Taking a tour

From the air there is a tangle of freeway lanes, ramps and frontage roads.

The interchange having a total of sixteen bridges.

Including:

• two taking the Calder Freeway over the M80 Ring Road,
• five taking the Calder Freeway over freeway ramps,
• two taking freeway ramps over the M80 Ring Road,
• five bridges over railway tracks,
• one taking Fullarton Road over the interchange,
• and finally, a pedestrian footbridge at Collinson Street.

And increasing the complexity of the interchange are two other features – the Fullarton Road ‘frontage road’ skirts the northern edge, and Calder Freeway westbound exit for Keilor Park Drive is via a collector/distributor lane arrangement with the M80 Ring Road ramps.

But the despite the number of bridges, only four out of the possible eight freeway-to-freeway movements are possible:

• M80 Ring Road southbound > Calder Freeway westbound,
• Calder Freeway westbound > M80 Ring Road southbound,
• M80 Ring Road northbound > Calder Freeway eastbound, and
• Calder Freeway eastbound > M80 Ring Road northbound.

The other four movements being catered for by other routes:

• M80 Ring Road southbound > Calder Freeway eastbound via Tullamarine Freeway from the M80 Ring Road interchange,
• Calder Freeway westbound > M80 Ring Road northbound via Tullamarine Freeway from the Calder Freeway interchange,
• M80 Ring Road northbound > Calder Freeway westbound via Keilor Park Drive, and
• Calder Freeway eastbound > M80 Ring Road southbound via Keilor Park Drive.

And local traffic – for the Calder Freeway they have to use the Woorite Place, Fullarton Road or McNamara Avenue exits; for the M80 Ring Road they need to use Keilor Park Drive or Airport Drive.

So how did this mess of roads come to be?

A history of the Calder Freeway, Keilor Park Drive, and the M80 Western Ring Road

We start back in 1971, when Keilor Park was a recently developed suburb, there was no such thing as Keilor Park Drive, and the Calder Highway was just a normal road. The only sign of what was to come – two faint purple lines marking future freeways.

Melway edition 5, 1971

By 1975 the first stage of the Calder Freeway had been completed from Niddrie, terminating at Keilor East – and the first sign of Keilor Park Drive.

Melway edition 8, 1975

By 1976 the Calder Highway had been deviated towards the Keilor Cemetery, ready for a freeway extension.

Melway edition 9, 1976

Keilor Park Drive was completed by 1978, and the planned ring road alignment had been extended south of the Calder Freeway.

Melway edition 11, 1978

By 1979 work on the Calder Freeway extension west to Keilor was underway.

Melway edition 12, 1979

Completed by 1982.

Melway edition 14, 1982

There things stayed still, until 1989 saw the planned alignment for the Western Ring Road tweaked.

Melway edition 19, 1989

The debate over the interchange

Early planning for the Western Ring Road was undecided about the provision of an interchange with the Calder Freeway, due to the impacts on the surrounding area.

The planning scheme reservation across the Calder Freeway is about 30 metres wide and is inadequate to accommodate the WRR. No allowance was made in previous planning for the additional land that would be required for an interchange between the WRR and the Calder Freeway . As a result, development has been allowed to proceed right up to the reservation boundary. South of the Calder Freeway is the East Keilor industrial area, consisting of small industrial premises, while to the north is the residential area of Keilor Park.

Four interchange options were subject to detailed investigation.

• a ‘no-interchange’ option requlrlng turning traffic between the Calder and the WRR to use nearby local access interchanges and local roads . This would include grade separation of the two routes and acquisition of 15 business premises at a cost of $14m. It would cause significant increases in through traffic on local roads;
• build an interchange, with a range of alternatives examined including a diamond interchange (with signals on the WRR), a bridged rotary and a number of freeway to freeway variations. The cost would range from $27m for a diamond to $52 for freeway to freeway. Up to 75 business premises and 30 houses would be required.

The recommended solution was a two-level interchange with turning roadways in two quadrants, with a September 1989 information bulletin stating.

There has been a lot of community discussion about whether or not an interchange should be built to connect the WRR with the Calder Freeway.

If an interchange were not built, there would be big increases in traffic on local arterial roads, such as Milleara Road and Keilor Park Drive. An interchange is therefore favoured despite its estimated cost of up to $50m and the effect on a number of houses and businesses.

Following recent discussions with local residents, further ideas have been examined. These would not separate through traffic from local traffic, and would still impact on a similar number of properties.

It is therefore proposed to reserve enough land for an interchange at the location originally shown (immediately west of the SEC power lines).

This would require a section of Fullarton Road to be moved. Space would be provided for landscaping and noise barriers to protect houses in Keilor Park.

These changes being included in the Western Road Road Environmental Effects Statement advertised in December 1989.

Featuring a long list of land use changes in Keilor Park and East Keilor.

Including:

14)

The Proposed Secondary Road link to Cecelia Drive is to be deleted. It previously provided a local connection between Buckley Street and the Calder Freeway which is now to be via the Dodds Road interchange and the new connection through former Commonwealth land to Milleara Road (see item 16 below). The reservation is to be rezoned to appropriate abutting zoning (Residential C and Proposed Public Open Space reservation).

15)

An area of land to the north of the previous Cecelia Drive route, which is zoned for Reserved Light Industrial, will be impossible to develop for industrial purposes because of access difficulties. It is proposed to be rezoned to Proposed Public Open Space as an extension of the Maribymong Valley Park. The area will be capable of providing for pedestrian/cycle access into the park from the new Dodds Road connection. It is owned by the MMBW.

16)

A large area of land reserved for Commonwealth purposes in Milleara Road has been sold and is being subdivided for housing. The site is to be rezoned to Reserved Living, in accordance with the proposed use. Incorporated within the zone will be a Secondary Road reservation which provides for the connection between Dodds Road interchange and Milleara Road, on the alignment included within the approved plan of subdivision.

