Opportunities

While the North East Link project will significantly impact Banyule, there are opportunities for projects that would greatly benefit the community.

Opportunities exist to keep people safer, make public transport connections better, enhance local places and improve road connections. Details of each of these opportunities follow.

Keep people safer

  • Reconfigure Rosanna Road to improve its safety and amenity by converting one traffic lane to bus/bike lanes, widening the remaining lane, extending freight bans and undergrounding powerlines
  • Widen the Bell Street-Banksia Street link to three lanes in each direction and alter Burgundy Street to reduce through traffic and improve pedestrian safety in the Heidelberg Activity Centre
  • Address the unsafe underpass on the Main Yarra Trail at Banksia Street - this is a bike/pedestrian path in very poor condition

Make public transport connections better

  • Upgrade the Greensborough Railway Station bus/rail interchange to duplicate Hurstbridge railway line from Greensborough to Eltham with a new shared user path along the rail corridor
  • Enhance Greensborough Activity Centre's road network
  • Upgrade Watsonia Railway Station to an integrated transport interchange with direct and Disability Discrimination Act compliant passenger access, a multideck park-and-ride car park
  • Install bus lanes on Grimshaw Street with public transport priority into Greensborough
  • Connect the proposed Doncaster Busway to a new busway through the tunnel onto the North East Link’s northern section to give the north east a more comprehensive public transport service

Enhance local places

  • Enhance the Greensborough Activity Centre road network
  • Deliver Watsonia town square with traffic and infrastructure improvements
  • Complete the east-west powerline easement’s shared user path from Plenty Road via Watsonia Station to the Plenty River Trail
  • Improve local park facilities to compensate for removal of the Boroondara Tennis Centre complex and construction impacts such as the NELA use of local open spaces to store materials

Improve road connections

  • Ensure that new traffic interchanges along the North East Link route at the M80, Grimshaw Street, Lower Plenty Road, Manningham Road and Eastern Freeway protect local traffic connections to and across the North East Link
  • The North East Link is in a tunnel up to the M80 Ring Road
  • Upgrade connections from the North East Link to Diamond Creek Road and Yan Yean Road and improve safety at the Civic Drive roundabout
  • Provide a Greensborough Highway service road between the M80 and Watsonia for untolled local access
  • Include Watsonia Road and Yallambie Road connections across the North East Link and a direct connection from Elder Street to the Watsonia Railway Station precinct
  • Provide cycling and pedestrian connections at Yando Road, Nell Street, Yallambie Road, Erskine Street, Lower Plenty Road, and at appropriate locations with access to the La Trobe Employment Cluster
  • Provide a shared user bridge over the Yarra River to link Banyule to Manningham
  • Provide a seamless north-south shared user path between the M80 and Banksia Street.