A Coalition promise to raise the Princes Freeway speed limit to 110km/h between Laverton North and Colac has placed road safety and travel times at the centre of Victoria’s state election campaign.
Opposition Leader Jess Wilson announced the proposal earlier this week, arguing the higher limit would shorten trips for motorists travelling through Melbourne’s west, Geelong and southwest Victoria while bringing the freeway into line with major routes such as the Hume and Calder freeways.
However, a previous Department of Transport and Planning review found that increasing the limit could raise crashes by about 25% across sections of the route, while saving motorists only a few minutes under free-flowing conditions.
With November’s state election approaching, the policy is likely to appeal to drivers who regularly travel the busy corridor and have long faced congestion and extended commuting times.
It also sets up a broader debate over whether the Princes Freeway is safe enough for higher speeds and whether the promised time savings justify the additional risk identified in earlier government research.
Under the Coalition’s plan, the speed limit would increase from 100km/h to 110km/h between Laverton North and Colac. Lower limits would remain through towns such as Winchelsea, where local traffic, roadside development and more frequent intersections require motorists to slow down.
Wilson says the change would ease congestion, reduce travel times and provide greater consistency across Victoria’s freeway network.
“By aligning speed limits on the Princes freeway and highway with the Hume and Calder, our plan will get Victorians where they need to be sooner,” Ms Wilson said.
“People travelling on the Princes shouldn’t be stuck in the slow lane.” she said.
The Coalition maintains that the “modern and duplicated” route is capable of safely carrying traffic at 110km/h, particularly across sections used by commuters travelling between Melbourne, Geelong, the Surf Coast and Colac.
For those motorists, even a small reduction in travel time could add up across regular work trips, family visits and freight movements. Yet the earlier government review suggests the practical benefits may be limited outside periods of clear, free-flowing traffic, when congestion, roadworks or incidents are not already slowing vehicles.
Government Unlikely To Support Higher Limit
Despite the Coalition’s commitment, the state government is unlikely to reconsider the existing limit while the current Victorian Speed Zoning Policy remains in place.
It’s understood that the government opposes the proposal because speed limits can only be increased when roads satisfy a range of safety and traffic requirements. These include the standard of the road design, the spacing of intersections and access points, and daily traffic volumes below 25,000 vehicles.
It is understood that sections of the M1 between Laverton North and Colac do not meet all of those requirements, creating a significant obstacle to any immediate increase.
The safety concerns are supported by a review commissioned by the Department of Transport and Planning in 2018. That study examined the Princes Highway and Freeway corridor between Werribee and Winchelsea to determine whether the speed limit could safely be raised to 110km/h.
Its findings were unfavourable to the change, concluding that higher speeds could increase crashes by approximately 25 per cent across different sections of the Princes Freeway and Princes Highway.
At the same time, the review estimated that motorists would save only a few minutes when traffic was flowing freely. That finding is likely to become a central point of dispute during the campaign, with the government expected to emphasise the safety risk while the Coalition focuses on travel efficiency and consistency with other major Victorian freeways.
Although 110km/h limits are common on rural roads across Australia, the Princes corridor carries a mix of metropolitan commuters, regional traffic and freight. Conditions also vary substantially between Laverton North, the rapidly growing western suburbs, Geelong and the more rural sections approaching Colac.
That variation means the debate is unlikely to be resolved by comparing the route with a single freeway. Any change would need to consider traffic volumes, interchange design, roadside access, congestion patterns and the consequences of crashes occurring at higher speeds.
For motorists, the proposal presents a straightforward promise: faster travel along one of Victoria’s most important transport corridors. For road safety authorities and the government, the earlier crash modelling raises a more difficult question about whether saving several minutes is worth the potential increase in serious collisions.
With the Coalition now committed to the higher limit, the Princes Freeway is set to become an election battleground stretching from Melbourne’s west to Colac.