17)

As part of the necessary connections between the existing road network and the Ring Road, the Roads Corporation are intending to construct a connection between the Dodds Road interchange and Keilor Park Drive. This route will utilise the existing reservation and Cemetery road to the southern boundary of the cemetery, then deviate westwards to join Keilor Park Drive. A portion of Brimbank Park, reserved for Proposed Public Open Space, is to be amended to Proposed Secondary Road and an excised remnant amended to Proposed Cemetery to allow for future expansion of the adjoining Keilor Cemetery. The deviation shall involve the least acquisition necessary to achieve a satisfactory road alignment.

18)

Land north-east of the proposed Dodds road interchange has recently been subdivided for industrial purposes. The zoning is to be rationalised to provide a Reserved Light Industrial Zone along the railway opposite future housing (Item 16). A proposed reservation for re-instating access to the Slater Parade Industrial Area is also provided (Proposed Public Purposes 20).

19)

The area between the new Dodds Road/Keilor Park Drive link and the Ring Road is currently zoned for a variety of industrial and other uses. It is intended to rationalise the zoning for this area.
The existing Reserved Light Industrial and Reserved General Industrial Zones will be amended to a Restricted Light Industrial zone which will allow greater control over buildings and works.

20)

Land severed from Brimbank Park by Cemetery Road deviation and public open space reservation due east of the Keilor Cemetery is proposed to be included in a Proposed Cemetery Reservation. This will provide for a much needed extension of the cemetery. Open space lost in the extension will be replaced in the area south of Dodds Road interchange (see Item 15).

21)

Access is to be restored to the properties west of the Ring Road in the Prendergast Avenue area. The new road (shown as Proposed Public Purposes 20) will provide subdivisional opportunities which can be taken up by the owner by agreement with the Council and the Roads Corporation.

22)

The Roads Corporation proposes to construct a freeway-to-freeway interchange between the Ring Road and the Calder Freeway. The construction may take place in stages, to match traffic growth and may initially include some at grade intersections with traffic signals. These would later be replaced by free flow ramps. The Proposed Main Road reservation included in this amendment provides for the total land requirements for the final interchange. This also provides for a deviation of Fullarton Road around the interchange to maintain access between Keilor Park and Airport West.

23)

The present planning scheme shows the Calder Freeway between Woorite Place and the Maribyrnong River as a mixture of Main Road, Proposed Main Road and Road Widening reservations. The boundaries of these reservations have been changed to match the layout of the freeway.

Time to build

Plans for the Western Ring Road had been made real by 1991, when a whole slew of new proposed roads added to the Melway – including the Western Ring Road, an interchange with the Calder Freeway, and a southward extension of Keilor Park Drive to Milleara Road.

Melway edition 21, 1991

Work started on the 2.6 km long extension of Keilor Park Drive to Milleara Road in 1993, opening to traffic on 11 April 1994 at a cost of $20 million. A further $5 million was spent on the duplication of Keilor Park Drive and Sharps Road, in preparation for the traffic that the next stage of the Western Ring Road would bring – but the Calder Freeway interchange was still ‘proposed’.

Melway edition 23, 1995

But the interchange was approved soon after – detailed design work commenced in 1992 with construction planned to start in 1996, with completed by 1998. However additional funding from the Federal Government saw the project sped up – construction commenced in May 1994 under two contracts, with a 90 week deadline:

• Stage 1: $30 million contract with Fletcher Construction Australia and Sinclair Knight Merz for the construction of four road bridges, three bridges over rail lines and the extension the existing pedestrian footbridge.
• Stage 2: $14.6 million contract with Transfield Constructions and Roche Bros to widen the Calder Freeway from Keilor Park Drive to McNamara Avenue, build six road bridges, and widen two bridges over the railway.

1996 saw the interchange marked as ‘under construction’ in the Melway, and the western ramps at the Calder Freeway / Woorite Place interchange had been closed.

Melway edition 24, 1996

With the freeway network reaching the current state in 1998.

Melway edition 25, 1998

Today the only different is the number of lanes: the Western Ring Road north of the Calder Freeway interchange was widened to four lanes in 2013, the section to the south following in 2018.

And the streets wiped off the map

To make room for the freeway interchange a compulsory acquisition process was started in 1993, and by February 1995 twenty out of 30 houses in Keilor Park had been demolished, with 75 commercial and industrial properties due to follow.

By the time the area was cleared, Prendergast Avenue, Webber Parade, Tunnecliffe Avenue, Hogan Parade had all been wiped off the map, along with a portion of the ‘Milleara Estate’ by landscape architect Walter Burley Griffin, designer of Canberra.

Footnote: ghost ramp on the Calder Freeway

The interchange of the Calder Freeway and Woorite Place was once a full diamond, but the ramps to the west were removed to eliminate weaving movements with traffic from the Western Ring Road.

Google Maps

The remains on the eastbound off ramp are still visible today as a ‘ghost ramp‘.

Google Street View

Footnote: building bridges

The paper Design and Construct Bridge Structures on the Western Ring Road — Calder Freeway Interchange by Mark Percival and Duncan Kinder details the construction of the bridges at the interchange.

Each of a unique design.

Fullarton Road Bridge
Fullarton Road formerly ran parallel to the Calder Freeway between Matthews Avenue to the east and Keilor Park Drive to the west, providing vehicular access to private housing on the northern side of the freeway. Construction of a grade separation structure over the proposed Western Ring Road was required to maintain this access. The bridge carries two lanes of traffic (one in each direction) and has a 2m wide footpath located along the northern side of the bridge.

Ramp A Bridge
This bridge was provided to allow vehicles travelling north along the Western Ring Road to exit off the Ring Road and join the Calder Freeway, leading back into Melbourne. The bridge is constructed parallel to the Fullarton Road Bridge and spans over the Western Ring Road, Ramp C and Ramp D.

Ramp C Bridge
Ramp C provides access for traffic heading south along the Western Ring Road to exit north towards Bendigo along the Calder Freeway.

