Common Urban Myths About Transport

Myth: The purpose of freeways is to bypass congested areas

Fact: Whatever is said about them before they’re built, after they are built all freeways act as feeders for local commuter traffic, most of which is headed to or toward the city centre.

In the 1960s, far from denying that freeways were intended for central city commuters, road planners positively drooled over the fact:

For example, a trip from Frankston to the CBD by the shortest route in 1964 would have taken 62 minutes but in 1985, with the proposed freeway system in operation, this time would be reduced to about 39 minutes. Other examples would be 19 minutes instead of 32 to go from Tullamarine to the CBD and 29 minutes instead of 42 to go from Eltham to Dandenong East.
---Melbourne Transportation Plan, 1969

In 1974, however, a study by the Commonwealth Bureau of Roads recommended that radial freeways should not be provided, particularly if the journey to work in the [central area] is their principal justification. In 1982, the newly elected Labor State Government reaffirmed this ban. Public transport had a ‘natural advantage’ in conveying people to the city centre, and it was pointless building freeways to undermine this, particularly since the CBD has no capacity to absorb the resulting traffic.

The response of the road planners was to rechristen their proposed freeways as bypass roads. The Tullamarine Freeway Extension was renamed the Western Bypass, the Lower Yarra Freeway became the Southern Bypass; part of the Eastern Freeway Extension was renamed the Ringwood Bypass.

More recently we’ve seen a portion of the Dingley Freeway dubbed the Springvale Bypass, and two ‘missing links’ in the Princes Freeway renamed as the Hallam and Pakenham Bypasses. Even the freeway just driven through the centre of Albury was described as an internal bypass!

But these roads are not bypass routes; they remain the central city access routes they were originally intended to be. Take Citylink, for example: it was (and sometimes still is) claimed to be a bypass of the CBD, linking traffic between the south-east and north-west without adding to congestion in the inner suburbs. Yet as The Age economics editor Tim Colebatch reports:

Traffic studies show only 10 per cent of peak-hour traffic on the Monash Freeway at Dandenong heads for the Burnley Tunnel, and only 12 per cent of vehicles crossing West Gate Bridge go on to the tunnel.
---"Citylink deal might yet be an earner", The Age, 13 June 2006

Occasionally, the fictional nature of the ‘bypass’ theory slips out in other ways.

Example 1: VicRoads told a 1990 inquiry that the extension of the Eastern Freeway would be of greater assistance to the circumferential movement of traffic around Melbourne than a generator of traffic to the inner areas. But with the election of the pro-freeway Kennett Government, VicRoads changed its story, saying the extension was to improve....access between the central employment region, regional centres and the eastern / north-eastern regional population areas.
Example 2: When the Tullamarine Freeway Extension’s name was changed to the Western Bypass, VicRoads claimed the road was mainly for trucks seeking access to the Dynon freight centre. But when the first plan appeared in 1987, the exit ramps at Dynon Road pointed south toward the City, not west toward the freight centre. When this was pointed out, VicRoads hastily added some ramps pointing to the freight centre!
Example 3: Because Citylink was sold to the public as a bypass that would help keep cars out of the CBD, the original plans did not include the connection of Batman Avenue to Exhibition Street. But after the project was approved in 1996 the road lobby wasted no time getting this link included. This provided an entirely new route funnelling car traffic directly into the CBD, and helped greatly in switching the travel habits of CBD visitors from a majority by public transport in 1996, to a majority by car a few years later.
Example 4: Even before completion of the so-called ‘Pakenham Bypass’, there were calls for a new road to bypass the town of Koo-Wee-Rup 15 kilometres away. People in Koo-Wee-Rup quite rightly perceived that the ‘bypass’ would be used as a radial city access route not only by Pakenham commuters but also by those from South Gippsland (where the Government has ruled out restoring rail services). With the ‘bypass’ now in place, the RACV has also highlighted the further road upgrades it believes the ‘bypass’ has made necessary.

