The 14-kilometre stretch of Punt Road - including the Hoddle Street end - is one of Melbourne's busiest, a conduit between the city's north and south, home to the city's sporting hub and some of its busiest train stations and intersections.

From Clifton Hill to St Kilda, Punt Road is as varied as Melbourne itself, home to public housing, the city's last pub with topless barmaids, the odd brothel and some of our most expensive real estate. It's also a not-so-silent witness to thousands of moments every day, from frustration, joy, compassion and violence, which a new arts project aims to celebrate by inviting Melburnians to share their own Punt Road anecdotes.

Streetwise: Filmmaker Anna McGrath is developing a Punt Road project. Credit:Eddie Jim

Filmmakers Anna McGrath and Rita Walsh and writer Penelope Chai are collecting stories, images, artefacts and memories for The Punt Road Project, part of the City of Yarra's Performance Investigations program, with a view to creating either a film, a book, a theatre work, or even all three.

''Punt Road has a strong resonance for Melburnians - there are references to it in Paul Kelly songs, Helen Garner makes multiple references in her books, [comic duo] Lano and Woodley wrote a song about it,'' McGrath said. ''We realised that once you start to talk about stories on Punt Road, everyone has their own, whether it's about a spider jumping in their lap and they had to jump out of their car in peak hour traffic, or people having their first kiss because they're stuck in traffic.''