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Housing

Melbourne has minimal public housing and high demand for rental housing, which is becoming unaffordable for some.[139][140][141] Public housing is managed and provided by the Victorian Government's Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, and operates within the framework of the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement, by which both federal and state governments provide funding for housing.

Melbourne is experiencing high population growth, generating high demand for housing. This housing boom has increased house prices and rents, as well as the availability of all types of housing. Subdivision regularly occurs in the outer areas of Melbourne, with numerous developers offering house and land packages. However, since the release of Melbourne 2030 in 2002, planning policies have encouraged medium-density and high-density development in existing areas with good access to public transport and other services. As a result of this, Melbourne's middle and outer-ring suburbs have seen significant brownfields redevelopment.[142]

Architecture

On the back of the 1850s gold rush and 1880s land boom, Melbourne became renowned as one of the world's great Victorian-era cities, a reputation that persists due to its diverse range of Victorian architecture.[143] High concentrations of well-preserved Victorian-era buildings can be found in the inner suburbs, such as Carlton, East Melbourne and South Melbourne.[144] Outstanding examples of Melbourne's built Victorian heritage include the World Heritage-listed Royal Exhibition Building (1880), the General Post Office (1867), Hotel Windsor (1884) and the Block Arcade (1891).[145] Comparatively little remains of Melbourne's pre-gold rush architecture; St James Old Cathedral (1839) and St Francis' Church (1845) are among the few examples left in the CBD. Many of the CBD's Victorian boom-time landmarks were also demolished in the decades after World War II, including the Federal Coffee Palace (1888) and the APA Building (1889), one of the tallest early skyscrapers upon completion.[146][147] Heritage listings and heritage overlays have since been introduced in an effort to prevent further losses of the city's historic fabric.

In line with the city's expansion during the early 20th century, suburbs such as Hawthorn and Camberwell are defined largely by Federation and Edwardian architectural styles. The City Baths, built in 1903, are a prominent example of the latter style in the CBD. The 1926 Nicholas Building is the city's grandest example of the Chicago School style, while the influence of Art Deco is apparent in the Manchester Unity Building, completed in 1932. The city also features the Shrine of Remembrance, which was built as a memorial to the men and women of Victoria who served in World War I and is now a memorial to all Australians who have served in war.

Residential architecture is not defined by a single architectural style, but rather an eclectic mix of large McMansion-style houses (particularly in areas of urban sprawl), apartment buildings, condominiums, and townhouses which generally characterise the medium-density inner-city neighbourhoods. Freestanding dwellings with relatively large gardens are perhaps the most common type of housing outside inner city Melbourne. Victorian terrace housing, townhouses and historic Italianate, Tudor revival and Neo-Georgian mansions are all common in inner-city neighbourhoods such as Carlton, Fitzroy and further into suburban enclaves like Toorak.[148]

Culture

Often referred to as Australia's cultural capital, Melbourne is recognised globally as a centre of sport, music, theatre, comedy, art, literature, film and television.[149] For much of the 2010s, it held the top position in The Economist Intelligence Unit's list of the world's most liveable cities, partly due to its cultural attributes.[23] The city celebrates a wide variety of annual cultural events and festivals of all types, including the Melbourne International Arts Festival, Melbourne Fringe Festival and Moomba, Australia's largest free community festival.

State Library Victoria, founded in 1854, is one of the world's oldest free public libraries and, as of 2018, the fourth most-visited library globally.[150] Between the gold rush and the economic crash of the early 1890s, Melbourne was Australia's literary capital, referred to by Henry Kendall as "that wild bleak Bohemia south of the Murray".[151] At this time, Melbourne-based authors and poets Marcus Clarke, Adam Lindsay Gordon and Rolf Boldrewood produced classic visions of colonial life. Fergus Hume's The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886), the fastest-selling crime novel of the era, is set in Melbourne, as is Australia's best-selling book of poetry, The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (1915) by C. J. Dennis.[152] Contemporary Melbourne authors who have written award-winning books set in the city include Peter Carey, Helen Garner and Gerald Murnane.[153] Melbourne has Australia's widest range of bookstores, as well as the nation's largest publishing sector.[154] The city is also home to the Melbourne Writers Festival and hosts the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. In 2008, it became the second city to be named a UNESCO City of Literature.

