With the potential for Mars Stadium to host athletics events in the 2026 Commonwealth Games, there is renewed focus on how we can get spectators to the venue by public transport.
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A railway station for V/Line services would be a great way to achieve this.
But if we're going to build a station to bring people to the venue, we have to think about how that station would serve the community once the Games are over.
It's great that we get AFL games a few times a year, but that's not enough on its own - we need a station that will work for Ballaratians 365 days a year.
Putting a station across Creswick Road from the stadium, on the Maryborough Line, is problematic for a number of reasons.
It's close to the stadium, but very little else that would attract passengers - it's surrounded by a quarry, a golf course, and low-density industrial land.
Most people will walk up to 1km to a railway station, but there's not much housing within 1km of this site.
It's also a big headache operationally.
If we have Wendouree Station on the Ararat Line, and this new station on the Maryborough Line, that means half of the trains arriving at Ballarat Station need to go one way and half need to go the other.
This means both stations would get half the frequency - meaning 80 minute waits between trains.
Lots of people would choose to drive to Ballarat Station instead, to take advantage of its higher frequencies, which means more pressure on car parks in the city centre.
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By contrast, a station just south of the stadium on the Ararat Line - somewhere near Burnbank Street - would still be very well-placed to serve the stadium, comparable to the walk from Richmond Station to the MCG.
But it would also have plenty of housing within range, and would even serve the eastern end of the Howitt Street retail strip.
It would also avoid those operational problems - it could be served by every single train without cutting Wendouree's frequency.
A station on the Ararat Line might be slightly more expensive and technically challenging to build in the first place, but it would be exponentially more useful for the decades afterwards.
And when we're thinking about the legacy of Commonwealth Games investment in Ballarat, we really need to be thinking long-term.
Ben Lever is the convenor of the Ballarat branch of the Pubic Transport Users Association
