Before he bought in 2011, Doreen resident Jason Reid did his homework: he looked at the traffic problems on Yan Yean Road and saw that VicRoads had previously done planning works to fix them.
"I made the incorrect assumption that if they had determined a need that they should fulfil, they would fulfil it," said the 40-year-old, who drives or catches a bus on the road most days.
Five years later, not a shovel has entered the ground to begin the long-promised duplication of the road – despite the total population of Mernda and Doreen doubling to 40,000 since 2011.
And that duplication, when it does finally begin later this year, will solve only part of a huge problem for the area, despite being sold for many years by both sides of politics as a fix for those stuck in traffic.
"Most of the hold-ups are north of the duplication," said Mr Reid, a father of two who works as an IT analyst in the CBD.
Yan Yean Road and the massive cost of fixing just part of it is quickly becoming a perfect case study for problems facing growth areas like Mernda and Doreen that are hit by poor planning. More than 5 million Australians live in the growth areas of the nation's major cities.
What infrastructure that does exist is often straining to cope or, in the case of Yan Yean Road and nearby Plenty Road, failing to cope.
Traffic from two schools on Yan Yean Road in the mornings is a major problem, because virtually everyone drives their children, while the public transport services that do exist get lumped in with the other traffic. "The bus is just stuck in traffic with the rest of the cars," Mr Reid said
It has emerged, after a freedom-of-information request on Yan Yean Road, that the money the Andrews government is spending on duplicating the road is far greater than the figure it gave while on the opposition benches.
A $36 million blowout has been caused by unforeseen land acquisitions that will raise the project's cost from a proposed $95 million to at least $131 million.
Charmaine Brillanti moved from Mernda to near Greensborough to escape the area's traffic problems. Photo: Simon O'Dwyer
Another Doreen resident, Scott Blackford, also drives the road most days, en route to his job in Abbotsford. If he leaves the house any later than 6.30am, he gets stuck in traffic. Coming home, the congestion starts from 4pm and only settles about 7pm.
"The ongoing joke is that this is the only road in town that you can be stuck in a traffic jam and still hit a kangaroo," said Mr Blackford.
The RACV started lobbying for the road to be duplicated in 2012. Public policy manager Brian Negus said work expanding Yan Yean and Plenty roads would help, as would extending the South Morang rail line to Mernda. "But also [the government needs] to increase the bus services shuttling people to rail stations," he said.
Opposition roads spokesman Ryan Smith, whose FOI request highlighted the cost jump under Labor, said it was incompetence that had left the road project costing far more than estimated in 2014.
"Daniel Andrews told the community this project was shovel-ready, yet, two years later, there hasn't been a shovel of earth turned," he said.
Local MP Danielle Green has pushed for years for duplication of the entire length of road. She said the Baillieu-Napthine government's four years in office had increased the delay. The population had boomed from 2011, "which was exactly the wrong time to cut the roads budget, which was exactly what the last government did", the Labor MP said.
Roads Minister Luke Donnellan said the business case for the road had made it clear that "more land was required for the project than was previously estimated". The project would "improve travel times, reduce congestion, and make the road safer".
Expanding the road will come too late for Charmaine Brillanti, who lived in Mernda until this year. She tried Yan Yean Road several times while trying to get a few suburbs over, but found it congested and dangerous, because of traffic volume and impatient drivers.
She moved recently to Briar Hill, near Greensborough, after years battling rising traffic around Mernda. The move to an area with better infrastructure has come as a huge relief.
"They say Melbourne is the world's most liveable city, and I love it. But for some parts of it, it's just like there's no planning."