Melbourne is home to many theatres, eight of which are concentrated in the East End Theatre District, including the Victorian era Athenaeum, Her Majesty's and Princess theatres, as well as the Forum and the Regent. Other heritage-listed theatres include the avant-garde picture palace The Capitol and St Kilda's Palais Theatre, Australia's largest seated theatre with a capacity of 3,000 people.[155] The Arts Precinct in Southbank is home to Arts Centre Melbourne (which includes the State Theatre and Hamer Hall), as well as the Melbourne Recital Centre, Malthouse Theatre and Southbank Theatre, home of the Melbourne Theatre Company, Australia's oldest professional theatre company.[156] The Australian Ballet, Opera Australia and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra are also based in the precinct. Many of Melbourne's theatres join the Melbourne Town Hall in hosting the annual Melbourne International Comedy Festival, one of the world's three largest comedy festivals.[157]

Melbourne has been called "the live music capital of the world";[158] one study found it has more music venues per capita than any other world city sampled, with 17.5 million patron visits to 553 venues in 2016.[158][159] Australia's first global music star, opera singer Nellie Melba, took her stage name from her hometown. Composer Percy Grainger followed her in becoming the most famous Melburnian of the Edwardian era. The Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Kings Domain hosted the largest crowd ever for a music concert in Australia when an estimated 200,000 attendees saw Melbourne band The Seekers in 1967.[160] Airing between 1974 and 1987, Melbourne's Countdown helped launch the careers of AC/DC,[161] Men at Work and Kylie Minogue, among other local acts. Several distinct post-punk scenes flourished in Melbourne during the late 1970s and early 1980s, including the Little Band scene and St Kilda's Crystal Ballroom scene, which gave rise to Dead Can Dance and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.[162] More recent independent acts from Melbourne to achieve global recognition include The Avalanches, Gotye and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Melbourne is also regarded as a centre of EDM, and lends its name to the Melbourne Bounce genre and the Melbourne Shuffle dance style, both of which emerged from the city's underground rave scene.[163]

Established in 1861, the National Gallery of Victoria is Australia's oldest and largest art museum, and houses its collection across two sites: NGV International in Southbank and NGV Australia at Federation Square. Several art movements originated in Melbourne, most famously the Heidelberg School of impressionists, named after a suburb where they camped to paint en plein air in the 1880s.[164] The Australian tonalists followed in the 1910s,[165] some of whom founded Montsalvat in Eltham, Australia's oldest surviving art colony. Mid-century Melbourne became a stronghold of figurative modernism through the paintings of the Antipodeans and Angry Penguins; the latter group often met at a former dairy farm in Bulleen, now the Heide Museum of Modern Art. The city is also home to the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, as well as numerous independent galleries and artist-run spaces. In the 2000s, street art proliferated in Melbourne, with Banksy saying its graffiti scene "leads the world",[166] and "laneway galleries" becoming major tourist sites; Hosier Lane for example attracts more Instagram hashtags than some of the city's traditional destinations, like the Melbourne Zoo.[167][168] Melbourne is also home to many public artworks, ranging from the Burke and Wills monument (1865) to the abstract sculpture Vault (1978), the latter a popular reference point amongst Melbourne designers.[169]

The oldest film in Australia's National Film and Sound Archive is of the 1896 Melbourne Cup. Melbourne filmmakers spurred Australia's first cinematic boom with The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), shot a quarter century after bushranger Ned Kelly's execution at Old Melbourne Gaol, and since recognised as the world's first feature-length narrative film.[170] Melbourne remained a world leader in film production until the mid-1910s, when several factors, including a ban on bushranger films, contributed to a decades-long decline of the industry.[170] A notable film shot and set in Melbourne during this lull was On the Beach (1959).[171] In the wake of the 1970s Australian Film Revival, many films have been shot and set in Melbourne, including Mad Max (1979), Romper Stomper (1992), Chopper (2000) and Animal Kingdom (2010). The Melbourne International Film Festival began in 1952 and is one of the world's oldest film festivals. The AACTA Awards, Australia's top screen awards, were inaugurated by the festival in 1958. Docklands Studios Melbourne is the city's largest film and television studio complex and has attracted major international productions.[172] Melbourne is also home to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and the headquarters of Village Roadshow Pictures, Australia's largest film production company.

