The Federal Coalition will spend $100 million (to be matched by $100 million of State funding) for the construction of the Pakenham Bypass outside Melbourne as a Road of National Importance.
The Pakenham Bypass will reduce congestion and delays on the Princes Highway, and remove heavy traffic from the streets of Pakenham and Officer.
Bob Charles, the Federal Member for La Trobe, has worked hard to secure funding for the bypass. In 1998 the Federal Coalition allocated $30 million to the project. This money has sat on the table for the last three years because the Victorian Labor Government had other priorities and did not take up the offer.
Bob has continued working on the bypass, and he played an instrumental role to have the additional commitment to $100 million to the project. The Liberal Candidate for McMillan, Jim Forbes, has also been a strong advocate of the bypass.
The Pakenham Bypass will be a 17 kilometre limited access freeway. There will be four interchanges. The bypass will be designed so it can be widened to three lanes each way in the future.
The highway between the South Gippsland Freeway at Dandenong and the Berwick bypass has already been subject to delays and capacity constraints, due to the rapid development of the south east growth corridor. Pakenham and Officer will suffer from severe congestion within the next five years unless the bypass is constructed.
I call on the Victorian Labor Government to stop procrastinating and commit matching funding in its next budget to ensure that the bypass can be completed as soon as possible.
The Federal commitment of $100 million includes $31 million of new money in 2005-06. There is $30 million already allocated to the Pakenham Bypass in the existing roads program and a further $39 million will be allocated to this project from within the roads program. The additional spending on the Pakenham Bypass is included in the costings for the Coalition’s transport action plan, Keeping Australia Moving.