Calder Highway Calder Freeway – New South Wales | |
---|---|
Calder Freeway facing Mount Macedon | |
General information | |
Type | Highway |
Length | 558 km (347 mi) [1] |
Route number(s) |
|
Former route number |
|
Major junctions | |
NW end |
Silver City Highway Curlwaa, New South Wales |
SE end |
Tullamarine Freeway Niddrie, Melbourne |
Location(s) | |
Major settlements | Mildura, Ouyen, Charlton, Bendigo, Harcourt, Malmsbury, Kyneton, Woodend, Macedon, Gisborne, Diggers Rest, Sunbury |
Highway system | |
Calder Highway is a rural highway in Australia, linking Mildura and the Victoria/New South Wales border to Bendigo, in North Central Victoria. South of Bendigo, where the former highway has been upgraded to freeway-standard, Calder Freeway links to Melbourne, subsuming former alignments of Calder Highway; the Victorian Government completed the conversion to freeway standard from Melbourne to Bendigo on 20 April 2009.
South of the Victoria/ New South Wales border the highway is a dual-lane, single-carriageway road, continuing through northwest Victoria from the Abbotsford Bridge, through Merbein to the major regional town of Mildura, where it is 2 lanes each way through southern Mildura and Irymple, in the state's north-west. Here also it crosses the Sturt Highway (A20) leading to capital cities Adelaide heading west and Sydney heading east. Further south, it crosses the Mallee Highway (B12) at Ouyen and runs south-east eventually to Bendigo. Between Red Cliffs and Wycheproof the highway has a speed limit of 110 km/h. Note that the highway is unumbered in NSW since 2013 as the Silver City Highway (B79) starts back from the Sturt Highway and joins back onto the Calder Highway at Curlwaa via Dareton.
The Calder Alternate Highway (A790) connects to the Calder Highway at either end – just north of Ravenswood, and at Marong – and provides a bypass west of Bendigo.
For most of its length from Ravenswood to the junction with the Tullamarine Freeway in Melbourne, the Calder Freeway is a four-lane dual-carriageway freeway which bypasses the towns along the former alignment of the highway.
The northern end of the freeway shares a concurrency with the Midland Highway (A300), from Bendigo until south of Harcourt, where it resumes south-westerly to the major regional centres of Castlemaine, Ballarat, and Geelong.
Towns bypassed by, but still accessible from, the Calder Freeway include Harcourt, Elphinstone, Taradale, Malmsbury, Kyneton, Woodend, Macedon, Gisborne, and Diggers Rest.
The freeway ends at the interchange with the Tullamarine Freeway, the main route to Melbourne's central business district to Melbourne Airport.
Within the urban section of the Calder Freeway (between Kings Road and the Tullamarine Freeway), the standard travel time, in each direction, is 10 minutes. (5 minutes between Kings Road and the Western Ring Road and 5 minutes between the Western Ring Road and the Tullamarine Freeway.
The passing of the Highways and Vehicles Act of 1924 [2] through the Parliament of Victoria provided for the declaration of State Highways, roads two-thirds financed by the State government through the Country Roads Board (later VicRoads). The North Western Highway was declared a State Highway on 1 July 1925, [3] cobbled from a collection of roads from Melbourne through Kyneton, Castlemaine, Bendigo, Sea Lake and Ouyen to Mildura (for a total of 324 miles); before this declaration, the road between Melbourne and Bendigo was referred to as (Main) Bendigo Road or Melbourne–Bendigo Road. [4]
The North-Western Highway was renamed the Calder Highway in 1928, after William Calder, chairman of the Country Roads Board from 1913–28. [5] In the 1959/60 financial year, another section from Elphinstone to Harcourt was added as a deviation bypassing Castlemaine, along the former Elphinstone–Harcourt Road [6] (already having been declared a Main Road by the Country Roads Board in 1937/38 financial year [7]); the previous alignments of the Calder Highway from Elphinstone to Castlemaine, and Castlemaine to Harcourt, were subsumed into the Pyrenees Highway and Midland Highway respectively. The Calder Alternative Highway was declared in June 1983, along the former Ravenswood–Marong Road. [8] [9]
The Calder Highway was later signed National Route 79 in 1955; when the Midland Highway was allocated State Route 149 in 1986, it shared a concurrency along the Calder Highway between Harcourt and Bendigo. With Victoria's conversion to the newer alphanumeric system in the late 1990s this was altered to an A79 designation for the highway portion, and a M79 designation for the freeway portion into Melbourne (and the concurrency with Midland Highway was replaced with route A300); the New South Wales section was left unallocated when they switched to the alphanumeric system in 2013. Calder Alternative Highway was signed Alternative National Route 79 between Ravenswood and Marong, and was later replaced by route A790.
