Tuesday, 3 March 2020

Ministers statements: Toorak Road, Kooyong, level crossing

Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure) (12:27): As part of the Andrews Labor government’s work to remove 75 dangerous and congested level crossings by 2025, and of course create thousands of jobs along the way, I am very pleased today to update the house on progress on one of the grandest structures to come to Kooyong in absolute years: the Toorak Road level crossing in Kooyong. It is one of the most notorious in Victoria. It is notorious because it clogs up traffic in a whole range of different directions.

Mr Andrews interjected.

Ms ALLAN: It clogs up traffic on the Monash Freeway, as the Premier well knows. Arterial roads can back up for kilometres, and the gridlock is so widespread it blocks motorists who are not even crossing it because it has that ripple effect across this part of Melbourne. But in April this will be over. The boom gates will be gone, the traffic will be flowing and what is better is it is six months ahead of schedule.

This is a great engineering feat. More than half of the rail bridge was built in less than a week, 24 of 40 beams have been slotted into place—they each weigh 128 tonnes and are up to 31 metres long—and the rest of these beams will be installed over the Labour Day long weekend. Now, this is an interesting location of course, and the member for Hawthorn—the fantastic member for Hawthorn—tells me—

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! The house will come to order.

Ms ALLAN: The member for Hawthorn tells me that his community is delighted with the project. They hate this level crossing, and you know what they hate more? They hate the opposition from the member for Malvern to removing this level crossing. He opposes the removal of this level crossing, and the record will show your opposition to removing this dangerous and congested— (Time expired)