Four Routes Announced For North East Link
Corridor A
About this corridor
This 11 kilometre corridor would follow the Greensborough Highway south using existing freeway reserve and connect with the Eastern Freeway near Bulleen Road.
Extensive tunnelling would be used to protect sensitive environmental and heritage areas.
This route is indicative only. It is subject to further technical, engineering and other studies.
How we’re assessing the corridors
We’ve been assessing how well each corridor performs across a range of measures you’ve told us are important to you.
Our work so far shows that each corridor has both pros and cons. It also shows that all options will include tunnels as well as new surface roads and bridges to connect to the existing road network.
What we’ve found so far about Corridor A
| Measure | Score | This corridor is likely to… |
|---|---|---|
| Reducing congestion in the north-east |  |
Provide a more direct alternative to congested roads in the north-east using good connections to the existing road network. |
| Getting trucks off residential roads in the north-east | |
Provide opportunities to get trucks off many residential roads in the north-east such as Rosanna Road, Para Road and Fitzsimons Lane. |
| Connecting more people to jobs and education |  |
Connect people to jobs and education in the north and east, including the La Trobe University and West Heidelberg industrial hub, Box Hill and Ringwood. |
| Connecting businesses | |
Provide opportunities for local businesses to access potential customers and workers, including in key existing and emerging employment areas. |
| Making freight move more efficiently | |
Provide travel time improvements between key freight locations. |
| Improving public transport connections and travel times | |
Be effective at reducing congestion on roads used by public transport and roads used by commuters to get to key stops and stations. Eastern Freeway upgrades would provide an opportunity for improved bus services. |
| Improving connections for pedestrians and cyclists | |
Offer potential to divert trucks away from road cycling routes and places where people shop and work. Offer opportunities to improve cycling and walking connections for people in the north-east, including opportunities for new shared use paths. |
| Ability to protect the environment, culture, heritage and open spaces |  |
Offer opportunities to protect the cultural and heritage spaces and the environment such as tunnelling under the Banyule Flats. This corridor would involve some environmental impacts associated with surface works. |
| Ability to minimise impacts from construction-related traffic | |
Involve disruptions from upgrades to the Eastern Freeway between Chandler Highway and Springvale Road to cater for additional traffic. Constructing the Eastern Freeway interchange would involve significant disruptions. |
Key
 |
Performs very poorly |
 |
Performs poorly |
|
Neutral |
|
Performs well |
|
Performs very well |
Corridor B
About this corridor
This 24 kilometre corridor would provide a direct connection from the M80 to EastLink. It would not require upgrades to the Eastern Freeway.
Extensive tunnelling would be used to protect sensitive environmental and heritage areas.
This route is indicative only. It is subject to further technical, engineering and other studies.
How we’re assessing the corridors
We’ve been assessing how well each corridor performs across a range of measures you’ve told us are important to you.
Our work so far shows that each corridor has both pros and cons. It also shows that all options will include tunnels as well as new surface roads and bridges to connect to the existing road network.
What we’ve found so far about Corridor B
| Measure | Score | This corridor is likely to… |
|---|---|---|
| Reducing congestion in the north-east | |
Reduce traffic on the Eastern Freeway and Manningham Road but would provide limited congestion relief to key north to south roads such as Fitzsimons Lane. |
| Getting trucks off residential roads in the north-east | |
Get trucks off some residential roads such as Rosanna Road but increase the number of trucks on others, particularly some connected to the corridor. |
| Connecting more people to jobs and education | |
Potentially connect people to jobs and education but access would be widely dispersed along the corridor. |
| Connecting businesses | |
Provide some opportunities for local businesses to access potential customers and workers in the wider area but would not greatly improve access for businesses located in key current and emerging employment areas. |
| Making freight move more efficiently | |
Offer a direct connection to existing freight routes, however would likely have long inclines that would slow trucks down and reduce efficiency overall. |
| Improving public transport connections and travel times | |
Provide limited improvements to key public transport routes or access to public transport interchanges. |
| Improving connections for pedestrians and cyclists | |
Offer moderate potential to divert trucks away from road cycling routes and places where people shop and work however have limited ability to provide new or enhanced walking and cycling paths. |
| Ability to protect the environment, culture, heritage and open spaces | |
Offer opportunities to protect some sensitive areas including the Yarra River by tunnelling but would involve some environmental impacts associated with surface works. |
| Ability to minimise impacts from construction-related traffic | |
Create disruptions to the transport network including building a highly complex interchange at EastLink, upgrading Springvale Road and Reynolds Road and potentially extending Reynolds Road to connect to the Maroondah Highway. |
Key
|
Performs very poorly |
|
Performs poorly |
|
Neutral |
|
Performs well |
|
Performs very well |
Corridor C
About this corridor
Similar to Corridor B, this 26 kilometre corridor would connect to EastLink and not require any upgrades to the Eastern Freeway.