Originally, the Calder Highway ran through northwestern Melbourne as an undivided highway, ultimately through Niddrie as Keilor Road and terminating in Essendon; traffic continued south along Mount Alexander Road to reach central Melbourne. Keilor Road – already heavily congested and supporting a tram line – was eventually bypassed by a freeway-standard road in 1972 to terminate at a junction with Lancefield Road (later upgraded to the Tullamarine Freeway), rejoining the Calder Highway at the western end of Niddrie; [10] the freeway-standard was extended further west to East Keilor (the future location of the Western Ring Road interchange) in 1975, and to Keilor by the early 1980s. However, it was not until the 1990s that work began to duplicate the rest of the highway to Bendigo.
The Howard government broadened the criteria under which roads qualify for Commonwealth road funding by introducing Roads of National Importance program in the 1996–97 financial year [11] where such declarations were based on the recognition that roads outside the National Highway system also provide social benefits, and were funded jointly with the States and Territories usually on a 50:50 basis. As a major road link between Melbourne, Bendigo, and the state's northwest, supporting the region's primary manufacturing and tourism industries, the Calder Highway was declared a Road of National Importance between Melbourne and Bendigo in December 1996. [12] [13]
The passing of the Road Management Act 2004 [14] granted the responsibility of overall management and development of Victoria's major arterial roads to VicRoads: in 2004, VicRoads re-declared the road as Calder Alternative Highway (Arterial #6200) between Ravenswood and Marong, [15] and in 2011 as Calder Highway (Arterial #6530) between the border with New South Wales at Yelta and the interchange with Calder Alternate Highway and Ravenswood Street in Ravenswood, [16] and as Calder Freeway (Freeway #1530) between Ravenswood and Tullamarine Freeway, Airport West. [17]
The Calder Highway between the Melton Highway and the Western Ring Road is shown in the 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan as part of the F4 Freeway corridor, which extends past the Tullamarine Freeway and Bell Street to Templestowe.[ citation needed]
In 2008, VicRoads completed the widening of the Calder Freeway from the Western Ring Road to Melton Highway. The road was widened from 2 lanes each direction to 3 lanes in each direction. The speed limit was reduced permanently from 100 km/h to 80 km/h. [39] The 80 km/h limit applies northbound from Keilor Park Drive to Melton Highway, [40] and southbound it applies from the Green Gully Road bridge to just prior to the Western Ring Road interchange. In October 2010, it was announced that as part of a year long trial, the speed limit on this section of freeway will be increased back to 100 km/h in off-peak times (8pm-5am), with 30 variable speed limits to be installed along the stretch of freeway[ citation needed]. A further upgrade completed in 2012 resulted in a new interchange at Kings Road (the freeways's urban / metropolitan limits) and closure of three at grade intersections in the area. Despite these upgrades the 80 km/h speed limit remained in place.
