Ballarat Road

Ballarat Road is a major urban arterial road in the western suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Route
Ballarat Road commences at the interchange with Western Freeway at Ravenhall and continues in a south-easterly direction as a four-lane, dual-carriageway road through the suburbs of Deer Park, where it meets with Western Ring Road in Ardeer. It continues in an easterly direction to Maidstone, where it narrows to a four-lane, single carriageway road, and continues in a south-easterly direction to Footscray, where it widens again to a dual-carriageway road at the intersection with Geelong Road. It continues east before crossing the Maribyrnong River over Lynchs Bridge, where it changes name to Smithfield Road (and continues onto Flemington). VicRoads' declaration states Ballarat Road ends at the intersection with Geelong Road, however signposts still indicate the road ends at Lynch's Bridge across the Maribyrnong.

History
The passing of the Country Roads Act of 1912 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) Ballarat Road, from Melton via Braybrook to Melton, was declared a Main Road on 30 December 1913.

The passing of the Highways and Vehicles Act of 1924 provided for the declaration of State Highways, roads two-thirds financed by the State government through the Country Roads Board. Western Highway was declared a State Highway on 1 July 1925, cobbled from a collection of roads from Melbourne through to Ballarat, subsuming the original declaration of Main Ballarat Road as a Main Road.

The Whitlam government introduced the federal National Roads Act 1974, where roads declared as a National Highway were still the responsibility of the states for road construction and maintenance, but were fully compensated by the Federal government for money spent on approved projects. As an important interstate link between the capitals of Victoria and South Australia, Western Highway was declared a National Highway in 1974.

This section of the road was eventually bypassed as the main route through western Melbourne when Deer Park bypass opened in 2009, with the road name devolving back to its original identity as Ballarat Road as a consequence; the route is still co-signed as Western Highway on older signs however.

As part of Western Highway, the road was signed as National Route 8 in 1955, then as National Highway 8 when upgraded to a National Highway in 1974. With Victoria's conversion to the newer alphanumeric system in the late 1990s, the section between Ravenhall and Ardeer (where it met the Western Ring Road) was upgraded to National Highway M8; it was left as National Highway 8 east of the ring road along its original alignment into central Melbourne. Once the Deer Park bypass was opened in 2009 and National Route M8 was re-routed onto the new bypass, the old route was replaced with Metropolitan Route 8 from Ravenhall to the inner suburb of Footscray.

The passing of the Road Management Act 2004 granted the responsibility of overall management and development of Victoria's major arterial roads to VicRoads: in 2004, VicRoads declared this road as Footscray-Caroline Springs Road (Arterial #5520), beginning in Footscray and ending in Ravenhall; the road is still presently known (and signposted) as Ballarat Road.

Transport
Tram route 82 runs along the Footscray section of Ballarat Road, between Gordon & Droop Streets. The Serviceton railway line from Southern Cross runs parallel to Ballarat Road from Sunshine about 1 km to the south, with stations at Albion, and Deer Park. Several bus routes run along Ballarat Road at various points (routes 215, 216, 220, 223, 256, 400, 406, 408, 410 and 456) with 456 continuing on the Western Freeway to Melton.

With three lanes running in each direction, between Deer Park and the Western Ring Road, this was one of the worst bottlenecks in western Melbourne with traffic reaching 70,000 vehicles per day, with 10 per cent of this consisting of heavy vehicles. This caused delays, in part due to seven traffic signals between the Western Ring Road and the start of the Western Freeway. With the completion of the Deer Park Bypass traffic volumes were predicted to decrease to local traffic standard since its opening on 5 April 2009.

In central Melbourne, Ballarat Road has a single carriageway from Braybrook and is a two lane arterial road, including one small stretch which shares the road with trams.