# Western Port Highway

Western Port Highway is a highway in Victoria, Australia, linking the south-eastern fringe of suburban Melbourne to the port of Hastings nearly 30km to the south on the western coast of Western Port, after which the highway is named.

## Route

Western Port Highway commences at Lyndhurst Interchange, where South Gippsland Highway and the alignment of South Gippsland Freeway meet at Lynbrook, and heads south directly from the southern end of South Gippsland Freeway over a bridge crossing South Gippsland Highway as a four-lane, dual-carriageway road, over the Cranbourne railway line, passing through a set of traffic lights at Portlink Drive and Moreton Bay Boulevard, passing through a roundabout at Glasscocks Road, and traffic lights at Thompsons Road. The highway runs onwards further south, meeting Cranbourne-Frankston Road in Cranbourne South, and continues south to North Road, before narrowing to a dual-lane single carriageway road and continuing south to meet with Baxter-Tooradin Road in Pearcedale, before eventually terminating at an intersection with Frankston–Flinders Road, 2 km north of Hastings.
For most of the route the speed limit is 100 kilometres per hour (62 mph), with shorter sections of 90 kilometres per hour (56 mph) and 80 kilometres per hour (50 mph).

## History

Western Port Highway was originally a single carriageway road called Lyndhurst Road in the 1960s, renamed some time after. The passing of the Country Roads Act of 1958 (itself an evolution from the original Highways and Vehicles Act of 1924) provided for the declaration of State Highways and Main Roads, roads partially financed by the State government through the Country Roads Board (later VicRoads). A southern extension to the existing declaration of Dandenong–Hastings Road, subsuming a section of Tyabb–Tooradin Road between Somerville and Hastings, was declared a Main Road on 9 May 1983.
Dandenong-Hasting Road was progressively upgraded to a divided highway between South Gippsland Freeway and Cranbourne–Frankston Road during the 1990s, as dramatically increasing freight traffic volumes to and from Hastings necessitated major upgrades, including eliminating the level crossing with the Cranbourne railway line with an overpass in 2001.
The passing of the Transport Act of 1983 updated the definition of State Highways. Western Port Highway was declared a State Highway in March 1994, from South Gippsland Freeway at Lynbrook to Frankston-Flinders Road at Hastings.
The passing of the Road Management Act 2004 granted the responsibility of overall management and development of Victoria's major arterial roads to VicRoads: in 2004, VicRoads re-declared the road as Western Port Highway (Arterial #6230), beginning at South Gippsland Freeway at Lynbrook and ending at Frankston-Flinders Road in Hastings.
Dandenong-Hastings Road was signed Metropolitan Route 65 in 1989. With Victoria's conversion to the newer alphanumeric system in the late 1990s this was replaced by route A780. After further upgrades, this was converted to route M780 between Lynbrook and Cranbourne South in 2000, with a further extension south between Cranbourne South and Langwarrin after further duplication in 2009.
VicRoads had planned to convert the highway to a six- to eight-lane freeway standard between South Gippsland Freeway and about 1.2 km south of Cranbourne-Frankston Road with full grade-separated interchanges at Glasscocks, Thompsons, Hall and Cranbourne–Frankston Roads, and a half-diamond interchange (north-facing ramps only) at Ballarto Road, with a report released in August 2014, however the State Government abandoned any plans for the upgrade, which was estimated to cost $1 billion, in mid-2016.

### Upgrades

* 2001 – Duplication of 4.4 km between South Gippsland Freeway in Lynbrook and Thompsons Road in Lyndhurst, including overpass of Cranbourne railway line, completed January 2001, at a cost of $30.5 million.
* 2009 – Duplication of 3.9 km between Cranbourne-Frankston Road in Cranbourne South and North Road in Langwarrin.

## Major intersections

| LGA | Location | km | mi | Destinations | Notes |
| Greater Dandenong–Casey boundary | Dandenong South–Lyndhurst–Lynbrook tripoint | 0.0 | 0.0 | South Gippsland Freeway (M420 north) – Dandenong, Chadstone, City | Northern terminus of highway and route M780 |
| Greater Dandenong–Casey boundary | Dandenong South–Lyndhurst–Lynbrook tripoint | 0.0 | 0.0 | South Gippsland Highway (A21) – Dandenong, Cranbourne | Partial cloverleaf interchange |
| Greater Dandenong–Casey boundary | Lyndhurst–Lynbrook boundary | 0.8 | 0.50 | Northey Road – Lynbrook | Southbound entrance and exit only |
| Greater Dandenong–Casey boundary | Lyndhurst–Lynbrook boundary | 0.9 | 0.56 | Monash Drive – Dandenong South | Northbound entrance and exit only |
| Greater Dandenong–Casey boundary | Lyndhurst | 2.1 | 1.3 | Portlink Drive – Dandenong South | Traffic light intersection |
| Greater Dandenong–Casey boundary | Lyndhurst | 2.2 | 1.4 | Moreton Bay Boulevard – Lyndhurst | Traffic light intersection |
| Greater Dandenong–Casey boundary | Lyndhurst | 3.0 | 1.9 | Glasscocks Road – Bangholme, Lyndhurst | Roundabout |
| Greater Dandenong–Casey–Frankston tripoint | Lyndhurst–Skye–Cranbourne West tripoint | 4.7 | 2.9 | Thompsons Road (Metro Route 6) – Carrum, Cranbourne | Traffic light intersection |
| Casey–Frankston boundary | Skye–Cranbourne West boundary | 8.0 | 5.0 | Hall Road (B664) – Carrum Downs, Cranbourne | Traffic light intersection |
| Casey–Frankston boundary | Skye–Cranbourne West–Cranbourne South tripoint | 9.6 | 6.0 | Ballarto Road – Skye, Seaford | Traffic light intersection |
| Casey–Frankston boundary | Skye–Langwarrin boundary | 11.0 | 6.8 | Cranbourne–Frankston Road (Metro Route 4) – Cranbourne, Frankston | Traffic light intersection |
| Casey–Frankston boundary | Skye–Langwarrin boundary | 12.1 | 7.5 | Browns Road – Cranbourne South, Junction Village | Roundabout |
| Casey–Frankston boundary | Skye–Langwarrin–Pearcedale tripoint | 15.0 | 9.3 | North Road – Langwarrin, Devon Meadows | Roundabout Southern terminus of route M780, northern terminus of route A780 |
| Casey–Frankston boundary | Langwarrin–Langwarrin South–Pearcedale tripoint | 16.8 | 10.4 | Robinsons Road – Frankston South, Pearcedale | Roundabout |
| Casey–Frankston–Mornington Peninsula tripoint | Langwarrin South–Pearcedale boundary | 18.5 | 11.5 | Baxter–Tooradin Road (C781) – Baxter, Pearcedale, Tooradin | Roundabout |
| Mornington Peninsula | Somerville | 21.2 | 13.2 | Eramosa Road East – Somerville | |
| Mornington Peninsula | Somerville | 22.9 | 14.2 | Bungower Road – Mornington | Roundabout |
| Mornington Peninsula | Somerville–Tyabb boundary | 24.5 | 15.2 | Tyabb–Tooradin Road (northeast) – Tyabb O'Neills Road (west) – Tooradin | |
| Mornington Peninsula | Tyabb | 27.5 | 17.1 | Frankston–Flinders Road (C777 north, south) – Hastings, Flinders, Frankston Denham Road (east) – Hastings | Southern terminus of highway and route A780 at roundabout |
| 1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi Incomplete access Route transition ||||||