Ramp D Bridge
This bridge provides access for southbound traffic from the Calder Freeway to enter the westbound carriageway of the Western Ring Road. As well as being curved in plan, it has a high skew. (21° at the west abutment, 30° at the east abutment)

Fullarton Road over Rail Bridge, Ramp A Rail Bridge and Ramp B Rail Bridge
Ramp A and Ramp B Rail Bridges were provided to allow access on or off the Western Ring Road, and Fullarton Road over Rail Bridge was required to maintain access to the existing access road. All three bridges over the Albion to Broadmeadows Rail Line provide for two lanes of traffic. The Fullarton Road over Rail Bridge also included a pedestrian footpath. Each bridge comprises three simply supported spans varying in length from 11.4m to 15.2m.

Collinson Street Footbridge
The existing Collinson Street Footbridge over the Calder Freeway required extension to provide access over both Ramp C and E. The existing circular ramp at the southern end of the bridge was demolished and the bridge extended at the south end with 4 additional spans.

The curved road bridges were concrete box girders cast in place, with the roadway beneath excavated following completion of the bridge; while the bridges over the railway were conventional super ‘T’ beams lowered into place by cranes.

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post Freeway spaghetti bowl at Keilor Park appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.

Country Roads Board annual report 1968-69

Early years

A bridge taking inbound traffic from the airport over outbound traffic towards Sunbury.

Country Roads Board annual report 1968-69

A full diamond interchange was provided at Mickleham Road.

Country Roads Board annual report 1968-69

And a bridge taking Carrick Drive over the freeway.

Country Roads Board annual report 1968-69

Nothing changes

The years that followed saw a period of massive growth at Melbourne Airport, and the construction of CityLink at the Melbourne end.

Google Earth 2002

But the outer end of the Tullamarine Freeway stayed the same.

Google Street View 2008

The sign at Mickleham Road was metricated.

Google Street View 2008

But nothing new at Carrick Drive.

Google Street View 2010

At least until 2013, when the Western Ring Road interchange was expanded as part of the M80 Ring Road upgrade project, and an extra set of lanes was punched beneath the Carrick Drive Overpass.

Then the CityLink Tulla Widening project

The car parks at Melbourne Airport kept on growing.

Google Earth 2018

So in 2015 the Victorian Government said yes to an unsolicited proposal from Transurban for the ‘CityLink Tulla Widening’ project – a $1.3 billion package of works that would add extra lanes to the freeway between the CBD and the airport.

A bus-only bridge was constructed to allow buses to skip the queue exiting the airport.

Google Street View 2019

Collector/distributor lanes were constructed at Mickleham Road to separate traffic headed for the Ring Road from that entering the freeway.

Google Street View 2019

And an extra lane was added in each direction, taking the freeway from two to three through lanes at Carrick Drive.

Google Street View 2019

I wonder how long until the next road ‘upgrade’ will be needed?

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post Another Tullamarine Freeway then and now appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.

A crash involving two trucks and four cars has closed part of Melbourne's Monash Freeway this morning.

But incredibly, police say no-one was seriously hurt.

Three people have been taken to hospital, two with minor injuries and the third is in a stable condition. pic.twitter.com/cs8h2x7FXJ

— News Breakfast (@BreakfastNews) July 24, 2019

Cleanaway started operating their fleet of massive A-Double trucks from May 2017, following the opening of the South East Melbourne Transfer Station in Dandenong.

The facility acts as a consolidation point for rubbish collected from residential and commercial customers in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, where it is compressed into semi-trailers.

Then trucked 60 kilometres across Melbourne.

Eventually ending up at Ravenhall, where it is dumped into the Melbourne Regional Landfill.

On opening the South East Melbourne transfer station accepted a total of 580,000 tonnes of waste per annum, and has EPA approval to increase to a peak of 650,000 tonnes by 2029.

Assuming 286 operational weekdays per year, this means 2028 tonnes of rubbish needs to be moved per day – increasing to 2273 tonnes per day once the transfer station reaches design capacity.

Transported by A-double vehicles with an average load of 43 tonnes per truck, this give as weekday average of 47 trucks per day, increasing to 53 trucks per day at the peak – or six trucks per hour!

No wonder pedestrians avoid the road to Caroline Springs station like the plague.

A short history of these ‘monster’ trucks

Back in 2009 VicRoads commenced a two year trial of bigger ‘High Productivity Freight Vehicles’ serving the Port of Melbourne.

But with plans to introduce them elsewhere:

The use of next generation High Productivity Freight Vehicles (HPFVs) on key dedicated routes has the potential to reduce the number of trucks by almost a third, and reduce emissions and the cost of travel by up to 22 per cent on these routes.

With Victoria’s freight task forecast to approximately double by 2030, next generation HPFVs will be an important way to mitigate increasing congestion, emissions and the cost of our goods.

The trial of next generation HPFVs is an important step in the implementation of a Performance-Based Standards approach to heavy vehicle regulation in Victoria and the broader introduction of new, safe and efficient freight vehicles.

In 2013 the number of roads available to these massive trucks was expanded, following the adoption of the ‘Moving More with Less’ plan, and the types of trucks expanded to include 30-metre long A-doubles in 2017 thanks to the Performance Based Standard (PBS) scheme for trailers.

But is there another way?

Travelling from the Cleanaway transfer station at Dandenong South to the tip at Ravenhall is a 60 kilometre long trip across Melbourne, that takes around an hour via the Monash Freeway, CityLink, West Gate Bridge, Western Ring Road, and Deer Park Bypass.

But the Boral quarry next door to the Ravenhall tip already has a railway siding.

Which branches off the Ballarat line at Caroline Springs station.

With just a 1.3 kilometre drive between it and the tip.

The South East Melbourne Transfer Station is also near a rail siding.

Located on the Cranbourne line at Lyndhurst.

It may be a 7 kilometre long drive across Dandenong South.

But the siding is the site of a future inland port:

Salta’s Lyndhurst terminal is located near Dandenong
• 50,000 m/3 warehouse constructed for Bunnings
• Terminal yet to be constructed
• PRS shuttle trains would use:
• Broad gauge Pakenham & Cranbourne suburban rail lines
• Broad gauge V/Line & ARTC lines between Southern Cross and the Port

So why wasn’t the South East Melbourne Transfer Station built at the Lyndhurst intermodal terminal, with rubbish loaded into containers then transferred by train across Melbourne to Ravenhall, then trucked the last leg of the journey to the tip face?

