Koonung Creek Reserve is a

linear park A linear park is a type of park that is significantly longer than it is wide. These linear parks are strips of public land running along canals, rivers, streams, defensive walls, electrical lines, or highways and shorelines. Examples of linear p ...

in the suburb of

Balwyn North Balwyn North, also known as North Balwyn, is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 10 km east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the Cities of Boroondara and Whitehorse local government areas. Balwyn North recor ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, Australia. It follows the path of the Eastern Freeway from Bulleen Road in the west to Doncaster Road to the east.

History

The area has been green open space since before European settlement, being situated in a valley near the

Yarra River The Yarra River or historically, the Yarra Yarra River, (Kulin languages: ''Berrern'', ''Birr-arrung'', ''Bay-ray-rung'', ''Birarang'', ''Birrarung'', and ''Wongete'') is a perennial river in south-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stre ...

. It was not formally declared as parkland as late as 1966, and its exact date of proclamation is unknown. It remained relatively unaffected by suburban development in its immediate vicinity until the construction of the second stage of the Eastern Freeway in 1982. To provide some compensation for the significant loss of green space by the construction of the freeway, the Country Roads Board and the affected municipalities of

Camberwell Camberwell () is a district of South London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark, southeast of Charing Cross. Camberwell was first a village associated with the church of St Giles and a common of which Goose Green is a remnant. This e ...

and Doncaster & Templestowe planted over 12,000 trees, primarily on the North Balwyn side of the freeway. The works also included undergrounding Koonung Creek for 2.4 km to allow for construction of the freeway. These works formed the basis for the use of the area as parkland. The construction of the freeway through the area also sparked the commencement of a long-standing issue between local residents and the state government on traffic noise. Residents and the local council have lobbied the state government for many years to improve noise attenuation measures, particularly on the stretch of the road in Koonung Creek Reserve. The lack of any artificial noise barriers, relying instead on small dirt mounds and vegetation, has resulted in noise levels well above the 63

decibel The decibel (symbol: dB) is a relative unit of measurement equal to one tenth of a bel (B). It expresses the ratio of two values of a power or root-power quantity on a logarithmic scale. Two signals whose levels differ by one decibel have a po ...

limit for new freeways. More recently, the reserve and surrounding parklands were involved in the East West Link project. Proposed works for the project included widening the Eastern Freeway by one lane in each direction up to Tram Road. The City of Boroondara strongly objected to any potential for parkland to be used in the widening of the road reserve in numerous submissions in 2013 and 2014.

Facilities

The

Koonung Creek Trail __NOTOC__ The Koonung Creek Trail is a shared use path for cyclists and pedestrians, which follows Koonung Creek in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.Koonung Creek Trail __NOTOC__ The Koonung Creek Trail is a shared use path for cyclists and pedestrians, which follows Koonung Creek in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.Eastern Freeway *

References

{{Reflist Parks in Melbourne City of Boroondara