The state government has headed off a clash with Maribyrnong council and Yarraville residents by announcing three-kilometre twin tunnels beneath Yarraville to connect directly with the West Gate Freeway.
A design for the $5.5 billion Western Distributor tollway, released on recently, confirms the new tunnels will begin west of Williamstown Road, rather than the alternative shorter tunnel starting on industrial Yarraville land linked to the freeway by flyover ramps.
The decision was welcomed by Maribyrnong mayor Cameron McDonald and community groups Concerned Locals of Yarraville (CLoY) and Friends of Stony Creek.
CLoY spokesman Scott Ellerton said the group would continue to have input on ramp alignment, ventilation stack standards and locations, noise barriers and truck curfews.
Hobsons Bay council and Spotswood South Kingsville Western Distributor Residents Group (SSKRG) are upset that one of two new ramps funnelling dangerous-goods trucks directly between Hyde Street and the freeway will pass close to sports fields and a kindergarten.
The state government said the ramps would be as close as possible to each side of – and level to or lower than – the West Gate Freeway.
But SSKRG spokeswoman Grace Guinto said that by moving trucks closer to Emma McLean Kindergarten, Donald McLean Reserve and Spotswood residents, the government had just pushed the problem to “the other side [south] of the freeway”.
“Considering a key objective of this project is to reduce the impacts of [diesel fumes] on children in the inner west, it seems a questionable decision,” she said.
Maribyrnong Truck Action Group and the Greens have welcomed the longer tunnel but want adequate filtration and a total truck ban to avoid rat-running through the area, in turn to avoid tolls.
Williamstown MP Wade Noonan said the project would take about 6000 trucks off inner-west residential streets.
“For too long [residents] had to live with the noise and pollution of the trucks moving through local roads.”
Roads Minister Luke Donnellan said the design was a result of extensive community consultation.
“This is very much about moving those trucks off the inner-city streets,” he said.
Hobsons Bay mayor Peter Hemphill said the council welcomes the long tunnel, but a ramp to the south of the freeway will impact local Spotswood industry, residents, recreation areas and the local kindergarten.
Three construction consortiums have been shortlisted.
Construction will begin in 2018 and be completed by 2022. Public information sessions begin in Footscray on Monday. Details: westerndistributorproject.vic.gov.au
