Melbourne gets its first CBD bypass in a quarter of a century when West Gate Tunnel - Wurundjeri Way extension opens today.
Wurundjeri Way extension will link Dynon Road and Flinders Street, creating a direct route into Docklands and the Marvel Stadium precinct while helping drivers avoid crawling through the CBD’s congested streets.
Opening at 6am on Monday, the toll-free road provides a new way to travel from one side of the city to the other without getting stuck on Spencer Street or King Street. For anyone heading from Footscray to Docklands or across to the southern suburbs, it’s about to get a whole lot easier.
West Gate Tunnel – Wurundjeri Way extension
- Opens: Monday, 28 October at 6am
- Location: Linking Dynon Road to Flinders Street via Docklands
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Beyond making life easier for commuters, the new road will take pressure off surrounding streets during major events at Marvel Stadium and around Docklands, providing another entry and exit point to reduce bottlenecks when everyone’s trying to get to concerts and footy matches at the same time.
Capacity on the road network gets a serious boost too, with up to 5,000 vehicles a day expected to divert off Spencer and King streets. That’s good news for the 73,000 people who work in Docklands and the area’s 17,500 residents, who’ll benefit from traffic flowing more freely through the precinct.
Wurundjeri Way extension is part of the larger West Gate Tunnel Project, which will eventually deliver a second river crossing to take pressure off the West Gate Bridge and remove more than 9,000 trucks from local roads.
Before the tunnel opens to regular traffic, there’s a chance to check it out up close. West Gate Tunnel Discovery Day happens on Sunday, 16 November, when tens of thousands of people are expected to walk or run through the new tunnels before heading to celebrations at Yarraville Gardens.
Registrations are open now at westgatetunnelproject.vic.gov.au/discoveryday.
For more information, head here.
