The East West Link stands to be one of the largest infrastructure projects ever constructed in Melbourne. The 18km, cross-city road connection from the Eastern Freeway to the Western Ring Road is designed to tackle many transport problems associated with population growth and urban sprawl, including transit delays and rising congestion.
It is also designed to ensure that as Melbourne grows and changes, and demand for travel and freight increases, we can rely on fast and efficient connections around the city, our suburbs and critical destinations such as the Port of Melbourne and Melbourne airport.
Meeting these challenges is important for business and the future prosperity of all Victorians, which is why the Victorian Employers’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VECCI) has consistently supported this project.
Each of the two stages will generate significant long term direct and indirect benefits for the state, not least employment opportunities, with stage one estimated to create 3,700 jobs and stage two 3,000 jobs during their construction phases.
Transport congestion problems do not simply go away. The government’s strategy for the city until 2050, Plan Melbourne, highlights the likelihood of even more congestion in the absence of an improved road transport network, noting that demand for road travel from east to west across our metropolis is expected to grow by 38% between now and 2031, to 440,000 trips a day.
The connection to the Port of Melbourne will provide a high capacity freight link to major destinations and improve the reliability of freight. This will benefit businesses in Melbourne and regional Victoria that move goods interstate and overseas.
Appreciating the need to provide for demand beyond the capacity limits of the Port of Melbourne, the state government has commenced work on development of the Port of Hastings as the next container port in Victoria. Hastings will handle growth in trade volumes up to and beyond 2050 and, once fully developed, it will be the largest container port in Australia.
The East West Link will play a key role in ensuring additional freight capacity and demand can be met by providing a new connection to Victoria’s key export gateways and freight precincts, including the Port of Hastings and key industries in Gippsland.
Stage 2, or the western section, will provide an alternative to the Monash and West Gate freeways for direct east-west travel. In doing so, it will also play a major role in transforming Melbourne and the way we do business.
However, the potential benefits of the East West Link extend beyond economic, business and employment gains.
Congestion cost savings not only raise productivity but provide social benefits by redirecting growing volumes of traffic away from local streets to new freeway standard roads. Many areas will become safer, cleaner, quieter and more attractive places to live.
Improvements in average travel times and lower vehicle operating costs will benefit regular users of the city’s roads, while less competition for road space and reduced time at traffic signals will improve the reliability of many tram and bus services.
VECCI supports this venture, along with the Melbourne Rail project, as a comprehensive road and rail package for Victoria’s transport needs.
It is simplistic to suggest that Victoria’s transport challenges can be addressed through trains and trams alone.
Victorian businesses, big and small, need a reliable road system to transport goods, deliver services and reach clients and customers in an efficient manner. East West Link will be used by commercial vehicles such as small vans and utes, medium and large trucks and other modes of public and private transport such as taxis and buses.
It will also be widely used by visitors travelling to regional Victoria and people going to and from Melbourne airport. Many Victorians also rely on their cars for commuting and cannot simply shift to public transport.
We applaud the government’s commitment to this project and will continue to urge the Labor opposition to start the project if it wins government.
The project has drawn criticism in some quarters over the level of detail associated with the reported benefit. However, the fact remains that a comprehensive impact statement has been prepared on the back of extensive consultations with stakeholders.
Similarly, some features of the government’s contract with East West Connect, the winning consortium that will build stage one, remain confidential. This is not uncommon in many contracts between government and the private sector. It is needed to protect commercial-in-confidence information.
Although the new road network embodied in the East West Link project is not the only infrastructure priority for the state, few other projects rival it for its capacity to make game-changing improvements in urban and economic development that will benefit Victorians for many years to come.
Mark Stone is the chief executive of the Victorian Employers’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