Sport

Melbourne has long been regarded as Australia's sporting capital due to the role it has played in the development of Australian sport, the range and quality of its sporting events and venues, and its high rates of spectatorship and participation.[173] The city is also home to 27 professional sports teams competing at the national level, the most of any Australian city. Melbourne's sporting reputation was recognised in 2016 when, after being ranked as the world's top sports city three times biennially, the Ultimate Sports City Awards in Switzerland named it 'Sports City of the Decade'.[174]

The city has hosted a number of major international sporting events, most notably the 1956 Summer Olympics, the first Olympic Games held outside Europe and the United States.[175] Melbourne also hosted the 2006 Commonwealth Games, and is home to several major annual international events, including the Australian Open, the first of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments. First held in 1861 and declared a public holiday for all Melburnians in 1873, the Melbourne Cup is the world's richest handicap horse race, and is known as "the race that stops a nation". The Formula One Australian Grand Prix has been held at the Albert Park Circuit since 1996.

Cricket was one of the first sports to become organised in Melbourne with the Melbourne Cricket Club forming within three years of settlement. The club manages one of the world's largest stadiums, the 100,000 capacity Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).[176] Established in 1853, the MCG is notable for hosting the first Test match and the first One Day International, played between Australia and England in 1877 and 1971, respectively. It is also the home of the National Sports Museum,[177] and serves as the home ground of the Victoria cricket team. At Twenty20 level, the Melbourne Stars and Melbourne Renegades compete in the Big Bash League.

Australian rules football, Australia's most popular spectator sport, traces its origins to matches played in parklands next to the MCG in 1858. Its first laws were codified the following year by the Melbourne Football Club,[178] also a founding member, in 1896, of the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite professional competition. Headquartered at Docklands Stadium, the AFL fields a further eight Melbourne-based clubs: Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Hawthorn, North Melbourne, Richmond, St Kilda, and the Western Bulldogs.[179] The city hosts up to five AFL matches per round during the home and away season, attracting an average of 40,000 spectators per game.[180] The AFL Grand Final, traditionally held at the MCG, is the highest attended club championship event in the world.

In soccer, Melbourne is represented in the A-League by Melbourne Victory, Melbourne City FC and Western United FC and in rugby league it is home to the National Rugby League team, Melbourne Storm. Melbourne was home to the Melbourne Rebels Rugby Union team before it folded in 2024. North American sports have also gained popularity in Melbourne: basketball sides South East Melbourne Phoenix and Melbourne United play in the NBL; Melbourne Ice and Melbourne Mustangs play in the Australian Ice Hockey League; and Melbourne Aces plays in the Australian Baseball League. Rowing also forms part of Melbourne's sporting identity, with a number of clubs located on the Yarra River, out of which many Australian Olympians trained.

Economy

Melbourne has a highly diversified economy with particular strengths in finance, manufacturing, research, IT, education, logistics, transportation and tourism. Melbourne houses the headquarters of many of Australia's largest corporations, including five of the ten largest in the country (based on revenue), and five of the largest seven in the country (based on market capitalisation);[181] ANZ, BHP, the National Australia Bank, CSL and Telstra, as well as such representative bodies and think tanks as the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. Melbourne's suburbs also have the head offices of Coles Group (owner of Coles Supermarkets) and Wesfarmers companies Bunnings, Target, K-Mart and Officeworks, as well as the head office for Australia Post. The city is home to Australia's second busiest seaport, after Port Botany in Sydney.[182] Melbourne Airport provides an entry point for national and international visitors, and is Australia's second busiest airport.[183]

