North East Link options reveal new road could cost as much as...

North East Link options reveal new road could cost as much as $23 billion

• Clay Lucas
  
  

Four options for Melbourne's latest proposed tollroad, the North East Link, have been released, with one route set to cost as much as $23 billion.
Premier Daniel Andrews on Monday released the options for the North East Link, a tollroad to link the Metropolitan Ring Road in Greensborough with either the Eastern Freeway or EastLink.

An image of the proposed North East Link tunnel, released by the government. Photo: North East Link Authority
But the premier was quiet on how much it would set the taxpayer back.
"It's a bit early for us to be talking about final costs," Mr Andrews said.

"Any of these options will involve significant stretches of tunnel."

All options will link up with the Metropolitan Ring Road in Greensborough.

The options are:

1. Travels directly south through Heidelberg and Bulleen to the Eastern Freeway. It would be 11 kilometres in length and include a tunnel up to four kilometres long.
2. Follows power transmission lines through Greensborough and Lower Plenty and links to the Ringwood Bypass. This 24-kilometre link would have tunnels for almost three quarters of its length.
3. Extends along an existing freeway reservation in Eltham North and passes through sensitive green wedge land in Eltham and Warrandyte. The 26-kilometre route would have almost half its length in a tunnel.
4. Also extends along an existing freeway reservation in Eltham North but then forges a new 40-kilometre loop through sensitive environmental and heritage areas in Kangaroo Ground and the Bend of Islands, before meeting EastLink in Wantirna. Almost half would be in tunnels.

The first option through Heidelberg and Bulleen was selected by then roads minister Tim Pallas in 2008 as the route for the road. At the time, Mr Pallas said this option would cost $6 billion.
But on Monday, Mr Andrews declined to put a price tag on any of the options, other than he expected it to cost "around $10 billion".
This would likely rule out all but the most direct option via Heidelberg and Bulleen.
Figures presented at a press briefing by the North East Link Authority did not put a specific price tag on each route, but based on the authority's per-kilometre costs, the final option via Kangaroo Ground could cost between $18 billion and $23 billion.
Last week, government agencies briefed affected parties that the price tag for any of the tollroad options ranged from $6 billion to $16 billion.
Labor MPs from Melbourne's north whose seats cover the areas the four options run through – Anthony Carbines, Vicki Ward and Danielle Green - declined to say which corridor options they preferred, arguing the ultimate design should be up to the community.
Opposition leader Matthew Guy said the Coalition supported building the North East Link, and that option A, between Greensborough and Bulleen, appeared to be "the most sensible" route.
It would wait to see the final costings and environmental impacts of the four proposed routes before making a call, he said.
But Mr Guy said it was folly to build a road that would "funnel 100,000 vehicles a day onto the Eastern Freeway" without also building the East West Link.
"There is no use building a North East Link if you don't have an answer for the end of the Eastern Freeway — you'll just create a north-east car park," Mr Guy said.
Reviving the East West Link remains the Coalition's first priority, he said, although the Coalition would consider building it and the North East Link in tandem.
Opposition Roads spokesman Ryan Smith said Labor had condemned the eastern suburbs to stew in congestion by scrapping the East West Link, and its promise to build the North East Link in isolation could make things even worse.
"It would be laughable if it wasn't so serious to think that, just three years ago, $1.2 billion was spent to scrap an important part of the road network, and just a year out from an election the premier is now asking Victorians to trust him to build this important piece," Ms Smith said.
The Andrews government's first major act upon taking power was to cancel the $6.8 billion East West Link project, which would have connected the end of the Eastern Freeway in Clifton Hill with CityLink in Parkville.
Cancelling the contract cost the state more than $1 billion.
More than 200 homes and business premises were compulsorily acquired to make way for the road, only to be put on the market again by the Andrews government.
Mr Guy would not say on Monday if the road would follow the same route, and require the same acquisitions as last time.
"You'll see that closer to the time, we're not going to go through that," he said.
One group vowing to fight the two options starting in Eltham North is the Eltham Community Action Group.
Spokesman John Graves is an engineer who worked for VicRoads for 34 years before retiring in 2012.
Mr Graves, also a former mayor of the Eltham area, said it was crucial no freeway cut through green-wedge areas as both of these options would.
"If the North East Link cuts [through] the green wedge, the pressure on increasing development will be very strong," he said.
"In effect the size of the green wedge and its capacity to continue as the 'lungs' of Melbourne would be diminished or destroyed."

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/n...st-as-much-as-20-billion-20170807-gxqp6s.html