page_title: Transport in Melbourne
section_title: Roads
hierarchical_section_title: Transport in Melbourne / Roads
context_page_description: Transport in Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia, consists of several interlinking modes. Melbourne is a hub for intercity, intracity and regional travel. Road-based transport accounts for most trips across many parts of the city, facilitated by Australia's largest freeway network. Public transport, including the world's largest tram network, trains and buses, also forms a key part of the transport system. Other dominant modes include walking, cycling and commercial-passenger vehicle services such as taxis. Melbourne is a busy regional transport hub for the statewide passenger rail network, coaches and interstate rail services to New South Wales and South Australia. Freight transport also makes up a significant proportion of trips made on the network from the Port of Melbourne, Melbourne Airport and industrial areas across the city.
  According to the 2016 Australian census, Melbourne has the second-highest rate of public transport usage among Australian capital cities for travel to work at 19 percent, second to Sydney's 27 percent. In 2017-2018, 565 million passenger trips were made on Melbourne's metropolitan public transport network.
context_section_description: Melbourne is one of the world's most car-dependent cities, with 74 percent of all trips to and from work or education being done by car. Its freeway network is the largest in Australia, with an extensive grid of arterial roads dating back to Melbourne's initial surveying. The city's total road length is 21,381 km (13,286 mi).
  The freeway network began with the 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan, which included a grid of freeways which would cover the metropolitan area. The plans were reviewed four years later and many inner-city projects were cancelled. Freeways built during the 1960s and 1970s include the South Eastern Arterial (now part of the Monash Freeway), the Tullamarine Freeway, the Lower Yarra Freeway (now the West Gate Freeway) and the Eastern Freeway.
  Expansion took place over the next thirty years, with the Monash Freeway, CityLink and the Western Ring Road all being constructed during this time. The period also saw freeway expansion into the suburbs with the Mornington Peninsula Freeway, an extension of the Eastern Freeway and the South Gippsland Freeway. In 2008, the EastLink toll freeway opened and existing freeways were further extended.
  Despite government figures indicating slowed growth in road travel since 2006 (zero growth in 2008–09) and the government's goal to reduce road use to 80 percent of all motorised trips, the State Government have announced several large-scale road infrastructure investments to complete many projects from the original 1969 Plan, including Peninsula Link, East West Link and North East Link). This road construction has continued to increase the use of cars and direct investment away from other transport projects.
caption: The Eastern Freeway, looking towards Melbourne
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