Ryan Smith, who is opposition roads spokesman, said the sharp rise in infringements, each of which carries a $155 fine, was a sign motorists were fed up with the freeway's constant and heavy congestion. The most recent VicRoads data, from 2015, shows city-bound traffic at the end of the Eastern Freeway moves at an average speed of 9 km/h in the morning peak, 18 km/h in the afternoon peak and 25 km/h off-peak. "When Daniel Andrews scrapped the East West Link he condemned motorists to growing congestion and ever-present gridlock on the Eastern Freeway," Mr Smith said. "It is a measure of how frustrated drivers are with this politically based and narrow-minded decision that so many are resorting to using the transit lanes just so they can get to work on time."

The Coalition had planned to connect the Eastern Freeway with CityLink via the six-kilometre East West Link, but Labor cancelled the project when it took office in 2014. Ryan Smith, the opposition's roads spokesman, says the jump in fines is a sign of increased commuter frustration. The Coalition has committed to revive the East West Link if it wins the next election and has federal funding, and also build the North East Link, which would connect the Ring Road with EastLink. "They both need to be built, that's obvious," Opposition Leader Matthew Guy told AAP in December. Labor has also pledged to build the North East Link, at an estimated cost of $10 billion, but has maintained its stance that the East West Link was a "dud" project. The scrapped road had a benefit-cost ratio of 0.45, meaning it would have returned just 45 cents for every dollar spent building it, according to its business case.

A proposal to build the Doncaster rail line in the freeway median would be even more wasteful, with a return of just 10 cents per dollar spent, Infrastructure Victoria said in December last year. The advisory authority instead recommended a significant boost to the Doncaster area SmartBus services, which rely on the Eastern Freeway bus lanes for a smooth run. The four bus routes carried a combined average of 16,000 passengers a day in 2014-15, according to Public Transport Victoria data. They are the only form of public transport between the CBD and the city of Manningham. Professor John Stanley, a transport planning expert with the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies, said if police were fining more people that was a good thing, because it is crucial to keep cars from clogging up transit lanes.

"People place a really high value on being able to know how long it's going to take to do a journey and if you've got that bus lane you've got reliability and speed, so you can actually see yourself going past the cars," he said. Loading The average car on Victoria's roads carries 1.2 people, according to VicRoads, meaning most motorists on the Eastern Freeway would likely be driving alone and therefore excluded from using the transit lane. The Eastern Freeway has two express lanes, one for transit and one for buses, and SmartBus operator Transdev said its buses were often delayed by motorists entering the bus lane, especially on the approach to Hoddle Street.