Tuesday, 5 April 2022

Lara electorate traffic congestion

Mr EREN (Lara) (19:07): (6309) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety. The action I seek from the minister is for him to visit the growing suburb of Lara in my electorate to look at the way population growth is affecting traffic congestion. Lara has grown significantly over the years, and what was once considered a small rural community is now one of Geelong’s most popular growth areas. The population is exceeding expected population growth for this community, and this will only increase. The next five to seven years will see a continuation of steady growth in population. While this growth is fantastic in many ways, it does create real pressure points in this community, and roads are one of them.

Lara is seeing some major traffic congestion concerns at key intersections. The majority of roads in the community are managed by the local council. However, Forest Road North is a state arterial road and one that is under constant pressure, especially at peak times. On that road there is the Lara Lake Primary School, and as you proceed further down there is an intersection where there are six different roads intersecting in that very busy section of the road. On the other side, which is Flinders Avenue, there is another primary school, which is the Lara Primary School. As you can appreciate, at both drop-off times and pick-up times it is just a nightmare to get through that intersection. The majority of roads, as I have stated, are local council, but there are some roads that are state government responsibility.

The Lara Traffic Management Plan 2019–2029, which was adopted by the City of Greater Geelong, also highlights broader traffic management issues associated with the growing population of Lara. This is all good of course. We want more population growth in certain parts of Geelong, and Lara is well over 20 000 residents now and far exceeds what the expectation was. Clearly there are some pressure points on roads, particularly when it comes to road safety, and we want to make sure that as a state government we are on top of these issues before we get into a situation where there might be some accidents in the future when further growth in population occurs. The action that I seek is for the minister to visit the growing suburb of Lara in my electorate to look at the way population growth is affecting traffic congestion.