Greensborough Highway

Greensborough Highway is a highway in the north eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, and is an important route for north east Melbourne. This name is not widely known to most drivers, as the entire allocation is still best known as by the names of its constituent parts: Lower Heidelberg Road, Rosanna Road, Lower Plenty Road, Greensborough Road and Greensborough Bypass. Construction on the northern half, the 3 km section between Grimshaw Street and Diamond Creek Road, started in 1985 and opened in March 1988); construction on the southern half, the 2 km section between Grimshaw and Lenola Streets, started in late 1985, and opened in September 1989. (itself an evolution from the original Highways and Vehicles Act of 1924) provided for the declaration of State Highways, roads two thirds financed by the State government through the Road Construction Authority (later VicRoads). Greensborough Highway was declared a State Highway in December 1990, from Banksia Street in Heidelberg to Diamond Creek Road in Greensborough (incorporating the newly constructed road previously declared as a State Highway the year before); however the road was still presently known (and signposted) as its constituent parts. Throughout the 1990s the Metropolitan Ring Road was constructed, terminating at the Greensborough Bypass section of the highway. Around this time, the road north of Grimshaw Street was progressively widened and duplicated, with the final section being a new bridge over the Plenty River, completed in 2005. granted the responsibility of overall management and development of Victoria's major arterial roads to VicRoads: in 2004, VicRoads re declared the road as Greensborough Highway (Arterial #6850), from Banksia Street in Heidelberg to Heidelberg Kinglake Road (known as Diamond Creek Road) in Greensborough; as before, the road is still presently known (and signposted) as its constituent parts.

1988: Northern section of Greensborough Bypass, initial 3.5 km of dual lane, single carriageway road from Grimshaw Street to Diamond Creek Road, opened 1 March 1988. 1989: Southern section of Greensborough Bypass, 2 km of dual carriageway road from Grimshaw Street to Yallambie Road, opened September 1989. 1998: Greensborough Bypass duplication, 1.3 km north of Grimshaw Street to Metropolitan Ring Road (including bridge over Kempston Street and provision of additional lane east of Plenty River). 2005: Greensborough Bypass duplication, 1.8 km Metropolitan Ring Road to Diamond Creek Road, including duplication of Plenty River bridge.

The route was originally designated in the 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan as the F18 Freeway, extending further than Diamond Creek Road to finish at Ryans Road, Diamond Creek, and at the southern end extending past Lower Plenty Rd to link up with Eastern Freeway between Bulleen Road and Burke Road, via the Banyule Flats Reserve.

In recent years, Greensborough Highway has become extremely congested, with sections of the road carrying upwards of 60,000 vehicles per day. The road is one of the only major arterials that connects the north eastern suburbs with Eastern Freeway (and by extension the Melbourne CBD), with sections of Greensborough Road and Rosanna Road carrying unsustainable amounts of traffic as well as a significant number of trucks within residential areas. The North East Link project, announced in 2016, aims to fix these problems by creating a freeway grade connection and road tunnels between the Metropolitan Ring Road and Eastern Freeway in Bulleen, aiming to take vehicles off Greensborough Highway and also involves significant reworking of the northern section of the route. The project began in late 2020 with the tunnels scheduled to begin construction in 2024, and the entire project is anticipated to be completed in 2028.