Thursday, 20 November 2025

 Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (22:20): (2159) My adjournment is directed to the Minister for Public and Active Transport, and the action I seek once again is for the minister to direct her department to undertake a thorough investigation and actually upgrade some bus stops throughout the northern suburbs, particularly in the neglectorates of Greenvale and Kalkallo. Time and time again residents have raised concerns as to the urgent need for upgrades to bus stops in the north – inaccessible, unsafe, poorly lit bus stops. Parents in particular tell me of the concerns for their children walking to unsafe, poorly lit, inaccessible bus stops. Residents are forced to stand outside numerous bus stops exposed to the elements because there are absolutely no shelters. This is simply unacceptable. The community continues to ignore these decisions because the government continues to ignore and neglect even the most basic public transport infrastructure in the north. While the government is ploughing probably well over $35 billion into a rail tunnel in the eastern suburbs, the northern suburbs continue to get neglected. In Meadow Heights, for instance, a number of bus stops urgently require indented bays to improve traffic flow and to avoid a growing number of near misses. I refer to Hudson Circuit and Paringa Boulevard in particular, where many people on a two-lane road go around a bus stop and straight into a roundabout. I have seen crashes there and near misses and have made a repeated request of the minister – and I understand this is something Hume City Council supports as well – to create an indented bus bay to minimise the amount of accidents there.

I keep calling for this, because it has worked before. We know this because of the bus stop on the corner of Somerton Road and Ravenhill Boulevard. I felt like I was the only parliamentarian talking about it, both in the media and in the Parliament over and over again, because the residents of Roxburgh Park kept bringing it up that the government had a bus stop with a patch of mud that was not accessible from the side street, and you could not walk onto busy Somerton Road to actually get to the bus stop. After time after time raising in Parliament this terrible bus stop in the neglectorate of Greenvale, Public Transport Victoria finally upgraded that bus stop, to the glow of the community.

Michael Galea interjected.

Evan MULHOLLAND: He actually has not mentioned it once in Parliament. I once again seek the action of the minister to finally continue to upgrade bus stops in the northern suburbs.