Eastern Freeway (Melbourne)

Eastern Freeway Victoria
General information
Type	Freeway
Length	18 km (11 mi)
Opened	1977-1997
Route number(s)	(2008-present) Entire Route
Former route number	x20px Freeway Route 83 (1977-1989) Clifton Hill-Doncaster State Route 83 (1989-2008) Entire Route
Major junctions
West end	Alexandra Parade Collingwood, Melbourne
	Hoddle Street Chandler Highway Springvale Road for full list see exits and interchanges
East end	EastLink Donvale, Melbourne
Location(s)
Major suburbs / towns	Bulleen, Doncaster, Box Hill North
Highway system
Highways in Australia National Highway • Freeways in Australia Highways in Victoria

The Eastern Freeway is an urban freeway in eastern Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia. It is one of the most important freeways in terms of commuting to the city, connecting Alexandra Parade and Hoddle Street in the inner suburbs, with EastLink tollway farther east. It consists of between three to six lanes (including the Hard Shoulder Running lane during peak periods) in each direction, also an inbound transit lane reserved for vehicles with two or more occupants during peak hours.

It is the continually widest freeway in Melbourne, with 12 lanes altogether near the Hoddle Street and Alexandra Parade end.

History

Originally designated F-19 under the 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan during its construction in the early 1970s, it was supposed to be linked to the then-new Tullamarine Freeway, as well as taking traffic off the Maroondah Highway. Protests from inner Melbourne suburbs residents led it being terminated at Hoddle Street. Its initial route designation was F83 then State Route 83 and now the M3. The current incarnation was constructed in stages from 1977 to 1997:

• 1977 - Hoddle Street to Bulleen Road. Opened in three stages, December 1977. Hoddle Street to Chandler Highway; Chandler Highway to Burke Road; Burke Road to Bulleen Road.

• 1982 - Bulleen Road to Doncaster Road. This 3 km section was opened 3 June 1982, by Minister for Transport, the Hon S M Crabb MP. Originally two lanes in each direction, plus emergency stopping lanes, at a cost of $A24m.

• 1997 - Doncaster Road to Springvale Road. This 7 km extension was opened to traffic in December 1997, at a cost of $A250m.

Originally, the freeway was to terminate at the intersection of Maroondah Highway and Mount Dandenong Road in Ringwood. It was meant to connect to the Eastern Ring Road before that. Instead, the Eastern Ring Road and the last Eastern Freeway extension was merged into one project (Eastlink) and the remainder of the Eastern Freeway reservation was built into the Ringwood bypass, which opened in July 2008.

Eastern Freeway viewed facing the city at sunset from the Belford Road overpass, in Kew. The wide median, designed to accommodate a double-track railway, can be seen.

The first and second stages were controversial and met much opposition due to the first being constructed through the middle of Yarra Bend Park and the second stage to Doncaster Road through parkland now named Koonung Creek Reserve. The first two stages were designed to enable the construction of the Doncaster railway line down the centre of the freeway to Bulleen Road. An extra-wide median strip, which was kept free of support pylons for over-bridges, was provided to allow for the railway.

Land was also reserved from Bulleen Road to Doncaster East to extend the proposed railway line, but the plan fell out of favour in the 1980s and the land was sold. In recent years, amidst growing congestion problems and increased awareness of unsustainable methods of transport in Melbourne, there has been massive local council lobbying (by Melbourne, Yarra and Manningham) and public pressure placed on the State Government for the rail line to be constructed. The final stage, completed in 2008, connected the freeway to the Ringwood Bypass and the Monash and Frankston Freeways.

Route

File:Melb Eastern Freeway Hoddle St.jpg

Hoddle Street, viewed from the east.

The Eastern Freeway starts at its junction with Hoddle Street, as an eastern continuation of Alexandra Parade (referred to in VicRoads documents as the Eastern Highway), with five lanes eastbound and two lanes westbound. Three more lanes (that provide an exit to Hoddle Street) join the freeway after it leaves the junction. The freeway narrows to four lanes in each direction near Chandler Highway and Yarra Bend.

The freeway narrows to three lanes just before Bulleen Road, and features a concrete barrier rather than the grassy median that was designed to carry a railway. There is a short four lane section between Tram and Blackburn Roads, then three lanes to the end at Springvale Road, and connects to EastLink to Ringwood and Frankston. The freeway was unique in that it did not connect to any other freeway prior to EastLink being built.

The travel time on the Eastern Freeway in each direction, is 13 minutes. (5 minutes between Springvale Road and Doncaster Road and 8 minutes between Doncaster Road and Hoddle Street).

The usual peak period travel time, is between 16–26 minutes. However, during times of extreme congestion, including residual from an incident, the travel time can go well beyond half an hour.

