Royal Parade, Melbourne
Royal Parade is a major urban road in Victoria, Australia, linking Melbourne City to Brunswick and the northern suburbs. It is the site of major educational and sporting facilities as well as several buildings of heritage significance. Location. Royal Parade runs as a continuation from the northern end of Elizabeth Street, in Melbourne City, at the intersection with the east-west Grattan Street in Carlton. It runs north-south through the centre of the suburb of Parkville and terminates at the beginning of Sydney Road in Brunswick at the intersection of Park Street. For its northern half , it forms the western boundary of Princes Park, Carlton North. Near its northern end, Royal Parade crosses an underpass previously housing the Inner Circle railway line which operated from 1888 to 1981. The road is not to be confused with other and smaller roads called "Royal Parade" in the Melbourne suburbs of Caulfield South, Parkdale/Mordialloc, Pascoe Vale South and Reservoir as well as in the Victorian towns of Emerald, Inverloch and Riddells Creek. Transport. Tram route 19, which runs from Bakers Road in Coburg North to Flinders Street station in the city runs the entire length of Royal Parade  on part of its route. Bus routes 50 (Moonee Ponds Junction to Melbourne University) and 546 (Heidelberg to Melbourne University) use Royal Parade. Historically part of the Hume Highway from Melbourne to Sydney, it used to be signed as National Highway 31, but since the opening of the Craigieburn Bypass in 2005 this section was replaced with Metropolitan Route 55. History and development. Originally following the stock-route bearing north out of the settlement of Melbourne in the 1830s, the "Sydney road" that wound through what is now Princes Park was aligned in about 1852 along the north-south datum  line established by surveyor Robert Hoddle. With the founding of the University of Melbourne in the 1850s, the roads of Parkville became more formalised, but the road's poor state of repair was a constant concern, even after its upkeep was put in the hands of the City in 1865 with the costs subsidised from the toll paid for users of the road further out in Brunswick. Initially part of Royal Park, sections of land on the western side of Royal Parade were progressively sold for housing, commencing in 1868. A Crown covenant was enacted in 1870, regulating such aspects  as the height and position of the houses in the northern sections of Royal Parade. The covenant was annulled in 1972. Creation of boulevard. In 1878 the Melbourne City Council created a tree-lined boulevard "from Grattan-street to the Brunswick boundary" measuring almost 200 feet wide, by planting 816 trees in four rows as part of a scheme that included several major roads in the area:The Sydney-road, when planted, will be as fine an approach as any city in the world can boast. It is three chains wide, and there will be a row of trees on  each side at a distance of 26ft. from the building line; half a chain from these will be second rows of trees, so that there will remain a 66ft. road in the middle for heavy traffic, and an avenue on either side available for light traffic, and all under the shelter of trees. Other improvements to this road are in progress, in the way of kerbing, footpath-making, and draining, and when the trees now about to be planted have fairly established themselves there will be nothing left wanting to its completeness, except to cut down, to the  extent of 6ft or 8ft, [a] hill that obstructs the road at the top of Elizabeth-street, to the detriment of the scenery and to the injury of working cattle. Name. On 28 October 1878, the City Council resolved to adopt the name "Royal Parade", however it took many years for "Sydney Road" to be replaced in common speech. In April 1879, Alderman James Gatehouse was reported as moving the adoption by the City Council of a report recommending the construction of a "tramway for heavy traffic along the Royal-parade (Sydney-road)". Council debated the merits of  a tramway "from the Sarah Sands Hotel to Grattan-street for the use of the brick traffic from Brunswick" for several months before it proceeded at a cost of just over £3,000. Elm trees. In 1913, the road was transformed again, with the original planting replaced with 400 English elms in four rows, separating the double-width central carriageway from the two outer service lanes. The central lanes were sealed with tarmac for the first time, thus reducing dust significantly, and decorative rockeries were created between the trees. Further works were carried out in 1916 with the assistance of  State Government loans to the City Council for public works:More than any other thoroughfare, Royal parade, or Sydney road, as it is more familiarly called, will benefit from the Government loan. In recent years the council has expended large sums of money to improve the street in conformity with the