A dangerous “pinch point” on the Western Ring Road will be widened and made safer after the Abbott government matched a $150 million commitment from the Victorian government to upgrade the road.
The two-lane stretch of the ring road between Sunshine Avenue and the Calder Freeway will be widened to three lanes at a cost of $300 million, and overhead electronic signage, variable speed limit signs and CCTV cameras installed.
The EJ Whitten Bridge across the Maribyrnong River will also be widened to three lanes and get new safety barriers as part of the project.
Roads Minister Luke Donnellan said he welcomed the funds, which would ease congestion and make the road safer.
But the federal/state stand-off continues over the Western Distributor, a toll road through Melbourne’s west recently proposed by Transurban.
The Abbott government said on Friday that the project “has some potential” but it would not help fund the road if it meant motorists in Melbourne’s east would have to pay extra tolls to build a road in the west.
The extension of tolls on CityLink could not be supported “without significant benefits to the entire network”, the government said in a joint statement from Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Assistant Infrastructure Minister Jamie Briggs.
It also demanded the Andrews government help pay for the $5.5 billion tunnel and elevated road, a condition that is absent from Transurban’s proposal.
Transurban has proposed a 10-15 year extension of tolls on CityLink, plus the right to toll the new Western Distributor, in exchange for covering two-thirds of the cost of building the road. Canberra would pay the remaining third.
The Abbott government wants Transurban to give Infrastructure Australia, its adviser on major projects, a copy of the business case for the road. But it is still holding out hope that it can revive the East West Link road, cancelled by the Andrews government last year.
“The M80 Ring Road is shovel-ready, it is endorsed by Infrastructure Australia and it is essential to the future operation and linkage to the proposed Western Distributor project – or the East West Link,” the government said on Friday.
The Abbott government last year ripped $500 million in funding away from the ring road widening project to help pay for the western section of the East West Link. It remains in a tussle with the Andrews government over the fate of $3 billion it committed to the East West Link, and continues to demand the money be returned to federal coffers.
This story first appeared in The Age
