Greensborough Highway

Greensborough Highway is a highway in the north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, and is an important route for north-east Melbourne. This name is not widely known to most drivers, as the entire allocation is still best known as by the names of its constituent parts: Lower Heidelberg Road, Rosanna Road, Lower Plenty Road, Greensborough Road and Greensborough Bypass.^[4] This article will deal with the entire length of the corridor for sake of completion.

Greensborough Highway commences at the intersection of Lower Heidelberg Road and Banksia Street at Heidelberg and heads north as a four-lane, single carriageway road as Lower Heidelberg Road, nearly immediately crossing Burgundy Street and changing name to Rosanna Road, and continues north to Rosanna, where it intersects with and changes name to Lower Plenty Road and widens to a six-lane, dual-carriageway road. It continues north-east, where after a short distance it intersects with and changes name to Greensborough Road, heading north as a four-lane, single-carriageway road until it meets Watsonia Road in Watsonia, changing names to Greensborough Bypass and continues north-east as a six-lane, dual-carriageway road, crossing Grimshaw Street and turning east at the intersection with Metropolitan Ring Road in Greensborough before eventually ending at the roundabout with Diamond Creek Road and Civic Drive.

Within Victoria, the passing of the Country Roads Act 1912^[5] 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 Heidelberg-Eltham Road was declared a Main Road along Rosanna and Lower Plenty Roads from Heidelberg to Rosanna (the declaration continues west along Lower Heidelberg and Heidelberg Roads to Merri Creek in Clifton Hill, and east along Lower Plenty and Main Roads to Eltham).^[2]

Lower Heidelberg Road and Rosanna Road were signed as Metropolitan Route 44 between Ivanhoe and Yallambie in 1965; Greensborough Road was also signed as Metropolitan Route 46 in 1965, originally turning east along Grimshaw Street to run through Greensborough and along Diamond Creek Road east beyond it. When the Greensborough Bypass was opened in the late 1980s, Metropolitan Route 46 was re-aligned along it to bypass Greensborough and re-join Diamond Creek Road beyond.

In the late 1980s, the northern section of Greensborough Road south of Grimshaw Street was extended and significantly altered, with the original road north of Lenola Street in Macleod re-aligned to the west as a service road, the new road being a divided highway up to a new intersection at Grimshaw Street. North of here the road was extended as a single carriageway bypass road, sweeping north-west around central Greensborough and terminating at a large roundabout interchange with Diamond Creek Road and Civic Drive, known locally (and sign-posted) as the Greensborough Bypass. The original alignment north of Nepean Street was repurposed for local traffic only, still known today as Greensborough Road.^[6] Construction on the northern half, the 3 km section between Grimshaw Street and Diamond Creek Road, started in 1985^[7] and opened in March 1988;^[8] construction on the southern half, the 2 km section between Grimshaw and Lenola Streets, started in late 1985,^[9] and opened in September 1989.^[10]

The passing of the Transport Act 1983^[11] (itself an evolution from the original Highways and Vehicles Act 1924^[12]) provided for the declaration of State Highways, roads two-thirds financed by the state government through the Road Construction Authority (later VicRoads). State Highway (Greensborough Bypass), from Grimshaw Street to Diamond Creek Road, was declared a State Highway a year after it opened in 1989;^[3] this was replaced the following year with the declaration of Greensborough Highway as a State Highway in December 1990,^[13] from Banksia Street in Heidelberg to Diamond Creek Road in Greensborough, subsuming the original declaration of Main Heidelberg-Eltham Road as a Main Road between Heidelberg and Rosanna; however the road was still presently known (and signposted) as its constituent parts.

خلال تسعينيات القرن الماضي، تم إنشاء الطريق الدائري الحضري ، والذي ينتهي عند قسم طريق غرينزبورو الالتفافي من الطريق السريع. وفي نفس الفترة تقريبًا، تم توسيع الطريق شمال شارع غريمشو تدريجيًا وإضافة مسارين إليه، وكان الجزء الأخير عبارة عن جسر جديد فوق نهر بلنتي، تم الانتهاء منه في عام 2005. ^{[ 14 ]}

منح إقرار قانون إدارة الطرق لعام 2004 ^{[ 15 ]} مسؤولية الإدارة والتطوير الشاملة للطرق الشريانية الرئيسية في فيكتوريا إلى VicRoads : في عام 2004، أعادت VicRoads تسمية الطريق باسم طريق جرينزبورو السريع (الطريق الشرياني رقم 6850)، من شارع بانكسيا في هايدلبرغ إلى طريق هايدلبرغ-كينجليك (المعروف باسم طريق دايموند كريك) في جرينزبورو ؛ ^{[ 4 ]} كما كان من قبل، لا يزال الطريق معروفًا حاليًا (ومُشار إليه) بأجزائه المكونة.

في السنوات الأخيرة، شهد طريق غرينزبورو ازدحامًا مروريًا خانقًا، حيث تعبر أجزاء منه ما يزيد عن 60,000 مركبة يوميًا. ^{[ 17 ]} يُعد هذا الطريق أحد الشرايين الرئيسية القليلة التي تربط الضواحي الشمالية الشرقية بالطريق السريع الشرقي (وبالتالي بمركز مدينة ملبورن)، حيث تشهد أجزاء من طريق غرينزبورو وطريق روزانا حركة مرور كثيفة وغير مستدامة، فضلًا عن وجود عدد كبير من الشاحنات داخل المناطق السكنية. ويهدف مشروع "الوصلة الشمالية الشرقية" ، الذي أُعلن عنه في عام 2016، إلى معالجة هذه المشاكل من خلال إنشاء وصلة بمستوى الطريق السريع وأنفاق طرق بين الطريق الدائري الحضري والطريق السريع الشرقي في بولين ، بهدف تخفيف الازدحام المروري على طريق غرينزبورو، ويتضمن أيضًا إعادة تصميم شاملة للجزء الشمالي من الطريق. بدأ المشروع في أواخر عام 2020، ومن المقرر بدء أعمال بناء الأنفاق في عام 2024، ^{[ 18 ]} ومن المتوقع اكتمال المشروع بالكامل في عام 2028. ^{[ 19 ]}

Australian Roadsportal

• List of Melbourne highways