The first part of the massive North East Link Program is now open following the first buses servicing the new Bulleen Park & Ride from Sunday 30 April.
The new premium bus station on the corner of Thompsons Road and Kampman Street in Bulleen is the first part of the Eastern Express Busway – Melbourne's first dedicated busway from Doncaster towards the city and features parking for 370 cars, bike storage, pick-up and drop-off bays and a 5000m² green roof.
Almost 630 people worked more than 278,000 hours building the new facility, pouring almost four Olympic swimming pools of concrete and planting more than 50 trees and thousands of shrubs and other flora.
There are some changes to bus routes 305, 309 and 905 which now use the park and ride, and the bus stop for route 200 on Thompsons Road has moved closer to the entrance for easier pick-up and drop-off. Visit the PTV website for timetable information and to help plan your journey. More than 1.4 million people use these 4 bus routes each year, with these passengers now able to catch more than 1000 buses at Bulleen Park & Ride each week including one bus every 3 minutes during peak.
When complete in 2028, the Eastern Express Busway will provide dedicated bus lanes along the Eastern Freeway from Doncaster towards the city, slashing travel times for 6 million passengers that use freeway buses each year.
Bulleen Park & Ride has been delivered as part of North East Link, which will fix the missing link in Melbourne’s freeway network, take 15,000 trucks off local roads every day and slash travel times by up to 35 minutes.
North East Link will also complete the Ring Road in Greensborough, upgrade the Eastern Freeway, and build more than 34km of walking and cycling paths.
A huge amount of work is underway across the North East Link Program, including getting ready for tunnelling in 2024. The first pieces of the massive Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) are being built overseas, in Watsonia workers are busy building the TBM launch box, and major work areas are being set up in Macleod and Bulleen. Visit our works page to find out more.