It's one of the worst roads in Melbourne, and it snakes through two of the city's most exclusive suburbs. The Boulevard is narrow, winding and more "pothole" than "bitumen" in some places, but the residents wouldn't have it any other way.
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Councils have periodically sought to repair the road and each time the community has told them to leave it alone.
"We have fought many battles to preserve this area as it is, which is very rural," said Lorna Ebringer, who has lived on the Boulevard for more than 30 years.
Ms Ebringer and her neighbours fear that if the road is ever fixed, motorists will use it as a rat run and the street's bush charm will be tarred.
The chopped-up street skirts the Yarra Flats where the river runs through Eaglemont and East Ivanhoe. It overlooks tall native trees, grazing roos and horses on the river's eastern bank. Twentieth century mansions line the river's western side; some of those mansions are part of a unique housing estate designed by Walter Burley Griffin. Behind those mansions is one of Melbourne's worst traffic sewers.
About 32,000 cars and trucks a day use Lower Heidelberg Road here in the area behind The Boulevard, where it constricts from four lanes into a two-lane cutting just before the top end of Burke Road.
The arterial road is part of the "missing link" in Melbourne's freeway network between the end of the Metropolitan Ring Road in Greensborough and the Eastern Freeway in Balwyn North. The arterial roads between these two freeways are among the busiest in all Melbourne.
Transport group the RACV believes linking the two freeways by building the proposed North East Link is the most important road project for Victoria and this week put it at the top of its list of election priorities.
"It's long been RACV's top priority project," public policy manager Brian Negus said. "We want to see a commitment to do the planning work, define the route and then define when it will be delivered."
None of the major political parties has made that commitment, although VicRoads lists the road as a "medium to long-term project".
The expansion of Melbourne's freeway network through the construction of the Ring Road and EastLink has only increased the burden on the arterial roads in Melbourne's north-east.
Those roads are also residential, and residents say the area's traffic problem has been left to fester for years, apart from band-aid measures such as road widening and right-turn bans that have made the area less liveable.
Michael Panaccio has lived on Rosanna Road for 25 years, and says traffic, especially truck traffic, got busier after the Ring Road opened. The footpath outside his house has become an inhospitable place.
"When I'm mowing the lawn on the nature strip, trucks go past and you feel that rush of wind like you're going to be dragged onto the road," he said.
Mr Panaccio is spokesman for Resolve Rosanna Road, a new pressure group that wants the major parties to commit to finding a fix. But even he is ambivalent about the North East Link, especially if there is any risk it will intrude on the river flats.
"We're completely opposed to any above the ground freeway through Banyule Flats," he said. "That's the nicest park in the area and it would be a complete crime."
On this point, the RACV agrees.
"We've always had the view there would be a substantial tunnel to make sure you don't interfere with those areas," Mr Negus said.
Should any future government try, they should anticipate stout resistance from the residents of The Boulevard.
"These river flats are special to Melbourne. They must not put a road through the parklands," Ms Ebringer said.
