The first stage of a 100km super freeway and rail route to shift freight from growing suburbs in Melbourne’s north and west shapes as an election issue as the region population soars.
An Outer Metropolitan Ring Rd, which would eventually stretch from Princes Hwy near Werribee to the Metropolitan Ring Rd in the north, has been planned for decades and has a project reservation that allows for land acquisition.
But a $20m preliminary business case done in 2021 has never been released and the prospect of a full business case has stalled.
A prominent economic development advocacy group, North Link, has released a new pre-election document outlining what is needed in the region, which is set to grow to the size of Adelaide by the middle of next decade.
While also containing key health and education needs, it says the first stage of the OMR will be needed by the mid 2030s because the Hume Fwy is already needing expansion and congestion is impacting surrounding suburbs.
North Link executive director, Chris James, said more residents were arriving to live and work in the area and the Victorian and Australian governments must finalise and publish a vision for the OMR/E6 “to keep pace with economic and population growth and support long-term economic development and liveability”.
State and national infrastructure advisory bodies have backed the road and rail corridor, which Infrastructure Victoria says could be built in stages over two decades at a total cost of $17bn -$35bn.
A joint state-federal business case for the OMR was set to be planned, but is yet to be announced.
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An Allan government spokesman said it was preserving the OMR corridor “as we continue to work closely with the Commonwealth to plan this future link”.
“As Melbourne continues to grow, the Outer Metropolitan Ring corridor will create new road and rail links across Melbourne’s north and west,” he said.
The Coalition is yet to release its transport policy, but has been supportive of the OMR in the past, and the opposition’s transport infrastructure spokesman Evan Mulholland, described it as a state-shaping project that made more sense than the SRL.
“The delay to this project is the opportunity cost of a Premier that has ploughed ahead with the Cheltenham to Box Hill line no one asked for,” he said.
“Instead they’ve delayed state shaping projects like OMR that deliver for areas that have been starved of infrastructure.”
Victoria has two large-scale projects filling its infrastructure pipeline at the moment; the $34.5bn Suburban Rail Loop East between Cheltenham and Box Hill, and the $26.1bn North East Link between the Eastern Fwy and M80.
Transport experts have said the OMR could be done after the North East Link, which is due to open in 2028, while the SRL East is due to open in 2035.
The Herald Sun recently revealed the SRL East spending for the rest of the decade is almost one fifth of the state’s capital works budget.