Wednesday, 18 March 2026

 Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (19:21): (1597) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action I seek is for the minister to urgently visit Traralgon before her disastrous plan to build a footpath along the Princes Highway to the Bank Street intersection commences. Recently the minister reneged on the promise to improve pedestrian safety by building a pedestrian underpass beneath the Gippsland rail line, linking Bank Street and Kosciuszko Street. Instead the minister is now forging ahead with a new plan, a plan that has been rushed and a plan that is frankly dangerous. I have seen preliminary designs for the plan that involve constructing a pedestrian footpath that needs to cross no less than five high-traffic driveways and a new bridge over a waterway before crossing a four-lane major highway and finally the Gippsland rail line. The diversion will add approximately 1 kilometre to a pedestrian’s trip.

You may ask: what could possibly go wrong? Well, I can tell you what could go wrong. The entire purpose of the proposed underpass was to stop people, mostly school students, from having to walk up a rock face and cross train lines just to head up Kosciuszko Street. Students will not walk further up to use a pedestrian crossing that forces them to walk across train tracks and then cross four lanes of a highway and walk along a new footpath beside a highway just to get to school. There is already a pedestrian refuge on the Bank Street side that effectively encourages people to climb over the rocks that they face to get up over the train line. Students and the general public will take a direct line of sight from the highway to Bank Street, so they will rarely use the alternative route. It is not a stretch of the imagination to see the disaster that would occur if someone tripped on a rock and ended up on the train tracks. It is also no stretch to imagine the disaster that would occur if a student was hit by a car as they crossed the high-use driveways, but it is a reality the minister must consider, because this plan is irresponsible and reckless.

What makes it worse is the footpath and crossing to the train tracks is scheduled to be finished before Labor has even installed the long-awaited traffic lights at the Bank Street intersection. If the minister’s new solution becomes reality, we are facing children crossing train tracks and then making a life-or-death decision to run across a four-lane highway without traffic lights operating. Minister, I implore you to visit Traralgon and watch what unfolds at the intersection during peak time so that you can understand firsthand the dangers of the plan you are forging ahead with.