Bendigo's transport projects hit key milestones this week, here's where things stand

The $75 million redevelopment of Bendigo Railway Station moved into its next procurement phase this week, with Regional Rail Victoria confirming that shortlisted contractors have been invited to submit detailed design proposals. The revised tender deadline is set for late August 2026, pushing a formal construction start into the first quarter of next year at the earliest, a delay of roughly six weeks from the original schedule flagged in the project's 2025 planning documents.

The timing matters because Bendigo's population is forecast to reach 130,000 residents by 2036, according to the Greater Bendigo City Council's own growth modelling. More people means heavier daily pressure on the Mitchell Street and Pall Mall corridor, and the station precinct sits at the junction of both. Every month the redevelopment stalls is another month the existing 1980s-era passenger facilities absorb a load they were never designed to handle.

Bypass debate reignites on the city's southern edge

Separately, a long-running argument over the Marong Road freight corridor resurfaced on Wednesday after the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning released a 47-page options analysis for the Calder Highway interchange at the Bendigo southern entry. The document, dated June 28, evaluates three alignment variants for a proposed grade separation near the McIvor Highway junction, a bottleneck that heavy vehicle operators have flagged as dangerous for years. The preferred option in the analysis would require the acquisition of four privately held parcels on the Ravenswood side of the intersection, a detail likely to generate community pushback at the public information session scheduled for the Bendigo Racecourse function rooms on July 17.

Bendigo Health, whose capital expansion on Lucan Street depends on reliable freight access for construction materials through 2028, submitted a formal stakeholder comment during the consultation window supporting the grade separation. The hospital's new clinical services building, a $700 million project, is expected to see peak material deliveries begin in mid-2027, and logistics planners there have privately flagged the Calder interchange as a critical vulnerability.

Local bus services also got attention. Public Transport Victoria confirmed this week that the Route 3 timetable revision, which affects connections between Kangaroo Flat and the La Trobe University Bendigo campus on Edwards Road, will take effect from Sunday September 6. The change adds two additional weekday services in the 7-9 am window, responding to a petition signed by 1,140 students and staff in March. La Trobe's campus currently enrols around 6,200 students across its Bendigo programs, a significant portion of whom rely on public transport.

Active transport funding still awaiting federal sign-off

The City of Greater Bendigo is still waiting on a response from the federal government's Regional Precincts and Partnerships Program regarding a $4.2 million grant application lodged in February for the Bendigo Creek Trail extension. The trail, which currently runs as far as Holmes Road in Flora Hill, would be extended south toward Kangaroo Flat under the proposal. Council officers told a planning committee meeting on Tuesday that the application remains under assessment, and that a funding decision had originally been expected before the end of June. No revised timeline has been provided by the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts.

Council officers are also monitoring the outcome of the Glasgow violence reduction model being examined by the Victorian government, not for crime reasons, but because that program's infrastructure components, including streetscape upgrades and lighting improvements in high-density corridors, map closely onto council's own Hargreaves Street activation strategy. If Victoria adopts a similar framework with tied infrastructure funding, Bendigo's central precinct could qualify for supplementary investment.

Residents who want to make a submission on the Calder Highway interchange options can do so via the Engage Victoria portal until July 25. The July 17 session at the Bendigo Racecourse starts at 6 pm and will include a display of all three alignment variants with Department of Transport and Planning engineers available on the floor.