en Airport Drive (Melbourne)

Airport Drive

Victoria
Airport Drive; Victoria
	North end South end
Coordinates	37°40′32″S 144°51′08″E / 37.6755°S 144.8522°E (North end); 37°42′59″S 144°52′37″E / 37.7163°S 144.8769°E (South end);
General information
Type	Highway
Length	5.7 km (3.5 mi)
Opened	1997–2015
Major junctions
North end	Grants Road; Melbourne Airport
	Tullamarine Freeway; Sharps Road; Western Ring Road;
South end	Westfield Drive; Tullamarine, Melbourne
Location(s)
Major suburbs	Melbourne Airport, Tullamarine
Highway system
	Highways in Australia; National Highway • Freeways in Australia; Highways in Victoria; ; ;

Airport Drive is a 5.7 kilometre highway in Melbourne, Australia, linking Centre Road at Melbourne Airport with the M80 Ring Road at Airport West. This road is an important thoroughfare for the adjacent Melbourne Airport Business Park along South Centre Road, and acts as an alternative access road to Tullamarine Freeway.

Route

Airport Drive starts at the intersection of Grants and Centre Road at Melbourne Airport, just south of Terminal 4, running east as a four-lane, dual-carriageway road past the Long Term Parking lot, turning south-east past more car parks and Airport service companies, before turning south along a wide alignment (to incorporate a future railway link to the airport) to the intersection with Sharps Road, then through the Tullamarine Park industrial area to terminate at the Western Ring Road; Westfield Drive continues past the interchange over the Albion–Jacana railway line to link to the Westfield Airport West shopping centre just under a kilometre away.

History

Airport Drive originally opened to traffic between Sharps Road and the Western Ring Road in May 1997.

The passing of the Road Management Act 2004^[2] granted the responsibility of overall management and development of Victoria's major arterial roads to VicRoads: in 2004, VicRoads declared Airport Connection Road (Freeway #1280) from Western Ring Road in Tullamarine to Sharps Road in Tullamarine;^[3] the declaration formally makes this section a freeway; signposts along this section have also kept their original name.

In July 2013, construction began on an extension from Sharps Road to the intersection of Melrose Drive and Mercer Drive, Melbourne Airport. Airport Drive Extension opened to traffic on 28 June 2015, at a cost of $100 million, with the existing Melrose Drive roadway between Mercer Drive and Centre Road subsumed into Airport Drive.^[4]^[5] As part of the extension project, Link Road was realigned to form a new traffic-light intersection at Airport Drive, with through traffic connecting to Watson Drive and Melrose Drive. The extension is not part of VicRoads' freeway declaration and presently remains undeclared.

Intersections

LGA	Location^[1]^[3]	km^[1]	mi	Destinations	Notes
Hume	Melbourne Airport	0.0	0.0	Grants Road	Continues west as Grants Road
		0.0	0.0	Centre Road	Traffic light intersection
		0.6	0.37	Naarm Way, to T4 Transport Hub access road	No southbound access
		0.7	0.43	Tullamarine Freeway (M2 east) – Docklands, Port Melbourne Apac Drive (west)	Traffic light intersection
		1.3	0.81	Francis Briggs Drive (west) Mercer Drive (east)	Roundabout; no access to Mercer Drive
		2.5	1.6	Link Road, to Melrose Drive – Tullamarine	Traffic light intersection
		3.0	1.9	Sky Road	Northbound entrance and exit only
Hume–Brimbank boundary	Melbourne Airport–Tullamarine boundary	4.1	2.5	Sharps Road (Metro Route 39) – Keilor Park, Gladstone Park, Mickleham	Traffic light intersection
Brimbank	Tullamarine	5.7	3.5	Western Ring Road (M80) – Laverton North, Thomastown	Dogbone interchange
Brimbank	Tullamarine	5.7	3.5	Westfield Drive – Airport West	Continues east as Westfield Drive
Incomplete access Route transition

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "Airport Drive" (Map). Google Maps. Retrieved 4 June 2017.
^ State Government of Victoria. "Road Management Act 2004" (PDF). Government of Victoria. Archived (PDF) from the original on 18 October 2021. Retrieved 19 October 2021.
^ ^a ^b VicRoads. "VicRoads – Register of Public Roads (Part A) 2015" (PDF). Government of Victoria. p. 19. Archived from the original on 1 May 2020. Retrieved 19 October 2021.
^ "VicRoads Annual Report 2014-15". VicRoads. Melbourne: Victorian Government Library Service. 3 September 2015. p. 13.
^ Choahan, Neelima (29 June 2015). "Melbourne Airport Drive extension opened". The Age. Fairfax Media. Retrieved 4 June 2017.