State | LGA | Location [1] [16] [17] | km [1] | mi | Destinations | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
New South Wales | Wentworth | Curlwaa | 565 | 351 | Silver City Highway (B79) – Buronga, Wentworth, Broken Hill | Northern terminus of highway |
Murray River | 564.5 | 350.8 | Abbotsford Bridge | |||
State border | 564 | 350 | New South Wales – Victoria state border | |||
Victoria | Mildura | Yelta | Calder Highway – Curlwaa | Northern terminus of route A79 | ||
Merbein | 553.5 | 343.9 | Ranfurly Way (C256) – Mildura | |||
Mildura | 544 | 338 | Sturt Highway (A20) – Renmark, Adelaide | Concurrency with route A20 | ||
541 | 336 | Sturt Highway (A20) – Mildura, Balranald, Sydney | ||||
539 | 335 | Benetook Avenue – Buronga | ||||
Red Cliffs | 526 | 327 | Millewa Road – Werrimull, Meringur | |||
525 | 326 | Kulkyne Way – Colignan | ||||
Hattah | 476 | 296 | Hattah–Robinvale Road (C252) – Robinvale | |||
Ouyen | 440.8 | 273.9 | Mallee Highway (B12) – Piangil, Swan Hill, Balranald, Sydney | Concurrency with route B12 | ||
440.7 | 273.8 | Mallee Highway (B12) – Pinnaroo, Murray Bridge, Adelaide | ||||
430 | 270 | Sunraysia Highway (B220) – Birchip, Horsham, St Arnaud, Ballarat | ||||
Buloke | Bimbourie | 371 | 231 | Patchewollock–Sea Lake Road (C248) – Patchewollock | ||
Sea Lake | 356 | 221 | Robinvale–Sea Lake Road (C251) – Robinvale | |||
352 | 219 | Sea Lake–Swan Hill Road (C246) – Swan Hill | Concurrency with route C246 | |||
351.5 | 218.4 | Birchip–Sea Lake Road (C246) – Woomelang, Birchip | ||||
Dumosa | 291 | 181 | Donald–Swan Hill Road (C261) – Swan Hill, Donald | |||
Wycheproof | 276 | 171 | Birchip–Wycheproof Road (C268) – Birchip | |||
275 | 171 | Boort–Wycheproof Road (C267) – Boort | ||||
Wycheproof South | 269 | 167 | St Arnaud–Wycheproof Road (C271) – St Arnaud | |||
Charlton | 246 | 153 | Borung Highway (C239) – Donald | |||
245 | 152 | Charlton–St Arnaud Road (C272) – St Arnaud | ||||
244 | 152 | Boort–Charlton Road (C266) – Boort, Kerang | ||||
Loddon | Wedderburn | 213.7 | 132.8 | Boort–Wedderburn Road (C273) – Boort, Kerang | Concurrency with route C273 | |
213.5 | 132.7 | Logan–Wedderburn Road (C273) – Logan, St Arnaud | ||||
Bridgewater | 178 | 111 | Bridgewater–Dunolly Road (C274 south) –
Dunolly,
Maryborough Bridgewater–Serpentine Road (C274 north) – Serpentine, Kerang | |||
177 | 110 | Bridgewater–Maldon Road (C282) – Maldon, Castlemaine | ||||
Greater Bendigo | Marong | 155 | 96 | Calder Alternative Highway (A790) – Ravenswood, to Wimmera Highway – St Arnaud, Horsham | ||
Golden Square | 155 | 96 | Golden Square–Long Gully Road (C323) – Golden Square, Long Gully, Eaglehawk | |||
Ironbark | 153 | 95 | Loddon Valley Highway (B260) – Eaglehawk, Kerang | |||
152.4 | 94.7 | Eaglehawk Road – White Hills, Echuca, Shepparton | ||||
Bendigo | 150 | 93 | Don Street (A79 north) –
Marong High Street ( Midland Highway) (A79 west/A300 west, east) – Bendigo city centre Myrtle Street (C331 south) – Quarry Hill, Flora Hill | Calder Highway continues north along Don Street, west along High Street Northern terminus of concurrency with route A300 | ||
Golden Square | 147.4 | 91.6 | Oak Street (Bendigo ring route) (C323 north/C353 south) – Long Gully, Eaglehawk, Quarry Hill, Strathdale | |||
Kangaroo Flat | 145 | 90 | Bendigo–Maryborough Road (C277) – Maryborough | |||
Ravenswood | 0 | 0.0 | Calder Alternative Highway (A790 northwest) – Marong, Mildura | Continues north as Calder Highway (route A79), south as Calder Freeway (route M79) | ||
Mount Alexander | Ravenswood South– Harcourt North boundary | 8.1 | 5.0 | Harmony Way –
Harcourt,
Elphinstone Fogartys Gap Road (west) – Maldon | At-grade intersection | |
Barkers Creek– Harcourt boundary | 13.9 | 8.6 | Midland Highway (A300 south-west) – Harcourt, Castlemaine, Ballarat | Southern terminus of concurrency with route A300 | ||
Elphinstone | 26.4 | 16.4 | Pyrenees Highway (B180) – Castlemaine, Metcalfe | |||
Macedon Ranges | Malmsbury | 41.1 | 25.5 | Old Calder Highway (C794) –
