Virus slashes traffic on Melbourne’s freeways
Traffic on the city’s once bustling roads has plummeted as the coronavirus forces Melburnians to bunker down at home. Here’s how our busiest highway network has been hit.
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Traffic on CityLink has dived by more than 40 per cent as Melburnians work from home and avoid non-essential trips.
Owner Transurban will also push through price increases on its roads in Melbourne and Sydney from today.
The toll road giant this morning revealed average daily traffic on CityLink was 43 per cent lower in the final week of March compared to the same week a year earlier.
The update from Transurban shows how quickly COVID-19 has up-ended Melbourne.
Traffic on CityLink was 2 per cent lower in the first and second week of March compared to the same periods in 2019.
It then fell 21 per cent in the third week of March, a dip which accelerated to 43 per cent in the final week of last month as increasingly stringent restrictions on movement came into place.
Traffic on CityLink was 5 per cent lower for the three months to March on a year-on-year basis.
It rose two per cent in January, fell one per cent in February and was down 17 per cent over March.
Shares in the company fell by more than 6 per cent to $11.31 in early trade.
CityLink is Transurban’s most lucrative toll road and earnt the Melbourne-based company $2.3 million a day in the final six months of last year.
Average daily traffic was 14 per cent lower across the company’s roads in Australia and North America across March, and down 4 per cent over the three months to March, Transurban’s update shows.
Price hikes which come into effect today will increase tolls for cars using CityLink by between 1c and 10c, while a trip on some of Sydney’s toll roads will rise between 2c and 8c.
Heavy vehicle tolls on some Transurban roads will jump by as much as 20c per trip.
The company said the scheduled price increases would allow it to invest further in support major construction projects and maintain employment for thousands of employees and subcontractors as traffic stagnates amid the spread of COVID-19.
with AAP
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