Fix the Calder Letter to Minister Pearson

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Dear Minister Pearson, I write to express my concern with the lack of State Government attention to one of Australia’s most dangerous roads, the Calder Freeway, and to call for greater government funding to deliver critical upgrades to improve safety and reduce congestion. The Calder Freeway is a road of national significance and strategic economic importance, providing the primary road connection from Melbourne to Bendigo and Mildura, including the Loddon Mallee agricultural region of Victoria. The Calder Freeway is also a major freight route, providing essential access from New South Wales and northern Victoria to domestic and export markets, including the key intermodal transport terminals at Melbourne Airport, the Port of Melbourne and the Port of Geelong. The unsafe and dangerous condition of the Calder Freeway featured in RACV’s 2023 My Melbourne Road Survey and the 2019 Infrastructure Australia Report, which found that the Calder Freeway was the 7th most congested road in Australia during the morning peak, and the 9th most congested in the afternoon peak, costing the economy over $100 million per annum. Alarmingly, during the period between 2015 to mid-2023, there were 198 crashes, of which 82 were classed as serious with over 100 injuries and five lives lost in the section between the Western Ring Road (M80) and Gap Road in Sunbury. In August 2021, I was delighted with the Victorian Government’s announcement that a business case would be developed to investigate the construction of a new freeway interchange at Calder Park Drive to improve access on and off the Calder Freeway. However, more than two and a half years later, the business case findings haven’t been released, despite its completion in 2022. While the Victorian Government’s $50 million commitment in the 2021-2022 Budget for Calder Freeway improvement works is welcome, this is only a fraction of what is required. I call on the Victorian Government to urgently increase its funding commitment and to publicly release the business case findings for the construction of a full diamond interchange at Calder Park Drive.

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