The Commonwealth Government welcomes the Victorian Government’s signing of contracts to build Melbourne’s much-needed East West Link.
The East West Link will improve productivity, decrease business costs and ease traffic congestion.
The project will ensure that people spend less time on congested roads and more time being productive or with their family.
Congestion is a massive problem for Melbourne. It erodes peoples’ quality of life, it makes travel times longer, and it undermines investment and job creation.
Stage One of the East West Link (the eastern section) will create 3,700 jobs during construction.
The project will cut travel time between the Eastern Freeway and CityLink to seven minutes and bypass 23 sets of traffic lights. It will cater for around 80,000 vehicles shortly after opening, increasing to 100,000 – 120,000 by 2031.
Anyone stuck in the daily traffic gridlock on Hoddle Street, or Flemington Road, or Alexandra Parade knows just how important this project is to Melbourne’s future road network.
Melbourne is an economic powerhouse, but it needs the infrastructure of the 21st century to continue to grow.
The Commonwealth Government is building the nationally significant infrastructure that our cities and our country needs.
The East West Link is a vital piece of infrastructure for Melbourne and for Victoria and it will only be built under Coalition Governments in Melbourne and in Canberra.
The contracts are now signed.
The time for talk is over.
The time to build the East West Link is here.
2 October 2014