The West Gate Freeway is a major freeway in Melbourne, the busiest urban freeway and the busiest road in Australia, carrying upwards of 200,000 vehicles per day. It links Geelong (via the Princes Freeway) and Melbourne's western suburbs to central Melbourne and beyond. It is also a link between Melbourne and the west and linking industrial and residential areas west of the Yarra River with the city and port areas. The West Gate Bridge is a part of the freeway. It is a fully managed freeway with a complete 'Freeway Management System' that is dynamically linked and adaptive to the entire M1 corridor. This includes the 2008 re-design of a substantial section. Overall, the freeway has between 4-6 lanes in each direction, with a maximum of 12 lanes at one point in its width. Route The West Gate Freeway officially begins at the West Gate Interchange in Laverton North, with ramps to and from the Western Ring Road, Princes Freeway and Princes Highway (Geelong Road) and heads east as an eight-lane dual-carriageway, crossing the Yarra River over the West Gate bridge, through Port Melbourne, and then becomes elevated for its remaining length, with access ramps to Melbourne's central business district. Eastward beyond the Kings Way and Power Street exits is the CityLink's Southern Link, connecting onwards through Melbourne's south-eastern suburbs through the Burnley and Domain Tunnels. Standard travel time on the West Gate Freeway in both directions, is 12 minutes: 5 minutes between the Western Ring Road and Williamstown Road, and 7 minutes between Williamstown Road and Kings Way. The usual peak period travel time, is between 16–27 minutes; however, in times of extreme congestion or traffic accidents, the travel time can well exceed 40 minutes. History The Country Roads Board (later VicRoads) was authorised by the government in December 1961 for a study to gather engineering and economic data for the provisioning of a toll crossing of the Lower Yarra River, from Salmon Street in Port Melbourne to the Princes Highway in the vicinity of Kororoit Creek, a distance of 5.25 miles. Investigations included details of bores down to 8,000 feet and soil tests (completed on 29 June 1962), selective drilling and sampling in critical areas, and traffic studies, and at the time both a tunnel under and a bridge over the river were mooted. In February 1966, the Board was appointed as the design and construction authority for