A recent paper by Paul Mees sheds more light on the origins of the RRL project and the serious failures of planning by the Department of Transport that gave rise to the implementation fiasco we are now experiencing.

The paper 'Planning for major rail projects: The Melbourne Metro and Regional Rail Link', was presented last week at the Australasian Transport Research Forum 2010, in Canberra.

"..This paper reviews the planning processes that led to the Metro/RRL proposals and the awarding of Commonwealth funding for the RRL. It draws on public documents and materials released under Freedom of Information, but not on the Infrastructure Australia evaluations, which have not been made public. It concludes that the criticisms of the planning and evaluation processes appear to be correct, on the basis of the material released to date."

Fascinating reading for anyone trying to understand how the RRL project became a case study in planning failure and inept stakeholder consultation.