The North East Link will fix the missing link in Melbourne’s freeway network.
The Victorian Government today confirmed the route for the completion of the ring road.
The North East Link will begin on the Eastern Freeway at Springvale Road where the capacity of the Eastern will be doubled with 6 extra dedicated lanes to eliminate some of eastern Melbourne’s worst bottlenecks.
Heading west, the freeway will connect to a new 6 lane tunnel at Bulleen with local underground connections at Banksia St and Manningham Road.
The 5km-long tunnel will then travel deep beneath the Yarra River, protecting environmentally sensitive parkland and residential areas.
There will be a local connection at Lower Plenty Road, with the North East Link then running north alongside the existing Greensborough Highway, which will stay open for local traffic.
A new interchange will see North East Link travel beneath Grimshaw Street in Watsonia, before seamlessly connecting to the M80 Ring Road at Greensborough, which is also being widened.
Travel times between Melbourne’s north and south will be cut by up to 30 minutes in each direction, with massive travel time savings for people travelling to Melbourne Airport from the south and east.
Congestion on local roads in the north eastern suburbs will also be reduced, with up to 15,000 trucks taken off local streets a day, and more than 9,000 vehicles taken off hotspots like Rosanna Road.
While the business case is yet to be finalised, early cost estimates of this massive project range up to $16.5 billion. The project is expected to create around 10,000 Victorian jobs.
Detailed design will now get underway and the business case, including finalising cost estimates, will be publicly released ahead of the Victorian Budget 2018/19.
Procurement and planning approval processes will also begin in 2018, ahead of a preferred builder being selected in 2019, and major construction starting in 2020.