Tuesday, 18 March 2025

 Matthew GUY (Bulleen) (19:08): (1065) I have an adjournment matter tonight for the member for Williamstown, the Minister for Roads and Road Safety. In the City of Manningham, as I have raised in this chamber many times, the North East Link is causing traffic chaos. It is not just for my side of the Yarra but also for the City of Banyule and for Nillumbik, particularly from Fitzsimons Lane through Templestowe; Thompsons Road, Bulleen Road, Lower Plenty Road through Banyule and, most importantly, through what appears to be the root cause of much of this, the intersection at Bulleen Road, Templestowe Road and Manningham Road. As the North East Link is being constructed this intersection has been completely rebuilt on a temporary basis and two extra sets of traffic lights have been inserted into what is for the north-eastern suburbs the main east–west arterial. This, as you can imagine, causes immense traffic problems in the morning.

Traffic is banked up on Thompsons Road as a result, which makes bus travel to the city prohibitive because then the buses use the same route as the cars getting down to the Bulleen park-and-ride. It then causes traffic to bank up on High Street further up into the City of Manningham. Traffic coming in from Eltham tries to avert this and go through Heidelberg, which then banks up Rosanna Road. No doubt the members for Ivanhoe and even Bundoora would be aware of this. In short, the place is a complete mess. I have raised this many times with now two ministers for transport infrastructure, seeking some form of redress in repairing what is a very poorly structured temporary – and when I say ‘temporary’ I mean seven-year – intersection at the corner of Templestowe Road, Bulleen Road and Manningham Road going east–west.

My adjournment matter tonight is for the minister for roads. It is to intervene in this matter and to reconstruct this intersection to remove either one or two sets, if possible, of those traffic lights to ensure we have some semblance of free-flowing, particularly east–west, traffic, which is what we had before, when there was a single set of traffic lights at the major intersection. As I have said, there are two additional sets. My adjournment is for the minister to intervene to fix this intersection, which will hopefully allow north-eastern suburban traffic to flow at a reasonable rate.