‘Not rational’: Drivers fume over 17km queue on West Gate Freeway

Melbourne commuters have been hit with a 17km traffic jam that has caused chaos on one of the city’s busiest roads.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has apologised for a major traffic jam that caused commuter chaos on the West Gate Freeway during peak hour, amid murmurs delays to roadwork clear-ups were caused by rifts within the trades union.

Drivers were hit with the 17km traffic jam on Thursday morning which unfolded on the busy freeway due to tunnel works running overtime.

Motorists faced delays of up to two hours during peak hour as cars moved at a snail’s pace along the route.

One frustrated driver called the seemingly endless situation “bedlam”.

“It is not rational that you would cut the road off with all these cars sitting here taking two hours to do a 20-minute trip,” she told 3AW.

Roadworks on the city-bound lanes of the West Gate Freeway near Fogarty Ave at Yarraville continue to create traffic congestion. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

There was earlier speculation of a disagreement between WorkSafe and CFMEU Victoria officials that safety certificates had caused equipment to be left on the freeway, leaving morning peak hour commuters navigating one inbound lane.

In a statement the CFMEU said the CPB Westgate Alliance project put workers and public safety and risk and that the union would never compromise on workers’ safety.

“This project has already taken one life and that is one too many,” the statement read.

Addressing reporters about the concern, Mr Andrews said the delay was being investigated.

“Obviously we do a lot of work at night and the teams work as hard as they can to clear all that up for the morning; there are some things that went wrong overnight and that didn’t happen,” he said.

“I apologise for any inconvenience; it’s been a difficult morning for a lot of people, and we’ll try and better understand what happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews apologised to commuters. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

The commuter chaos comes as thousands of the city’s office workers returned to their offices this week after two years marred by lockdowns and work-from-home orders.

Shadow minister for public transport and roads Steph Ryan said it was farcical and the issue was disrupting commuters more than four years after construction had commenced.

“Amateur hour is a gross understatement of this morning’s chaos,” she said

“I wonder whether this inconvenience is just a reference to causing commuters to again be reduced to a crawl in peak hour traffic, or if it extends to Labor’s multibillion-dollar cost blowouts and the delayed 2025 completion date?

“Melburnians have every right to be fed up with government mismanagement of metro infrastructure projects.”

Originally published as ‘Not rational’: Drivers fume over 17km queue on West Gate Freeway