What's a corridor?

A corridor is a broad area where a road could go. It’s usually much bigger than the final design will need and used in early planning to get a general idea of where a project could be built.

First steps

With no existing road reserve set aside to link the M80 Ring Road to the Eastern Freeway, our first step was to decide how – and where – to best link our city’s north and east.

We started by looking at what outcomes the new link must achieve. This gave us measures to assess how well different locations for the road did, or didn’t, perform.

Measures

The measures were informed by more than 7400 pieces of community feedback and covered areas including:

  • easing congestion
  • cutting travel times
  • taking trucks off local roads
  • improving access to jobs and education
  • connecting industrial and freight centres
  • improving public transport, walking and cycling links
  • minimising impacts on the community
  • minimising impacts on the environment.

Corridor options

Once we had the assessment measures in place, different corridor options for North East Link were investigated. 4 options were explored.

  • linking the M80 Ring Road in Greensborough to the Eastern Freeway in Bulleen
  • linking the M80 Ring Road in Greensborough to EastLink in Ringwood via 3 possible routes.

Why this option was selected

Linking the M80 Ring Road in Greensborough to the Eastern Freeway in Bulleen, including with upgrades to the M80 Ring Road and the Eastern Freeway, performed best overall. A link in this location:

  • takes the most cars and trucks off local roads
  • connects more people to jobs and education where Melbourne is growing
  • provides the best opportunities to improve public transport by putting services where they’re needed most
  • provides the best opportunities to improve walking and cycling
  • requires less homes
  • has less impact on sensitive environmental areas
  • delivers the greatest benefits for cost.

This option for the road was taken through to the next stage of the planning process and used to prepare a business case.

More information