The new West Gate Freeway ramps have continued to take shape as part of the West Gate Tunnel Project.
A recent blitz involved workers installing 66 beams weighing just under 100 tonnes in 11 days, as workers focus their efforts on the 1.3 kilometre ramp providing a new exit for inbound traffic onto Hyde Street on the northern side of the freeway.
The ramp on the southern side of the freeway would be 640 metres long, creating a new freeway entry for westbound traffic from Hyde Street on to the West Gate Freeway.
The new ramps would allow trucks unable to use the West Gate Tunnel, such as those carrying dangerous goods those which are over-height, will be able to avoid residential streets and connect directly to local industry by using the new ramps.
As part of the West Gate Tunnel Project, the project team would also build a new elevated walking and cycling path on the northern edge of the new ramp crossing Stony Creek and extending the Federation Trail through to Hyde Street.
Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan said the project would make western Melbourne roads safer and less congested.
“Between the new tunnels and the ramps at Hyde Street, the West Gate Tunnel Project will remove around 9000 trucks a day from local roads,” she said.
“The West Gate Tunnel Project is creating safer neighbourhoods and making Melbourne’s inner-west better connected than ever before.”
Further project works would also include more than nine kilometres of new state-of-the-art noise walls creating quieter homes and backyards for residents living near the freeway, 14 kilometres of new and upgraded walking and cycling paths and close to nine hectares of new parks and wetlands.
Tunnel boring machine ‘Bella’ has dug more than 1800 metres of the four-kilometre outbound tunnel, while ‘Vida’ has bored through more than 1100 metres of earth into her
journey digging the 2.8-kilometre inbound tunnel.
The project has been scheduled for completion in 2025.
Details: bigbuild.vic.gov.au/projects/west-gate-tunnel-project
