Darcey Freeman

The West Gate Bridge is a steel, box girder, cable-stayed bridge in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, spanning the Yarra River just north of its mouth into Port Phillip.

It carries the West Gate Freeway and is a vital link between the Melbourne central business district (CBD) and western suburbs, with the industrial suburbs in the west, and with the city of Geelong 80 km to the south-west.

It is part of one of the busiest road corridors in Australia.

The high span bridge was built to allow large cargo ships to access the docks in the Yarra River.

The main river span is 336 m long, and 58 m above the water.

The total length of the bridge is 2582.6 m. It is the fifth-longest in Australia, the longest being Melbourne's Bolte Bridge at 5 km. The West Gate Bridge is twice as long as the Sydney Harbour Bridge and is one of the highest road decks in Australia, higher than Sydney Harbour Bridge's 49 m.

The bridge passes over Westgate Park, a large environmental and recreational reserve created during the bridge's construction.

It carries up to 200,000 vehicles per day.

The West Gate Bridge is a 10-lane dual-carriageway freeway bridge, carrying five lanes of motor vehicle traffic in each direction.

The freeway corridor (including the bridge itself) carries a very high volume and occupancy of traffic; a total of between 180,000 and 200,000 cars, trucks, and motorcycles use it per day, according to VicRoads.

This makes the West Gate Bridge and West Gate Freeway one of the busiest road corridors in Australia.

As it is the only main direct link between Melbourne's CBD and the west, it is frequently congested during the morning and afternoon peaks and is constantly busy due to the number of vehicles coming in and out of the Port of Melbourne.

The notion of a Lower Yarra River Crossing has formal origins as early as 1888, when Victoria’s Public Works Department first proposed a tunnel under the Yarra.

The Metropolitan Town Planning Commission's Plan of General Development proposed a bridge for a road between Geelong Road ('west of Kororoit Creek') and Ingles St, Port Melbourne.

Road routes between central Melbourne and the west were, however, bridged further north, and the usual method of crossing at the lower Yarra was via skiffs until 1912, when ferries were first instituted, the Newport steam ferry operated by the City of Williamstown taking prominence between 1931 and 1974.

The Western Industries Association was formed in August 1957 and claimed to be ‘representative of all industries in Altona, Footscray, Sunshine, Werribee and Williamstown districts’.

Having formed a sub-committee to investigate a Yarra crossing, in 1958 it asked Victorian Premier Henry Bolte ‘to give urgent consideration to construction of a traffic tunnel under the Yarra.’ The Association had been told by 'shipping interests' that a bridge would not be acceptable for the crossing.

The tunnel, it was suggested, would carry 30000 cars a day; differing estimates on the capacity of the 'overtaxed' ferry suggested it could only handle between 1200 and 2000.

The Victorian Government's response to the proposal, delivered by Commissioner for Public Works Thomas Maltby, was that the government's finances were inadequate to undertake a crossing urgently and that any such project would require private investment.

In mid-1960 it was announced that the Association would raise the money to construct the bridge with government support keeping interest rates low; the arrangement was envisaged as not, in itself, profit-making.

In this year, the Western Industries Association applied to government for license to construct and operate a crossing on a toll basis.

In 1961 Lower Yarra Crossing Limited was formed, a non-profit company to develop the crossing.

In 1961 the Association formed Lower Yarra Crossing Ltd. Test drilling began late in that year by which point the Association once again became publicly open to the construction of a bridge, rather than a tunnel.

Nevertheless Danish tunnel engineering firm Christiani and Nielson were engaged as consultants.

Chief amongst the concerns regarding a tunnel was the limitation on particular goods or cargoes - notably, flammable material - that could legally, or safely, be carried through a tunnel.

In the state government's analysis, the cost of building a bridge or a tunnel would be equal, however, notwithstanding the Harbour Trust's strong advocacy for a tunnel, it was felt by those in power that a bridge would more readily allow use by petrol tankers.

In 1965, Yvonne A. Van Den Nouwelant writes, ‘the Lower Yarra Crossing Authority was granted a franchise by Act of Parliament and in 1968 construction started on the West Gate Bridge.’ It was noted by the press at the time that the location of the bridge's eastern approaches would require the removal of the Fishermen's Bend airstrip.

Two years into construction of the bridge, at 11:50 am on 15 October 1970, the 112-metre (367-foot) span between piers 10 and 11 collapsed and fell 50 metres (164 feet) to the ground and water below.

Thirty-five construction workers died and eighteen were injured, and it remains Australia's worst industrial accident.

Many of those who died were on lunch break beneath the structure in workers' huts, which were crushed by the falling span.

Others were working on and inside the span when it fell.

The bridge was originally tolled but tolls were abolished in 1985 because drivers were using other routes to avoid the toll.

The bridge is windswept as there are no significant obstructing terrain features for some distance, particularly in the quadrant from south to west, a common wind direction.

This can lead to issues for motorbikes, trucks and other high-sided vehicles in higher wind speeds.

Previously wind warning lights were present at the bridge approaches to control traffic (amber – bridge closed to motorbikes and high vehicles, red – closed to all traffic), but the current practice is to reduce the speed limit to 60 km/h or 40 km/h when the wind speed gets too high.

Cyclists are prohibited from using the bridge except for special bicycle events, notably the Melbourne Summer Cycle, a fundraising event for multiple sclerosis, and the Around the Bay in a Day event that raises money for The Smith Family charity.

The Westgate Punt is a foot ferry that runs directly below the bridge, taking cyclists and pedestrians across the Yarra between a jetty at Fishermans Bend near Westgate Park – Bay Trail and a jetty adjacent to Scienceworks Museum – Hobsons Bay Coastal Trail.

It operates on demand, from Monday to Friday in morning and evening peaks, and on weekends and public holidays from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.

The whole 2000 tonne mass plummeted into the Yarra River mud with an explosion of gas, dust and mangled metal that shook buildings hundreds of metres away.

Nearby houses were spattered with flying mud.