August 2008

Warrandyte Diary

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Ring road threat

'Missing link' could be back on the map

By SANDY BURGOYNE

The threat of a new river crossing at Warrandyte for a ring road is back on the agenda.

The so-called "missing link" was given prominence in the RACV's response to the Eddington report on Melbourne's east-west transport needs.

The motorists' organisation called for immediate consideration of "completing" the metropolitan ring road with a link from Greensborough to the Eastern Freeway and Eastlink.

Premier Brumby, in a discussion with the report's author, Sir Rod Eddington, said consideration was being given to proposals for "outer ring roads".

The two possibilities being touted are a new bridge across the Yarra at Warrandyte or Bulleen, but details of the suggested crossing points are yet to be released.

However, the local state government members do not believe this road should pass through Warrandyte.

Ryan Smith, MP for Warrandyte, is surprised that this option is again being pushed. "To have Premier Brumby now raise the spectre of this road not only breaks his government's previous promise, but brings a great deal of concern to the local community," he told the Diary.

The state MP from north of the Yarra, Danielle Green, has similar sentiments. "I've never supported a so-called missing link through two Green Wedges.

"There is no reservation for such a so-called missing link and I believe it will never be built," she told the Diary.

Dr Paul Mees, senior lecturer in transport planning at RMIT University has followed over the years the various suggestions for a ring road and believes the community may have left it too late to object.

"The time to have this discussion should have been before they started work on Eastlink, because Eastlink is most of the eastern ring road and the so called missing link is the rest of the eastern ring road.

"The hope by ... the road planners, was that they would be able to get most of the ring road built so that by the time it came to consider the controversial bit it would be a fait accompli and that is exactly what happened," He told the Diary.

Dr Mees said that the groups pushing this idea of a "missing link" seek to alienate the communities at the two suggested crossing points.

"There are two environmentally damaging routes that this road could follow and neither of them is acceptable. So what the road lobby hope is that the Warrandyte people and the Heidelberg people will each compete to push the link into each other's backyards, rather than combining to stop any link going ahead," he said.

Cr Leeson, mayor of Nillumbik, did not hold back in his criticism of the suggested link. "If the state government is prepared to bring the extension of the Metropolitan Ring Road through Nillumbik back onto the agenda, it may as well tear up Melbourne 2030 and tell this community that a freeway carving up the Green Wedge is OK," he told the Diary.

"Only 12 months ago the release of the state government's North Eastern Integrated Transport Study (NEITS) concluded there's no need, no freeway reservation and no financial, social or environmental justification."

Manningham chief executive, Lydia Wilson, told the Diary that council is awaiting delivery of a report before commenting.

"Manningham council does not currently have a position in relation to future freeway link proposals and is eagerly awaiting the outcomes of the state government Metropolitan Transport Plan which is due to be released in late 2008," she said.

• How we ran rings around that road