Wednesday, 20 March 2019

 Mr RIORDAN (Polwarth) (19:01): (387) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Roads and Minister for Road Safety and the TAC in the other place. The action I seek is for the minister to ask VicRoads to announce when the proposed overtaking lanes on the Forrest-Apollo Bay Road will be completed. The Forrest-Apollo Bay Road is a crucial alternate route to the busy Great Ocean Road. It is the main supply road and connection from Apollo Bay to Colac. This notoriously winding and dangerous road is carrying more and more traffic. It passes over the wettest mountain range in Victoria. On weekends it is a busy route for cyclists, and during the week buses, trucks, commercial vehicles and slow-moving holiday-makers with vans and Winnebagos make their way along this road.

This government first announced its commitment to match federal government funding for these much-needed road improvements in January 2017 with much media and fanfare. It took until July and August 2018 for this government to put the notice of tender documents up on the VicRoads website, which no doubt aligned with some more specially choreographed media. We are now approaching April 2019, a full two years after the commitment was made to upgrade the road. The money has been committed. The local people who rely on this road are tiring of excuses. Please, Minister, for the sake of road safety get these much-needed improvements underway.