What's been happening

The end of a busy summer marks lots of progress in upgrading Pakenham’s road and rail network. Get a bird’s eye view of our progress in our update video.

Over the past month, we continued building the new bridge on Healesville-Koo Wee Rup Road. We poured 850m² of concrete to form the bridge deck, weighing in at almost 2000 tonnes. With the bridge deck now complete, we’re another step closer to a second bridge over the Princes Freeway.

We also recently completed works on Healesville-Koo Wee Rup Road between Peet Street and the Princes Freeway as part of upgrading the roundabout to a traffic light intersection. We demolished parts of the existing roundabout to build a new temporary lane that will maintain traffic flow as we continue to build the other parts of the new intersection.

On McGregor Road, we’re continuing works to build the new northbound lanes, including relocating and installing new telecommunications cables, installing new drainage, and stabilising the ground to prepare for asphalting.

Throughout March and April, we also made significant progress on the new McGregor Road Gippsland-bound freeway entry ramp. The new ramp is almost ready for asphalting and is on track to open for use in May.

Upcoming Princes Freeway weekend closure

In May, we’ll close the Gippsland-bound lanes of the Princes Freeway over a weekend to complete asphalting works between McGregor Road and Healesville-Koo Wee Rup Road. Following these works, we’ll open the new Princes Freeway outbound entry ramp at McGregor Road, completing the diamond interchange.

From 7pm Friday 3 May to 11:59pm Sunday 5 May we’ll close the Gippsland-bound lanes of the Princes Freeway between the McGregor Road and Healesville-Koo Wee Rup Road freeway ramps for 24/7 works. We’ll also close the Cardinia Road Gippsland-bound entry ramp during this time to manage traffic travelling on the freeway.

Detours will be in place via the Princes Highway, McGregor Road, Southeast Boulevard and Healesville-Koo Wee Rup Road.

Delays of up to 25 minutes are expected, depending on the time you travel and your destination. Please consider your plans during this weekend and allow for extra travel time.

These works are heavily weather-dependent. If rain is forecast, we’ll reschedule the affected closure to 7pm Friday 10 May to 5am Monday 13 May.

Please subscribe for updates to stay up to date on the latest information for these works.

Overnight freeway closures

McGregor Road’s Foam-tastic Makeover

We’re embracing innovation to reduce waste and reuse materials on the Pakenham Roads Upgrade.

We’re saving old road materials from the bin by using a method called foam bitumen stabilisation to reuse old crushed rock in building new lanes.

In this process, 58 tonnes of bitumen was injected with high-pressure water and air to create a ‘foam’. This foam was then mixed with gravel to form the different layers in the foundation of the new McGregor Road freeway entry ramp.

Over 70% of the gravel used in the bitumen stabilisation was made of old road materials removed as part of the project. By recycling old crushed rock already on the construction site using this method, we’re able to reduce the impacts of transporting and disposing of old material. The foam bitumen also replaces traditional asphalt and crushed rock in the road foundation, minimising the use of new materials for more efficient road construction.

We’ll continue to monitor the areas of the project that used foam bitumen stabilisation and share lessons learned to consider adopting this sustainable approach in future projects within the Big Build program.

Pakenham Show

The Pakenham Show saw a spectacular turnout this year, with our Big Build team having lots of conversations throughout the day with Pakenham locals about the work underway to transform your suburb. Our younger visitors showed off their creativity through colouring activities, and participated in a transport survey to tell us how they like to travel around the local area.

A huge thank you to all who joined us for a chat!

Transport survey results

How do you like to travel?

Total number of participants: 202

Easter pop up at Heritage Shopping Centre

We joined in the fun at the Heritage Shopping Centre’s Easter extravaganza, providing local shoppers with an opportunity to spin our prize wheel to win some Easter goodies and learn more about our upcoming works.

From classic Easter eggs to vouchers for our local traders, every spin won a prize, with all subscribers to our project updates eligible to try their luck.

Thank you to those who joined us at Heritage Shopping Centre to celebrate Easter and support our local traders. Congratulations to all the lucky prize winners!

Keep an eye out for our next Spin and Win promotion at Heritage Shopping Centre and please continue to support your local traders at the Heritage Shopping Centre.

Yakkerboo Festival