Moving goods through the Yarra Valley and nearby hills has always been challenging. As improvements are made to one route, traffic diverting to the new highway may cause problems in distant localities.
The early teamsters hauled logs and timber palings with horse and bullock wagons from the Yarra Ranges forests to Melbourne via Whittlesea. Going through the Yarra Valley was not then possible because of steep mountainsides, the Yarra River and its wetlands.
When the railway was built to Yarra Glen and Healesville in 1888 it provided shorter routes for the timber haulers from the mountains to the railhead. The Eltham Shire Council built a ‘road’ down Mt Slide to Steels Creek and thence to Yarra Glen for foresters in the Kinglake area. For many years however, due to the steep mountain slopes, it was little more than a track.
In 1914 responsibility for the route was transferred to the Country Roads Board but the Board’s plan to upgrade the track was interrupted by the first World War. It was January 1919 before tenders were called. The Steels Creek-Mt Wise Road was eventually ready for use in the mid-1920s. It facilitated not only a route to market for timber and other primary industries, but also the fledgling tourist industry as motoring enthusiasts took to the hills during weekends and holiday seasons. Steels Creek Road was a busy traffic route for the next thirty years.
By the second World War motor vehicles replaced horse and bullock transport, distances travelled were being extended, and the faster vehicles required smoother and wider surfaces. Another change was called for. In January 1956 surveyors marked out a two-chain roadway linking Maroondah Highway at Coldstream, via Yarra Glen, with the Yea Road near Castella. This road, officially opened in May 1959, was part of an interstate highway between Melbourne and Sydney and it drew traffic away from the Black Spur and the Mt Slide Road. The Steels Creek Road then fell back to being a quiet, local country road as traffic was directed to the new Melba Highway.
The opening of major highways can have significant, and often negative, impacts some distance away. The building of the Metropolitan Ring Road in 1994 had such an effect in the Yarra Valley. Logging trucks from the North-East mountain forests began to drive through Healesville and Yarra Glen, Christmas Hills and Kangaroo Ground to reach Geelong timber mills via the Ring Road, damaging local roads and creating danger for local traffic. In 1999 there were three logging truck accidents within four months with one log truck overturning and losing its load in Yarra Glen. Fran Bailey (MP McEwan) who used the road regularly said she was stuck for an hour due to a similar accident in Christmas Hills. One family whose car had broken down on the side of the road counted 40 log trucks passing by during the three hours that they waited for assistance.
The Eltham-Yarra Glen Road has been upgraded since the 1990s and now carries a lot of ‘through’ traffic. In addition to commercial vehicles there are many private vehicles, especially as more and more people are travelling to and from the airport for interstate and overseas travel.
