Star Weekly has looked back at our editions and picked out a selection of our favourite stories from 2022, including this one from September 20.
Roads in the City of Melton need urgent safety upgrades, with new statistics released by Melton council showing there have been 822 crashes on four major roads over the last 10 years which have killed 17 people, seriously injured 284 people and cost the state nearly $320 million.
The figures equate to more than one crash a week on the four roads; the Western Highway (between Bulmans Road
and Robinsons Road, including interchanges), Robinsons Road- Westwood Drive- Calder Park Drive corridor, Melton Highway (between the Regency and Ryans Lane), and Hopkins Road (Between Boundary Road and Western Highway).
Census data from 2021 shows the City of Melton is the third fastest growing council area in Australia. Nearly half a million people are forecast to be living in the City of Melton by 2050, compared to 216,000 in 2022.
“Despite this rapid growth, the City of Melton continues to miss out on major roads investment from successive governments,” mayor Goran Kesic said.
“This chronic underinvestment is having a toll on people’s quality of life, spending more time commuting, less time with their families and putting their lives at risk every time they drive on these major roads.
“Behind these shocking crash figures are real people who have lost loved ones, suffered lifechanging injuries or are traumatised because they’ve narrowly avoided accidents. For many, they have no choice but to travel on these dangerous roads.
“Many of these accidents could have been prevented if these roads had been upgraded to reflect the increased traffic and needs of motorists.
“Motorists are crawling along major arterial roads, dealing with lacking or dangerous interchanges and rural standard roads just to get to work and school every day.”
Caroline Springs resident Zaki Anvari said he felt that many of the municipality’s roads were unsafe.
“I’ve been living in the west for a decade and none of the highways have ever been up to standard while I’ve lived here,” he said.
“Our roads might have been fine in the ‘90s but they’re not fit for today.
“I’ve had so many near misses merging onto the Melton Highway. Every highway and freeway is busy and extremely dangerous but we have to deal
with it, every day.
“No one seems to care.”
As part of its Fix Our Roads campaign, Melton council is calling on all major parties to commit to the immediate upgrade of these major roads and give residents more time at home with their families and more peace of mind on the road.
“Years of underinvestment by successive state and federal governments has led to aged, congested roads putting road users’ safety at risk every day,” Cr Kesic said.
“There’s been nearly $5 billion for major roads in other growing communities around Melbourne, but there’s been no major investment for Melton.
“We’ve got 50 new families moving into our city each week and 50 babies being born. This is one of the fastest growing areas in the country. We’re already at capacity and our population is going to more than double by 2050.”
