Burwood Highway

Burwood Highway (and its western section as Toorak Road) is a major transportation link with Melbourne's eastern fringe at the foot of the Dandenong Ranges, linking the suburbs of Hawthorn and Belgrave. The highway is considered a major link for people who live in the Dandenong Ranges and acts as one of the major feeder roadway in the area along with Canterbury Road, Ferntree Gully Road, EastLink and Wellington Road.

Route
Burwood Highway commences at the interchange with CityLink and Monash Freeway at Hawthorn and heads east as Toorak Road, a four-lane single carriageway (often clogged with heavy traffic) through the southern fringes of Camberwell, with tram services continuing east along the road where it meets Camberwell Road. At the intersection with Warrigal Road in Burwood, it changes name to Burwood Highway and widens to become a six-lane dual carriageway highway, with a dedicated central median for tram tracks, carrying the Route 75 service through Burwood East to Vermont South. It passes the Westfield Knox shopping centre in Wantirna South, heading in a south-easterly direction through Ferntree Gully until it meets Mount Dandenong Tourist Road at Upper Ferntree Gully, where it narrows back to a four-lane single carriageway road, until it eventually terminates at a roundabout with Monbulk and Belgrave–Gembrook Roads in Belgrave.

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) Ferntree Gully Road was declared a Main Road, from Fentree Gully through Upwey to Belgrave (and continuing west through Wheelers Hill to Oakleigh), on 20 October 1913.

The passing of the Country Roads Act of 1958 (itself an evolution from the original 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. Burwood Highway was declared a State Highway in the 1959/60 financial year, from Warrigal Road in Burwood via Vermont South, to Upper Ferntree Gully for a total of 12.5 mi, subsuming the original declaration of (Main) Ferntree Gully Road until Upper Ferntree Gully as a Main Road; before this declaration, this road was also referred to as Burwood Road. Toorak Road was declared a Main Road on 9 May 1983, from the intersection with South Eastern Freeway in Hawthorn to meet the western end of Burwood Highway in Burwood.

The declaration of the highway was extended a further 4.0 km east along Monbulk Road to Belgrave by VicRoads in June 1990, and west along Toorak Road to the South Eastern Arterial at Hawthorn in October 1993, subsuming its original declaration as a Main Road, however this last section was still known (and signposted) as Toorak Road. The tram line was extended 1.7 km along the central median through Burwood East from Middleborough Road to Blackburn Road in July 1993.

Burwood Highway was signed as Metropolitan Route 26 between Burwood and Belgrave in 1965; with Victoria's conversion to the newer alphanumeric system in the late 1990s, the section between Upper Ferntree Gully and Belgrave was replaced by route C412.

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 re-declared Burwood Highway (Arterial #6750) from Monash Freeway in Hawthorn to Belgrave-Gembrook Road in Belgrave.