Township committee president Ray Brown said cars were clogging up the town centre and the situation would get worse once the Pakenham Bypass was finished in 2007.
"Once this (Pakenham) bypass is built things will only get worse. This is the only route between South Gippsland Highway and the bypass."
Cardinia Shire agrees, and last week named duplication of the road number one in a list of 10 issues to lobby candidates for next year’s State elections.
---"Traders in bypass push", Pakenham Cardinia Leader, 28 September 2005

The need [for upgrades] is already apparent with roads such as Kooweerup Road experiencing significant traffic growth and deterioration since the completion of Pakenham Bypass.
---Brian Negus (RACV), Berwick & District Journal, 15 September 2008

Community leaders in Deer Park are similarly sceptical about the ability of their ‘bypass’ to take traffic off other roads.

Deer Park resident and former Sunshine Mayor Bernard Reilly....said the Deer Park bypass would not make a significant difference to Deer Park’s traffic problem because not everyone would use it. For those who did use the bypass, it would just push the traffic further back up the Ring Road, he said.
---Blast at ‘empty’ transport claim, Brimbank Leader, 25 April 2006

The most celebrated recent case of the ‘bypass’ myth is the Geelong Ring Road. Claimed by the road lobby to be a bypass route for freight and tourist traffic between Melbourne and the southern side of Geelong, its real purpose is to facilitate old-fashioned urban sprawl. Witness the glee displayed by local real estate agents after the funding announcement:

NEW suburbs may be created as commuters rush to be near Geelong’s ring road, real estate agents said yesterday. Herne Hill, Lovely Banks, Wandana Heights, Queens Park and even Bannockburn will become Geelong’s new boom areas, with the road putting them within an hour of Melbourne. Agent Robert Creece said the boom would be so big that areas would be renamed as houses sprung up....
Hocking Stuart principal Marcus Falconer said the road would create a new property boom for Geelong. It is just going to go through the roof, Mr Falconer said. It will quite quickly link Geelong to Melbourne, it will be a lot closer to the CBD and people will consider Geelong as an alternative place to live. Mr Falconer said travel times from southern Geelong to Melbourne CBD would become comparable to those from Melbourne’s far eastern and northern suburbs....
Hayden Real Estate Grovedale sales manager Tim Darcy said it would enhance real estate activity in areas close to the road.
---Geelong Advertiser, 9 June 2004

Even Vicroads admits that the ‘bypass’ will not solve traffic congestion on major Geelong roads like Latrobe Terrace. In April 2005, in a panel hearing on the removal of a heritage overlay to allow construction of a left turn slip lane in Latrobe Terrace, Vicroads said that while there is likely to be a reduction of up to 17% in traffic volumes in Latrobe Tce immediately on the completion of the Bypass, the traffic will return to its pre-Bypass levels in a relatively short space of time.

The secret is out: the Geelong ‘bypass’ is just another radial commuter route to the Melbourne CBD, duplicating and undermining patronage on the Geelong train line. Rather than remove traffic from the parallel highway as hoped, it will simply add new traffic of its own, leaving Geelong with a traffic problem twice as bad as now. Had the truth about this road been known at the start, it would never have seemed so deserving of a billion dollars of government funding!

Last but not least, the same story is even now playing out in Melbourne’s south with the $700 million Frankston ‘Bypass’. Again, this is not its original name - for years, it has appeared in the Melway as the Mornington Peninsula Freeway. As such, it was always planned as a radial commuter freeway to help extend urban sprawl to the Peninsula. And once again, local real estate agents have given the game away:

Mt Martha real estate agent Jim Arvanitakis expects the bypass to make the Peninsula more attractive to home buyers. The Harcourts director, who has worked in Mt Martha for seven years, said the reduced travel time to the CBD would continue to push the region’s credentials as a place to call home...
For years the Mornington Peninsula has been seen as a place for the holiday house, Mr Arvanitakis said. But this will encourage people to think of the area not just as a holiday destination. The more people who consider the peninsula as a place for residence, the more pressure there will be on prices, so they can only go up.
---Residents’ thumbs up for Frankston bypass, Herald Sun, 17 October 2008

The conclusion is clear. So called ‘bypass’ roads are never intended simply to shift existing traffic out of congested areas. Like all freeways, they are there to create new traffic, and to maintain the level of congestion rather than reduce it. After they are built, all these ‘bypass’ roads function as the radial commuter freeways they always were. All of them fulfil their unstated objective of extending urban sprawl, and undermining the already inadequate public transport that exists (and which could have been improved for a fraction of the cost of the ‘bypass’).

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Last modified: 17 October 2008