Tuesday, 26 November 2024

 Brad ROWSWELL (Sandringham) (19:20): (949) I rise to raise an adjournment matter for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action that I seek is for the minister for roads to commit to a permanent safety solution at the intersection of Bay Road and Highland Avenue. I want to take you on a journey, if you will allow me to do so. As you are travelling towards Southland, towards Nepean Highway, on Bay Road on the left-hand side, out from practically nowhere there is this kerb that juts out of Bay Road at the intersection of Highland Avenue. It is not safe. If you are travelling down Bay Road on the left-hand side of the road and you are approaching Highland Avenue, often you will veer into the right-hand side of the Bay Road lane in order to avoid this protrusion on the road. It is unsafe, and many hundreds of locals have raised this matter with me directly.

I have raised this in correspondence with the minister, and the minister has assured me that the government will ‘investigate potential solutions for this matter’. But the reason I am raising this as an adjournment matter this evening is this: the community deserves much better than platitudes from the minister. What the community deserves in my area is a definitive answer. We want to know when this intersection will be fixed. What is the timeframe for it to be fixed? What is the solution for it to be fixed? We deserve that. It is a matter of safety. Bay Road has something like 60,000 car movements on it a day. I have written to VicRoads and now the Department of Transport and Planning any number of times about Bay Road. They have said to me that they will not introduce any new traffic interventions on that road until the number of car movements on that road increases significantly. Bay Road is a highly populated road. The intersection of Bay Road and Highland Avenue is a safety issue for local residents, and I firmly believe that local residents deserve a definitive answer from the minister for roads as to when this intersection will be fixed.