Malmsbury,
Taradale,
Elphinstone Malmsbury East Road (east) – Greenhill | ||
Kyneton | 44.3 | 27.5 | Burton Avenue (C793) – Kyneton | At-grade intersection | ||
49.4 | 30.7 | Edgecombe Road (C326 north) – Kyneton, Heathcote | ||||
51.4 | 31.9 | Bourke Street (C793 west) –
Kyneton Trio Road (east) – Carlsruhe | North west bound exit and south east bound entrance only | |||
Carlsruhe | 56.5 | 35.1 | Springvale Road – Carlsruhe | |||
Woodend North | 60.1 | 37.3 | Macedon–Woodend Road (C792) – Woodend | South-eastbound exit and north west bound entrance only | ||
Woodend | 64.9 | 40.3 | Lancefield–Woodend Road (C324) – Lancefield, Woodend | |||
Macedon | 72.3 | 44.9 | Macedon–Woodend Road (C792) – Macedon, Woodend | |||
78.3 | 48.7 | Mount Macedon Road (C322 northeast) –
Mount Macedon Macedon–Woodend Road (C792 northwest) – Macedon | North-westbound exit and south east bound entrance only | |||
Gisborne– New Gisborne boundary | 80.7 | 50.1 | Station Road (C708 north/C791 south) – Riddells Creek, Gisborne, Bacchus Marsh, Melton | |||
Gisborne | 83.6 | 51.9 | Melbourne Road (C791 west) –
Gisborne Emmeline Drive (east) – Gisborne East | |||
Macedon Ranges– Hume boundary | Gisborne South– Sunbury boundary | 89.7 | 55.7 | Couangalt Road (west) –
Gisborne South Mundy Road (east) – Sunbury | ||
Hume– Melton boundary | Sunbury– Diggers Rest boundary | 94.7 | 58.8 | Gap Road (C707) – Sunbury | ||
99.6 | 61.9 | Vineyard Road (C706) – Sunbury, Diggers Rest | ||||
Diggers Rest | 102.8 | 63.9 | Bulla–Diggers Rest Road – Bulla, Diggers Rest | |||
Brimbank | Calder Park– Keilor North boundary | 106.2– 107.1 | 66.0– 66.5 | Holden Road (west) – Toolern Vale | North-westbound exit and entrance only; north west bound and south east bound access to service centres | |
108.0 | 67.1 | Organ Pipes Road – Organ Pipes National Park | At-grade intersection | |||
108.8 | 67.6 | Calder Park Drive – Calder Park | North-eastbound exit and entrance only | |||
Keilor North– Taylors Lakes boundary | 110.6 | 68.7 | Kings Road (Metro Route 77) – Taylors Lakes, Deer Park, Laverton | |||
Keilor North– Keilor Lodge boundary | 112.5 | 69.9 | Sunshine Avenue (Metro Route 41) – Taylors Lakes | North-eastbound exit and entrance only | ||
Keilor | 113.8 | 70.7 | Melton Highway (C754) – Taylors Lakes, Melton | Partial Y interchange: north east bound exit and south-westbound entrance only | ||
115.5 | 71.8 | Green Gully Road (Metro Route 40 south) –
Keilor,
St Albans Arundel Road (north) – Tullamarine | North-westbound exit and south east bound entrance only | |||
Keilor Park– Keilor East boundary | 117.8 | 73.2 | Keilor Park Drive (Metro Route 39), to Western Ring Road (M80) – Keilor Park, Avondale Heights, Avalon Airport | No north west bound exit | ||
118.7 | 73.8 | Western Ring Road (M80) – Seymour, Geelong, Ballarat, Melbourne and Avalon Airports | Partial
turbine interchange North-westbound exit to Western Ring Road south-westbound, north-westbound entrance from Western Ring Road south-westbound only South-eastbound exit to Western Ring Road north-eastbound, south-eastbound entrance from Western Ring Road north-eastbound Access from north west bound exit to Keilor Park Drive | |||
Moonee Valley | Keilor East– Airport West boundary | 119.6 | 74.3 | Woorite Place – Keilor East, Airport West | North-westbound exit and south east bound entrance only | |
Airport West– Niddrie boundary | 120.6 | 74.9 | Fullarton Road (south) –
Niddrie McNamara Avenue – Airport West | North-eastbound entrance and exit only | ||
120.9 | 75.1 | Keilor Road – Niddrie | South-westbound entrance and exit only | |||
121.3 | 75.4 | Bulla Road (Metro Route 37) – Essendon | South-westbound exit and north east bound entrance only | |||
Airport West–Niddrie– Essendon Fields– Essendon North quadripoint | 122.2 | 75.9 | Tullamarine Freeway (M2) – Melbourne | Partial Y interchange: eastbound exit and westbound entrance only | ||
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