GROWTH areas like Melton will soon not be sustainable unless more funding is allocated for public transport and roads, a major forum has been told.
Representatives of growth area councils like Melton, Hume and Wyndham said their municipalities were already struggling with poor public transport and roads, and the problem would worsen under growth corridor plans.
At a metropolitan transport forum at the Melbourne Town Hall, they called for federal and state governments to provide more funding to address the problems.
The forum was told Melton had the second-highest percentage of residents who travelled to Melbourne for work.
Wyndham led the way with 21 per cent, while Melton had 19 per cent.
With population growth to be accelerated by new suburbs and the number of residents travelling set to soar, Melton Residents Association president Peter Rowan said action was needed to ease the strain on infrastructure.
“The projected growth is tremendous for the next one or two decades. Government must keep up with infrastructure at every level.”
Mr Rowan said infrastructure and transport had too often been treated as an after-thought in planning new estates.
His comments come as a report found the Transport Department had not met the challenges of rapid growth in public transport patronage in the past decade.
Attorney-General Des Pearson said that while planning for public transport had improved, the department faced significant challenges.
It needed to spend $3 billion a year improving the transport system to cope with growing demand.
The report stated that regional train usage, which included Melton, Sunbury, Macedon Ranges and Moorabool, was growing faster than any other public transport mode.
Patronage more than doubled in the past five years, from 6.4 million passengers a year in 2004-05 to 13.5 million in 2010-11.
It was expected to increase to 36 million passengers by 2020-21.