Extensive tunnelling would be used to protect sensitive environmental and heritage areas.
This route is indicative only. It is subject to further technical, engineering and other studies.
How we’re assessing the corridors
We’ve been assessing how well each corridor performs across a range of measures you’ve told us are important to you.
Our work so far shows that each corridor has both pros and cons. It also shows that all options will include tunnels as well as new surface roads and bridges to connect to the existing road network.
What we’ve found so far about Corridor C
| Measure | Score | This corridor is likely to… |
|---|---|---|
| Reducing congestion in the north-east | |
Reduce congestion on some key north south roads such as Rosanna Road and Fitzsimons Lane. |
| Getting trucks off residential roads in the north-east | |
Offer an opportunity to get a limited number of trucks off roads in the north-east such as Rosanna Road and Fitzsimons Lane. |
| Connecting more people to jobs and education | |
Deliver better access to jobs and education. |
| Connecting businesses | |
Provide good access to businesses located in major urban centres and for those in the wider metropolitan area but only marginally improve access to key existing and emerging employment areas. |
| Making freight move more efficiently | |
Provide ability to reduce truck travel times, however would likely have long inclines which would slow trucks down and reduce efficiency overall. |
| Improving public transport connections and travel times | |
Offer some opportunities to improve public transport by reducing congestion on roads used by public transport. |
| Improving connections for pedestrians and cyclists | |
Offer potential to divert trucks away from road cycling routes and places where people shop and work however have limited ability to provide new or enhanced walking and cycling paths. |
| Ability to protect the environment, culture, heritage and open spaces | |
Offer opportunities to protect sensitive areas including the Yarra River by tunnelling but would involve some environmental impacts associated with surface works. |
| Ability to minimise impacts from construction-related traffic | |
Involve disruptions to the transport network from works at EastLink, Springvale Road and Reynolds Road and upgrades to Ryans Road. |
Key
|
Performs very poorly |
|
Performs poorly |
|
Neutral |
|
Performs well |
|
Performs very well |
Corridor D
About this corridor
This 40 km corridor would connect with EastLink south of Ringwood and travel east using part of the proposed Healseville Freeway Reserve.
It was initially considered that this corridor would be suitable for a road with no tunnel to cater for trucks. Preliminary investigations have found that tunnels and bridges would be required to minimise impacts on sensitive areas and avoid steep inclines.
This route is indicative only. It is subject to further technical, engineering and other studies.
How we’re assessing the corridors
We’ve been assessing how well each corridor performs across a range of measures you’ve told us are important to you.
Our work so far shows that each corridor has both pros and cons. It also shows that all options will include tunnels as well as new surface roads and bridges to connect to the existing road network.
What we’ve found so far about Corridor D
| Measure | Score | This corridor is likely to… |
|---|---|---|
| Reducing congestion in the north-east | |
Offer few connections into the existing road network and be unlikely to help reduce congestion in the north-east. |
| Getting trucks off residential roads in the north-east | |
Offer minimal ability to reduce trucks on residential roads in the north-east. |
| Connecting more people to jobs and education | |
Extend into an area with a low population density and connect few people to jobs and education opportunities. |
| Connecting businesses | |
Extend into an area with low levels of business density and activity and offer few businesses opportunities to benefit from improved access to workers and customers. |
| Making freight move more efficiently | |
Provide an indirect route which would increase travel distances significantly for freight movement. |
| Improving public transport connections and travel times | |
Achieve no significant improvement to public transport services in the north-east. |
| Improving connections for pedestrians and cyclists | |
Offer limited opportunities for walking and cycling paths. |
| Ability to protect the environment, culture, heritage and open spaces | |
Offer opportunities to protect some sensitive areas including Bend of Islands by tunnelling but would involve some environmental impacts associated with surface works. It would also place development pressure on semi-rural communities outside the urban growth boundary and the green wedge. |
| Ability to minimise impacts from construction-related traffic | |
Be likely to cause minimal construction disruptions to the transport network. It would most likely have two tunnels and the remaining road would be built above ground. The interchanges, other than at EastLink, would be relatively straightforward to build. |
Key
|
Performs very poorly |
|
Performs poorly |
|
Neutral |
|
Performs well |
|
Performs very well |