Sydney proves it works

In 2004 Sydney ran out of space to bury their rubbish, so the Woodlawn open-cut mine near Goulburn was converted into a rubbish tip. Rubbish is loaded at the Clyde transfer station in western Sydney, but instead of a fleet of trucks, it is loaded onto a train.

Photo by Grahamec, via Wikimedia Commons

Each week six 55-carriage trains make the 250-kilometre journey, carrying 1200 tonnes of rubbish each time.

And back to Melbourne

Think moving bulk freight across Melbourne by rail won’t work?

Well, every weekday 1500 tonnes worth of worth of gravel roll through Flinders Street, loaded at a quarry in Kilmore East and bound for Westall.

As does 2000 tonnes of containers headed from Gippsland to the Port of Melbourne.

And 3000 tonnes of coil steel, headed for Hastings.

All three trains have been running since the 1970s – which proves that if there is a will to get freight onto rail, there is a way.

Sources

Melbourne Regional Landfill – Ravenhall.

• A new era in Melbourne’s south east as Cleanaway opens SEMTS (May 5, 2017)
• Traffic and Transport Assessment for the Melbourne Regional Landfill – Ravenhall (14 September 2016)

Bigger trucks.

• Monash Freeway reopens after multi-vehicle smash at peak hour, herald Sun (July 25, 2019)
• Victorian high productivity vehicles, Advantia Transport Consulting
• Victoria’s new HPFV networks for 30-metre A-doubles, Advantia Transport Consulting
• HPFVs – Moving more with less, VicRoads
• Performance Based Standards, joint report by the NHVR and ARTSA (2019 Edition)
• PBS Vehicle Configurations, National Heavy Vehicle Regulator
• Port Rail Shuttle Project Outline

Rubbish trains in Sydney.

• A complete space of waste, Sydney Morning Herald (August 2, 2004)
• Woodlawn Bioreactor, Veolia

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post Road trains carting rubbish across Melbourne appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.

We’ll jump back to 22nd May 1970, when The Age covered the opening day of the South Eastern Freeway, which then run between Punt Road in Richmond and Toorak Road in Kooyong.

Even in the 1970s ending a freeway with traffic lights was the butt of jokes.

Fine and fast on the freeway
But, oh that dead-end corner

Their job done, police watch as traffic lights take over at the Toorak Road end of the new freeway section

Motorists were delighted when they used the new $19 million second stage of the South-Eastern Freeway for the first time last night. Until they came to the gasometers at the Toorak Road intersection! Here the 60 mph freeway almost ran into a dead-end.

Motorists had to wait five minutes at the lights before they could go on to Tooronga Road or turn into Toorak Road. Traffic from the freeway also disrupted traffic travelling east in Toorak Road. And cars were banked up from the freeway intersection back to Kooyong Road at the height of the peak period.

The Minister for Local Government (Mr. Hamer) opened the freeway. He said it would save the community $15,000 a week by reducing accidents and cutting travelling time. “The Board of Works was justified in using all reasonable means to get the road ready and in use at the earliest date,” he said.

While one wag managed to run out of petrol, blocking the new road.

One chap just had to run out of petrol

Mr. Paul Armstrong, with thousands of others, is hurrying home from the city along the new $19 million, four-lane section of the South-Eastern Freeway yesterday.

He is 50 yards from Toorak Road when suddenly his rented car (below) splutters and stops. No petrol. Mr. Armstrong, a 21-year-old Canterbury estate agent, is the first to break down on the 2.5 mile expressway from Burnley to Tooronga Road – half an hour after its opening.

“The gauge said the tank was still half full, but I knew straight away that I had run out of petrol,” he said. I had to rent this car when my own broke down, otherwise I don’t think this would have happened.” Mr. Armstrong walked 300 yards to a service station in Toorak Road and got enough petrol to get home.

But the reasons for rejecting freeway building were also the same – they are expensive and polluting, delivering marginal savings in travel times while moving congestion elsewhere.

Quicker

Mr. Hamer was jeered by a small group of banner-waving trainee teachers as he cut a blue ribbon to open the new section. One of the demonstrators, Andrew Moffat, of Hallam, said the money should have been spent on schools. “Freeways, with the increased number of cars they handle, add to pollution of the atmosphere. “I can’t see why this money could not be spent on schools or something else more worthwhile,” he said. The chairman of the Board of Works – (Mr. Croxford) said rain had stopped workmen painting traffic lanes on the new freeway.

Travel time

He advised motorists to drive carefully and not to overtake other cars until the lanes were painted. The new freeway section cuts about 2 1/4 minutes from the travel time to the city. From the traffic light forest at the Toorak Road intersection it lops less than a tenth of a mile off the trip. Last night’s times along the freeway averaged 10.5 minutes.

In off-peak traffic – even with the level crossing trams and four sets of traffic lights – the average time was 13 minutes. Under the yellow sodium lights cars ducked and weaved to keep up to the 60 mph speed limit. They banked up 20 and 30 deep at the Toorak Road intersection and other bottlenecks. There were no lane markings, apart from two short strips of reflecting “cats’ eyes”. And warning lamps guarded an unfinished section of one ramp.

Still, some people thought the new freeway would solve Melbourne’s traffic problems, such as MLC Geoffrey John O’Connell for Melbourne Province during the 25 March 1970 debate on the Richmond and Hawthorn Lands Bill.

My party has no objection to the Bill. The Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works has performed good work on the South Eastern Freeway. When this four lane highway is fully operative, many of Melbourne’s traffic problems, particularly in this area, will be solved.

But the traffic problem was never “solved”.

Throughout the 1970s the Mulgrave Freeway was progressively extended toward the Melbourne CBD from Dandenong towards Chadstone, reaching a dead end at Warrigal Road in 1981.

