West Gate Tunnel project’s entrance tower build leads to more freeway closures

The West Gate Freeway is going to be home to an esoteric looming sculpture. Check out its skeleton and the delays its construction will create.

Soaring 50m-tall towers covered by giant diagonal steel grids are being built at the entrances of the $10.2 billion West Gate Tunnel.

The new Melbourne landmarks, which will eventually be clad with an aluminium facade, conceal ventilation shafts for the project and will connect to wooden netlike structures that cover entry and exit tunnel portals.

Motorists have been warned to expect a number of West Gate Freeway ramp closures early in the New Year to enable the enormous cladding pieces to be safely installed.

Within the ventilation shafts will be systems to filter pollution and track emissions released, which are monitored by the state’s environment watchdog during design.

More freeway closures are expected in the coming weeks to make way for two mammoth steel grids as part of the West Gate Tunnel project. Picture: Supplied

The new Melbourne landmarks will eventually be clad with an aluminium facade. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Motorists have been warned to expect a number of West Gate Freeway ramp closures early in the New Year. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Executive project director at the WGT project, Peter Lellyett, said the portal and ventilation structures would be 150m long once fully built.

“It’s going to be a very identifiable and high profile structure,” he said.

“Until you get up close to it, you don’t realise how big it is but it’s actually the height of a 16-storey building.

“It is architectural, but at its core it is a functional piece of the tunnels system, the ventilation structure, and the purpose of it is to make sure that the air quality within the tunnel is maintained and to also make sure that all of the EPA targets for the surrounding air quality are met.”

Westgate Tunnel portal towers. Construction worker Sam Rizza stands inside the geometrical framing of the portal tower. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

The 50m-tall towers will conceal ventilation for the tunnel.

Ramp closures on to the West Gate Fwy are expected in the new year.

Mr Lellyett said the project, which is running three years late and $3.5bn over budget after being bogged down by a legal dispute over toxic soil disposal, was progressing well and was on track to open next year.

Transport Infrastructure Minister Danny Pearson said the WGT would transport the way people move across Melbourne’s west and take 9000 trucks off local roads.

“Construction of the ventilation systems of the West Gate Tunnel is rapidly taking shape, with workers soon set to focus on the design features of the tunnel,” he said.

The works to install design features of the southern outbound exit structure are currently visible to motorists on the West Gate Freeway, while work to fit out the tunnels with electrical cables and mechanical and safety systems continues underground.

More information about ramp closures in early 2025 will be released later in the year.

Originally published as West Gate Tunnel project’s entrance tower build leads to more freeway closures