Western Highway, Victoria

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Western Highway

Length	?? kilometres
General direction:	West-East
Rural section:
From:	SA border west of Kaniva, Victoria
To:	Burrumbeet, Victoria
Suburban section:
From:	Deer Park, Melbourne
To:	Braybrook, Melbourne
Towns along highway:	Kaniva, Horsham, Stawell, Ararat,

The Western Highway is the principal highway linking the Australian cities of Melbourne and Adelaide with a length of approximately 430 kilometres. It is a part of National Highway network and designated as National Highway A8. It continues beyond the Victorian border as Dukes Highway.

It connects main country towns throughout western Victoria and links more remote towns and settlements to the regional centres that provide many of their services. It also services the western suburbs of Melbourne, a rapidly growing residential and industrial area. Major sections between Ballarat and Melbourne are superseded by Western Freeway (National M8).

The Western Highway is the second busiest national highway in Australia, in terms of freight movements, with over five million tonnes annually. It provides the critical link between the eastern seaboard and the South Australia and Western Australia. Main towns along the way include Ballarat, Ararat, Stawell and Horsham which are major agricultural and manufacturing centres.

Just north-west of Ballarat, the Western Highway, A8 becomes the Western Freeway, M8, adopting freeway standards, and begins bypassing most of the towns the old alignment of the highway used to serve. It reverts back to highway standards at Deer Park in Melbourne's western suburbs, but keeps the M8 designation until the intersection with the Western Ring Road. Beyond that, it uses the old National Route 8 shield into urban Melbourne. Construction is underway on the Deer Park Bypass to extend the freeway to the Western Ring Road around the suburbs and relieving the highway of its excessive traffic loads; it is assumed the M8 designation will be diverted along this new road as well.

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This article has been tagged since October 2006.