Eastern Freeway and the Warrigal Road end of the Mulgrave Freeway frustrated drivers for many years; motorists had to rely on inadequate feeder roads to connect between the two freeways. Plans to link the two freeways dated from August 1978, while still extending the Mulgrave Freeway, from a Steering Committee appointed by the government in 1976 to carry out the "Gardiners Creek Valley Study": the study involved the Ministries for Planning, of Transport and for Conservation, the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, Town and Country Planning Board, Malvern, Camberwell and Hawthorn City Councils and the Country Roads Board, with an extensive process of public consultation. The subsequent route agreed to was referred to as the "South Eastern Freeway, Malvern Section" and was ultimately the alignment constructed. Construction of the link as a dual-carriageway road began in 1985, opening to traffic in late 1988, originally with two lanes in each direction, and declared a State Highway. The link road, as well as the South Eastern and Mulgrave Freeways, were all renamed the South Eastern Arterial. This road assumed the National Route 1 route number from the Princes Highway, which became an alternative route. The project attracted a great deal of controversy just before it opened and well afterwards: in order to save costs, only one freeway-style interchange had been constructed (underneath High Street in Glen Iris). Every other interchange with major roads along the route (Toorak, Burke, Tooronga and Warrigal Roads) was an at-grade intersection controlled by traffic-lights, and because the road was constructed through residential areas, reduced speed limits were also enforced. This led to heavy congestion, frequently kilometres long, on the freeway, fuelling anger and frustration, and attracting a moniker of "the South-Eastern Carpark". With a change of government some years later and a lot of political showmanship, more money was poured into the road: ramps connecting Police Road (to compliment the existing ramps at Jacksons Road) opened in 1993, to improve traffic flow to Waverley Gardens and AFL Park; and on the link road, construction of an overpass across Warrigal Road in 1994, and underpass interchanges at Toorak and Burke Roads (and just an underpass at Tooronga Road) soon afterwards. The name changed from South Eastern Arterial back to South Eastern Freeway for the full length of the freeway after upgrade works (including noise reduction measures, new landscaping and improvements to the adjacent cycle path) were completed