Tuesday, 11 August 2026

 Anthony CIANFLONE (Pascoe Vale) (19:03): (1760) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action I seek is for the minister to provide an update on the ongoing investments the Victorian Labor government has continued to make to improve local road safety across my community of Merri-bek, including along Bell Street through Coburg, from Elizabeth Street down to the Tullamarine Freeway. As many of you know, the Bell Street corridor is a major east–west arterial road connecting the inner northern suburbs with the Tullamarine Freeway and the Eastern Freeway. Slicing through the centre of my electorate, Bell Street experiences almost 50,000 vehicle movements per day and is one of the busiest arterials on the state’s network. That is why the Victorian government has been taking real action to improve safety along Bell Street, including via the future opening of the North East Link, which will connect the Western Ring Road, Tullamarine Freeway and Eastern Freeway, alleviating pressure on east–west commuting on Bell Street once opened from 2028; the removal of the dangerous level crossings at both Bell Street, Coburg, and Bell Street, Preston; the delivery of the new active transport and recreational crossing that accompanies these new level crossing projects; and the redesign of the Tullamarine Freeway for safer and separated traffic flow from Bulla Road and Bell Street. We are improving safety for Coburg Primary, St Paul’s Primary and Coburg High families via the expanded 40-kilometre safer school speed zone from Pentridge Boulevard to the Bell Street bridge and Elizabeth Street, the installation of seven new electronic variable speed signs through the corridor, the installation of new speed humps at Elm Grove and Urquhart Street and much more.

However, notwithstanding these uplifts, there remains more to do throughout numerous portions of the corridor. Local school communities and households would greatly welcome throughout the corridor consideration of generally safer speeds and enhancements for pedestrians and vulnerable road users; increased and ongoing measures to make Bell Street bridge safer; delivery of pedestrian-operated signals on Elizabeth Street, further north of Bell Street; enhancements at the Nicholson Street crossing intersection and the tram route 1 terminus; better signage out the front of Coburg High and McDonald Reserve; road safety cameras, including directly out the front of Coburg Primary on Elm Grove to calm the traffic and better protect the schools two campuses on either side of Bell Street; Merri-bek council to ensure a permanent school crossing supervisor presence at Coburg Primary on Bell Street and Elm Grove; the need for a pedestrian crossing or zebra crossing connecting Urquhart Street over Elm Grove for Coburg Primary families again; new pedestrian crossings somewhere between the Coburg Aquarium crossing and the Sussex Street intersection, which has long been a pedestrian crossing desert; enhancements along the corridors adjoining residential streets to calm vehicle turns and mitigate against rat-running; and further improvements to better prioritise vulnerable road users at Bell Street’s main intersection crossings, including at Sydney Road, Hudson Street, Coburg Aquarium, Sussex Street, Melville Road, Turner Street and others.

As part of this I would particularly like to focus on the Bell Street intersection at Cumberland Road, where we have experienced a number of increasingly dangerous and concerning incidents, the most concerning being on 21 July this year, when a local couple narrowly avoided serious injury after a car crashed through their bedroom wall just after 6 am. I recently visited the couple in their home, Naresh and Divya, who showed me just how lucky they were, with a car crashing through their bedroom wall and stopping mere centimetres from their bed as they woke in shock. They have raised serious concerns and would welcome the Department of Transport and Planning and the minister pursuing a number of urgent actions to help make this intersection safer, including a DTP holistic safety review of the intersection, which should consider and make provision for safer speeds through this portion of Bell Street; a review of the light sequencing and timing at the Bell Street and Cumberland Road intersection; road safety, red-light and speed cameras at this intersection; and much, much more.