Melbourne is also an important financial centre. In the 2024 Global Financial Centres Index, Melbourne was ranked as having the 28th most competitive financial centre in the world.[22] Two of the big four banks, the ANZ and National Australia Bank, are headquartered in Melbourne. The city has carved out a niche as Australia's leading centre for superannuation (pension) funds, with 40% of the total, and 65% of industry super-funds including the AU$109 billion-dollar Federal Government Future Fund. The city was rated 41st within the top 50 financial cities as surveyed by the MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index (2008),[184] second only to Sydney (12th) in Australia. Melbourne is Australia's second-largest industrial centre.[185]

It is the Australian base for a number of significant manufacturers including Boeing Australia, truck-makers Kenworth and Iveco, Cadbury as well as Alstom and Jayco, among others. It is also home to a wide variety of other manufacturers, ranging from petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals to fashion garments, paper manufacturing and food processing.[187] The south-eastern suburb of Scoresby is home to Nintendo's Australian headquarters. The city also has a research and development hub for Ford Australia, as well as a global design studio and technical centre for General Motors and Toyota Australia respectively.

CSL, one of the world's top five biotech companies, and Sigma Pharmaceuticals have their headquarters in Melbourne. The two are the largest listed Australian pharmaceutical companies.[188] Melbourne has an important ICT industry, home to more than half of Australia's top 20 technology companies, and employs over 91,000 people (one third of Australia's ICT workforce), with a turnover of AU$34 billion and export revenues of AU$2.5 billion in 2018.[189] In addition, tourism also plays an important role in Melbourne's economy, with 10.8 million domestic overnight tourists and 2.9 million international overnight tourists in 2018.[190] Melbourne has been attracting an increasing share of domestic and international conference markets. Construction began in February 2006 of an AU$1 billion 5000-seat international convention centre, Hilton Hotel and commercial precinct adjacent to the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre to link development along the Yarra River with the Southbank precinct and multibillion-dollar Docklands redevelopment.[191]

Tourism

Melbourne is the second most visited city in Australia and the seventy-third most visited city in the world.[192] In 2018, 10.8 million domestic overnight tourists and 2.9 million international overnight tourists visited Melbourne.[193] The most visited attractions are Federation Square, Queen Victoria Market, Crown Casino, Southbank, Melbourne Zoo, Melbourne Aquarium, Docklands, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Museum, Melbourne Observation Deck, Arts Centre Melbourne, and the Melbourne Cricket Ground.[194] The State Library of Victoria is the fourth most visited in the world.[150] Luna Park, a theme park modelled on New York's Coney Island and Seattle's Luna Park,[195] is also a popular destination for visitors.[196] In its annual survey of readers, the Condé Nast Traveler magazine found that both Melbourne and Auckland were considered the world's friendliest cities in 2014.[197][198] Melbourne's laneways and arcades are of particular importance for the city's tourism-Hosier Lane attracted one million visitors in each year prior to the COVID pandemic.[199] The laneways of Melbourne have been gentrified and now include prominent displays of street art, which attracts international tourists. Melbourne is considered one of the safest world cities for travellers.[200][201]

Melbourne has a renowned culinary scene that attracts international tourists.[202][203][204] Lygon Street, which runs through the inner-northern suburbs of Melbourne, is a popular dining destination with an abundance of Italian and Greek restaurants that date back to earlier European immigration of the city. Food festivals are of particular popularity in Melbourne, many of which are held during early autumn, earning this period the nickname "mad March". The most well-known of these events, the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, takes place over the course of ten days and began in 1993.[205][206]

Melbourne is also home to many annual events and festivals. The Melbourne International Comedy Festival is held every year in March through to April. Established in 1987, it is one of the three largest international comedy festivals in the world. Other notable festivals and events include the Melbourne Flower and Garden Show, the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, the Melbourne Royal Show and the Midsumma Festival.

