This paper explores the disparate effects generated by freeways designed to link outlying suburbs directly to city centres and those planned to serve as traffic distributors. This is accomplished by examining the before-and-after situations relating to the recent extensions of the Eastern Freeway, which typifies the former, and the Western Ring Road, which exemplifies the latter, in Metropolitan Melbourne. Using data from the Victoria Activity and Travel Survey and Land Victoria's property transaction statistics, this study finds that the extension of the two freeways has led to dissimilar levels of changes in car travel, and property prices within their respective catchments. There were also differences with respect to the ability of the two freeways to attract external traffic into their catchment. The study concludes that freeways designed to serve as radial arteries of major activity centres would help increase the accessibility of the residents living within its catchment. However, it will not be able to attract additional external car traffic into its catchment. (Author/publisher) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E209537. This paper may also be accessed by Internet users at: http://www.btre.gov.au/docs/atrf_02/program.html
Abstract