Plenty Road

Last updated

Plenty Road

Victoria
Australia Victoria metropolitan Melbourne location map.svg
Red pog.svg
North end
Red pog.svg
South end
Coordinates
General information
TypeRoad
Length30.4 km (19 mi) [1]
Gazetted March 1914 [2]
Route number(s)
  • Australian state route 27.svg Metro Route 27 (1965–present)
    (Preston–Bundoora)
  • AUS Alphanumeric Route A51.svg A51 (2021–present)
    (Bundoora–Mernda)
  • AUS Alphanumeric Route C727.svg C727 (1998–present)
    (Mernda–Whittlesea)
Former
route number
  • Australian state route 27.svg Metro Route 27 (1965–2021)
    (Bundoora–South Morang)
  • Australian state route 27.svg Metro Route 27 (1989–1998)
    (South Morang–Whittlesea)
  • AUS Alphanumeric Route C727.svg C727 (1998–2021)
    (South Morang–Mernda)
Major junctions
North endAUS Alphanumeric Route C725.svgMacmeikan Street
Whittlesea, Victoria
 
South endAustralian state route 29.svgHigh Street
Preston, Melbourne
Location(s)
Major suburbs Mernda, South Morang, Mill Park, Bundoora, Reservoir

Plenty Road is a major urban arterial road through the north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, from the inner suburb of Preston to the township of Whittlesea, [3] [4] just outside the north-eastern suburban fringe of Melbourne.

Contents

The road is notorious amongst Melburnians as one of the most congested and dangerous roads in Melbourne, with the section in Bundoora near the M80 Ring Road carrying upwards of 60,000 vehicles per day. [5] The AAMI Crash Index of 2020 listed it as the worst road in Australia. [6] Numerous upgrades have occurred on the road over the years to improve the road, with the most recent upgrades between 2019 and 2021 upgrading a significant portion of the road and reducing a number of bottlenecks. [7]

Route

Plenty Road commences at the intersection of High Street and Dundas Street in Preston and heads in a north-easterly direction as a four-lane single carriageway inner suburban road, carrying the Route 86 tram line on the roadway. At Albert Street intersection in Reservoir, it widens to a six-lane dual-carriageway road with speed limits varying between 60 km/h and 70 km/h, carrying the tram route within the median strip. Just north of the Metropolitan Ring Road interchange in Bundoora, the tram route ends at Bundoora RMIT, which also provides access to the nearby Uni Hill Shopping Centre. North of here the road continues as dual-carriageway road (as of the 2019 upgrade) through Mill Park, South Morang with a speed limit of 80 km/h until just before Mernda, where the road reduces to four lanes. North of the Bridge Inn Road intersection in Mernda, the road again reduces to a two-lane single carriageway with a speed limit of 100 km/h until it eventually terminates at the intersection with Wallan Road on the southern edge of Whittlesea.

History

Within Victoria, the passing of the Country Roads Act of 1912 [8] through the Parliament of Victoria provided for the establishment of the Country Roads Board (later VicRoads) and their ability to declare Main Roads, taking responsibility for the management, construction and care of the state's major roads from local municipalities. (Main) Whittlesea Road was declared a Main Road, between Bundoora to Whittlesea on 23 March 1914, [2] and Preston and Bundoora on on 20 September 1915. [9]

Plenty Road was signed as Metropolitan Route 27 between Preston and South Morang in 1965, then extended north all the way to Whittlesea along the entire route in 1989. With Victoria's conversion to the newer alphanumeric system in 1998, this was truncated back to the Gorge Road intersection in South Morang, with the road north of here replaced with the designation C727. In between 2019 and 2021, on the newly upgraded sections between McKimmies Road in Bundoora and Bridge Inn Road in Mernda, the road has been reassigned A51. [10]

The passing of the Road Management Act 2004 [11] granted the responsibility of overall management and development of Victoria's major arterial roads to VicRoads: in 2004, VicRoads re-declared the road as Plenty Valley Highway (Arterial #6140), beginning at Albert Street and Boldrewood Parade intersection at Reservoir and ending at Metropolitan Ring Road in Bundoora, [12] while re-declaring the remnants between Reservoir and Bell Street in Preston as Whittlesea Road (Arterial #5813), [3] and between Bundoora and the intersection of Wallan Road and Macmeikan Street in Whittlesea as Main Whittlesea Road (Arterial #5814); [4] the section of Plenty Road between Bell and High Streets in Preston remains undeclared. Despite the declared names, the road is still presently known (and signposted) as Plenty Road along its entire length.

