1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan

The 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan was a road and rail transport plan for Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia, instituted by Henry Bolte's state government. Most prominently, the plan recommended the provision of an extensive freeway network, much of which has since been built.
Despite the majority of the printed material being devoted to non-car transport, 86 per cent of the projected budget was devoted to roads and parking, with only 14 per cent to other forms of transport. The plan recommended of freeways for metropolitan Melbourne, as well as a number of railways. Of the latter, only the City Underground Loop was constructed. Proposed lines to Doncaster and Monash University (now Clayton Campus), and between Dandenong and Frankston, were never built.
The plan was described by J.M. Thompson in "Great Cities and their Traffic" as "clearly ... a highway plan, not – as it is called – a comprehensive transport plan", and by historian Graeme Davison as "the most expansive and expensive freeway experiment in Australian history".
In 1973, some freeway plans were pruned, especially those proposed for the inner city, with State Premier Rupert Hamer cancelling all the road reservations for the unbuilt urban freeways in 1976.
Some significant outer suburban freeway projects, under new branding, were built by subsequent governments, including CityLink (by the Kennett government in the 1990s), EastLink (by the Bracks government in the 2000s) and Peninsula Link (by the Napthine government in the 2010s).
Background.
The plan consisted of three volumes:
The scope of the plan specified surveys of vehicular and personal travel, transport facilities, goods movement by road and rail, and central city parking. It built on the previous major Melbourne Transport Plans:
and the minor
Goals.
The goals of the plan were to:
Funding.
The costs of the development of the plan were shared by the four participating authorities:
Minor contributions were provided by Melbourne City Council and the Transport Regulation Board.
Methodology.
The process adopted was:
Organisation.
The organisation required to develop the plan included:
Road.
The plan proposed a budget of:
Ring roads.
A North East Link between the eastern and northern ring roads was originally designed but construction has begun as of 2020 with major works to begin mid 2021.
Parking.
The plan included a proposed budget of $40 million for improvements in parking in the Melbourne central business district.
Buses.
The plan included a proposed budget $58 million for bus improvements:
Rail.
The forecast budget for railway projects was $242 million. Planned rail projects included:
Trams.
The plan included a proposed budget $55 million for 910 new trams.
See also.
Adelaide:
Hobart: