A major milestone has been reached in Victoria’s Metro Tunnel project, with all five new stations – Arden, Parkville, State Library, Town Hall and Anzac – now complete.
Premier Jacinta Allan and Minister for Transport Infrastructure Gabrielle Williams marked the achievement at the newly finished State Library Station, which will open later this year.
The station will give passengers direct access to State Library Victoria, RMIT University and the Queen Victoria Market, linking seamlessly to trams and Melbourne Central via a new underground concourse. This means passengers can transfer without tapping off their MYKI.
“This is the second new CBD train station in 40 years – and the first since yesterday,” Premier Allan said, referring to the completion of the new Town Hall Station.
“Transferring between State Library and Melbourne Central is one small step for a commuter and one giant leap for Victoria,” she said.
State Library Station is the deepest and most complex ever built beneath Melbourne’s CBD, sitting 42 metres below Swanston Street – deeper than the height of Marvel Stadium. Its main entrance at La Trobe and Swanston streets is framed by 12 towering columns and 18-metre beams, each weighing 70 tonnes. A second entrance opens to Franklin Street near RMIT.
Inside, 27 escalators and 19 lifts connect passengers to 220-metre-long platforms – among the widest underground metro platforms in the world. The station’s 42-metre escalator is Melbourne’s longest, stretching 12 metres beyond Parliament Station’s.
The entrance also features Forever, a large-scale artwork by artist Danie Mellor, honouring the cultural and social legacy of Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung women.
Work officially began in 2016, after planning and early site preparation started in 2015. By late 2025, when the Metro Tunnel is set to open to passengers, the full project will have taken about a decade from start to finish – making it one of Victoria’s largest and longest-running transport infrastructure builds.
