Road Photos & Information: Victoria

South Gippsland Freeway, South Gippsland Highway, Bass Highway & Phillip Island Road (M/A/B420)

Statistics:

• Length: 104 km
• Northern Terminus: Monash Fwy (M1) at Doveton
• Southern Terminus: The Esplanade at Cowes (on Phillip Island)
• Suburbs, Towns & Localities along route: Doveton, Hallam, Lynbook, Hampton Park, Cranbourne North, Cranbourne, Tooradin, Koo Wee Rup, Lang Lang, Jam Jerrup, Pioneer Bay, The Gurdies, Bass, Anderson, San Remo, Newhaven, Cape Woolamai and Cowes

Route Numbering:

• Current:
  (South Gippsland Fwy & South Gippsland Hwy)
  (Bass Hwy)
  (Phillip Island Rd)
• Former:
  • M1 / NR1 / F81 (Monash Fwy to Princes Hwy)
  • SR65 (Princes Hwy to Sth Gippsland Hwy) 1
  • SR180 (Sth Gippsland Hwy section) 1
  • SR181 (Bass Hwy section) 1
  • SR186 (Phillip Island Rd) 1
• Road Authority Classification: 6710 (Bass Highway), 1310 / 1580 (South Gippsland Freeway), 6580 (South Gippsland Highway) & 4971 (Phillip Island Road) 2

General Information:

The M/A/B420 route connects Melbourne to Phillip Island, which is famous for several tourist attractions including wildlife and motorcycle racing.

The route is a mix of freeway standard from Doveton to Lynbrook and dual carriageway highway from Lynbrook to Anderson and some rural single carriageway highway standard in the Phillip Island area.

History:

Prior to construction, the South Gippsland Freeway was for a time noted in street directories as the "Eumemmerring Freeway". It was a proposed name that was never officially adopted. 3

• 1948: Bass Hwy declared. 4
• 1970: South Gippsland Fwy alignment begins life as a connector road from Monash Fwy (then Mulgrave Fwy) to Princes Hwy at Doevton near Dandenong.
• 1970s: Several extensions from Princes Hwy occured, including extension to Pound Road and again to the Lynbrook area. Other works included the duplication and upgrade of the old alignment of the South Gippsland Highway into the new stretch of the freeway, and a new dual-carriageway alignment of the South Gippsland Highway was constructed approximately a kilometre to the freeway's west. Pound Road was extended a few hundred metres west across a new bridge over the freeway, and Dandenong-bound ramps were constructed. The interchange where the freeway and the old and new alignments of the South Gippsland Highway met Lyndhurst Road (renamed Hastings-Dandenong Road not long afterwards) was reconsructed to allow the freeway to flow further south using an overpass above the realigned South Gippsland Highway.
• 1980s: Renaming of Mulgrave Fwy south of Eumemmerring Ck renamed South Gippsland Fwy
• 1990s: M1 replaces NR1 north of Princes Hwy interchange
• 1997: The B420 segment (Phillip Island Road) of the route was initially designated as the B480 quite early on during the MABC planning process - it's shown in the 'Linking Victoria' document. 4
• 2003: M1 north of Princes Hwy interchange, replaced by M420 with the extension of Monash Freeway
• 2006: Upgrade works on Bass Highway from Stanley Road, Grantville to north of McKenzie Road, Corinella, from two lanes to four with a median. 5
• 2007: Introduction of blue line to Phillip Island Road and Bass Highway - this blue line increases the number of lanes available to the traffic exiting the Phillip Island Race Track when major events are held. 5

1 Sam Laybutt
2 VicRoads
3 BJ Winzer
4 Viseth Uch
5 Victorian Government

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