8. Roads & Perennial Roadworks
- The Look of the Area in 1946
- Demographic Change
- Planning the New Suburb
- The Pattern of Subdivision
- Education and Community Facilities
- Industry
- Shopping Patterns
- Roads and Perennial Roadworks
- Reafforestation
- Endnotes
There has probably not been a single day since 1946 when there were not road works in progress somewhere in the area now covered by the City of Monash.
In the first couple of decades after the war, work was mainly of two kinds:
- sealing existing roads
- building new roads for the new subdivisions
It is likely that at the time no clear distinction existed in the minds of residents. They travelled to and from their houses through the dust and ruts of summer and the mud and pot holes of winter. Whether the subdivision had been there for thirty years, and the pot holes were consequently well established, or the subdivision had been there for thirty days and the mud had a certain novelty value, made little difference in practice. Residents still had to pay to get their roads made. But the councils of Oakleigh and Mulgrave did, eventually, catch up, especially once regulations ensured that new subdivisions had to have roads before they could have houses.
After that, the nature of road works changed. New roads continued to be built for new subdivisions, but equally characteristic of the 1960s was the progressive widening and' improving' of existing through roads to enable them to cope with ever greater traffic flows.
While the suburban tidal wave of new house building washed over Waverley, surging ever east and south and leaving quiet pockets of orchard and paddock to be filled in later, the road works remained. Even in the 1980s when the only bricklayers that residents of Waverley or Oakleigh were likely to see in action were extending shopping centres or putting up units, the roadworks remained, testimony to the changing position of the area.
In 1895, the Shire of Mulgrave was a rural area east of Melbourne and Oakleigh was a satellite township.
In 1995, the new City of Monash was described in a Local Government Board report as the geographic centre of Melbourne. [54]
The 1954 MMBW plan for the area provided for two major new roads and routes for both were reserved on the Shire of Mulgrave's planning scheme of the same year. One was a descendant of the main route planned in 1929 and later became the South East arterial. The other, to run north/south between Blackburn and Springvale Roads, was later called the F7. This road was never built. Thoughtfully, sufficient land was set aside for the widening of most of the roads on Bellairs' grid. As a result, progressive widening of Springvale Road and Ferntree Gully Road in particular enabled the road network to accommodate the enormous increase in traffic.
In 1996, the City of Monash was a major transport hub for the entire Metropolitan area. The one mile grid laid out by Bellairs had served the area well, generally allowing traffic to pour through Monash, north, south, east and west, in a remarkably efficient fashion. The Princes Highway/Dandenong Road was laid out as a wide road and changes over the years converted more of that area to traffic lanes. The Mulgrave freeway was built as an additional route to take much of the same traffic between the City and the industrial areas of Clayton and Dandenong. It was opened in stages from 1973, starting from Jackson Road to Springvale Road and moving progressively west towards the South East Arterial and east towards the Mornington peninsular. In 1996 road, works continued on the section between Toorak Road and the City. The major route tended to split the area in two in terms of traffic flows, because there were only a limited number of points at which it could be crossed.
Springvale Road was the main north/south route but Warrigal Road and Blackburn Road also carried considerable traffic. All were progressively widened and provided with traffic lights at major junctions. In the 1990s, the map was still divided into a series of one mile squares, and that road pattern on the ground continued to influence land use. Driving within the squares was easy, if slow and requiring a knowledge of cul de sacs and confusing crescents. Crossing from one square to another caused all but the boldest drivers to plan for left turns and traffic lights to help them negotiate the continuous streams of cars and trucks on the main rectangular grid.
Two junctions where strangers to the area were to find it particularly easy to get lost were where the Gippsland railway crossed Warrigal Road and North Road. Unwitting motorists attempting to travel at right angles to the main road, on Atherton and Huntingdale roads respectively - found themselves directed around a disorientating series of byways and slip roads.
The Warrigal Road flyover was built first. In July 1959 the Minister of Transport announced a four million pound overpass to begin construction in 1961. In fact construction did not begin until 1967. Councillors complained the overpass would 'kill' Oakleigh shopping centre and mainly help shoppers to get to Chadstone more easily. In 1963 the Country Roads Board proposed an overpass for Huntingdale Road. Both overpasses were supported by Alan Scanlan, MP for Oakleigh. Work on the Warrigal Road overpass was completed in July 1968. Work began on the North Road overpass at Huntingdale Road in 1970.
'Both the Warrigal Road railway gates and the Huntingdale railway gates had been a source of motorist frustration for many years and the scenes of very long traffic queues and delays.' [55]
The Warrigal Road overpass did, however, 'kill' the shops west of it on Atherton Road.
Meanwhile, Oakleigh was the scene of protests against the proposed F7 freeway on the line between Springvale and Blackburn Roads. It would run through an area of heath at Westall Road. In 1975, the Council proposed buying 20 acres at Westall Road 'to save the native plants.'