Roads and Freeways

A look at the history of roads, streets, highways, freeways, bridges and tunnels of Melbourne and beyond.

Stuck truck under the Napier Street bridge

Trucks getting stuck under the Montague Street bridge is a running Melbourne joke, but there is another bridge that gets hit far more often, but where the risk to the public is far worse – the Napier Street bridge in Footscray. The incident On Sunday 3 March a called ‘professional’ driver of a container truck […]

How to calibrate a speed and red light camera

A few years ago I spotted something of note while out driving – a forest of traffic cones set up around the combined speed and red light camera system at the intersection of Mount Alexander Road and Maribyrnong Road in the Melbourne suburb of Ascot Vale. I pulled over to take a closer look, and […]

How to close a freeway

Normally a major freeway is full of cars, even in the dead of night. So seeing the West Gate Freeway completely empty was an unusual sight – so how was it achieved? First step – block the freeway. With a Truck Mounted Attenuator (TMA) Truck parked on each lane. Their variable message signs directing motorists […]

Precast concrete from Benalla with love

Right now work on the West Gate Tunnel Project is well underway, with 1500 tonnes of precast concrete tunnel lining, bridge and viaduct elements making up the tangle of elevated roads and underground tunnels coming from an unlikely location – 200 kilometres away at Benalla in north-east Victoria. Precast concrete everywhere The most obvious usage […]

A history of Lynch’s Bridge at Footscray

This is the story of Lynch’s Bridge over the Maribyrnong River in Melbourne’s west, connecting Smithfield Road in Flemington to Ballarat Road in Footscray. On the downstream side is the original 1936 bridge, with art deco-styled decorative parapets, pillars, and light fittings. And beside it a far more utilitarian concrete bridge completed in 1992. In […]