Demographics

Although Victoria's net interstate migration has fluctuated, the population of the Melbourne statistical division has grown by about 70,000 people a year since 2005. Melbourne has now attracted the largest proportion of international overseas immigrants (48,000) finding it outpacing Sydney's international migrant intake on percentage, as well as having strong interstate migration from Sydney and other capitals due to more affordable housing and cost of living.[207]

In recent years, Melton, Wyndham and Casey, part of the Melbourne statistical division, have recorded the highest growth rate of all local government areas in Australia. Melbourne is on track to overtake Sydney in population between 2028 and 2030.[208]

After a trend of declining population density since World War II, the city has seen increased density in the inner and western suburbs, aided in part by Victorian Government planning, such as Postcode 3000 and Melbourne 2030, which have aimed to curtail urban sprawl.[209][210] As of 2018, the CBD is the most densely populated area in Australia with more than 19,000 residents per square kilometre, and the inner city suburbs of Carlton, South Yarra, Fitzroy and Collingwood make up Victoria's top five.[211][212]

Ancestry and immigration

At the 2021 census, the most commonly nominated ancestries were:[213]

English (24.8%)
Australian (22.5%)
Chinese (8.8%)
Irish (8.2%)
Scottish (6.9%)
Italian (6.7%)
Indian (5.5%)
Greek (3.6%)
German (2.8%)
Vietnamese (2.5%)
Filipino (1.7%)
Dutch (1.4%)
Maltese (1.3%)
Polish (1.1%)
Sri Lankan (1%)
Lebanese (1%)
At the 2021 census, 0.7% of Melbourne's population identified as being Indigenous - Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders.[note 4][214] In Greater Melbourne at the 2021 census, 59.9% of residents were born in Australia. The other most common countries of birth were India (4.9%), Mainland China (3.4%), England (2.7%), Vietnam (1.8%) and New Zealand (1.7%).[214]

Language

At the time of the 2021 census, 61.1% of Melburnians speak only English at home. Mandarin (4.3%), Vietnamese (2.3%), Greek (2.1%), Punjabi (2%), and Arabic (1.8%) were the most common foreign languages spoken at home by residents of Melbourne.

Religion

Melbourne has a wide range of religious faiths, the most widely held of which is Christianity. This is signified by the city's two large cathedrals-St Patrick's (Roman Catholic), and St Paul's (Anglican). Both were built in the Victorian era and are of considerable heritage significance as major landmarks of the city.[215] In recent years, Greater Melbourne's irreligious community has grown to be one of the largest in Australia.[216]

According to the 2021 Census, persons stating that they had no religion constituted 36.9% of the population.[214] Christianity was the most popular religious affiliation at 40.1%.[214] The largest Christian denominations were Catholicism (20.8%) and Anglicanism (5.5%).[214] The most popular non-Christian religious affiliations were Islam (5.3%), Hinduism (4.1%), Buddhism (3.9%), Sikhism (1.7%) and Judaism (0.9%).[214]

Over 258,000 Muslims live in Melbourne.[217] Muslim religious life in Melbourne is centred on about 25 mosques and a number of prayer rooms at university campuses, workplaces and other venues.[218] As of 2000, Melbourne had the largest population of Polish Jews and Holocaust survivors in Australia, and the largest number of Jewish institutions.[219]

Education

Of the top twenty high schools in Australia according to the My Choice Schools Ranking, five are in Melbourne.[220] There has also been a rapid increase in the number of International students studying in the city, with Melbourne considered the 4th best city in the world for studying abroad in the 2024 Best Student Cities ranking by QS,[221] and voted the world's fourth top university city in 2008 after London, Boston and Tokyo in a poll commissioned by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.[222] Eight public universities operate in Melbourne: the University of Melbourne, Monash University, Swinburne University of Technology, Deakin University, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University), La Trobe University, Australian Catholic University (ACU) and Victoria University (VU).

Melbourne universities have campuses all over Australia and some internationally. Swinburne University and Monash University have campuses in Malaysia, RMIT in Vietnam, with Monash also having research centres in Prato, Italy, and a joint partnership research academy with IIT Bombay in Mumbai, India. The University of Melbourne, the second oldest university in Australia,[223] is the highest ranked university in Australia across the three major global rankings - QS (13th), THES (34th) and the Academic Ranking of World Universities (32nd),[224] with Monash University also ranking within the top 50 - QS (37nd) and THES (44th).[225] Both are members of the Group of Eight, a coalition of leading Australian tertiary institutions offering comprehensive and leading education.[226]

