Parks pain

By Kelly Yates
A NARRE Warren woman wants more car parking spaces to be created at the Narre Warren train station.
But the State Government says with 554 parking spaces, the Narre Warren station has one of the largest station car parks on the network.
Ana Wines said the “lack of car parking” was forcing commuters to have to park illegally.
Just recently, the mother of two counted 19 cars that had parked illegally.
“When I go into the city between 8am and 11am, there are no car parking spaces and people are parking up on the nature strips,” she said.
“And it’s not their fault; they shouldn’t have to do it. It’s worrying because we are in a growing area.”
Ms Wines, who has lived in Narre Warren for 12 years, has recently written to the Department of Transport in an attempt to raise the issue.
A State Government spokesman said there were no current plans to extend the car park at the Narre Warren Train Station.
Ms Wines said another problem in the area was that the buses were “infrequent” and didn’t connect with the train times.
“The buses don’t match up,” she said.
“Sometimes you have like three minutes to get off the train and get onto the bus. And then if the bus is late, you miss the train. They need to add more car parks or improve the bus service.”
There are four bus routes that service the Narre Warren train station, routes 834, 835, 841 and 895.
“Ensuring buses connect with trains is not always easy, especially where a bus route connects to multiple train stations, where buses run at a different frequency to trains, and where different factors affect bus and train running times,” the State Government spokesman said.
“To improve train and bus connections, the Department of Transport is working to increase the frequency of bus services so that, no matter what time your bus arrives at the train station, it’s not long until the next train.”
The spokesman said as a result of the Cardinia, Casey and Greater Dandenong bus review, they have committed to upgrade all of Route 895.
“As well as restructuring and extending the route, weekday off-peak frequency will be improved from every 75 minutes to every 45 minutes, and Saturday frequencies will be improved from every 75 minutes to every 60 minutes. The bus route will operate on Sundays and public holidays for the first time, and services will operate until 9pm, seven days per week.”
This upgrade is scheduled to take place later this year.