New analysis compiled for the Saturday Herald Sun shows average volumes across the city’s arterial road network on Wednesday hit 94 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.The state government has embarked on a $340 million roads blitz to improve traffic flow in readiness for the spike.A further 120 road and rail projects are also planned or already under way. The Saturday Herald Sun understands traffic volumes are forecast to soon surpass regular levels as growing numbers of workers return to the office.Caution about taking public transport was a key factor.Roads Minister Ben Carroll said: “While Victorians were doing the right thing and staying home during the pandemic, we were using that time to do significant works on some of our busiest roads”.“Data and experience gathered from around the world suggests people will be more likely to drive after the pandemic, so we’ve been hard at work doing upgrades and installing new technology on the network,’’ Mr Carroll said.The analysis showed traffic volumes more than halved at the height of lockdown in August last year.They slumped to 68 per cent of regular levels during last month’s snap five-day lockdown having hit 99 per cent on February 12 — the day the lockdown was announced.It was the highest traffic volume figure since the pandemic started a year ago.Major roadworks completed during the pandemic have included West Gate Bridge maintenance, resurfacing on stretches of the Monash Freeway as well as local road improvements in the suburbs.All clearways within 20km of Melbourne’s CBD have become tow-away zones in a bid to free up traffic further, with 1439 vehicles removed last month alone.Sydney Road in Coburg and Brunswick, High Street in Windsor and Prahran, and Johnston Street in Fitzroy have proved tow-away hot spots.“We’ve done a lot of planning to make sure our roads are ready to cater for the number of people returning to work,’’ Mr Carroll said.“By turning clearway zones into tow-away zones, we can move incorrectly parked cars before they create bottlenecks.“We’re also installing hundreds of new cameras across the network to ensure we have the most up-to-date information and we’ve hired extra incident response crews to clear up any disruptions.“Experts in the traffic management team are even analysing and changing the timing of hundreds of traffic lights, so people have better trips throughout the suburbs.”Up to 75 per cent of workers can now return to the office.The traffic calculations were based on weekday average volumes, using the week of February 24 to March 1, 2020 as a base.wes.hosking@news.com.au
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