne’s Upfield line say deafening drilling and window-rattling pile-driving has become a 24/7 nightmare as works to remove level crossings continue through the COVID-19 lockdown.
Noisy works, running from July until November, are removing level crossings at Munro, Reynard and Bell streets and at Moreland Road, and lifting 2.5 kilometres of tracks.
Coburg residents Tanya Pittard (right) and Jenny want the noisiest construction paused at night.Credit:Justin McManus
Coburg resident Tanya Pittard is trying to work while helping her two children learn from home. Now she’s having trouble sleeping too, because of drilling and pile-driving about 150 metres away.
“It’s not a repetitive noise that you can learn to tune out. It’s a really intense intermittent noise that just wakes you up,” Ms Pittard said.
“So you have that effect of broken sleep for night after night. It just absolutely uses you up.”
The Level Crossing Removal Project has offered temporary accommodation to 300 households. About 200 homes have taken it up.
Ms Pittard said there was another solution.
“Stop the work at 10pm and let us have some sleep. It’s such a simple solution. Give us some relief. Let us sleep, and then we will deal with the noise all day, and it is all day. You can deal with that if you’ve had a night’s sleep.”
The loudest work, the pile driving 18 metres deep through hard basalt rock, is expected to be finished by the end of August.
Brunswick MP Tim Read, from the Greens, said relocations worked well for some residents but that it did not seem to be widely promoted.
Dr Read, who said he understands some disruption is necessary, but he believes constant overnight construction could prove too much for residents stuck in lockdown.
“If I was to say one thing out of this, it would be the lockdown and curfew are a bit of a pyschological burden but when you add sleep deprivation, virtually, what’s long-term sleep deprivation, to this then it’s going to be intolerable for a lot of people. That’s my real concern.”
The Andrews government is pressing ahead with its level crossing removal project during the pandemic.Credit:Simon Schluter
Dr Read wrote to Minister for Transport Infrastructure Jacinta Allan last week to ask for the loudest work to pause overnight or for some guaranteed nights off. On Wednesday, he set up another letter to Ms Allan for residents to sign.
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Coburg resident Jenny, a general practitioner who focuses on mental health and did not want her surname published, said she was waking up at night even though she is partially deaf.
“It’s intermittent, and it’s a loud banging noise that will go for maybe 20 minutes or whatever. Then it’ll stop and you’ll drift back to sleep and it’ll start again and wake you up,” she said.
She worries that the “diabolical” noise could badly impact the mental health of people already struggling with the pandemic.
Trains will resume on the Upfield line when track construction finishes in November, with two new stations opening in Coburg and Moreland by the end of the year.
“We’re removing four dangerous and congested level crossings and improving traffic in Melbourne’s north – saving lives and reducing bottlenecks on one of Melbourne’s busiest road corridors,” said Matt Thorpe, program director of the North West Program Alliance.
The popular Upfield bike path will also be widened, separating cyclists and pedestrians between Moreland Road and Bell Street.
The project will also create 2.5 kilometres of parkland and open space.
You can call the Level Crossing Removal Project call centre on 1800 105 105.
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