Dudley Street is a main street in the

Melbourne central business district The Melbourne central business district (colloquially known as "the City" or "the CBD", and gazetted simply as Melbourne) is the city centre of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. As of the 2021 census, the CBD had a population of 54,941, and is ...

, linking the northern Docklands district to the north-western corner of the CBD. Dudley Street is possibly named after the Governor General from 1908 to 1911, the Second Earl of Dudley, William Humble Ward.

Route

Dudley Street begins at Footscray Road and heads east as a six-lane, dual-carriageway road, nearly immediately intersecting with Wurundjeri Way and then under the North Melbourne rail lines, and continues east as a four-lane, single-carriageway road, crossing Spencer and

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

streets, and ends at the intersection with Peel Street in the

Melbourne CBD The Melbourne central business district (colloquially known as "the City" or "the CBD", and gazetted simply as Melbourne) is the city centre of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. As of the 2021 census, the CBD had a population of 54,941, and is ...

, on the western border of the

Queen Victoria Market The Queen Victoria Market (also known colloquially as the Vic Market or Queen Vic) is a major landmark and public marketplace in the central business district (CBD) of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Covering over , it is the largest open air ...

. At its western end, the Depression-era slum camp known as

Dudley Flats Dudley Flats was a locality in Melbourne, Australia, in the 1920s–1950s, which supported a homeless camp during the Great Depression. Location It was located near the Melbourne docks beyond Dudley Street, south of Footscray Road, and on ...

was occupied by unemployed and homeless people in the 1930s. Its most famous landmark is the concert venue, Festival Hall.The original Festival Hall (West Melbourne Stadium)?
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History

The western end of Dudley Street underwent major reconstruction, which included lowering of the outer lanes to provide a clearance of 5 metres under the existing rail bridges, a new intersection at Wurundjeri Way and a remodelled intersection at Footscray Road; work commenced in April 1999 and was completed in November 2000. The road was signed Metropolitan Route 32 in 1965, from Footscray Road, before turning south to run along Adderley Street and

La Trobe Street La Trobe Street (also Latrobe Street) is a major street and thoroughfare in the Melbourne central business district, Victoria, Australia. It runs roughly east–west and forms the northern boundary of the central business district. The street ...

to meet Victoria Parade in Carlton. It was re-routed to run further west, turning north and west along Peel and Victoria Streets to Carlton instead, in 1989. National Route 31 was extended along Dudley Street from Peel Street when the

West Gate Freeway The West Gate Freeway is a major freeway in Melbourne, the busiest urban freeway and the busiest road in Australia, carrying upwards of 200,000 vehicles per day. It links Geelong (via the Princes Freeway) and Melbourne's western suburbs to ...

extension opened in 1988; this was truncated back to Wurundjeri Way when it opened in 1999, and was replaced by Metropolitan Route 55 when the Craigieburn bypass opened in 2005. The passing of the ''Road Management Act 2004'' granted the responsibility of overall management and development of Victoria's major arterial roads to

VicRoads VicRoads is a government joint venture in the state of Victoria, Australia. In the state, it is responsible for driver licensing and vehicle registration. It is owned and operated through a joint venture between the Victorian government an ...

: in 2004, VicRoads re-declared the road as Dudley Street (Arterial #5040), beginning at Footscray Road at Docklands and ending at Peel Street in the Melbourne CBD.

Intersections

Dudley Street is entirely contained within the

City of Melbourne The City of Melbourne is a Local government in Australia, local government area in Victoria, Australia, located in the Melbourne central business district, central city area of Melbourne. In 2021, the city has an area of and had a populati ...

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a federated state, state, province, division (politica ...

References

Streets in Melbourne Transport in the City of Melbourne (LGA) Streets in Melbourne City Centre {{Australia-road-stub