As of 2024 RMIT University is ranked 18th in the world in both Art & Design, and Architecture.[227] The Swinburne University of Technology, based in the inner-city Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn, was as of 2014 ranked 76th-100th in the world for physics by the Academic Ranking of World Universities.[228] Deakin University maintains two major campuses in Melbourne and Geelong, and is the third largest university in Victoria. In recent years, the number of international students at Melbourne's universities has risen rapidly, a result of an increasing number of places being made available for them.[229] Education in Melbourne is overseen by the Victorian Department of Education (DET), whose role is to 'provide policy and planning advice for the delivery of education'.[230]

Media

Three daily newspapers serve Melbourne: the Herald Sun (tabloid), The Age (compact) and The Australian (national broadsheet). There are six primary free-to-air digital television stations operating in Greater Melbourne and Geelong: ABC Victoria, (ABV), SBS Victoria (SBS), Seven Melbourne (HSV), Nine Melbourne (GTV), Ten Melbourne (ATV), C31 Melbourne (MGV) - community television.[231] Each station (excluding C31) broadcasts a primary channel and several multichannels.[232] Some digital media companies such as Broadsheet are based in and primarily serve Melbourne.

Many AM and FM radio stations broadcast to greater Melbourne. These include public (i.e., state-owned ABC and SBS) and community stations. Many commercial stations are networked-owned: Nova Entertainment owns Nova 100 and Smooth; ARN controls Gold 104.3 and KIIS 101.1; and Southern Cross Austereo runs both Fox and Triple M. Youth stations include ABC Triple J and youth-run SYN. Triple J, and community stations PBS and Triple R, strive to play under represented music. JOY 94.9 caters for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender audiences. 3MBS and ABC Classic FM play classical music. Light FM is a contemporary Christian station. AM stations include ABC: ABC Radio Melbourne, Radio National, and News Radio; also Nine Entertainment affiliates 3AW (talk) and Magic (easy listening). SEN 1116 broadcasts sports coverage. Melbourne has many community run stations that serve alternative interests, such as 3CR and 3KND (Indigenous). Many suburbs have low powered community run stations serving local audiences.[233]

Governance

The governance of Melbourne is split between the government of Victoria and the 27 cities and four shires that make up the metropolitan area. There is no ceremonial or political head of Melbourne, but the Lord Mayor of the City of Melbourne often fulfils such a role as a first among equals.[234]

The local councils are responsible for providing the functions set out in the Local Government Act 1989[235] such as urban planning and waste management. Most other government services are provided or regulated by the Victorian state government, which governs from Parliament House in Spring Street. These include services associated with local government in other countries and include public transport, main roads, traffic control, policing, education above preschool level, health and planning of major infrastructure projects.

Infrastructure

Health

Among Australian capital cities, Melbourne ties with Canberra in first place for the highest male life expectancy (80.0 years) and ranks second behind Perth in female life expectancy (84.1 years).[236] The Victorian Government's Department of Health oversees about 30 public hospitals in the Melbourne metropolitan region and 13 health services organisations.[237]

Major medical, neuroscience and biotechnology research institutions located in Melbourne include the St. Vincent's Institute of Medical Research, Australian Stem Cell Centre, the Burnet Institute, the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, Victorian Institute of Chemical Sciences, Brain Research Institute, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, and the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre.

The headquarters of Australian pharmaceutical company CSL Limited is located in the Melbourne Biomedical Precinct in Parkville, which contains over 40 biomedical and research institutions.[238] It was announced in 2021 that a new Australian Institute for Infectious Disease would also be built in Parkville.[239] Other institutions include the Howard Florey Institute, the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, and the Australian Synchrotron.[240] Many of these institutions are associated with and located near to universities. Melbourne is also home to the Royal Children's Hospital and the Monash Children's Hospital.

