EastLink
|
|
EastLink will be a tolled freeway located in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia's eastern and south-eastern suburbs. It is a part of Melbourne's Metropolitan Ring Road project.
As its name suggests, it will link a large area of the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. As suggested by its previous name; the 'Mitcham-Frankston Freeway', it will begin from the eastern end of the Eastern Freeway at Mitcham, going under the environmentally-sensitive Mullum-Mullum Creek area through tunnels towards Ringwood. It will then travel 40 km south towards Frankston, going through the suburbs Wantirna, Wantirna South, Scoresby, Rowville, Mulgrave, Dandenong North, Noble Park, Keysborough, Dandenong South, Bangholme, and Carrum Downs, before ending at the northern end of the Frankston Freeway.
Originally dubbed The Mitcham-Frankston Freeway, the name EastLink was announced by Premier Steve Bracks at the groundbreaking ceremony in Rowville, on 25 March 2005. The new name was reported to be chosen because it is easier to say, remember and fit on the Melway street directories. It is likely that the name was insipired by that of CityLink, Melbourne's only other toll road (see note on tolling below).
EastLink will be electronically tolled, using a system similar to the one used on the CityLink freeway.
In 2004, the project fell under the management of a newly formed SEITA; the South Eastern Integrated Transport Authority. This is the face of the ConnectEast consortium, the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) set up to fund the project at no initial cost to the government, but that could be controlled more strictly, unlike Transurban that constructed CityLink.
The construction proper of the freeway began in March 2005, and is scheduled for completion in 2008.
EastLink was combined into a single project from the Eastern Freeway Extension Tunnel and the Scoresby Freeway projects by the Victorian State Government in 2003.
Interchanges
The proposed interchanges of this new freeway include:
- Springvale Road, Donvale
- Ringwood Bypass Road, Ringwood ^
- Whitehorse Road, Ringwood
- Canterbury Road, Ringwood
- Boronia Road, Wantirna
- Burwood Highway, Wantirna
- High Street Road, Wantirna South
- Ferntree Gully Road, Scoresby
- Wellington Road, Rowville
- Police Road, Mulgrave
- Monash Freeway (M1), Dandenong North
- Princes Highway (metro ALT1), Noble Park
- Cheltenham Road, Keysborough
- Dandenong South Bypass Road, Dandenong South ^
- Greens Road, Dandenong South
- Thompson Road, Bangholme
- Rutherford Road, Seaford
- Frankston Freeway, Carrum Downs
^ indicates that there is no official/formal name for this road yet.
See Also
External link
- EastLink Official website (run by SEITA) (http://www.seita.com.au/)
- ABC Online Report on project groundbreaking (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200503/s1330020.htm)
- Justice Gray's ruling on the likelihood of the Scoresby Freeway being a catalyst for further freeway building in environmentally sensitive areas (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/federal_ct/2003/306.html)