Melbourne & Australian Architecture Topics

Top idea or just a bridge too far?
LORNA EDWARDS
December 4, 2009
IT WOULD be bigger and better than the Sydney Harbour Bridge and give Melbourne the architectural icon it has always craved.

It would also provide a true ring road around the city, easing traffic congestion in Melbourne and boosting growth in Geelong.

This is why lawyer, transport lobbyist and independent candidate for Higgins Peter Brohier thinks we need a bridge across the heads of Port Phillip Bay, linking the Mornington and Bellarine peninsulas.

Mr Brohier estimates a bridge spanning the heads would cost the Federal Government about $4 billion plus another $5 billion in ancillary works.

The cost would be justified by linking $200 billion of existing infrastructure on both sides of the bay and supporting economic development of these areas on an ''if you build it, they will come'' principle, he says.

His bridge would enable increased freight from the port of Hastings in the future to bypass the city and ease congestion on the city's clogged roads by creating more urban villages around the bay.

''This would be an outstanding new icon for Melbourne but it wouldn't be a useless one - it would save fuel, emissions, avoid gridlock and utilise those transport corridors that we've already paid for,'' he said. ''This is aimed at having the same vision as they had for the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the 1930s, but surpassing that.''

The idea is not new. Melbourne engineer David Broadbent tried to muster support for a bridge across the three-kilometre gap at the heads a decade ago and VicRoads had looked at the possibility as far back as the 1950s.

''It's a marvellous idea and anybody who says that it isn't is really stupid,'' says Dr David Wilson, a logistics consultant and former State Government director of transport in the 1980s. ''Technologically, it's a piece of cake but economically, in terms of cost-benefit analysis, it's probably not practical for another 50 years with Australia's population.''

RACV public policy manager Brian Negus supports the projects within the $38 billion Victorian Transport Plan as more urgent priorities but said a bridge could be considered in 30 years' time in light of Melbourne's projected population growth to 7 million.

Monash University transport expert Professor Graham Currie concedes a bridge would result in travel-time benefits for freight but is less enamoured of a bridge's environmental effects.

Long-time Point Nepean environmental campaigner Kate Baillieu was aghast at the proposal. ''It's been an amusing week on the political scene with a lot of unusual ideas floating around: maybe we could have a flying fox across the heads or even a slingshot,'' she said.

Unfortunately some people can't see two roads on a map without wanting to take a texta, join them up and promote it as an exciting new idea, no matter how little sense it makes it is in reality.