Major works

With the suburban growth since the late 1990s in the outer suburbs of Mill Park, South Morang and more recently Mernda, the road has become severely congested in recent years, with Plenty Road being one of the only major arterial roads in the area to a number of new estates. In the years since, the road has been progressively widened to 2 or 3 lanes each way, with the most recent upgrades in 2021 making the road a divided road all the way to Bridge Inn Road, Mernda. The Plenty Road upgrade between 2018 and 2021 upgraded a number of intersections and was completed in August 2021. [7]

Major intersections

LGALocation [1] [3] [4] km [1] miDestinationsNotes
Whittlesea Whittlesea 0.00.0AUS Alphanumeric Route C725.svg Macmeikan Street (C725 north) – Flowerdale, Yea Northern terminus of road
AUS Alphanumeric Route C727.svg Wallan Road (C727 west) – Wallan
Laurel Street (east) – Whittlesea 		Route C727 continues west along Wallan Road
Yan Yean 4.93.0AUS Alphanumeric Route C723.svg Donnybrook Road (C723) – Donnybrook, Mickleham
Mernda 10.06.2Australian state route 57.svg Bridge Inn Road (Metro Route 57) – Mernda, Diamond Creek Southern terminus of C727, northern terminus of A51
South Morang 16.110.0Australian state route 58.svg McDonalds Road (Metro Route 58) – Epping, Yarrambat
Mill Park 18.811.7Childs Road – Lalor
Mill Park–Bundoora boundary19.812.3McKimmies Road – Thomastown, Bundoora RMIT
Whittlesea–Banyule boundary Bundoora 20.712.9AUS Alphanumeric Route M80.svgWestern Australia MR-SM-11.svg Metropolitan Ring Road (M80) – Laverton North, Greensborough, Melbourne Airport Southern terminus of A51, northern terminus of Metro Route 27
22.213.8Australian state route 48.svg Settlement Road (Metro Route 48 west) – Thomastown, Broadmeadows
Bent Street (east) – Bundoora 		Concurrency with Metro Route 48
Banyule–Darebin boundary22.413.9Australian state route 48.svg Grimshaw Street (Metro Route 48 east) – Greensborough, Eltham
Darebin Bundoora–Kingsbury boundary24.815.4Dunne Street (west) – Reservoir
Kingsbury Drive (east) – Macleod, La Trobe University
Reservoir 26.816.7Australian state route 21.svg Boldrewood Parade (Metro Route 21 north) – Reservoir
Australian state route 21.svg Albert Street (Metro Route 21 south) – Alphington, Kew
Preston 28.717.8Murray Road – Coburg North, Heidelberg West
29.518.3Australian state route 40.svg Bell Street (Metro Route 40) – Coburg, Heidelberg
30.418.9Miller Street (west) – Thornbury
Dundas Street (east) – Thornbury
Australian state route 29.svg High Street (Metro Route 29 north, south) – Northcote No right turn from Plenty Road into High Street northbound
Southern terminus of road and Metro Route 27
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Google (4 November 2021). "Plenty Road" (Map). Google Maps . Google. Retrieved 4 November 2021.
  2. 1 2 "Victorian Government Gazette". State Library of Victoria. 1 April 1914. p. 1544. Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 VicRoads. "VicRoads – Register of Public Roads 2024" (PDF). Government of Victoria. p. 735. Archived from the original on 19 June 2024. Retrieved 19 June 2024.
  4. 1 2 3 VicRoads. "VicRoads – Register of Public Roads 2024" (PDF). Government of Victoria. pp. 736–7. Archived from the original on 19 June 2024. Retrieved 19 June 2024.
  5. ↑ "Traffic Volumes for Freeways and Arterial Roads".
  6. ↑ "AAMI Crash Index identifies Australia's worst roads: Melbourne tops the list".
  7. 1 2 "Plenty Road Upgrade".
  8. ↑ An Act relating to Country Roads State of Victoria, 23 December 1912
  9. ↑ "Victorian Government Gazette". State Library of Victoria. 6 October 1915. p. 3676. Retrieved 15 July 2024.
  10. ↑ "Map of Declared Roads".
  11. ↑ State Government of Victoria. "Road Management Act 2004" (PDF). Government of Victoria. Archived (PDF) from the original on 18 October 2021. Retrieved 19 October 2021.
  12. ↑ VicRoads. "VicRoads – Register of Public Roads 2024" (PDF). Government of Victoria. p. 905. Archived from the original on 19 June 2024. Retrieved 19 June 2024.
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