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The long-awaited West Gate Tunnel will finally open to traffic on Sunday.
The $10.2 billion project will provide an alternative river crossing to the West Gate Bridge for an expected 67,000 vehicles a day and remove 28,000 trucks from the bridge and local streets in the inner west.
The West Gate Tunnel will open to traffic on Sunday.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
The mega-highway consists of 6.8 kilometres of tunnels and 9.2 kilometres of elevated roads and flyovers linking Melbourne’s west with the CBD.
The first section of the project – a 1.4-kilometre Wurundjeri Way flyover – opened to the public in late October.
Premier Jacinta Allan said the project would help reduce congestion, save families time and strengthen connections to regional Victoria.
“It’s not just a project for motorists,” she said.
“Families in the inner west will feel the difference too. The tunnels will remove 9000 trucks a day from local streets through new no-truck zones, creating safer, quieter neighbourhoods.”
Motorists travelling into the city from Melbourne’s west or Geelong are expected to save up to 20 minutes on their journey, but it will come at a cost.
A trip through the tunnel will set motorists back $4.09 for a car and $6.54 for a ute or van.
As part of a thank-you deal to motorists and residents in the area who have endured years of construction chaos and road closures, travel will be free on weekends in January.
Transurban is paying for $6.1 billion of the West Gate Tunnel’s construction costs in exchange for operating tolls on the new road and a 10-year extension to its CityLink contract, which will deliver billions in additional toll revenue until 2045.
The tolling giant successfully pitched the West Gate Tunnel to the Andrews government in 2014. Major construction began in early 2018 and was meant to be completed by September 2022.
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But the project, which extends from the West Gate Freeway in Yarraville to CityLink in Docklands, was plagued by the discovery of toxic soil and a legal stand-off between the state government, Transurban and the project’s builders, contributing to delays and a $3.4 billion budget blowout.
Residents in the city’s west will be relieved the project is finally open but remain sceptical about its promise to cut the number of trucks on local roads.
Last month the Allan government announced a curfew would see trucks banned from using Williamstown Road from 8pm to 6am every night, and from 8pm on Friday until 6am on Monday.
It came after modelling produced for the project in 2017 predicted that truck traffic would roughly double to 4700 heavy vehicles a day on Williamstown Road by 2031.
Tolls of up to $178 will apply to heavy vehicles each day on the new road, with a grace period before companies will be fined if their trucks breach the local road curfew.
More than 50,000 people flocked to the West Gate Tunnel Discovery Day last month for a tour of the long-awaited infrastructure project.
More to come
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