In the mid-20th century there were many crazy plans to rebuild Melbourne as a modern city, and this proposal from the Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Scheme 1954 would be one of the most extreme – the entire top end of Bourke Street would be bulldozed to make room for a new civic square.
Melbourne is an ever growing city, but only 10 kilometres from the CBD lies a curious grid of abandoned roads, in the industrial backblocks of Sunshine North.
Since September 2007 suburban electric trains have served the northern Melbourne suburb of Craigieburn, but the infrastructure that allows them to do so is a mere shadow of that originally planned a decade ago.
When wiewed on a map the Western Ring Road looks just like the name suggests – a ring around the middle suburbs of Melbourne, except for a major kink to the west around Ardeer. So why does the freeway take such a sudden turn in that area?
