Thursday, 16 November 2023

Bank Street–Princes Highway, Traralgon

Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (17:14): (453) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action I seek is for completion of the installation of traffic lights at the intersection of Bank Street and Princes Highway in Traralgon. It has been nearly two years since work started to upgrade the notoriously dangerous Bank Street intersection, and still the community is waiting for the state government to upgrade the railway line signalling so vital traffic lights can be installed. It is no exaggeration to say that this intersection without traffic lights is, well, a death trap. Just last week there was another accident at Bank Street, which unfortunately is becoming a semiregular occurrence. Turning right from the Traralgon Golf Club onto the Princes Highway is genuinely a frightening prospect, and in most cases it is not a safe option. Drivers needing to travel west instead must turn left and detour through the other end of town. Golfers travelling in carts between the club and their homes are faced with an even more dangerous journey. I was told the project would be done months ago, but like so many others across the Latrobe Valley the works at the Bank Street intersection have come to a grinding halt.

It is not good enough that motorists are forced to risk their lives every day simply because of the state government’s inaction or incompetence. The community has waited too long for this project to be completed, and it should be the highest priority to get the job done for the safety of the local road users. With the influx of Christmas traffic only a month away and our road toll on the rise, the local residents who use this intersection on a daily basis and the out-of-town traffic that will pass through en masse in a mere month are being put at risk. Throw trucks into the mix and it is a melting pot for disaster.

The road is done, the traffic light poles are up, works on the train line appear to be finished but we have no traffic lights. It is like having a Commonwealth Games without the athletes or an athletes village or bringing back the SEC to lower our energy prices without a plan of how to achieve it. If the state government can remove 72 level crossings across metropolitan Melbourne in the space of four years, then surely it can extend the same courtesy to the people of the Latrobe Valley, who have waited nearly a decade for this one single project to be finished. Minister, will you commit to finishing the railway line signalling and traffic light installation at Bank Street intersection as a matter of urgency?