MORE than $5 million will be poured into Melton Highway safety improvements despite repeated calls for the notorious road to be duplicated.
Melton Labor MP Don Nardella said that while the funding, announced by Western Metropolitan Liberal MP Andrew Elsbury,
was welcome, money would be better spent on planning the highway’s duplication.
He said a “patchwork” approach to the road was not going to solve its problems.
“You can’t have a Fourth-World road in one of the fastest growing areas of Australia.”
Residents have called for the full duplication of the highway, but instead the latest funding will go towards removing wire-rope barriers and guard rails, trees and vegetation – deemed as hazards. The highway will also be widened and tactile edge lines added.
As reported by the Weekly, more than 2000 residents signed a petition started by resident Narelle Bowden following the death of her nephew on the highway in 2010. Ms Bowden said if the highway had been duplicated, “my five-year-old nephew would still be here”.
She said she understood other factors contributed to the fatal accident, but stressed the importance of additional lines and realignment of the Kororoit Creek dip.
“Our community is growing daily; 50 new families move to Melton each day. How many more innocent lives are to be lost?”
Mr Elsbury
said there had been 22 crashes, including three fatalities, on the highway between Melton and Taylors Lakes in the past five years.
He said the works were designed to alert motorists if they started to veer towards the roadside and reduce the impact of collisions.
Western Victoria Liberal MP Simon Ramsay last week announced $980,000 for works to improve safety at the intersection of Federation Drive and Melton Valley Drive in Melton with a roundabout and street lighting to increase visibility.
-Andria Cozza
