Wurundjeri Way is a road running through the Docklands Development west of 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 ...

Victoria, Australia Victoria, commonly abbreviated as Vic, is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state (after Tasmania), with a land area of ; the second-most-populated state (after New South Wales), with a population of over 7 million; ...

. It was constructed in 1999 as part of replanning and development of the former Melbourne rail yards and docks. Wurundjeri Way runs from Montague Street,

South Melbourne South Melbourne is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, south of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Port Phillip local government area. South Melbourne recorded a population of 11,548 at the 2021 ...

to Dudley Street, West Melbourne via the

Charles Grimes Bridge The Charles Grimes Bridge is a dual-carriageway bridge that carries the Docklands Highway over the Yarra River in the Docklands precinct of Melbourne, Australia. It was named after New South Wales surveyor general Charles Grimes, who was the ...

. When the

Melbourne Docklands Docklands is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, on the western end of the central business district. Docklands had a population of 15,495 at the 2021 census. Primarily a waterfront area centred on the banks of the Yarra R ...

were redeveloped in the 1990s, Footscray Road was closed as a through route and rebuilt as

Harbour Esplanade Harbour Esplanade is a waterfront street and thoroughfare in Docklands, an inner suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It runs roughly north–south from Navigation Drive in the south to Docklands Drive in the north. The road also forms th ...

. To replace the through route, Wurundjeri Way was constructed to the east. To connect to this new road Flinders Street was upgraded, and the north end of the Charles Grimes Bridge was rebuilt on a curve to connect to it. Reconstruction started in June 1999, and was completed by 2001. A feature of the road, and integral to its design and naming, is the gigantic statue of

Bunjil Bunjil, also spelt Bundjil, is a creator deity, culture hero and ancestral being, often depicted as a wedge-tailed eagle in Australian Aboriginal mythology of some of the Aboriginal peoples of Victoria. Creation stories In the Kulin nati ...

the eagle, by Melbourne sculptor

Bruce Armstrong Bruce Charles Armstrong (born September 7, 1965) is an American former professional football player who was an offensive tackle in the National Football League (NFL) from 1987 to 2000, playing all 14 seasons with the New England Patriots. H ...

which was constructed in the median at the south end of the road. Proposals to develop this area for new buildings including the air rights over Wurundjeri Way, may require the statue to be moved.Docklands puzzle: Jason Dowling 'Where to land the eagle?' ''The Age'' 27 July 2011
/ref>

Major intersections

Wurundjeri Way 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

External links

Streets in Melbourne Transport in the City of Melbourne (LGA) {{melbourne-geo-stub