Safety

Despite the inherent danger in small and large vehicles traveling at high speeds, the freeway is generally considered one of the safest in Melbourne, with minimal changes of elevation, a flowing route, ample shoulder space and well maintained safety barriers. Long sections of the freeway suffer from low lighting levels due to its route and proximity to residential areas.

In the seven years preceding and including 2009, six people died in a section of the freeway known as the Bulleen Bend. This is the tightest bend in the freeway's length, between the Bulleen and Doncaster Road interchanges. Despite the relatively tight bend and 100 km/h limit, there are few safety barriers on the extremities of the road surface, leaving nothing between the cars and the trees on the road shoulder. In 2009 it was announced that $5 million would be spent on installing new barriers in this section.

Missing Section

Main article: East West Link, Melbourne

There has been widespread speculation that a tunnel linking Hoddle Street to CityLink and the Western Ring Road could potentially be built at some future date. The Eastern Freeway has no connecting freeways at the city end and traffic from the Eastern Freeway is released westward along Alexandra Parade and north-south along Hoddle Street.

On 1 March 2007, the Labor Government announced a study linking the major freeways, headed by international transport expert Sir Rod Eddington. The Eddington Transport Report received much criticism for its lack of information regarding mass transit infrastructure. The Labor government said it will eventually be built, but in stages. There has been no confirmation on the building of the road except a part of the western section.

However, in 2013 the Liberal Government (state) announced they will start the tunnel, called it the East West Link, which attracted major controversy (just like the Eastern Freeway itself). The Labor Opposition initially supported it, until some weeks before the election, when under electoral pressure they stated they'd oppose it and not honor the hastily signed construction contracts which were signed-off by the LNP government only weeks before the November 2014 election (with a side letter ensuring payment for the consortium group of companies that were going to build it - whether it was built or not). The East West Toll Road Tunnel became a major election issue: Liberal for the East West Link, Labor opposing it.

Labor won that election, but the debate on East West continued, advocates saying was a much needed link that will bust congestion, it was shovel ready, the people wanted it and saying that the Labor was playing politics. The critics said it is a waste of money, would do nothing to ease congestion (in fact encourage more car use and add to congestion) would tear-up the inner city, destroy Royal Park and that people clearly didn't want it (LNP were thrown out of office following 1 term - the first such occurrence in some 60 years) and saying that the Liberals were simply supporting big business interests and not the transport needs of the community.

Speed enforcement

The entire freeway has a 100 km/h (62 mph) speed limit. There are no fixed speed cameras, however Victoria Police regularly patrol the full length of the freeway to enforce the speed limit. VicRoads also operates a network of CCTV cameras across the entire length of the freeway and abnormal traffic movements by vehicles are reported to Victoria Police.

Exits and interchanges

LGA	Location	km	mi	Destinations	Notes
Yarra	Collingwood – Abbotsford – Clifton Hill tripoint	0	0	Hoddle Street (State Route 29) north & south / Alexandra Parade (State Route 83) west – Richmond, Clifton Hill, Parkville, Footscray	Western freeway terminus: continues as Alexandra Parade
Boroondara	Kew	3	1.9	Chandler Highway (State Route 21) – Kew, Ivanhoe
	Kew East – Balwyn North boundary	6	3.7	Burke Road (State Route 17) – Heidelberg, Camberwell	Eastbound exit and westbound entrance
	Balwyn North	8	5.0	Bulleen Road (State Route 42 south / State Route 52 north) / Thompsons Road (State Route 42) north-east – Bulleen, Kew, Templestowe
		10	6	Doncaster Road (State Route 36) – Balwyn North, Doncaster
Manningham–Whitehorse boundary	Mont Albert North – Doncaster – Box Hill North tripoint	12	7	Elgar Road – Doncaster, Burwood	Eastbound exit and westbound entrance
	Doncaster – Box Hill North boundary	13	8	Station Street (State Route 47) south / Tram Road (State Route 47) north – Box Hill, Doncaster	Westbound exit and eastbound entrance
Whitehorse	Box Hill North – Blackburn North boundary	14	9	Middleborough Road (State Route 23) south / Wetherby Road (State Route 23) north – Mount Waverley, Templestowe
	Blackburn North	16	10	Surrey Road (State Route 13) south / Blackburn Road (State Route 13) north – Blackburn, Warrandyte	Eastbound exit and westbound entrance
Whitehorse–Manningham boundary	Nunawading–Donvale boundary	18	11	EastLink (M3) east / Springvale Road (State Route 40) north & south – Ringwood, Frankston, Donvale, Nunawading	Eastern freeway terminus at single point urban interchange; continues as EastLink
Incomplete access

Freeway map

File:Eastern-Freeway.png

See also

Australian Roads portal