Melbourne’s worst roads suffer six hours of peak hour pain

FORGET peak ‘hour’ — some of Melbourne’s most congested roads suffer through six hours of sluggish traffic every day. Here’s the 10 worst.

PEAK hour has stretched to six hours a day across Melbourne’s congested road network, new data reveals.

Frustrated drivers are sitting in traffic for longer; some slowing to a third of the average road speed during lengthened peak-congestion periods.

The city’s 10 busiest roads have been revealed by RACV through state-of-the-art sensor technology fitted to vehicles over three months.

Vote at redspotsurvey.com.au

The data shows peak travel times have dramatically extended on busy suburban and city roads which are struggling to meet the demands of Melbourne’s fast growing population.

It comes as the Herald Sun last week revealed three in four commuters travel by car each day in Melbourne — approximately 1.5 million people.

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The Western Ring Rd in Ardeer.

Traffic on Upper Heidelberg Road, Ivanhoe. Picture: James Ross

Typical peak hour congestion has blown out from 7.30am-8.30am to 6.30am-9am on the roads, which are being worked even harder in the afternoon.

The noon peak is between 3pm and 6:30pm each day, compared to the typical 5pm to 6pm peak.

The north and northeastern suburbs are home to four of the busiest roads including Alexandra Pde in Clifton Hill, Upper Heidelberg Rd in Ivanhoe, Rosanna Rd in Heidelberg and High St in Epping.

Alexandra Pde, a main thoroughfare carrying traffic between the Eastern Freeway, CityLink and western and northern suburbs, slows from an average speed of 52km/h to 20km/h during peak times.

Toorak, Balwyn North and Lyndhurst have the most congested roads in the southeast and eastern suburbs.

Average peak hour speeds plummeted from 66km/h to 27km/h on Burke Rd, which narrows from four to two lanes between the Eastern Freeway and The Boulevard in Balwyn North.

Speeds more than halve to 30km/h on Thompsons Rd in Lyndhurst due to a notorious roundabout due to be upgraded by mid-2019.

Roadworks on Thompsons Rd in Lyndhurst. Picture: Wayne Taylor

The Western Ring Rd — between the Western Highway and Sunshine Avenue in Ardeer — carries over 100, 000 cars each day, and slows from 90km/h to 35km/h during peak congestion.

Kings Way, between the West Gate Freeway and York St in Southbank, is the CBD’s worst road. It is used by the same amount of cars and slows from 49km/h to 18km/h during peak times.

Barkly St, which runs through Footscray’s busy shopping precinct, also travels at snail’s pace during peak traffic times.

The RACV is asking the public to vote on which of the 10 roads is the worst as part of its 2018 Redspot Survey. The results will be released before the November state election.

RACV roads and traffic manager Dave Jones said they wanted to hear from all road users — drivers, motorbike and bike riders, public transport users and pedestrians.

“This method uses actual travel data providing a more rigorous way of determining where there is the most congestion,” he said.

Vote at redspotsurvey.com.au

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@AneekaSimonis