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West Gate Freeway
The West Gate Freeway is a major freeway in Melbourne, the busiest urban freeway and the busiest road in the city, carrying upwards of 200,000 vehicles per day. It links Geelong (via Princes Freeway) and Melbourne's western suburbs to central Melbourne and beyond. It is also a link between Melbourne and the west and linking industrial and residential areas west of the Yarra River with the city and port areas. The West Gate Bridge is a part of the freeway.
It is a fully managed freeway with a complete 'Freeway Management System' that is dynamically linked and adaptive to the entire M1 corridor. This includes the 2008 re-design of a substantial section. Overall, the freeway has between 4-6 lanes in each direction, with a maximum of 12 lanes at one point in its width.
West Gate Freeway commences at the West Gate Interchange in Laverton North, with ramps to and from the Western Ring Road, Princes Freeway and Princes Highway (Geelong Road), and heads east as a twelve-lane, four-carriageway road - the outer carriageways serving entry and exit ramps from connecting roads and the inner carriageways functioning as express lanes, in a local–express system - eventually reaching the interchanges with the portals to the West Gate Tunnel, where the freeway converges into a ten-lane, dual-carriageway road, crossing the Yarra River over the West Gate bridge, through Port Melbourne, and then becomes elevated for its remaining length and narrowing to eight lanes, with access ramps to Melbourne's central business district. Eastward beyond the Kings Way and Power Street exits, the freeway feeds directly into CityLink's Southern Link, connecting onwards through Melbourne's south-eastern suburbs through the Burnley and Domain Tunnels.
The Country Roads Board (later VicRoads) was authorised by the government in December 1961 for a study to gather engineering and economic data for the provisioning of a toll crossing of the Lower Yarra River, from Salmon Street in Port Melbourne to Princes Highway in the vicinity of Kororoit Creek, a distance of 5.25 miles. Investigations included details of bores down to 8,000 feet and soil tests (completed on 29 June 1962), selective drilling and sampling in critical areas, and traffic studies, and at the time both a tunnel under and a bridge over the river were mooted. In February 1966, the Board was appointed as the design and construction authority for the Lower Yarra Crossing Project; the State government authorised the construction of a tolled bridge over the Yarra with eight lanes.
Construction began on the first section of Lower Yarra Freeway in the late 1960s and was open to traffic by 1971, stretching from Princes Highway just south of the intersection with Little Boundary Road in Laverton North (later enlarged and named the West Gate Interchange) eastwards to Melbourne/Williamstown Roads just west of the mouth of the Yarra. At the time, the only way to cross the Yarra west of the CBD was via a ferry crossing (the Yarra River punt service), which saw far heavier demands once Lower Yarra Freeway was officially opened.
The West Gate Bridge across the Yarra had started construction not too long before the opening of the freeway and, although delayed, when finally completed in 1978 allowed the freeway to extend over the river and directly into the CBD's south-western corner (via Rogers and Lorimer Streets). Renamed to West Gate Freeway to commemorate its opening, the freeway also attracted tolls from anyone using the bridge (between Melbourne/Williamstown Road and Rogers Street) between 16 November 1978 and 17 November 1985. The toll plaza was located on the city side of the bridge where the service stations are now located. National Route 1 – previously designated along Geelong Road (Princes Highway West) and through the CBD via Smithfield and Flemington Roads and King Street – was altered to use the freeway instead and rejoin Kings Way via Rogers, Lorimer and Clarendon Streets. As a result of the diverted traffic over the West Gate Bridge, the Yarra River punt service closed in 1979.
Due to the extra traffic the freeway was attracting—and due to the safety concerns of having excess traffic filter through connector streets in South Melbourne—the freeway was first extended to Johnson Street (today Montague Street) in 1985, and then finally to Kings Way above the Grant Street intersection using elevated carriageways; the eastbound carriageway opened in 1987, and the westbound carriageway opened nearly a year later in 1988. Expansion of the original two lane freeway on the western side of the bridge to three lanes each way was carried out in 1991, and expansion to four lanes followed in 2000. With the subsequent completion of the Western Ring Road joining the West Gate Interchange to the freeway's west and CityLink to the freeway's east, it also funnels traffic from northern and western suburbs around Melbourne, acting as a bypass freeway.
Lower Yarra Freeway was signed Freeway Route 82 upon opening in 1971, joined by National Route 1 when the West Gate Bridge opened in 1978, and both were extended onto new sections of West Gate Freeway as they opened during the 1980s; Freeway Route 82 was eventually removed in 1988. Tourist Route 2 also runs along the freeway from the Melbourne/Williamstown Road interchange in Spotswood and the Montague Street interchange in Port Melbourne. With Victoria's conversion to the newer alphanumeric system in the late 1990s, the freeway's National Route 1 designation began conversion to M1 in late 1996, and was completed in 1997.