Melway Map 69 Edition 14, 1982

During a 1981 debate on funds for rural roads, Labor MP Steve Crabb questions whether ‘salami tactics‘ were driving the expansion of Melbourne’s freeway network.

Mr CRABB-

The fact is that everybody in the community is disadvantaged in terms of roads because the Government continues to pursue the construction of crazy freeway schemes
that have been on the planning books for a decade. The people who are disadvantaged are the people who want to use the ordinary, basic infrastructure of roads both in the city and its suburban areas and in the country.

Mr Maclellan-

We have stopped building freeways.

Mr CRABB-

I am surprised that the Minister keeps raising this matter. He raises it every time we discuss this subject.

The Government has never come clean on what it proposes to do about linking the Mulgrave Freeway with the South Eastern Freeway, but it intends to proceed with a project which will
cost some $120 million and which will require, by definition, an expansion of the capacity of the South Eastern Freeway to at least three lanes in each direction.

That will inevitably lead to a linking of the F19, the West Gate Freeway, with the South Eastern Freeway by means of a tunnel under the Yarra River. Nothing is surer than that, if the Country Roads Board is allowed to continue with the policy the Government has given it, that is where we will end up!

Insufficient road funds are spent in both country and suburban municipalities, as all honourable members know. The money that ought to be spent on those roads is being expended on the grandiose schemes of a Government that has not got the capacity to reorient its policies from those established ten or twenty years ago.

The “missing link” between the South Eastern Freeway and the Mulgrave Freeway was eventually opened as the “South Eastern Arterial Road Link” in 1988, but in a nod to freeway objectors, was built with traffic lights at intersections instead of flyovers.

Melway Map 59 Edition 20, 1990

But even that wasn’t enough to solve Melbourne’s traffic – a flood of other upgrades have been completed on what is now known as the Monash Freeway.

• 1994 – Warrigal Road traffic lights replaced by overpass.
• 1996 – Tooronga Road, Burke Road and Toorak Road traffic lights replaced by overpasses.
• 2000 – CityLink project widened freeway to three lanes between Toorak Road and the city, along with connection to West Gate Freeway via the Domain and Burnley Tunnels.
• 2010 – freeway widened to four lanes between Dandenong and the tunnels.
• 2018 – freeway widened to five lanes between EastLink and the South Gippsland Freeway.
• 2019 – work starts on widening to five lanes between Warrigal Road and Eastlink.

Money well spent?

Footnote

Here is a map showing the development of Melbourne’s freeway network from 1970 to present day, from the North East Link Project, Appendix C “Transport Assessment – Existing Conditions and Future No Project Scenario” report dated February 2018.

It only details the opening date of freeways, not the endless procession of widening projects.

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post Remember the South Eastern Freeway dead end? appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.

Included as part of the 1954 Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Scheme, the City Ring Road was for a controlled access road that would encircle the entire CBD, West Melbourne, and what is now considered Docklands and Southbank.

The Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works described what they saw as the problem.

From the study of the movements of traffic within and adjacent to the central business area of the city it is apparent that much unnecessary traffic enters the area.

The traffic census carried out in 1947 under the auspices of the Town and Country Planning Board showed that about 50% of the total traffic which entered this area daily passed straight through to destinations elsewhere. At peak periods most of the traffic on Princes Bridge and Spencer Street Bridge, and a substantial portion on Queen’s Bridge is through traffic.

This results from the following important traffic movements:

(a) Between the northern and western suburbs and the industrial district and shipping berths of the river.
(b) Between the shipping and rail terminals and the industrial areas of the inner eastern suburbs.
(c) The increasing volume of traffic between the shipping and rail terminals on the one hand, and the industrial areas in the west and at Geelong, the industrial areas developing to the south-east, and the Latrobe Valley on the other hand.
(d) Substantial worker and general traffic between the southern and northern suburbs.

At present this considerable volume of through traffic has no reasonable alternative other than to pass through the central business district. To reach its destination it has frequently to make right-hand turns which not only mean loss of time, but which add to the general congestion and the slowing down of other traffic. Investigations indicate that the proportion of through traffic will tend to increase and thus accentuate the problem.

And then presented their solution.

Traffic conditions in the central area would be vastly improved if this through traffic were diverted, for besides reducing the number of vehicles using the streets it would also lessen the amount of turning traffic.

The City Ring Road (Route 1) has been planned, therefore, to permit this through traffic to by-pass the busy city centre, to facilidate the distribution of incoming traffic to the central area, and to act as a collector for outgoing traffic and give it expeditious access to the arterial road system.

Along with how it would be implemented.

If this road is to achieve its purpose, it must offer traffic an inducement to use it in preference to passing straight through. In practice, therefore, it must provide for free and uninterrupted movement to compensate for any greater distance that may have to be travelled.

It is visualised that eventually it will need to have grade separation structures or roundabouts at all important junctions, and that it will be essentially a road with controlled access. It is realised that this final development will not be justified for many years, but the route chosen is one which can be developed progressively. Most of the roads are already 99 feet wide, sufficient to accommodate traffic for some time, provided it is properly controlled. The Spring Street – Victoria Street section is already used
extensively as a by-pass route.

As well as widening existing road corridors, two new road bridges over the Yarra River would be required.

A crossing over the river between Blyth Street, West Melbourne, and Johnson Street, South Melbourne, which is the most urgent portion, would relieve Spencer Street of about one-third of its traffic, and is therefore warranted immediately.

Construction of the crossing over the railway yards between Alexandra Avenue and Spring Street would complete the ring. Improvement at the various intersections could then be carried out when justified by the volume of traffic using the route. This road is the key to the proposed road communication system and of the greatest importance to the future of the central business area.

So what happened?

As you might expect, planning for a freeway along Spring Street past the steps of Parliament House didn’t go down well, so the route was soon moved to Lansdowne Street in East Melbourne.

1958 MMBW plan

But that introduced a new problem.

The route then proposed in the 1954 planning scheme and incorporated in the board’s interim development order followed Lansdowne Street. When examined in more detail, it was found that the effect of such a route on the Treasury and Fitzroy Gardens adjoining Lansdowne Street would be most undesirable.

