Hoddle Highway

Hoddle Highway is an urban highway in Melbourne linking CityLink and the Eastern Freeway, itself a sub-section of Hoddle Main Road. Both of these names are not widely known to most drivers, as the entire allocation is still best known as by the names of its constituent parts: Hoddle Street, Punt Road and Barkly Street. This article will deal with the entire length of the corridor for sake of completion.

The highway is named after the surveyor Robert Hoddle, who planned central Melbourne's Hoddle Grid.

Route

Hoddle Main Road starts at the intersection with Queens Parade and High Street in Fitzroy North and heads south as Hoddle Street, crossing Eastern Freeway one kilometre later (and from where the Hoddle Highway declaration officially starts). It continues south until the intersection with Wellington Parade and Bridge Road, changing name to Punt Road. It continues south, passing near the Melbourne Cricket Ground, under Citylink in Richmond, across the Yarra River via the Hoddle Bridge through the South Yarra district to where St Kilda Road and Dandenong Road meet at St Kilda Junction (where the highway declaration ends). Hoddle Main Road continues south on the other side of St Kilda Junction as Barkly Street through the St Kilda city centre, to eventually terminate at Marine Parade in Elwood.

History

The elimination of the railway crossing at the Clifton Hill railway gates, where Heidelberg-Eltham Road (known today as Heidelberg Road) crossed the Hurstbridge and Whittlesea (now Mernda) railway lines and then Hoddle Street, was approved by the Victorian government on 19 May 1955, instructing the Country Roads Board to proceed with the construction of a road overpass. The board contracted the project to Lewis Construction Co, estimated to cost A£240,000.