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West Gate Freeway
The West Gate Freeway is a major freeway in Melbourne, the busiest urban freeway and the busiest road in the city, carrying upwards of 200,000 vehicles per day. It links Geelong (via Princes Freeway) and Melbourne's western suburbs to central Melbourne and beyond. It is also a link between Melbourne and the west and linking industrial and residential areas west of the Yarra River with the city and port areas. The West Gate Bridge is a part of the freeway.
It is a fully managed freeway with a complete 'Freeway Management System' that is dynamically linked and adaptive to the entire M1 corridor. This includes the 2008 re-design of a substantial section. Overall, the freeway has between 4-6 lanes in each direction, with a maximum of 12 lanes at one point in its width.
West Gate Freeway commences at the West Gate Interchange in Laverton North, with ramps to and from the Western Ring Road, Princes Freeway and Princes Highway (Geelong Road), and heads east as a twelve-lane, four-carriageway road - the outer carriageways serving entry and exit ramps from connecting roads and the inner carriageways functioning as express lanes, in a local–express system - eventually reaching the interchanges with the portals to the West Gate Tunnel, where the freeway converges into a ten-lane, dual-carriageway road, crossing the Yarra River over the West Gate bridge, through Port Melbourne, and then becomes elevated for its remaining length and narrowing to eight lanes, with access ramps to Melbourne's central business district. Eastward beyond the Kings Way and Power Street exits, the freeway feeds directly into CityLink's Southern Link, connecting onwards through Melbourne's south-eastern suburbs through the Burnley and Domain Tunnels.
The Country Roads Board (later VicRoads) was authorised by the government in December 1961 for a study to gather engineering and economic data for the provisioning of a toll crossing of the Lower Yarra River, from Salmon Street in Port Melbourne to Princes Highway in the vicinity of Kororoit Creek, a distance of 5.25 miles. Investigations included details of bores down to 8,000 feet and soil tests (completed on 29 June 1962), selective drilling and sampling in critical areas, and traffic studies, and at the time both a tunnel under and a bridge over the river were mooted. In February 1966, the Board was appointed as the design and construction authority for the Lower Yarra Crossing Project; the State government authorised the construction of a tolled bridge over the Yarra with eight lanes.
Construction began on the first section of Lower Yarra Freeway in the late 1960s and was open to traffic by 1971, stretching from Princes Highway just south of the intersection with Little Boundary Road in Laverton North (later enlarged and named the West Gate Interchange) eastwards to Melbourne/Williamstown Roads just west of the mouth of the Yarra. At the time, the only way to cross the Yarra west of the CBD was via a ferry crossing (the Yarra River punt service), which saw far heavier demands once Lower Yarra Freeway was officially opened.
The West Gate Bridge across the Yarra had started construction not too long before the opening of the freeway and, although delayed, when finally completed in 1978 allowed the freeway to extend over the river and directly into the CBD's south-western corner (via Rogers and Lorimer Streets). Renamed to West Gate Freeway to commemorate its opening, the freeway also attracted tolls from anyone using the bridge (between Melbourne/Williamstown Road and Rogers Street) between 16 November 1978 and 17 November 1985. The toll plaza was located on the city side of the bridge where the service stations are now located. National Route 1 – previously designated along Geelong Road (Princes Highway West) and through the CBD via Smithfield and Flemington Roads and King Street – was altered to use the freeway instead and rejoin Kings Way via Rogers, Lorimer and Clarendon Streets. As a result of the diverted traffic over the West Gate Bridge, the Yarra River punt service closed in 1979.
Due to the extra traffic the freeway was attracting—and due to the safety concerns of having excess traffic filter through connector streets in South Melbourne—the freeway was first extended to Johnson Street (today Montague Street) in 1985, and then finally to Kings Way above the Grant Street intersection using elevated carriageways; the eastbound carriageway opened in 1987, and the westbound carriageway opened nearly a year later in 1988. Expansion of the original two lane freeway on the western side of the bridge to three lanes each way was carried out in 1991, and expansion to four lanes followed in 2000. With the subsequent completion of the Western Ring Road joining the West Gate Interchange to the freeway's west and CityLink to the freeway's east, it also funnels traffic from northern and western suburbs around Melbourne, acting as a bypass freeway.
Lower Yarra Freeway was signed Freeway Route 82 upon opening in 1971, joined by National Route 1 when the West Gate Bridge opened in 1978, and both were extended onto new sections of West Gate Freeway as they opened during the 1980s; Freeway Route 82 was eventually removed in 1988. Tourist Route 2 also runs along the freeway from the Melbourne/Williamstown Road interchange in Spotswood and the Montague Street interchange in Port Melbourne. With Victoria's conversion to the newer alphanumeric system in the late 1990s, the freeway's National Route 1 designation began conversion to M1 in late 1996, and was completed in 1997.