A third alignment was then tried.

Another alternative examined much farther to the east passed very close to the Melbourne Cricket Ground and followed Powlett Street.

And then a fourth.

The route finally selected followed Clarendon Street and was considered to be the best of all alternatives offering. In 1963, the necessary amendment to what was then the metropolitan interim development order, to reserve land for the new Clarendon Street route, was made public, and objections were raised.

Passing right beside the Ponsford Stand of the MCG.

SLV image H2004.101/256

Which then underwent multiple revisions, until finally approved.

The Government favoured further examination of the alternative to modify the Clarendon Street plan, and finally the plan was approved by the Governor in Council in 1968. This was plan 7. We have come a long way from plan 4.

By 1971 the eastern section of the City Ring Road was being re-examined, following the release of the 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan:

A Cabinet sub-committee had been investigating the material put forward by objectors and voluntary organizations, and had been examining the Melbourne transportation plan with a view to considering what parts of it should be implemented.

It recommended that the eastern leg of the ring road should be rejected, on the grounds that the project would have created a considerable disturbance to the charm, character and environment of the area through which it was planned, and that more acceptable and less costly alternatives to serve Melbourne’s transport needs could be achieved.

But that didn’t mean it wasn’t to be replaced by another freeway.

It also recommended that priority be given to a further detailed investigation of all implications of a freeway which had been called F2 and which was proposed in general terms as a north-south by-pass somewhere to the east of Hoddle Street in a location which is certainly far from decided.

As well as completion of the western half of the City Ring Road as freeway.

The sub-committee recommended that the Government give priority to the construction of the freeway known as F14, which will provide Melbourne with a north-south by-pass link with the Tullamarine Freeway, and a crossing of the Yarra River west of Spencer Street.

But these recommendations didn’t immediately kill off the eastern City Ring Road.

The MMBW proposal was subsequently modified in 1971 to the development of a 6 lane freeway commencing at Wellington Parade, moving southwards across the Melbourne Cricket Ground parking area, Brunton Avenue, the railway yards and the Yarra River, and passing beneath the Domain and St Kilda Road and re-surfacing in Grant Street.

Construction of the proposed link was scheduled to commence in the late 1970s. However, following a request from the then Minister for Local Government requesting a re-examination of the proposal, it was subsequently abandoned and the planning scheme reservation through the Domain was removed in 1975.

But even that wasn’t enough to completely kill off the proposal – a few decades later it came back in a different form – the Exhibition Street Extension. Announced by the State Government in April 1998 and completed in October 1999, this four lane divided road over the Jolimont railyards linked the upgraded CityLink tollway at Swan Street to the Melbourne CBD at Flinders Street.

Proposals have also been made to upgrade Hoddle Street to a controlled access road, by grade separating intersections along the route, or building a tunnel under the entire road.

And to the south and west

The western and southern parts of the City Ring Road both featured in the 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan – with the F14 freeway providing a north-south bypass of the CBD via a crossing of the Yarra River west of Spencer Street, and the F9 freeway forming an east-west bypass through South Melbourne.

Work on the southern half commenced as part of the Lower Yarra Crossing project – better known as the West Gate Bridge. The first stage of the freeway opened between Lorrimer Street in 1978 along with the West Gate Bridge, with a second stage east to Stuart Street opening in 1987, and a connection to the South Eastern Freeway built as part of CityLink ‘Southern Link’ and opened in 2000.

The western half of the City Ring Road was completed in 1975 with the opening of the Charles Grimes Bridge, which linked an upgraded Footscray Road on the north bank of the Yarra to Montague Street on the south.

This route was duplicated by Bolte Bridge and the ‘Western Link’ section of CityLink in 1999. In conjunction with the Melbourne Docklands development, during 1999-2001 Footscray Road was closed as a through route, Wurundjeri Way constructed as a replacement north-south route, and the Charles Grimes Bridge rebuilt to connect with it.

And the last piece of the puzzle?

The only portion of the City Ring Road that has never been built was the northern half along Victoria Street, but the on-again off-again East West Link fills the same need.

Unfortunately this cartoon by Ron Tanberg grows more accurate year by year.

And a note on ‘City Bypass’ signs

Melway Edition 22 from 1993 included a “Central Melbourne Bypass & Access Routes” map for the first time – with VicRoads having installed matching signage about the same time.

Note the similarities between this and the 1954 City Ring Road proposal.

Footnote – route details

The 1954 Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Scheme described the proposed City Ring Road route as such.

From the roundabout (1) at the corner of Victoria and Nicholson Streets the road would follow Victoria Street westwards, passing over Rathdown Street (2) and under Lygon Street (3). From Cardigan Street it would be carried in a viaduct (4) over the junctions of Victoria Street with Swanston and Elizabeth Streets to near Queen Street.

It would continue along Victoria Street and Hawke Street, which would be joined with Cowper Street by a bridge (5) over the railway yards and the road junction at Dudley Street. The road would continue along Cowper and Blyth Streets and cross the river, probably by a movable type bridge (6), to the important junction with Route 3 at Johnson and Brady Streets.

Eventually, traffic at this point would warrant direct connection by viaduct (7) with Grant Street. The road would continue along Grant Street, where it would form portion of the approach road from the deep-water port to the city business centre.

Crossing under St. Kilda Road and portion of the King’s Domain to Alexandra Avenue, it would then be carried across the river and railway yards by bridge (8) to Spring Street, which from the south side of Collins Street to the north side of Bourke Street would be depressed (9) to avoid interruption to the movement of its traffic by vehicles from Collins and Bourke Streets.

And the 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan

The 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan also featured a City Ring Road – note the differences in the north-west corner, as well as the eastern side through Yarra Park.

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post The City Ring Road that Melbourne never built appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.

That is something hard to believe while approaching by car.

Or driving through the underpasses.

And especially so when waiting for a tram.

But the 1954 Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Scheme proposed a sea of flyovers that puts the current mess to shame.

See the difference?

