Road Transport
See also: Road transport in Victoria, List of highways in Melbourne, List of freeways in Victoria, and List of old road routes in Melbourne, VictoriaMotor vehicles are the predominate travel mode, as a result the freeways and roads in Melbourne are critically congested during peak hours. Many residents are car dependent due to minimal public transport outside of the inner city – the city is one of the most car-dependent cities in the world. The freeway network is the largest of any Australian city, with an extensive grid of arterial roads; the locations of which date back to the initial surveying of the city.
The total urban road area in Melbourne is 21,381 kilometres.
The beginnings of the freeway network was the 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan, which included a grid of freeways that would cover the entire metropolitan area. In 1973 these plans were reviewed, with a large number of inner city projects deleted.
Freeways that were built throughout the 1960s and '70s included the South Eastern Arterial (now part of the Monash Freeway), the Tullamarine Freeway, the Lower Yarra Freeway (now West Gate Freeway) and the Eastern Freeway.
Further expansion occurred over the next thirty years, with the 'missing links' between the existing freeways built – completion of the Monash Freeway, CityLink, and the Western Ring Road. This period also saw further freeway expansion into suburbia with the Mornington Peninsula Freeway, Eastern Freeway extension, and the South Gippsland Freeway being constructed.
2008 saw the construction and opening of the EastLink radial freeway, as well as further extensions of existing freeways.
Despite government figures slowed growth in road travel since 2006 and zero growth in 2008/09 and the government's goal to reduce road use to 80% of all motorised trips, the State government announced a massive road infrastructure investment, continuing to complete some of the road projects from the 1969 Transport plan including Peninsula Link and North-East Link.
Read more about this topic: Transport In Melbourne
Famous quotes containing the words road and/or transport:
“In one notable instance, where the United States Army and a hundred years of persuasion failed, a highway has succeeded. The Seminole Indians surrendered to the Tamiami Trail. From the Everglades the remnants of this race emerged, soon after the trail was built, to set up their palm-thatched villages along the road and to hoist tribal flags as a lure to passing motorists.”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
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—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)