The new West Gate Tunnel Project opened on Sunday the 14th of December 2025. The tunnel was sold to Victorians as a congestion buster saving 20 minutes, yes 20 minutes on a journey to Melbourne.
Today is Day 4 and we still have considerable congestion, no relief as promised and what appears to be a trend to avoid this costly $10 billion dollar boondoggle benefiting not Victorians but Transurban Shareholders.
The West Gate Tunnel project in Melbourne officially cost around $10.2 billion, though reports in mid-2025 suggested costs could rise to nearly $12 billion due to significant overruns from issues like soil contamination and underbidding, far exceeding initial estimates. The final cost involves significant contributions from Transurban, the builders, and the Victorian government, funded partly by extended CityLink tolls.
In fact there were recommendations this project (not a toll but a raised road on the outskirts of Melbourne) should not proceed due to the lack of benefits for the investment it required being the original investment amount, not the end price making the lack of a business case even worse.
Adding insult to injury residents of the inner west now have to endure continued car and truck traffic for those who refuse to use the tunnel and towers that extract polluted air from the tunnel without filters. The Allan government again does not care at all about the western suburbs.
Also of note are recent reports the number of trucks on inner western Melbourne local roads is set to increase even with the new and expensive tunnel. An engineering assessment of West Gate Tunnel ventilation exhaust stacks by the Maribyrnong Truck Action Group (MTAG).
Earlier this year, MTAG commissioned Melbourne engineering company, Synergetics, to write an independent scientific report examining if the West Gate Tunnel exhaust stacks represents best practice and whether exhaust filters are necessary to protect community health. The report found that that contrary to previous modelling, the as-built vent stacks will result in a high level of ground contamination that will impact thousands of residents, houses and sports ground close to the stacks.
Tyler Durden correctly points out today congestion is as bad or worse today as it was last week without the tunnel being open.
Cars and trucks who could be using the tunnel to avoid local roads in the inner west are chosing not to pay a toll. Is that the issue or could it be something even more dire?
The project has been criticised by transport and urban planning experts, for overstating the benefits, increasing traffic in the inner city, and not considering better alternatives. They have also criticised the lack of transparency in the planning process, and the lack of independent and democratic review. In December 2017 the Coalition and the Greens vowed to block the project.
In evidence to a 2017 senate committee hearing on the operations of toll roads, transport planner William McDougall gave evidence that in 2015 he was contracted by the Victorian government to support an externally-appointed peer reviewer for the tunnel project’s transport modelling and to undertake a peer review of its cost-benefit analysis.
He became convinced both the transport modelling and cost-benefit analysis were flawed and would not stand up to scrutiny. After raising concerns with state Treasurer Tim Pallas he was taken off the project’s work.
Could it be the traffic modelling that had been continually questioned during the business case development stages is incorrect and traffic is not flowing in ways the tunnel was designed to address?
If you read the background this project was never going to solve any traffic issues.