The back story

St Kilda Junction originally had eight streets meeting in the middle:

• Punt Road
• Nelson Street
• Wellington Street (with trams)
• High Street (with trams)
• Barkly Street
• Fitzroy Street (with trams)
• Queens Road
• St Kilda Road (with trams)

But with the growth in motor vehicle traffic following World War II, the 1954 Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Scheme proposed a major revamp of the intersection.

St Kilda Junction

In any proposal for improving road communications to the southern suburbs, it is impossible to avoid concentrating a considerable volume of traffic at St. Kilda Junction and this junction becomes the most important in the suburban area.

It is estimated that when the city grows to 2,500,000, nearly 120,000 vehicles will pass through this junction in 12 hours. Much of this will be worker traffic to and from the southern suburbs, where car ownership is high. This means that peak hour traffic will be very heavy.

At some stage grade separation of the traffic will be necessary at this point and reservations have been made to allow for this. The type of intersection which will be necessary, and for which the reservations provide, is shown in diagram 29. The first stage should be the construction of the round-about at surface level, for this would immediately improve conditions. When this proves inadequate the grade separation proposals can then be constructed.

As well as massive expansion of the approach roads.

Route 23 follows Dandenong Road, which is already 198 feet wide except between Glenferrie Road, Malvern, and Burke Road, Caulfield, where relatively costly improvement will be necessary eventually to bring it up to the capacity of the rest of the route.

A new route has been provided to eliminate the existing bottleneck in Wellington Street, St. Kilda, and the route then continues along Queen’s Road and Hanna Street. Its connection also to Route 28 will facilitate the movement of traffic to the port, the western suburbs and Geelong.

Route 27 is the main outlet to the bayside suburbs and the beaches beyond. The scheme provides for elimination of the botdeneck in High Street, St. Kilda, to provide a highway 198 feet wide from the Yarra to Gardenvale.

It then continues through Brighton as a deviation of the Nepean Highway to link up at South Road with Route 26, a Country Roads Board project designed to carry the heavy holiday traffic past the seaside suburbs to beyond Frankston.

The proposals being illustrated in this diagram.

So what ended up happening?

Disputes between the St Kilda City Council and the State Government saw the grand grade separation plans shelved, with a temporary roundabout opened in 1955 and made permanent a year later. But road projects never get cancelled – only delayed – with the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) building the current network of underpasses in 1966-1970, as well as the widening of the Princes Highway (Route 23 in 1954) and Nepean Highway (Route 27).

Footnote: failed landscaping

The completed St Kilda Junction has so inhospitable that it took a decade for plants to successfully take hold – from the 1979 CRB Annual Report.

St Kilda Junction was reconstructed almost 10 years ago to overcome the serious traffic problems of the then existing junction.

Previous attempts to improve the aesthetics of the new junction area were not successful because of the harsh environmental conditions. Any trees and shrubs planted in the area are required to withstand the wind that is funnelled along the approach roads,the pollutants from the heavy traffic flows and the coastal environment as well as being able to find sufficient moisture in the large paved area.

A scheme was implemented during the year which appears to be successful in overcoming the problems. The scheme utilises a combination of bluestone walls and decorative bluestone paving with both plane trees and native spotted gums, together with shrubs and ground cover plants planted in large raised planting beds. Tree holes of one cubic metre each have been excavated and filled with fertile soil, and a drip feed irrigation system has been installed.

The landscape treatment is in harmony with the various road elements of the junction and integrates the junction visually with both the plane tree avenue in St Kilda Road and the newer plantations in Nepean Highway.

The gum trees are well established 40 years later, but the shrubs seem to have gone.

Further reading

• Car is King – Almost by Christopher Cody

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post And you thought St Kilda Junction looked bad? appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.

Born out of the airline operated shuttle bus services that operated out of Franklin Street at the north end of the Melbourne CBD, in 2000 the city terminus moved to Spencer Street Station, which combined with upgrades to the Tullamarine Freeway as part of the CityLink project, saw the travel time to Melbourne Airport cut to just 20 minutes.

As late as 2008 the 20 minute travel time was front and centre on the SkyBus website front page.

By 2010 the 20 minute reference was dropped from the front page, but still appeared on their FAQ page. There it remained through 2012, 2014 and 2015 – but with the addition of an asterisk – “times may vary due to traffic conditions”.

By 2016 the SkyBus FAQ admitted that travel times had blown out by 50% in peak periods, to 30 minutes.

And by 2017 it had blown out further – 30 minutes the best case scenario, with a 45 minute journey expected in peak periods.

My recent SkyBus trip took 50 minutes to travel from Southern Cross Station to the airport.

Why is SkyBus taking longer?

The short answer – traffic congestion.

During the 2000s upgrade of the Tullamarine Freeway as part of the CityLink project, an ‘express lane’ for buses and taxis was added between Flemington Road and Bulla Road, operating between 6:30 am and 9:30 am inbound and 3:30pm and 6:30pm outbound, weekdays only.

As traffic congestion increases this lane is the key to reducing SkyBus travel times, allowing buses to bypass other vehicles, as The Age reported in 2011:

SkyBus was designed to provide a 20-minute run between Southern Cross Station and the airport but is consistently failing to do this during peak periods, with times blowing out to as much as 51 minutes in the morning and 59 minutes in the afternoon peak.

A study by engineering and consulting firm Parsons Brinckerhoff found that “the future will see a continuation of the significant but relatively gradual degradation of travel time on the CBD-airport bus route”.

The study provided three options for improving travel times, with the department’s preferred one involving creating an express bus lane and putting SkyBus on a public transport fare.

A 2011 briefing to Transport Minister Terry Mulder said: “Putting SkyBus on a Met fare and enforcing express lanes would significantly reduce travel time on the express lanes without significantly affecting travel times on the non-express lanes.”

The SkyBus lane would be created relatively cheaply by removing the emergency lane and nominally narrowing the other lanes.

However, Transurban is believed to be bargaining hard to ensure it is not locked out from any extra lane on CityLink. A spokeswoman said: “Transurban supports any further augmentation of CityLink for the benefit of all the travelling public.”

