Roads and Freeways

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

A history of Southbank Boulevard

The streets of Southbank have a long and complicated history, but the most confusing is Southbank Boulevard – a creation of the 1980s Melbourne. So how did the road come into being? An inspection of map 43 of Melway Edition 1 shows a completely different road layout existed through Southbank back in 1966. Melway Edition […]

A history of the Arts Centre underpass on St Kilda Road

As you head south on St Kilda Road there is a piece of hidden piece of infrastructure – the underpass that links City Road to Alexandra Avenue. A quick tour The road passes beneath the Arts Centre, next to Hamer Hall. The gardens hide the road beneath. The only sign at ground level being the […]

Road trains carting rubbish across Melbourne

Last week the Monash Freeway was closed for hours thanks to a crash between two massive trucks and four cars, that thankfully resulted in no serious injuries. But for me the interesting part was the truck stuck in the middle of the pile-up – a massive A-double truck operated by Cleanaway. A crash involving two […]

Remember the South Eastern Freeway dead end?

Ever got to the city end of the Eastern Freeway and thought “if only this freeway went somewhere, all of these traffic jams would disappear”? Well Melbourne has already tried doing that to every other freeway, and it doesn’t seem to be working. We’ll jump back to 22nd May 1970, when The Age covered the […]

How did the horse cross the road?

On Fellmongers Road in the Geelong suburb of Breakwater there is what seems to be a normal set of pedestrian lights. But if you take a closer look, you’ll realise that the crossing doesn’t lead anywhere. And the push buttons are located at head hight. And there is an extra ‘don’t walk’ light mounted above […]