Freo bridge has officially closed. What happens next?

When the Fremantle traffic bridge opened in 1939 the press made much ado about the decision to opt for a timber structure over concrete and steel, with the Labor Willcock government at the time opting for wood because they figured it would reach the end of its usable life within 60 years anyway.

But by bolstering the structure with concrete reinforcement over the years, the bridge beat that original estimate by 27 years.

Now, from this Sunday, the old girl is being retired.

Demolition will begin this weekend to make way for the cross-sections of a new $430 million cable-stayed behemoth that has already enveloped the site, which will become one of the most iconic river crossings on the Swan River once it opens in 12 months.

But while the new bridge rounds out the Fremantle port, don’t expect the next year without a crucial river crossing in one of Perth’s busiest corners to be smooth sailing.

Another closure?

In her time as Transport Minister, Rita Saffioti has announced several shutdowns of key transport infrastructure in Perth, including a 20-day shutdown of the Mandurah line between December 2021 and January 2022 and the year-and-a-half shutdown of the Armadale line to complete the Byford extension and level crossings’ removal.

Right now, the Midland line is also shut between Bassendean and Midland until February 2022 as the new Midland station is brought online.

The Fremantle bridge closure is the longest road network shutdown this government has undertaken, which Saffioti said was unavoidable given the bridge alignment most accepted by locals was the existing one between Queen Victoria Streets.

“When everyone supported this alignment, they knew that it involved the closure of the existing traffic bridge,” she said at the site on Friday.

“Over the past 18 months, a lot of work has been undertaken, but we again want to apologise for the oncoming disruption.”

Saffioti said she was “very confident” the new bridge would be open by February next year.

“The reason we chose this design of bridge…the very, very complicated design and structure is to allow us to do as much as possible off-site, which we’ve done.“

Where will the pinch points be?

The removal of Fremantle Traffic Bridge for 12 months will have ramifications for the entire road network in Fremantle and North Fremantle, but it is the Stirling Highway bridge that has the government most concerned.

This is why there have been massive changes to the road network, most of which took effect last week.

Much of it is to funnel traffic north-south across the Stirling Highway bridge as quickly as possible, which is why the government removed east-west travel along Canning Highway at the Stirling Highway intersection.

The state is placing a lot of hope into convincing commuters to ditch their cars altogether, which is why they’ve scheduled more bus services to western suburbs schools as well as extra Transperth bus services, which will get priority at intersections.

They have also allowed bikes on the Fremantle line during peak hour to help overcome the lack of bike and pedestrian access over the period and have built another 100 car bays at Fremantle Station that will be free.

Saffioti has also spruiked the government’s record on getting freight onto rail, which she said was up from 13 per cent to 26 per cent of freight to and from the port.

Who isn’t convinced?

Shadow Transport Minister Steve Martin said the opposition understood there would be disruption, but the test would be whether locals felt everything possible had been done to mitigate the impacts.

“The Minister’s one-sentence plan on freight, ‘working with industry to discuss options’ and generic lines about increased rail usage with no figures, point to a lack of preparation. We know they only met with the trucking industry for the first time late last year,” he said.

“We know locals are concerned about frustrated commuters taking ‘rat runs’ through their suburbs. Has anything been done to address this?

“The Minister has consistently failed to provide specific modelling data to us – such as the total weekday capacity of the Stirling Bridge, how many cars are projected to divert to public transport, and what the expected impact on peak hour car travel times will be? It appears they simply don’t know.

“Repeating ‘Fremantle is still open for business’ is not a plan. Fremantle small business owners deserve more than that.”

Greens leader and former Fremantle Mayor Brad Pettitt has been hammering the state government on its lack of detail for cyclists and pedestrians over the closure and wrote an op-ed in September to call on the government to reduce the speed limits in Fremantle and East Fremantle to 40 or even 30 kilometres per hour, as well as upgrade the bike path along the Stirling Highway bridge.