On Wednesday 9th of October, we visited the West Gate Tunnel project visitor centre. We were welcomed by Ivan Sorokhan, a staff member of the joint venture of John Holland and CPB, who execute the project together. He and his colleague gave a presentation, which gave us deeper insights in the project. Currently, Melbourne West and the inner city are only connected by the West Gate Bridge. However, the West Gate Bridge is currently at full capacity and is unable to handle the daily influx of cars and trucks. Moreover, freight traffic to the Port of Melbourne is significantly congested, resulting in delays that increase transportation costs for businesses.
To overcome this problem, the West Gate Tunnel project is started. The main goal of the project is to increase the transportation options between the inner Melbourne roads and freeways, and to reduce travel time between the city and Melbourne West. To do this, not only a tunnel is constructed, also the adjacent West Gate Freeway is updated, and an elevated roadway is constructed to connect the tunnel with the Port of Melbourne. The project thus consists out of three precincts.
The tunnel precinct is the major part of the project. A twin tunnel was constructed using state-of-the-art tunnel boring machines (TBM). The outbound tunnel is 4 kilometres in length, where the inbound tunnel is 2.8 kilometres long. Due to more beneficial ground conditions than expected, the tunnelling of the tunnel using the TBM, was finished earlier than expected (16 months outbound tunnel, 11 months inbound tunnel). As soon as the tunnel opens, the driver can choose whether to use the tunnel or the bride, the travel option will thus increase.
The project will also provide new cycling and walking paths. An elevated veloway will be constructed to connect West Melbourne and the city. The social safety of the elevated veloway will be ensured by 24/7 security cameras. Due to the elevated veloway, more off-road paths are constructed, which is safer.
As the project is surrounded by residential area where 350 houses are located, there is close collaboration with the residents before, during and after the completion of the project. They could provide input on the design ideas. Together with the residents, it was then decided to install more noise walls along the West Gate Freeway. These are now in total 9 km and reduce noise pollution by 63-73 decibels. Moreover, the residents wanted more protection of existing open space, which they also tried to take into account. During the construction phase they informed the residents on when the tunnelling took place and provided them with hearing protection if needed.
When the West Gate Tunnel project is completed, up to 20 minutes of travel time can be saved between the city and Melbourne West. Moreover, there will be more direct freeway connections to the docks of Port of Melbourne. This way, more than 9000 freight trucks will be removed from the local roads in Melbourne. The project is not only beneficial for people travelling by car, the project also creates more than 14 kilometres of new and upgraded walking and cycling paths