This would cost a lot less than the $200m Southern Cross Station are asking to build a middle concourse. Another surprise is that a similar project to build a second concourse at North Melbourne Station cost only $36m in 2006. Is this the rate of cost escalation in the industry, or because it is a PPP and the government is now no longer able to call competitive tenders?

While I have no doubt the factors you mention play a part, there's also the practicalities of building said third concourse. For a start, it's nearly three times as long. There's also the fact the station has a lid, meaning any crane use is going to be made very challenging. External access is also substantially more difficult than North Melbourne and would probably necessitate demolishing some part of the station exterior.

Could we also consider leaving any disability access from the subway as there are already other disability based options for accessing and leaving the station already?

I imagine the subway also provides less risk for people who would otherwise be crossing the road at lights and spilling into lanes of traffic.

The subway is like that at Flinders Street which connects De Graves Street.

Metro Tunnel is building interconnections to the stations in the city of Melbourne.

An Age story from 2 days ago has the excuse that the subways have been filled with underground services
"In 2016, the City of Melbourne allocated $750,000 towards reopening the subway. A council spokesperson said an investigation found that "significant" underground services had been installed in the tunnel along the west side of Spencer Street."
"These large pipes prevent access through the tunnel," the spokesperson said... include water, power, data, cleaning, station maintenance, gas, fire systems, meal preparation and rail baggage handling. It is also an emergency access point."
"Unfortunately it would not be safe to open the subway for passengers," a PTV spokesperson said."

Age link

Neil

An Age story from 2 days ago has the excuse that the subways have been filled with underground services
"In 2016, the City of Melbourne allocated $750,000 towards reopening the subway. A council spokesperson said an investigation found that "significant" underground services had been installed in the tunnel along the west side of Spencer Street."
"These large pipes prevent access through the tunnel," the spokesperson said... include water, power, data, cleaning, station maintenance, gas, fire systems, meal preparation and rail baggage handling. It is also an emergency access point."
"Unfortunately it would not be safe to open the subway for passengers," a PTV spokesperson said."

Age link

Neil

When I badgered the city of Melbourne w an enquiry request about what had ended up happening w the $750,000 put towards investigating its reopening they more or less gave the same answer of the pipes and other services blocking access, but not so much as a safety issue but as one of funding the relocation of them.

An Age story from 2 days ago has the excuse that the subways have been filled with underground services
"In 2016, the City of Melbourne allocated $750,000 towards reopening the subway. A council spokesperson said an investigation found that "significant" underground services had been installed in the tunnel along the west side of Spencer Street."
"These large pipes prevent access through the tunnel," the spokesperson said... include water, power, data, cleaning, station maintenance, gas, fire systems, meal preparation and rail baggage handling. It is also an emergency access point."
"Unfortunately it would not be safe to open the subway for passengers," a PTV spokesperson said."

Age link

Neil

I wouldn't really call it an excuse as its quite true, there is a lot going on down there! Its no longer the passenger subway as everyone remembers it to be, as it now functions as a 'behind the scenes' Utility tunnel. Relocating the services/offices/storage currently in the old subway would most likely require another dedicated tunnel so why not start fresh and build a new passenger subway that meets todays standards or (the most likely option) another footbridge/concourse.

The northern tunnel is much the same and is used for services as well as staff and vehicle access and is also not suitable for public use.

I know the cost of changing the tunnels to allow access down at Spencer Street would be very expensive. My question is whether it would be possible to just open the section from the suburban platforms to platform 8 (e.g. you'd pop up inside the V/Line paid area). It would just relieve overcrowding a bit - but interested if anyone has any first hand knowledge of this? Ramps don't meet standards so it's not ideal obviously. Here's a follow up question - we don't have ramp access to underground stations - so if the ramps were converted to stairs what operational impacts would that have for the suburban platforms?

Odd the design of the new station did not have the current utility tunnels from back in the spencer street station build available for this piping.  Why would they have used a walkway designed for passenger use to save costs?