The controversial North East Link project has gone out to tender.
The $15.8 billion North East Link looks to connect Melbourne’s Eastern Freeway with the Western Ring Road, providing one of the last remaining transport corridors needed to help reduce the city’s congestion problems.
Homes and businesses in Bulleen, Bundoora, Ivanhoe and Heidelberg have been earmarked for acquisition in order to make way for tunneling projects.
The government expects 32,000 vehicles to be removed from the congested Greensborough Road, 14,000 from Fitzsimons Lane, 9000 from Rosanna Road and 8000 from Manningham Road – all built-up residential areas of Melbourne’s east.
Vowing to keep to its election promise, the Andrews government says the project is now officially seeking builders to apply for the $200 million early works package to start in 2020.
Premier Daniel Andrews said on Saturday if the government was re-elected it would begin the North East Link today, promising to open it by 2027.
The early works should start pending planning and environmental approvals, with contracts to be signed at the end of next year.
The primary tunnel construction package is worth up to $9 billion, with an 18-month procurement period.
The government says 15,000 trucks will flow freely through the new tunnel rather than on the tight 60km/h residential streets between the M80 Ring Road and the Chandler Highway on the M3 – a known congestion trouble-spot, especially for truck drivers. Travel times are expected to be reduced by half an hour.
“We said that we’d take this project to the election and let Victorians make up their mind – the people have spoken and North East Link starts today,” Andrews says.
Member for Ivanhoe Anthony Carbines says the project has been planned for a long time.
“People that use Rosanna Road have waited for this project for decades – now we’re getting on with the job to deliver North East Link,” he says.
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