CityLink
CityLink is a freeway linking project in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, built by TransUrban. It includes two tolled freeways, which combined join up with existing freeways to provide a continuous high-traffic road route, to, and around, the central business district.Previously, the city centre was served by four freeways:
- The Monash Freeway started approximately 10km south-east of the city, and headed towards the Gippsland area
- The Tullamarine Freeway started approximately 10km north of the city, and went towards the airport, as well as joining to the Calder Freeway which goes towards Bendigo
- The West Gate Freeway started near Port Melbourne, just south of the CBD, and went in a westerly direction, across the West Gate Bridge and soon joining both the Princes Freeway, which goes towards Geelong, and the Western Ring Road (which eventually rejoins the Calder Freeway, after taking a large detour away from the city)
- The Eastern Freeway started near Collingwood, connecting the eastern suburbs to the suburbs north east of the CBD. Motorists could reach the CBD from there via a variety of access routes. The Eastern Freeway currently extends past Heidelberg and Doncaster to Blackburn North and Donvale. The controversial Scoresby Freeway project would see it extended to Ringwood, with the Scoresby Freeway eventually connecting it to the Monash Freeway and Frankston.
Former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett publically suggested a second northern tunnel to connect the Eastern Freeway to the Tullamarine Freeway, this road seems unlikely to be built in the foreseeable future. However, his government did upgrade Victoria Pde., a major Eastern Freeway feeder road.
In total it includes 22 km of freeway roads, construction of two tunnels (the Burnley Tunnel and the Domain Tunnel) under the Yarra on the southern link road, and the construction of another bridge (the Bolte Bridge) over the Yarra, part of the western link road.
CityLink uses a toll system called e-TAG, where an electronic tag is placed on the inside of the vehicles' windscreen. Toll sensors along the route automatically track the vehicles, and deduct toll amounts automatically. Where a tag is not detected, the cars' number plate is recorded and the driver is billed via the transport registry in his/her state. CityLink has a variety of pricing plans for frequent users and business (fleet) users of the tollways.
The system came under fire in 2003 where it was found tags did not warn drivers when their batteries were running low, and non-functioning batteries caused the e-TAG's not to register with the toll sensors.
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