Bridges

Westgate Tunnel provides a new freeway connection between Melbourne's western suburbs and the CBD. The project includes twin bored tunnels and significant lengths of bridge viaducts. It also includes 14km of new walking and cycling paths with associated footbridges.

A new 5km pedestrian and cyclist connection is provided from Yaraville Gardens to Docklands, 2.5km of this route is constructed as a dedicated elevated Veloway (bike freeway).

The Veloway consist of two structural forms. Approximately 700m is supported on twin walk-through girders on piers with spans of up to 41m and another 1.8km is supported via a lightweight steel structure hanging from twin independent freeway viaducts.

The paper will present the design of the hanging section of the Veloway with a focus on the issues associated with the connection of a long footbridge to, two separate freeway viaducts. These include:

• development of a safe and robust construction method,
• design for differential vertical deflections from the two separate freeway viaducts,
• allowance for differential longitudinal thermal effects,
• user comfort associated with both static and dynamic traffic induced movements.

The works are currently under construction.