Public Transport Victoria spokeswoman Andrea Duckworth said: “The government does not have immediate plans to install myki readers on SkyBus or widen CityLink.”

Despite the “no plans to widen CityLink” line, what did the government decide to do a few short years later? More roads, of course!

Throwing good money after bad

Approval for the CityLink Tulla Widening project was given in 2015, adding an extra lane to the Tullamarine Freeway between Melbourne and the airport, at a cost of $1.3 billion.

The section of elevated viaduct opened by CityLink in the 2000s as the ‘Western Link’ has had the emergency lanes removed and the speed limit dropped to 80 km/h, allowing an extra traffic lane to be squeezed in.

An additional lane has also been added to the five lane section north of Flemington Road.

As well as the four lane section north of Moreland Road.

But on the bus priority front, nothing has changed, despite the addition of a new lane for general traffic – limited operating times, no enforcement when it is active.

And it still comes to an end at Bulla Road – only half way to the airport!

And to make matters worse, there are no emergency lanes on the upgraded section of freeway.

Broken down taxis are a common sight on the Tullamarine Freeway.

As are rear end crashes.

Today a mere inconvenience, but without emergency lanes any minor incident will result in an entire traffic lane being closed down. $1.3 billion well spent?

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post SkyBus – remember 20 minutes to the airport? appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.

Take a look at this Google Maps view of Melbourne’s western suburbs, where I’ve circled the freeway interchanges.

The interchange of the Western Ring Road and the West Gate Freeway doesn’t look too bad – both freeways appear in the same dark orange colour, with the surrounding local roads displayed in a slightly lighter shade, as are the ramps to Geelong Road.

A bit more confusing is the junction of the Bolte Bridge and West Gate Freeway – the ramps linking the two are shown in a different shade to the freeways themselves, making the map harder to read.

But the junction of the Western Ring Road and Deer Park Bypass is virtually unreadable – the ramps linking the freeways are coloured so light they almost disappear into the grey background.

The same flaw can be found where the Metropolitan Ring Road and Craigieburn Bypass meet in Melbourne’s northern suburbs.

Turns out the art and science of drawing maps is hard – that is why the field has a name: cartography.

Footnote

In 2016 American cartographer Justin O’Beirne wrote this piece on changes to Google’s cartography.

Looking at the maps, there are more roads than there once were—and fewer cities.

I wonder what drove these changes?

One thing’s for sure: today’s maps look unbalanced. There’s too many roads and not enough cities.

As well as comparing Google Maps with Apple Maps.

Both are in a race to become the world’s first Universal Map — that is, the first map used by a majority of the global population. In many ways, this makes Google Maps and Apple Maps two of the most important maps ever made.

Who will get there first?

And will design be a factor?

In this series of essays, we’ll compare and contrast the cartographic designs of Google Maps and Apple Maps. We’ll take a look at what’s on each map and how each map is styled, and we’ll try to uncover the biggest differences between the two.

I wonder how often a human at Google actually looks at the maps that their automated systems generate.

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post Google Maps mangling Melbourne’s freeway interchanges appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.

Let us start by taking a look at the incomplete interchange between the Tullamarine Freeway and the Western Ring Road at Airport West.

The intent of the initial stage of the Western Ring Road was to provide an alternate truck route between the Hume Highway and the Melbourne CBD, so the first section to open linked the Tullamarine Freeway and Pascoe Vale Road in 1992, followed by Pascoe Vale Road to Sydney Road in 1993.

I have hazy memories of childhood visits to Melbourne Airport, where on the way we passed beneath the incomplete freeway interchange.

In the years that followed, further sections of the Ring Road were opened in a piecemeal fashion:

• 1994: Greenborough Bypass to Plenty Road,
• July 1995: Ballarat Road to Keilor Park Drive,
• March 1996: Boundary Road to Ballarat Road,
• October 1996: Princes Freeway to Boundary Road.
• December 1996: Calder Freeway to Keilor Park Drive

As you can expect, a ring road that doesn’t form a complete ring isn’t very useful, so for many years the Tullamarine Freeway interchange remained in the state seen above.

Change finally came in 1997 when the ‘missing link’ of the Western Ring Road opened between the Tullamarine Freeway and the Calder Freeway, and the interchange took on a form that lasted just on 15 years.

The round of expansion in 1997 added new ramps to/from Melbourne Airport and the Western Ring Road towards Altona, the second of two 40 km/h limited ‘cloverleaf‘ ramps, and a pair of bridges to carry the collector/distributor lanes for southbound Ring Road traffic accessing the Tullamarine Freeway.

In the years that followed, the explosive growth in traffic using the Ring Road overwhelmed the interchange, in 2013 the interchange was expanded yet again as part of the M80 Ring Road upgrade project.

Changes to the interchange included:

• widening the Western Ring Road from two to four lanes in each direction,
• replacing the cloverleaf carrying southbound traffic from the Tullamarine Freeway to the westbound Ring Road by a new ramp flying over the top of the rest of the interchange,
• the southbound collector/distributor lane arrangement was replaced by a simpler ‘exit only’ setup,
• a new flyover was introduced north of the interchange to untangle northbound traffic bound for the Pascoe Vale Road exit from through traffic.

I wonder how long the current Western Ring Road interchange will remain in place, before it too becomes overwhelmed by induced traffic?

Footnote

In 2001 Paul Mees published the paper ‘The short term effects of Melbourne’s Western Ring Road‘ examined the effects of the freeway opening on economic growth in Melbourne’s west.

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post Then and now on the Western Ring Road appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.

SLV Accession: H2004.101/287

The freeway itself had two lanes in each direction, with Moonee Ponds Creek running along the western side in a concrete channel.

In the 1990s as part of the CityLink project the freeway was widened to four lanes in each direction and extended south to the West Gate Freeway – resulting in this current view from Google Earth.

In addition, the former Royal Park Psychiatric Hospital has since been covered with apartments as the Athletes Village for the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

Footnote

And now starts another expansion of the freeway – the CityLink Tulla Widening project.

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post Tullamarine Freeway then and now at Flemington appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.