Roads

Like many Australian cities, Melbourne has a high dependency on the automobile for transport,[241] particularly in the outer suburban areas where the largest number of cars are bought,[242] with a total of 3.6 million private vehicles using 22,320 km (13,870 mi) of road, and one of the highest lengths of road per capita in the world.[241] The early 20th century saw an increase in popularity of automobiles, resulting in large-scale suburban expansion and a tendency towards the development of urban sprawl-like all Australian cities, inhabitants would live in the suburbs and commute to the city for work.[243] By the mid-1950s, there were just under 200 passenger vehicles per 1000 people, and by 2013, there were 600 passenger vehicles per 1000 people.[244]

The road network in Victoria is managed by Vicroads, as part of the Department of Transport, who oversee the planning and integration. Maintenance of roads is undertaken by different bodies, depending on the road. Local roads are maintained by local councils, while secondary and main roads are the responsibility of Vicroads. Major national freeways and roads integral to national trade are overseen by the Federal Government.[245]

Today, Melbourne has an extensive network of freeways and arterial roadways. These are used by private vehicles, including road freight vehicles, as well as road-based public transport modes like buses and taxis. Major highways feeding into the city include the Eastern Freeway, Monash Freeway and West Gate Freeway (which spans the large West Gate Bridge). Other freeways include the Calder Freeway, Tullamarine Freeway, which is the main airport link, and the Hume Freeway, which connects Melbourne to Canberra and Sydney. Melbourne's middle suburbs are connected via an orbital freeway, the M80 Ring Road, which will be completed when the North East Link opens.[246]

Out of Melbourne's twenty declared freeways open or under construction, six are electronic toll roads. This includes the M1 and M2 CityLink (which includes the large Bolte Bridge), Eastlink, North East Link, and the West Gate Tunnel. Apart from Eastlink which is owned and operated by ConnectEast, the toll roads in Melbourne are run by Transurban. In Melbourne, tollways have blue and yellow signage compared to the green signs used for free roads.

Public transport

Melbourne has an integrated public transport system based around extensive train, tram, bus and taxi systems. Flinders Street station was the world's busiest passenger station in 1927 and Melbourne's tram network overtook Sydney's to become the world's largest in the 1940s. From the 1940s, public transport use in Melbourne declined due to a rapid expansion of the road and freeway network, with the largest declines in tram and bus usage.[247] This decline quickened in the early 1990s due to large public transport service cuts.[247] The operations of Melbourne's public transport system was privatised in 1999 through a franchising model, with operational responsibilities for the train, tram and bus networks licensed to private companies.[248] After 1996 there was a rapid increase in public transport patronage due to growth in employment in central Melbourne, with the mode share for commuters increasing to 14.8% and 8.4% of all trips.[249][247] A target of 20% public transport mode share for Melbourne by 2020 was set by the state government in 2006.[250] Since 2006 public transport patronage has grown by over 20% and a number of projects have commenced aimed at expanding public transport usage.[250]

Train

The Melbourne metropolitan rail network dates back to the 1850s gold rush era, and today consists of 222 suburban stations on sixteen lines which radiate from the City Loop, a mostly-underground subway system around the CBD. Flinders Street station, one of Australia's busiest rail hubs, serves the entire network, and remains a prominent Melbourne landmark and meeting place.[251] The city has rail connections with regional Victorian cities run by V/Line, as well as direct interstate rail services which depart from Melbourne's other major rail terminus, Southern Cross station, in Docklands. The Overland to Adelaide departs twice a week, while the XPT to Sydney departs twice daily. In the 2017-2018 financial year, the Melbourne metropolitan rail network recorded 240.9 million passenger trips, the highest ridership in its history.[252] Many rail lines, along with dedicated lines and rail yards, are also used for freight.

An assortment of new railways are under construction in Melbourne. A new heavy rail corridor through the inner city, the Metro Tunnel, is set to open by 2025, and will reduce congestion on the City Loop. The ongoing Level Crossing Removal Project is grade separating much of the network, and rebuilding many older stations. In June 2022, early works commenced on the Suburban Rail Loop, a 90-kilometre underground automated orbital line through Melbourne's middle suburbs around 12-18 km (7.5-11.2 mi) from the CBD.[253] An airport rail connection has commenced with early works in Keilor East.[254]

