Wednesday, 9 March 2022

Monash Freeway

Mr RICH-PHILLIPS (South Eastern Metropolitan) (18:13): (1808) I wish to raise a matter for the attention of the Minister for Transport Infrastructure in the other place, and it relates to the Monash Freeway. As residents in the south-east who use the Monash Freeway frequently for commuting know, we frequently have collisions on the Monash which bring traffic to a standstill. Typically a minor collision—or a major collision—will bring all lanes of traffic to a standstill, inbound or outbound. But one of the very frustrating phenomena on the Monash is that where a collision occurs inbound or outbound rubbernecking on the other side of the freeway will also bring the opposite direction traffic to a standstill. So in the morning if you have a collision inbound that stops inbound traffic, traffic outbound will also stop at that same point. This is very graphically demonstrated when you look at the traffic feature of Google Maps. You will see traffic stopped in both directions at the one point—on one side because of the collision and on the other side because people are looking at the collision, which is enormously frustrating to commuters.

Over the last 12 months there have been upgrade works taking place on the Monash, and this has resulted in the centre median strip of the Monash being widened, barriers being put up for works et cetera, and for the storing of plant and equipment overnight. Because the barriers have been put up—they are about 3 metres or maybe a little bit taller—along the centre median, traffic in one direction on the Monash has not been able to see the traffic on the other side of the Monash, meaning that when collisions have occurred it has only resulted in traffic in one direction stopping, and the traffic on the other side, which cannot see the collision, has not been brought to a stop.

So the action I seek from the Minister for Transport Infrastructure now those works are concluding is to actually work with Major Road Projects Victoria to ensure that those median barriers, those high median barriers that are about 3 metres high, continue to be in place so that the traffic going in the opposite direction is not brought to a standstill simply through rubbernecking by drivers going in the opposite direction. The works period has demonstrated that they stop that occurring, and I think it would be a very useful idea to continue with those barriers down the centre to ensure that we do not have that unnecessary interruption to traffic in both directions.