‘Magic meets industry’: West Gate Tunnel to welcome (and charge) drivers on Sunday morning

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On her first voyage through the West Gate Tunnel on Saturday morning, joining a procession of vintage cars, self-described steampunk fairy godmother and children’s book author Louise Karch called it “magic, magic, magic”.

“I want to be here because it’s where magic meets industry,” she said.

“How could I not be here, it’s such an important moment in history.”

From midnight, the long-awaited West Gate Tunnel will open progressively, with all traffic flowing through by 7am on Sunday, but a month of free travel on weekends won’t kick off until January.

The new West Gate Tunnel is expected to remove 9000 trucks from local roads in the inner west.

Roads and Roads Safety Minister Michelle Horne, speaking at Transurban’s high-tech Footscray control centre, said she expected there to be complexities and challenges as drivers navigated Victoria’s biggest new road configuration.

“We’ve got incident response vehicles at record levels ready to stand by in case there should be breakdowns in the tunnel or on the new road network, to be able to free up the network and make it move simpler and more freely,” she said.

The $10.2 billion project provides an alternative river crossing to the West Gate Bridge for an expected 67,000 vehicles a day and is designed to remove 9000 trucks from local roads in the inner-western suburbs, improving commute times for Melbourne’s outer-west drivers by about 20 minutes – if they are willing to pay the toll to use the tunnel.

Roads and Road Safety Minister Melissa Horne and Minister for Transport Infrastructure Gabrielle Williams.

“There will be noticeable changes in the way people use this road network now, not only in better traffic flow, but also of course in those new connection points.”

Transurban crews will be closely monitoring those vehicles at their Footscray control centre, where a 72-square metre video wall is fed by almost 900 cameras, including more than 400 high-tech cameras that automatically detect incidents like breakdowns.

Louise Karch (right) in her vintage car about to drive through the tunnel.

Travel will be free on weekends in January as a thank you to motorists and residents who endured years of construction chaos.

Transport Minister Gabrielle Williams said the lack of clarity on exactly when the tunnel would open had made January “a safer bet to make that free toll weekend offering”.

Horne played down concerns about inner-west residents breathing in unsafe levels of truck pollution extracted through ventilation stacks on the West Gate Tunnel Project.

An engineering report commissioned by the Maribyrnong Truck Action group prompted calls for the Environment Protection Authority to investigate concerns that the design of the tunnel’s twin ventilation stacks would not prevent noxious fumes from reaching homes.

But Horne said the EPA had signed off on those ventilation stacks, and they were working as intended, but it would continue to monitor them closely.

She said the government had invested in improving air quality overall by planting half-a-million trees in the inner west, sealing local roads, and increasing uptake of electric vehicles.

A truck ban for heavy vehicles will come into effect on six local roads in the inner west when the tunnel opens on Sunday, but authorities will initially focus on education before moving to $680 fines to be dished out by the heavy vehicle regulator.

The bans will include weekend and nighttime curfews on Williamstown Road to prevent trucks idling in suburban streets, resulting in a “vast improvement on the air quality in the inner west”.

“If we are seeing repeat offenders, per se, that’s when then we can start the penalty regime,” Horne said.

Vintage and classic cars line up before going through the tunnel on Saturday.

Transurban Group executive officer Dave Clements said that in the event of a breakdown, it was critical for drivers to stay in their vehicles.

“We have incident response teams that are on standby to go and attend to any incidents, and they will literally be there in a matter of minutes. So stay safe and stay inside your vehicle,” he said.

On Saturday, the opposition was pushing a reminder of the project’s huge cost blowouts. Opposition transport spokesman Evan Mulholland said Premier Jacinta Allan did not deserve “a pat on the back for a project that’s $6 billion over budget and three years late”.

“Originally, it was promised in 2020, and it wasn’t going to cost the taxpayer a cent,” he said.“[Now] $4.7 billion it’s cost the taxpayer.”

Mulholland said the $4.7 billion paid by taxpayers for the tunnel project could have instead paid for “Victoria Police for an entire year, plus over 2000 teachers”.

“$4.7 billion could build over three major hospitals here in this state,” he added.

Mulholland said that if elected to government, the Coalition would review the safety reports of the ventilation stacks, and the government had ignored concerns from locals.

“As with all projects, community consultation flies out the window,” he said.

Linkt – which facilitates payment for road tolls – will be down until 6pm Sunday, as part of a software upgrade directly connected to the opening of the tunnel. But Linkt will continue to collect data, and when it’s up and running, there’ll be the ability to pay tolls and raise inquiries again.

West Gate Tunnel tolls are separate to CityLink tolls, meaning a car driver will pay $10.63 to travel through the tunnel and continue onto the Tullamarine Freeway to Melbourne Airport.

An extra toll of $6.54 for cars and $10.47 for utes and vans will apply to use the exits into Footscray Road, Wurrundjeri Way and Dynon Road between 7am and 9am on weekdays.