Bendigo's transport upgrades inch forward as station precinct work enters critical phase

Works on the Bendigo Station precinct redevelopment pushed into a new construction stage this week, with crews from the Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority shifting earthworks equipment to the Williamson Street side of the site — a signal that the project's pedestrian connectivity component is finally moving beyond the planning phase. The activity came as the Victorian Government confirmed it would not revise the project's $47 million budget allocation before the August parliamentary recess.

The timing matters. Bendigo's population is projected to reach 180,000 by 2041 according to the Greater Bendigo City Council's adopted residential strategy, and the station precinct sits at the choke point between the CBD and the growing Epsom corridor. Every month of delay compounds pressure on Mitchell Street's already congested bus interchange, which feeds commuters from as far as Kangaroo Flat and Eaglehawk into the city centre each morning.

Active transport corridor hits a milestone

Separately, the Calder Alternative Highway shared path — part of the Federal Government's $30 million Active Transport Infrastructure Program allocation for regional Victoria — reached the Maiden Gully Road intersection this week after contractors pushed through a difficult drainage section in late June. The path is designed to give cyclists and pedestrians a continuous off-road connection from Bendigo's northern suburbs toward the Calder Highway service nodes. Cyclists who have been using the incomplete route say the gap between the Marong Road overpass and the new section was the single most dangerous stretch on the entire corridor.

Bendigo Sustainability Group, which has lobbied for the active transport link since 2021, confirmed its members conducted a formal count on Wednesday morning and logged 114 cyclists and pedestrians using the existing finished sections before 9 a.m. That figure, collected near the View Street bridge approach, is roughly three times the daily average the organisation recorded at the same location in July 2023. The group says the numbers justify extending the corridor south toward Kangaroo Flat, a proposal currently sitting with the Department of Transport and Planning's regional office on Lyttleton Terrace.

Meanwhile, V/Line flagged a short-notice weekend suspension of the Bendigo line on July 12 and 13, when track maintenance crews will work on the Woodend to Kyneton corridor. Passengers will be bussed between the two stations. V/Line advised travellers using Bendigo Health's Luxton Road campus — where outpatient volumes have climbed since the capital expansion's new wards opened last October — to allow an additional 40 minutes each way on those dates.

What's still unresolved

The bigger unresolved question hanging over Bendigo's infrastructure agenda is the proposed Bendigo Ring Road eastern link. A planning notice issued in May set a community submission deadline of August 15, but no state budget line item has been confirmed. The proposal would bypass Eaglehawk Road through to the Midland Highway junction near Epsom, a route corridor that VicRoads engineers identified as a freight priority as far back as the 2019 Loddon Campaspe Regional Transport Study.

La Trobe University's Bendigo campus on Edwards Road has a direct stake in that outcome. The university's engineering and allied health faculties have been pushing for better freight clearances around the campus, which sits adjacent to major arterial routes that carry agricultural equipment and heavy vehicles during harvest season. Campus management submitted a formal response to the ring road planning notice in June.

For residents watching from the sidelines, the most practical near-term change will come from the station precinct works themselves. Greater Bendigo City Council advised that Williamson Street will have one lane closed between Camp Street and Bull Street on weekdays throughout July and into mid-August. Drivers heading to the Bendigo Marketplace or the Law Courts should plan for an extra five to ten minutes during morning and afternoon peaks. Council's traffic management hotline — reachable through the Bendigo Connect portal — is taking reports of incidents in the works zone.