Followers of this blog and my Mastodon account will know that I have previously written about the access problems to the Box Hill Bus Station.

This was mainly about the chronic escalator breakdowns. But unfortunately this issue appears to have spread to the bus station lift.

If you’re unfamiliar with Box Hill and its importance as a suburban transport hub and activity centre, have a look at my previous post linked above.

In summary, there are four ways to reach the rooftop bus interchange:

1. Escalator from the food court
2. Lift from the east side of the shopping centre
3. Fire escape stairs next to the lift
4. On foot from the rooftop carpark (an unofficial and unattractive route along a steep and narrow path past the waste collection depot that isn’t really used at all except by some cleaners)

On 29 January 2026 I saw that the lift on the east side of Box Hill Central Shopping Centre was broken. When I returned the next day the lift was still not working, and there was this sign stuck on the front doors.

Nearly a week later, the lift had not been fixed, and second sign had now been added.

Post by @[email protected]

View on Mastodon

While I was there two security guards were standing in front. One was briefing the other one about the broken lift saying “there isn’t really anything we can do”.

Then an older woman with a shopping trolley asked them how she could get up to the bus station. They walked her over somewhere else although I didn’t see where they went. Perhaps they helped by carrying her shopping trolley up the escalator?

But as we have seen before, the escalator is also entirely unreliable and has a long history of breaking down.

If this happens while the lift is also broken then the only way to access one of the busiest bus stops in Melbourne is to use the narrow, grimy and urine-stained fire escape stairs.

This very scenario actually happened the very next day on 31 January when the down escalator was broken at the same time as the lift. I also heard that this had happened several times during the 139 day escalator breakdown of 2024-25.

Up on the rooftop, the sightline issues that I mentioned in my previous post about the crossing from the lift and stairs to the bus station platforms has also still not been fixed. The only change is that a sign has been erected telling people walking to be careful.

Finally, there are issues with wayfinding and communication.

As with the escalator, there is no disruption information from (P)TV on the app, website or PIDs.

This is especially bad for people arriving at the bus station who may not be aware that the lift is broken.

For example, if you’re someone who needs the lift travelling late at night and your bus drops you off at the rooftop, you are stuck. There are no staff to help, no alternative accessible route and no ‘talking boxes’ to call for assistance.

It would at least be helpful to know beforehand as for many trips it may be easier to just get off the bus one stop earlier (or in the case of the 903, later).

As I’ve said before it is not unreasonable that something will break. That’s just the way things are and there’s no much you can do to stop it entirely. The first issues here are about how this is being managed.

There doesn’t seem to be much of a rush to fix this issue. It’s been out of service for at least a week now. This is also a known, ongoing problem with the lift which has broken many times before.

The passenger information is poor. Although slightly better than the escalator saga where there were often no signs at all, this disruption needs to be communicated better. There should be disruption notifications from PTV at the very least.

This also goes to show how legacy decisions left unaddressed compound to create problems like this. The railway and bus station here are almost exactly as they were when built over 40 years ago in 1983. Public transport patronage was in the doldrums with no signs of increasing, and Box Hill’s population was a lot lower.

This has left us with the limited bus and railway station access we have, which is a single pair of escalators and a single lift for each. This means any small disruption to just one of these will have a significant impact on thousands of people.

In the short-term, I hope that the lift is fixed quickly and I’m not forced to set up another counter.