general plan for the beautification of the metropolis. The great width of the road has permitted the construction of two parallel lines of ornamental flower gardens, and, after considerable labour and expense, these have been brought to such a state us to reflect great credit upon the municipality. At  a point beyond the Hay Market, the work on the gardens was finished about two years ago. When the loan money was made available some months ago, the council decided to further improve Royal parade by wood blocking the road between the tram track and the two strips of gardens, and to form a macadam road on the outside of the garden strips. Prior to that time, the central roadway was not sufficiently wide to allow the safe passage of two vehicles travelling abreast, and, to enable this to be done, it was decided to widen the roadway two feet  on each side. This necessitated the cutting into the gardens to the extent of two feet. It is estimated that the total cost of the improvements will amount to £40,000. Also in 1916, it was finally agreed to move the hay, cattle and pig markets situated at the Elizabeth Street end of the Parade. Trams. From 1889 until it was closed in 1923, a horse-drawn tram operated from Royal Parade to the Zoological Gardens. The tram line that runs on Royal Parade itself was electrified in 1935, the conversion from a cable system requiring the installation of poles  and sets of overhead wires, the construction of a depot in Brunswick and the purchase of 40 new tramcars, at a total cost of £500,000. In 1936, some trees in a section of the plantings near Janet Clarke Hall were removed to make the road safer for motorists after a further series of accidents. Many of the large palm trees that had been interplanted between the elms were removed in 1947 as part of a further beautification scheme by the City Council. Some palms remain in the northern section of Princes Park. Accidents. Where the road crossed the underpass  for the now-closed Inner Circle railway line, the relatively narrow bridge meant that the two side avenues became dead ends. Accidents resulted from drivers not realising that the avenues did not continue over the bridge. These included a bus crashing through the boundary fence on 19 June 1924, and falling 40 feet down the cutting onto the tracks, and the death of Mr Samuel Keage, a local architect, on 7 November 1924, when his car similarly ran down the cutting on to the tracks. A few weeks before Keage was killed the Melbourne City Council had let a contract , at a cost of £4,600, for extensions to each side of the underpass to allow for the continuation of the side avenues. On 12 August 2019, Associate Professor Allison Milner, a 36-year-old researcher in social epidemiology at the University of Melbourne died from injuries received when one of the elm trees along Princes Park fell on her while she was walking to work. The 106-year-old trees had been inspected in July that year, but no risk was identified. Drought and nearby construction works were thought to have contributed to a weakening of the root system . Heritage listing. Beginning in the 1930s, the large homes built between 1880 and World War I began to be demolished and replaced with higher density housing. Blocks of two-storey flats with Art Deco styling can be seen at 283 Royal Parade ("Park Court") and 311 Royal Parade ("Royal Court"). Of particular significance were houses such as "Mount Ievers" (see Notable Former Residents, below), built in 1890 and demolished in 1975 to be replaced with a large block of apartments. Numbers of older buildings were then assessed by Heritage Victoria and placed on the register of significant buildings. Royal Parade  itself was listed by Heritage Victoria in 2009, as a site of State significance, being a fine example of the internationally City Beautiful planning movement. Road classification. As a part of the Hume Highway, the road was signed as National Route 31 in 1954. The Whitlam Government introduced the federal "National Roads Act 1974", where roads declared as a National Highway were still the responsibility of the states for road construction and maintenance, but were fully compensated by the Federal government for money spent on approved projects. As an important interstate link between the capitals of Victoria and New South  Wales, Royal Parade (as the Hume Highway) was declared a National Highway in 1974. The National Highway 31 route was extended south beyond Royal Parade in 1988, along Elizabeth and Peel Streets through the Docklands district to eventually end at the Montague Street interchange with the West Gate Freeway when its extension was opened in the same year. With Victoria's conversion to the newer alphanumeric system in the late 1990s, Royal Parade remained signed as National Highway 31, eventually replaced with State Route 55 in 2005 (when the Craigieburn bypass opened). The passing of the "Road Management Act 2004