Roe Street is a street in

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

, Western

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. The central section of the street forms the southern boundary of the suburb of Northbridge, while the eastern end borders the

Perth Cultural Centre The Perth Cultural Centre is an area of central Perth, Western Australia, near the James Street Mall. It is home to a number of cultural institutions including the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Western Australian Museum, State Library of ...

to the north and

Perth railway station Perth railway station is the largest station on the Transperth network, serving the central business district of Perth, Western Australia. It serves as an interchange between the Airport, Armadale, Fremantle, Joondalup, Mandurah and Midland ...

to the south. The southern approach of the Hamilton Interchange, which connects the

Mitchell Freeway The Mitchell Freeway is a freeway in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, linking central Perth with the city of Joondalup. It is the northern section of State Route 2, which continues south as Kwinana Freeway and Forrest High ...

and the

Graham Farmer Freeway Graham Farmer Freeway is a inner-city freeway in Perth, Western Australia. It links Rivervale and Burswood with West Perth and Leederville, providing an east-west bypass of Perth's central business district. The freeway, in conjunction wi ...

, passes over the street to the west. Immediately south of Roe Street was the former site of the railway marshalling yards that were originally to the west of Perth station; in the 2010s the

Perth City Link Perth City Link is an urban renewal and redevelopment project in Perth, Western Australia. The projectbounded by the Mitchell Freeway, Wellington Street, the Horseshoe Bridge and Roe Street is on land that was once the Perth/City railway yar ...

project sunk and covered the remaining parts of the railway south of Northbridge and opened up the area for redevelopment.

History

The road had a number of factories located on the street; examples include the

Michelides Tobacco Factory The Michelides Tobacco Factory building was an Interwar Art Deco building in Northbridge, Western Australia constructed in stages between the early 1920s and mid-1930s. The building was later known as the Peters Ice Cream Factory and the Tony B ...

and a factory for

Peters Ice Cream Peters Ice Cream is an Australian ice cream brand, now a subsidiary of European food firm Froneri. It was originally developed by an expatriate American, Frederick (Fred) Augustus Bolles Peters in 1907, using his mother's recipe. History The c ...

. For a considerable length of time in the twentieth century it was also associated in the popular imagination in Western Australia as the location of

brothel A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub par ...

s in Perth. Dubbed "Rue-de-Roe" by the press, fences were eventually erected along the rail line to shield the public from the view of the brothels on the street. Because of the changes in the regulation of prostitution in the state, the brothels have long since gone, and were replaced with other developments. A small section of the street serves as the southern boundary of Perth's Chinatown and features Asian-style street theming. In the 2010s the Perth City Link project removed the vestiges of the railway yard and sunk and covered the

Fremantle railway line The Fremantle line is a suburban railway and service in Western Australia that connects the central business district (CBD) of Perth with Fremantle. History The railway on which the service runs opened on 1 March 1881 as the first suburban rai ...

, creating a large space for redevelopment of the area to the immediate south of the street. Between January 2014 and July 2016, the

Roe Street bus station Roe Street bus station was a Transperth bus station located on Roe Street, next to Perth station in Western Australia which operated between 12 January 2014 and 17 July 2016. History Roe Street bus station opened on 12 January 2014, as a tempo ...

operated near Perth station to facilitate the construction of the

Perth Busport Perth Busport is an underground bus station, located underneath Wellington Street, Perth, Western Australia. It was officially opened by then Premier of Western Australia Colin Barnett and then Minister for Transport Dean Nalder on 13 July 201 ...

at the former Wellington Street bus station site. In December 2016, a new exit onto the street from the southbound direction of the

opened. The exit replaced a previous one on James Street, which was closed to enable the construction of the Charles Street Bus Bridge. In June 2021, work began on revitalising a significant portion of the street to make it more pedestrian and bicycle friendly.

Intersections

Notes

{{coord missing, Western Australia Streets in Northbridge, Western Australia Streets in Perth central business district, Western Australia Red-light districts in Australia Streets in West Perth, Western Australia