The West Gate Tunnel Link has reached a major milestone, with the completion of the entire road surface as of last weekend.
Victorian premier Jacinta Allan and transport minister Danny Pearson joined project workers for a car ride over the 27-metre-high ramp connecting CityLink to the new elevated road above Footscray Road.
Crews recently completed the final concrete road surface of the bridges and elevated roads which will take drivers from the West Gate Tunnel to West Melbourne, Docklands and the city.
Connections for the freight industry will also be improved with direct access to the Port of Melbourne via ramps at Mackenzie Road and Appleton Dock Road.
“We said we would build the West Gate Tunnel and that’s exactly what we’re doing – creating new city connections that link the twin tunnels under Yarraville to the CBD, and a vital second river crossing that will cut travel times between Melbourne’s west and the city,” Allan says.
Crews have installed 11.6km of road deck, more than 4,000 barriers along the bridges and more than 22.5km of barrier rail. During construction, 278 separate spans of road were installed to build this vital series of connections, with the longest being about 100m.
There are still some works yet to be completed, including the installation of drainage, sign gantries, electrical and safety systems including the intelligent traffic management system (ITS), along with the final layer of asphalting.
The government is confident that the project will take a significant number of trucks off local Melbourne roads.
“We’re delivering the infrastructure Melbourne’s west needs and by the end of 2025 we’ll have taken 9,000 trucks off local roads every day, reduced congestion and created 14 kilometres of new and upgraded cycling and walking paths in the west,” Pearson says.
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