The Monash Freeway is a major urban freeway in Victoria, Australia, linking Melbourne's CBD to its south-eastern suburbs and beyond to the Gippsland region. It carries up to 180,000 vehicles per day and is one of Australia's busiest freeways. The entire stretch of the Monash Freeway bears the designation M1. The freeway is named in honour of General Sir John Monash, an esteemed Australian military commander for the allies during World War I. History The Monash Freeway is an amalgamation of two initially separate freeways: the Mulgrave Freeway (initially designated Freeway Route 81) linking Warrigal Road, Chadstone to the Princes Highway in Eumemmerring; and the South Eastern Freeway (initially designated Metropolitan Route 80, then Freeway Route 80) linking Punt Road, Richmond and Toorak Road, Hawthorn East. Mulgrave Freeway Plans for a "Mulgrave By-pass Road and Eumemmerring By-pass Road" had been made as far back as 1966, between Warrigal Road in Chadstone and Princes Highway at Eumemmerring. The Country Roads Board started construction in the 1969/70 financial year, with the initial section of road opened to traffic in late 1972 with two names: as Mulgrave Freeway (from Stud Road in Dandenong North to Doveton), and Eumemmerring Freeway (from Doveton to Princes Highway at Eumemmerring); Eumemmerring Freeway was later separated and renamed South Gippsland Freeway in April 1974, and extended further south to Hampton Park in 1976. Through the 1970s and the early 1980s, the Mulgrave Freeway was progressively extended westward to Springvale Road in 1974, Blackburn Road in 1976, Forster Road in 1977, Huntingdale Road in 1979, and finally to Warrigal Road in Chadstone. The Freeway Route 81 designation was removed in 1988, coinciding with the opening of the South Eastern Arterial and its replacement by National Route 1. At this time the Tullamarine Freeway also carried the Freeway Route 81 shield. This was due to the 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan having the two freeways linked to each other from around East Malvern (at the Mulgrave Freeway end) and at Flemington (at the Tullamarine Freeway end), sweeping through the St Kilda area. The plan never came to fruition, but the two freeways have since been linked by the West Gate Freeway extension and the CityLink project. Mulgrave Freeway timeline of construction 1972: Mulgrave and Eumemmerring Freeways, total from Princes Highway, Eumemmerring to Stud Road, Dandenong North, opened by the Governor of Victoria Sir Rohan Delacombe, 21 November 1972, total cost A$6.8mil.