Geelong Gent

I travel down via the monash from toorak road, I keep going towards Pakenham and get off and join the western port freeway. Then its a small backroad to the back of Frankston. This has taken me 30 mins driving within the speed limits (on cruise control) but more often its about 50 mins. And very rarely do I travel this way in rush hour.

Sorry Jules not making a point about your times but perhaps another route some people might try and find it faster. - I prefer it versus stop start traffic lights and heavy congestion. I luckily have not experienced too much congestion on the Monash.

annemarie and john

Thanks for the info, am applying for my nursing registration first and then my skills assessment. Am hoping that this will make things go a little faster. We were hoping to go next October, but from what I have been reading here, I'm not so sure. Oh well all we can do is get cracking and see how we get on.

@boy

Certainly will agree with you there. If you are not limited to work that you will only find in Melbourne city (I work in large scale IT infrastructure support and will always be doomed to be near the city...), for example nursing, teaching, trades etc, then the peninsula is a great option and a lovely place to be based.

On the other hand, it is a big commute for people who expect to be employed in jobs in or around the CBD, and they need to be absolutely aware of the realities of this.

Some people will think nothing of a 1.5 hour commute to and from work, but if people are emigrating for the lifestyle benefit of reasonably short commutes then they do need to have a realistic understanding of just how big the greater Melbourne Metro area is and that you either pay big, big bucks for a house within an easy 30 minute commute of the CBD or you pay a much more reasonable price for something that will leave you an hour or 2 extra in a car or train for your working week.

It's a simple tradeoff but an often unacknowledged one in this forum.

seaangel

Although we dont live in Melbourne (we live an hour north), we have just bought a holiday home on the Mornington Peninsula and go into Melbourne quite a bit for a taste of culture and some good restaurants. We live in what is classed as country Victoria so it is nice to go somewhere completely different now and again!

jond

Another word for it is "civilised"

jond

[QUOTE=Geelong Gent;5491962]I travel down via the monash from toorak road, I keep going towards Pakenham and get off and join the western port freeway. Then its a small backroad to the back of Frankston. This has taken me 30 mins driving within the speed limits (on cruise control) but more often its about 50 mins. And very rarely do I travel this way in rush hour.



Far better to get of at the Blackburn Rd exit, then take the Westall rd extension then the Frankston freeway that is an easier route and not too bad with the traffic.

John

@boy

Relevant to the Melbourne Thread.....
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=491994

...To consider for anyone at the planning stages of moving here.

Margaret3

just seen this from the past, oh how wrong one could be

scrum

Hi guys I'm wondering if some of you could help.

Hubby and I plus 2 girls are heading for Melbourne in the coming weeks - hopefully before Christmas if our visas come through - meds finalised so it shouldn't be too much longer -

anyway we've been having a look around and really like the look of Ferntree Gully, Berwick, Crannbourne, Narre Warren for settling down in.

Hubby will be working in Southbank and I'm curious to know how long a commute it would be from these areas.

Any advice or information would be really great.

Thanks in advance.

Trish

Buzzy--Bee

About 45 mins. My boss comes from Ferntree Gully to St Kilda Rd by car every day.

Buzzy

Geelong Gent

The east link junction on the Monash is looking far more progressed. The newly planted grass is shooting up after the previous rain spells.

Anyone know when this is due to open. I have heard xmas and easter mentioned.

Bordy

The rumour is March but the big boss won't commit himself to a date.

scrum

Cheers for that one Buzzy - replied to your PM as well.

Trish

@boy

Modern movers heading downtown, or up north
The Age
November 12, 2007

http://www.theage.com.au/news/nation...766508125.html

MORE than 7000 people moved to the inner city in the year to June 2006, which means the "downtown" residential area is growing as fast as some of Melbourne's booming outer suburbs, according to a report released today.

The report also said Melbourne is attracting twice the population growth of Sydney, and that most of the fastest-growing towns in Australia are on the Queensland coast.

KPMG demographer Bernard Salt compiled the Population Growth Report 2007 from data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in October and from the US and New Zealand.

Mr Salt told The Age that the downtown boom is of a similar size in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney, showing that the idea of inner-city living is now established in the Australian psyche as a mainstream lifestyle choice.

"There is no greater measure of how Australian values have shifted in a single generation," he said. "In the funkiest, hippest and most central parts of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, the number of residents moving in each year now tops 7000, 6800 and 6300 respectively."

Mr Salt assessed downtown growth by looking at population figures within a five-kilometre radius of the centre of each city. He reported that in Melbourne, the figure of 7058 city arrivals was higher than the number of people moving to any one of the three fastest-growing outer municipalities (Casey, Melton and Wyndham).

Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth are growing at close to record rates, fuelled by high levels of overseas migration, strong interstate migration and high birth rates. Sydney has an annual growth rate of less than 1 per cent, with some municipalities suffering — or enjoying — population falls.

Melbourne attracted 62,306 people compared with Sydney's 36,823. Mr Salt attributes this difference to higher housing prices in Sydney, where a three-bedroom brick veneer home in an outer suburb costs an average of $399,000 compared with $260,000 in Melbourne.

Mr Salt found the population in Melbourne's middle suburbs in municipalities such as Whitehorse and Monash is holding up better than it did a decade ago because generation Y adult children are continuing to live with their parents.

But he warned that these suburbs might become a "widow-world" by 2020, as the adult children will finally have left home, and with partners in elderly baby-boomer couples beginning to die. He predicts this will leave many older singles, mainly women, who will be socially isolated, anxious about their physical security and in need of more health services.

Mr Salt says baby-boomer parents who boast of adult children living overseas — parents for whom the distance they can "catapult" their children is a point of pride — might end up particularly lonely if those children have grandchildren overseas.

The Gold Coast was Australia's fastest-growing locale and could be the nation's fifth-largest city by the end of the century, he predicts. Seven of the 10 fastest-growing towns are on the Queensland coast.

@boy

Keep in mind for anyone looking at living in a suburb that involves a trip over the West Gate Bridge in the mornings....

West Gate a 'disaster' costing millions
http://www.theage.com.au/news/nation...568332255.html

In 1994 it took just over 11 minutes in the morning peak period to travel from the Western Ring Road to Kings Way — in 2006 the comparable journey was 32.4 minutes.

By 2021 daily volumes on the bridge are expected to hit 200,000.