1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan
The 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan was a road and rail transport plan for Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia instituted by Henry Bolte's state government. It outlined most prominently an extensive freeway network, much of which has since been built.
The plan recommended 510 kilometres (320 mi) of freeway for metropolitan Melbourne, as well as extensive rail works, including the city underground loop and two new lines to Doncaster and Monash University (now Clayton Campus)[1] which were however - never built. Despite the majority of the printed material being devoted to non-car transport, 86 per cent of the projected budget was devoted to roads and parking, with only 14 per cent to other forms of transport.[2]
The plan was described J.M. Thompson in Great Cities and their Traffic as
"clearly ... a highway plan, not – as it is called – a comprehensive transport plan"
, and by historian Graeme Davison as
"the most expansive and expensive freeway experiment in Australian history"[3]
In 1973 the freeway plans were pruned, especially in the inner city,[4] with State Premier Rupert Hamer cancelling all the road reservations for the unbuilt urban freeways in 1976.[1]
Some outer suburban projects continued to be built by subsequent governments under new banners, including EastLink (by the Steve Bracks government), the Peninsula Link and North-East Link (by the John Brumby government) as part of the Victorian Transport Plan.
Background
The plan consisted of three volumes:
- Survey – completed for the Melbourne Transportation Committee by Wilbur Smith & Associates and Len T. Frazer & Associates
- Parking – completed for the Melbourne Transportation Committee by Wilbur Smith & Associates and Len T. Frazer & Associates
- The Transportation Plan – completed by the Melbourne Transportation Committee.
The scope of the plan specified surveys of vehicular and personal travel, transport facilities, goods movement by road and rail, and central city parking. It built on the previous major Melbourne Transport Plans:
- 1929 Plan of General Development, Melbourne by the Metropolitan Town Planning Commission, and
- 1954 Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Scheme by the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works
and the minor
- 1961 Metropolitan Street Service Study by Traffic Commission Victoria.
Goals
The goals of the plan were to:
- ensure safe, comfortable and efficient movement of people and goods throughout the design area
- maintain a proper balance between public and private transport
- make maximum use of the existing facilities and plans and the commitments already embodied in these plans
- provide a transport service matched to the expectant demand throughout the design area
- provide a system that could be adapted to meet changing conditions and be expanded beyond the design year
- provide a transport network which could be implemented with as little interference to the commercial and community structure as possible
Funding
The costs of the development of the plan were shared by the four participating authorities:
Minor contributions were provided by Melbourne City Council and the Transport Regulation Board.
Methodology
The process adopted was:
- Inventory of transport facilities, travel and developmental features of the study area
- Forecast 1985 travel requirements (estimated population of 3.7 million)
- Evaluation of tentative 1985 plan
- Periodic review
Organisation
The organisation required to develop the plan included:
- Metropolitan Transportation Committee – a statutory body established in 1963 to advise government on all transport factors (and produce the third volume of the plan)
- Technical Committee – consisting of senior representatives of transportation and other authorities represented on the main committee, its job was to oversee all the technical matters that arose during surveys and preparation of the plan
- Consultants – Wilbur Smith and Associates (from New Haven, Connecticut) and Len T Frazer and Associates (Melbourne)
- Study Group – engineers who were assigned from participating authorities to be trained by and then assist the consultants in the collection of data and subsequent analysis This group was expanded to include economists responsible for costing the final plan
Road
The plan proposed a budget of:
- $1.675 billion for freeways
- $64 million for divided arterial roads
- $28 million on new arterial roads
- $359 million on widening existing roads and bridges
- $95 million for road/rail 80 grade separations
Major radial
Minor radial
Inner city bypasses
- Southern Bypass – now known as CityLink, built in 1997
- Western Bypass – now known as CityLink, built in 1997
Ring roads
A link between the eastern and northern ring roads has been discussed as recent as July 2008, but the link would have to pass through the green wedge regions of Warrandyte, Eltham and Greensborough. This would require the destruction of areas of native vegetation or tunnels that would be longer than CityLink.
Parking
The plan included a proposed budget of $40 million for improvements in parking in the Melbourne central business district.
Buses
The plan included a proposed budget $58 million for bus improvements:
- $50 million for 2,540 new buses
- $8 million for new bus depots
Rail
The forecasted budget for railway projects was $242 million. Planned rail projects included:[5]
- Melbourne Underground Rail Loop (estimated at $80 million and opened in stages from 1981)
- Three new railway alignments and one extension (budgeted for $60 million):
- $8 million for extensions of suburban electric service along existing lines to Werribee (completed 1983), Rockbank (electrification to Melton to come), Sunbury (completed to Sydenham in 2002, electrification to Sunbury to come), Craigieburn (completed in 2007), Coldstream (line now closed), Hastings (not considered) and Mornington (line now closed)
- $42 million for route capacity improvements on existing lines (upgrades to automatic signalling, duplication of 19 miles (31 km) of single track and 33 miles (53 km) of new express tracks in existing rights of ways)
- $2 million for new stations to be built on existing lines
- $35 million on additional suburban trains
- $15 million on modal interchanges (substantial increase in car and bus parking at suburban railway stations)
Trams
The plan included a proposed budget $55 million for 910 new trams.
See also
Adelaide:
Hobart:
External links
References
