2016-06-07
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — This is an adjournment request for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety. I am returning to a subject that I have been active on for some time, and that is the perverse VicRoads rules on pedestrian crossings and the requirements that are put in place before one can even begin to start lobbying for a new pedestrian crossing in their area. Other members in this place may have some familiarity with this problem.
I know many communities that have lobbied for safer crossings and then been stonewalled by VicRoads rules, which literally require that until the death or injury toll starts to rise your request cannot qualify. I thought it was the job of VicRoads to prevent road injuries, and in fact the government has a target now of reducing those injuries to zero. Well, if it requires a body count before a pedestrian crossing can be installed, I cannot see how we will ever make it under those strategies.
In fact let us have a position whereby a council puts together a walkability plan for its whole area, has that signed off by the state government and then does not have to individually meet guidelines for individual crossings. We do have councils encouraging people to use particular routes and encouraging people to walk or cycle or walk with their children who are riding, and they are frustrated when they are encouraged to travel along these routes but then have got these tiny traffic islands or are dodging vehicles in order to get safely across.
Right at the moment the City of Darebin is in fact putting its own money behind this program at the corner of High Street and Raglan Street, Preston, at the corner of Victoria Road and Clifton Street, and at the corner of Miller Street and Bracken Avenue. They have a five-year safe travel strategy, which has seen some positive results. However, again they run up against these VicRoads restrictions. The council has allocated $300 000 in its 2016–17 draft budget under a line item for these projects to enable co-contribution to these crossings. However, that investment risks not going ahead due to the VicRoads requirements — warrants, as it calls them.
I ask that the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, under this new government, finally get around to revisiting those warrants and also then to considering where the best spend is so that there can be co-contributions along with Darebin council and other councils around Victoria that have been making similar requests.
To access full speeches and debates please visit http://hansard.parliament.vic.gov.au/isysadvsearch.html where you can search Victorian Hansard publications from 1991 onwards.