Tuesday, 18 March 2025

Beveridge traffic management

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (00:21): (1514) My adjournment is to the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action I seek is for the minister to urgently fix the traffic chaos in Beveridge in my electorate. Areas like Kalkallo, Donnybrook and Mount Atkinson are famous for a severe lack of planning – botched planning – and a severe lack of public transport, amenity and character and creating car-dependent deserts in which it is residents and Victorians that suffer because they do not have access to the services and amenity that the rest of Melbourne does. Beveridge is about to be as famous as those suburbs – as Kalkallo, as Donnybrook, as Mount Atkinson. It is an island of housing estates, and the only retail outlet there is a golf course. It has got no shops. Using Lithgow Street, which is the one road onto the Hume, it takes 45 minutes to get to the Hume Highway at peak hour. School buses, which are the only form of buses that go through Beveridge, get delayed and then get cancelled, so students end up standing up on a bus going 110 kilometres an hour on the Hume. That is not acceptable, but it has got no public transport. There was meant to be a train station at Beveridge. For those public transport nerds like me who have looked through old Public Transport Victoria development plans, there is actually meant to be a Somerton link line that connects the Upfield line, duplicates it and connects it to Roxburgh Park, and then you can electrify the track from Craigieburn to Wallan and put new stations at Kalkallo and Beveridge and then continue up to Wallan. That has not happened.

I am desperately seeking an interim solution from the minister, and the reason I seek the action of the Minister for Roads and Road Safety is that it is not a transport infrastructure issue. Camerons Lane will not be delivered until the 2030s. Even though the government has about $900 million to spend on it, it will not be delivered until the 2030s. My residents cannot wait that long. The people of Beveridge cannot wait that long for a fix. We need a fix. We need the state government to step up, because people are suffering. I spoke to Hollie Prosser, a 14-year resident who expressed great frustrations about the traffic issues at the moment. I spoke to many families whose kids are consistently late to school. There are pedestrian safety issues and social and mental health issues from being stuck in this estate, so I seek the action of the minister to do something about Beveridge.