South Gippsland Freeway

South Gippsland Freeway
Basic data
Operator:	VicRoads
Start of the street:	Monash Freeway Doveton ( Dandenong ) ( VIC ) ( 37 ° 59 ′  S , 145 ° 15 ′  E )
End of street:	M780 Westernport Highway Lyndhurst ( Dandenong ) ( VIC ) ( 38 ° 2 ′  S , 145 ° 15 ′  E )
Overall length:	6 km
States :	Victoria

 Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap

The South Gippsland Freeway is a short stretch of freeway in the south of the Australian state of Victoria . It connects the Monash Freeway in Doveton ( Dandenong ) with the Westernport Highway and the South Gippsland Highway in Lyndhurst (Dandenong). This creates the connection between Melbourne and the destinations in the southeast of the state, such as the Mornington Peninsula and southern Gippsland .

history

This freeway was originally the remainder of a change in plan to the Mulgrave Freeway (now the Monash Freeway (M1)) in 1970 The Mulgrave Freeway made a wide curve to the south, crossed Eumemmerring Creek in Doveton and officially ended on the Princes Highway (A1) just southeast of Dandenong. This connection was later redesigned into a real underpass and the freeway was unofficially extended a further kilometer to the south, under the Princes Highway and along the eastern border of what was then the Holden factory in Melbourne. It ended at the junction of the South Gippsland Highway (M420) and Pound Road .

A few years later, this stretch of highway was revised due to the intensive use and extended by another kilometer towards Lyndhurst . The old route of the South Gippsland Highway was expanded to four lanes and brought to freeway standard. A new route of the South Gippsland Highway was built about one kilometer west of the freeway, the Pound Road were extended a few hundred meters to the west with a new bridge over the freeway and Dandenong received connections to the freeway. The intersection of the new South Gippsland Highway, the Freeway and Lyndhurst Road (soon to be renamed Hastings Dandenong Road ) was rearranged so that the freeway continued southwards over an overpass over the new South Gippsland Highway. If you wanted to use the highway to Cranbourne or further southeast, you simply had to take the exit.

The section of the freeway between Eumemmerring Creek and Princes Highway was originally called the Mulgrave Freeway , but there were plans to extend the freeway to the southeast towards Beaconsfield . Therefore, in the early 1980s, the section of the Mulgrave Freeway south of Eumemmerring Creek was renamed 'South Gippsland Freeway', which extended it about 1 km to the north.

By 1988, the Mulgrave Freeway (then renamed South Eastern Arterial Road ) was gradually extended and then connected to create a freeway connection for Dandenong. So the South East Arterial Road - and thus also the South Gippsland Highway - was more frequented. Little was done to improve the situation on the freeway itself, especially on the Doveton stretch of road where traffic increased as many drivers wanted to drive east of Dandenong on the Princes Highway. When the entire South Eastern Arterial Road was designated as State Road 1 (S1) (later M1), this section of the route was also affected. The remainder of the road south of the Princes Highway to Hastings Dandenong Road has been designated State Route 65 (S65). The bridge over the intersection at Lyndhurst was expanded to four lanes in the early 1990s without causing any major fuss, which in turn increased the volume of traffic, especially due to articulated trucks. The Dandenong Hastings Road was again renamed Westernport Highway in order to take into account the larger freight volume towards Western Port and later to be able to expand the road to four lanes .

A few years later, the state road signs on the freeway were removed because Victoria introduced the alphanumeric street sign system. The freeway was now numbered M420, as was the South Gippsland Highway southeast of the Lyndhurst junction. The Westernport Highway was named A780. The northern section was still designated as M1 until the South Eastern Arterial Road was renamed the Monash Freeway and was extended to the southeast on the planned route (Hallam Bypass) to Berwick in 2003 . The northern section of the route was then also numbered M420.

In 2010 the connection to Pound Road was expanded; a four-lane bridge was built over the freeway with traffic light-controlled connections to the freeway. This work was completed in 2011.

Crossings and junctions

South Gippsland Freeway
Connections to the north	Distance to Melbourne (km)	Distance to Hastings (km)	Connections to the south
End South Gippsland Freeway continues as Monash Freeway to Melbourne	36	38	Start of the South Gippsland Freeway from the Monash Freeway
Warragul to Traralgon via Dandenong Freeway to Berwick Princes Highway	38	36	Berwick , Dandenong Princes Highway
RAILWAY LINE TO GIPPSLAND	39	35	RAILWAY LINE TO GIPPSLAND
no exit	41	33	Fool Warren, Mordialloc Pound Road
Start of the South Gippsland Freeway on from the Westernport Highway	42	32	Cranbourne, Dandenong South Gippsland Highway
			End of South Gippsland Freeway and continue as Westernport Highway to Hastings

source

Steve Parish: Australian Touring Atlas . Steve Parish Publishing, Archerfield QLD 2007, ISBN 978-1-74193-232-4 , p. 43.