Tram

Melbourne's tram network dates from the 1880s land boom and, as of 2021, consists of 250 km (155.3 mi) of double track, 475 trams, 25 routes, and 1,763 tram stops, making it the largest in the world.[255][26][256] In 2017-2018, 206.3 million passenger trips were made by tram.[252] Around 75 per cent of Melbourne's tram network shares road space with other vehicles, while the rest of the network is separated or are light rail routes.[255] Melbourne's trams are recognised as iconic cultural assets and a tourist attraction. Heritage trams operate on the free City Circle route around the CBD.[257] Trams are free within the central city Free Tram Zone and run 24-hours on weekends.[258]

Bus

Melbourne's bus network consists of more than 400 routes which mainly service the outer suburbs and fill the gaps in the network between rail and tram services.[259][257][260] 127.6 million passenger trips were recorded on Melbourne's buses in 2013-2014, an increase of 10.2 percent on the previous year.[261]

Airports

Melbourne has four airports. Melbourne Airport, at Tullamarine, is the city's main international and domestic gateway and second busiest in Australia, with a traffic of over 37 million passengers in 2018-19.[262] The airport, which comprises four terminals,[263] is the home base for passenger airline Jetstar and cargo airlines Australian airExpress and Toll Priority, and is a major hub for Qantas and Virgin Australia. Avalon Airport, located between Melbourne and Geelong, is a secondary hub of Jetstar. It is also used as a freight and maintenance facility. Buses and taxis are the only forms of public transport to and from the city's main airports. A rail link to Tullamarine is planned to open by 2029.[264] Air Ambulance facilities are available for domestic and international transportation of patients.[265] Melbourne also has a significant general aviation airport, Moorabbin Airport in the city's southeast that also handles a small number of passenger flights. Essendon Airport, which was once the city's main airport, also handles passenger flights, general aviation and some cargo flights.[266]

Water transport

Ship transport is an important component of Melbourne's transport system. The Port of Melbourne is Australia's largest container and general cargo port and also its busiest. The port handled two million shipping containers in a 12-month period during 2007, making it one of the top five ports in the Southern Hemisphere.[267] Station Pier on Port Phillip Bay is the main passenger ship terminal with cruise ships docking there. Ferries and water taxis run from berths along the Yarra River as far upstream as South Yarra and across Port Phillip Bay.

Utilities

Water storage and supply for Melbourne is managed by Melbourne Water, which is owned by the Victorian Government. The organisation is also responsible for management of sewerage and the major water catchments in the region as well as the Wonthaggi desalination plant and North-South Pipeline. Water is stored in a series of reservoirs located within and outside the Greater Melbourne area. The largest dam, the Thomson River Dam, located in the Victorian Alps, is capable of holding around 60% of Melbourne's water capacity,[268] while smaller dams such as the Upper Yarra Dam, Yan Yean Reservoir, and the Cardinia Reservoir carry secondary supplies.

Gas is provided by three distribution companies:

AusNet Services, which provides gas from Melbourne's inner western suburbs to southwestern Victoria.[269]
Multinet Gas, which provides gas from Melbourne's inner eastern suburbs to eastern Victoria (owned by SP AusNet after acquisition, but continuing to trade under the brand name Multinet Gas).[270]
Australian Gas Networks, which provides gas from Melbourne's inner northern suburbs to northern Victoria, as well as the majority of southeastern Victoria.[270][271]
Electricity is provided by five distribution companies:

Citipower, which provides power to Melbourne's CBD, and some inner suburbs.[272]
Powercor, which provides power to the outer western suburbs, as well as all of western Victoria (Citipower and Powercor are owned by the same entity).[272]
Jemena, which provides power to the northern and inner western suburbs.[273]
United Energy, which provides power to the inner eastern and southeastern suburbs, and the Mornington Peninsula.[273]
AusNet Services, which provides power to the outer eastern suburbs and all of the north and east of Victoria.[269]

Continued from Melbourne | Wikipedia (Page 1)

This page was last edited on 30 August 2024, at 19:54 (UTC).
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution

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❊ Web Links ❊

➼ Melbourne | Wikipedia | Page 2 

➼ wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne

➼ List of schools in Victoria

➼ Timeline of Melbourne history

➼ Melbourne travel guide from Wikitravel

➼ Trams in Melbourne | Wikipedia

❊ Also See... ❊

➼ Melbourne | Wikipedia






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