After almost seven long years plagued by delays and multibillion-dollar blowouts, the West Gate Tunnel Project is nearly complete.
The state government and Transurban say their new toll road will open by the end of the year, promising motorists faster trips from the western suburbs to the city and fewer trucks on local roads.
The wooden “fish net” at the Yarraville entrance to the West Gate Tunnel. Credit: Simon Schluter
With almost nine kilometres of elevated carriageways and a spaghetti junction of overpasses on the CBD’s western edge, it might be difficult to imagine the project will ever rank alongside Flinders Street Station or the Arts Centre spire as one of the city’s architectural icons.
But Major Road Projects Victoria acting chief executive Paul Roth says he hopes Melburnians will be impressed by the project’s many bold design choices that give subtle – and often not-so-subtle – nods to the city’s history and natural and built environment.
“There is a responsibility when you’re building this large-scale infrastructure to make sure that it’s got an appropriate level of urban design to sit comfortably within the landscape,” he says. “You don’t want to go over the top. But nor do you want to build a highly utilitarian, plain concrete box that’s sitting in really stark contrast to the city that it’s meant to be a part of. ”
The Age visited the project to preview what motorists will see when they use the road.
Entering the fish nets
Motorists entering and exiting the twin four-kilometre tunnels beneath Yarraville will pass under huge wooden arches spanning each of the three portals.
The largest, at the northern entrance in Yarraville, is 38 metres high and wide and consists of 364 laminated timber beams.
Roth says the timber “nets” were inspired by Indigenous Victorians’ fishing nets, while the wooden beams also invoke the planks of a jetty in a nod to the inner-west’s maritime history.
The Yarraville entrance to the West Gate Tunnel. Credit: Simon Schluter
Behind the nets, massive ventilation stacks are being clad with silver panels and loom on the horizon like a shark fin rising from the sea.
Roth says the nets, designed by local firm Wood Marsh, serve to help filter sunlight to ease the transition for drivers’ eyes as they emerge from the tunnel. “A lot of the elements are actually that combination of form and function.”
Fish skin bridges
Three new bridges span the Maribyrnong River at Yarraville, providing an alternative to the West Gate Bridge and a connection for trucks to the Port of Melbourne.
The main bridge spans 760 metres and rises to connect with the elevated carriageway above Footscray Road. It’s been covered with 630 curved fibreglass panels, studded with hundreds of colourful inlays.
The colourful bridge over the Maribyrnong invokes fish scales.Credit: Simon Schluter
From afar, the bridge summons up the shimmering scales of a fish, swimming in or out of the wooden net. The vibrant coloured panels also speak to the hundreds of multicoloured shipping containers visible on nearby docks.
At certain times of day, sunlight beams through the two transparent top rows and projects colourful frames of light onto the asphalt, like a cathedral’s stained-glass windows.
Melted cheese lightsabers
Workers on the project call them “the lightsabers”. The tallest is 14 metres high, and when they light up at night, the Star Wars comparison is undeniable.
More than 100 orange poles bookend the start and end of the project, with one set on the ramp in West Melbourne that connects to CityLink and another at the M80 interchange in Altona North.
The orange poles are a homage to CityLink’s Cheese Stick.Credit: Simon Schluter
Roth says the orange poles are a homage to one of Melbourne’s most divisive landmarks: the Melbourne International Gateway beside CityLink (better known by locals as The Cheese Stick, and its accompanying red posts, the Zippers). “The orange is a melding of the red and the yellow of those two elements,” he explains.
The poles angle back from the roadside, mirroring the slant of the Cheese Stick as well as the roofs of the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre and Melbourne Museum.
The Cheese Stick and the Zippers on CityLink. Credit: Paul Rovere
“It’s a design language that gives you a sense of familiarity,” Roth says.
He says the poles and other design elements act as landmarks to help drivers orient themselves, much like the Cheese Stick and the Bolte Bridge’s twin towers do.
“The West Gate Tunnel Project itself will be a very new driving environment,” he says, “so you’d like to give drivers a sense of confidence that they’re in the right place.”
Noise walls
Almost nine kilometres of noise walls have been erected alongside the West Gate Freeway to dull the increased traffic noise on residents after the project widened the road from eight lanes to 12.
The wavy noise walls reflect the journey towards the Surf Coast. Credit: Joe Armao
At up to nine metres high, the walls are topped with undulating blue and green transparent panels, reflecting the journey from the western suburbs towards the rolling hills and beaches of the Surf Coast.
The noise walls in Yarraville. Credit: Joe Armao
Veloway
One part of the project that is already open is a cycling and pedestrian bridge over Footscray Road in Docklands. Eventually, it will link up to a 2.5-kilometre “veloway” bolted under the elevated road all the way back to Footscray.
Roth acknowledges the veloway – which is a vivid, some might even say lurid, bright green – won’t be to everyone’s taste.
The Docklands bike bridge will link with a “veloway” all the way back to Footscray. Credit: Joe Armao
“When you make bold choices … for every person that loves it, you’ll find a person that hates it. The risk of having too much regard to that is that you end up with something very boring and homogenous,” he says. “I think that’s what makes the city so interesting.”
Transurban successfully pitched the West Gate Tunnel to the Andrews government in 2014. Major construction started in early 2018 and was supposed to be finished by September 2022.
The elevated lanes above Footscray Road leading towards the CBD. Credit: Simon Schluter
But the project was plagued by the discovery of toxic soil and a legal stand-off between the state government, Transurban and the project’s builders, contributing to delays and a $3.4 billion budget blowout.
The toll road’s opening date has not been announced. But the state government insists motorists will be able to use the West Gate Tunnel before the end of the year. The toll price will start at a $4.09 a car.
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