Tuesday, 18 June 2024

Main Street, Rutherglen

Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (15:11): I have in my possession a petition with 876 signatures collected by certain citizens of Rutherglen calling on the Minister for Roads and Road Safety to ensure that the balance of the $2 million put aside in 2016 to investigate heavy vehicle transiting Rutherglen is allocated to best practice traffic-calming measures in Main Street. Following the scrapping of the Rutherglen bypass project in the federal infrastructure review, the community has once again become concerned about the amount of traffic that passes through their Main Street. This has been exacerbated by two serious accidents in recent weeks, one of which resulted in a fatality.

Unfortunately, the petition cannot be tabled, as it is not in the correct format, so I will deliver it to the minister’s office. I ask that the minister immediately respond to the petitioners’ request for best practice traffic-calming measures, including signalised pedestrian crossings near their newsagent and post office and wombat crossings at each end of town, as well as the release of the Rutherglen origin and destination study.