M80 Ring Road, Melbourne
Template: Infobox several high-level roads / maintenance / AU -AM
States:
Victoria
The Ring Road ( formerly Western Ring Road and Metropolitan Ring Road ) is a beltway around the western and northern suburbs of Melbourne in the southern Australian state of Victoria. It combines:
- The Hume Freeway
- The M2 / Tullamarine Freeway
- The Calder Freeway
- The Western Freeway
- The Westgate Freeway and
- The Princes Freeway West
The Western Ring Road runs from the Princes Highway in Altona North to the Hume Freeway at Campbell Field, the shorter the Metropolitan Ring Road from there to the Greensborough Highway at Greensborough. Be called and considered together usually in traffic reports two together Ring Road. Between Western Freeway and Hume Freeway, the road is numbered as NM80 and part of the national highway network, while the two ends carry the numbering M80.
The ring road relieves the Sydney Road, Pascoe Vale Road and directs the Geelong Road from heavy traffic and this directly to the freeways. Through its connection to every major highway in Melbourne she has provided for growth of industry and residential development in the western suburbs.
In recent years, we have discussed an extension of the Ring Road from Greensborough Road in a tunnel under Greensborough and Banyule Flats to Eastern Freeway in Bulleen. VicRoads commissioned a study in order that you want ( further outside of Melbourne) examine the complement of the Western Ring Road through an Outer Metropolitan Ring Road.
History
The Ring Road project has been proposed as part of the Melbourne Transportation plan 1969 ( freeway corridors F3 and F5). The construction of the Western Ring Road began in 1989 with work on the stretch in Broadmeadows and was completed with the last closing the gap between Calder Freeway and Freeway Tullamarnie 1999. The Keating government of the Australian Commonwealth provided a total of AU $ 555 million for the Western Ring Road available and the Victorian Government supplemented this sum by an additional AU $ 76 million
The project is basically divided into three sections:
- Western Ring Road from the West Gate Freeway (M1 ) to the Hume Freeway ( NM31 )
- Northern Ring Road (also Metropolitan Ring Road ) from the Hume Freeway ( NM31 ) to Greensborough Highway ( S46)
- Eastern Ring Road ( also Eastlink ) from the Eastern Freeway ( S83 ) to the Frankston Freeway (S11 )
The broadening of the Western Ring Road and the Metropolitan Ring Road is to be carried out 2009-2014 and subsidized by the Federal Government under the AusLink 2 program.
Missing stretch
Today, the Northern Ring Road ends in the east at Greensborough on the bypass. There are currently no confirmed plans to extend the road further to the Eastern Ring Road.
The lack of stretch would also run through environmentally sensitive areas, such as Viewbank, Banyule Flats, Eltham, Tempelstowe and Warrandyte. Here is more of a tunnel solution would offer.
Course
The Western Ring Road is 28 km long and the Metropolitan Ring Riad 10 km away.
An important part of the Ring Road is the E. J. Whitten Bridge over the Maribyrnong River, which was named after the Australian - Footlball player Ted Whitten.
The road has a continuous Mittelstregien and is four to eight lanes expanded. The speed limit is almost continuously 100 km / h, only between Plenty Road and Greensborough bypass it drops to 90 km / h, because there no longer the center strip. The Western Ring Road has between Western Highway and Tullamarine Freeway variable speed limits that the transport of 60 to 100 km / h - depending on traffic - can flow.
Intersections and connections
Expansion 2009-2012
End of 2009, the widening began on the 38 km of M80/NM80 from Princes Freeway in Altona North to the Greensborough Highway at Greensborough.
The first phase consists in the broadening of 9.7 km from the Calder Freeway to Sydney Road to 6-8 lanes.
Source
Steve Parish: Australian Touring Atlas. Steve Parish Publishing. Archerfield QLD 2007 ISBN. 978-1-74193-232-4. p. 41