We’re on the road to nowhere

We’re on the road to nowhere

Editorial by Shane Scanlan

With every new Western Distributor (now called West Gate Tunnel) map, it is becoming clearer and clearer that Docklands is to become a dumping ground for traffic.

We will have more cars attempting to bypass the city via Wurundjeri Way and more bicycles will also be brought into the suburb to jostle with our pedestrians.

And, being at the end of the road, the Western Distributor Authority and its partner Transurban have no responsibility to Docklands.

Should the already impossible snarl between Flinders St, Batmans Hill Drive, Lorimer St, the M1 and Montague St become totally dysfunctional, it won’t be their problem.

Similarly, should their elevated bicycle veloway dump thousands more commuter cyclists into our community, well that will be just too bad.

The authority flags with pride that traffic which would have previously travelled via King and Spencer streets is to be funneled into Docklands. Adding an extra lane to Wurundjeri Way will mean that more traffic waiting to negotiate the various sets of traffic lights at the southern end.

Last September authority communications director Jim Carden told Docklands News it was not known how many extra cars and trucks Docklands would suffer by diverting the Dynon Rd traffic into Wurundjeri Way.

But, at the April 26 Docklands Community Forum, he said traffic modeling had actually now been done, but we’ll have to wait a few weeks to see it as part of the project’s Environmental Effects Statement (EES).

He said that would be the appropriate time to respond.

“I’d urge you to look at that. See if that answers your needs or answers your questions and, if it doesn’t, you make a submission to that,” Mr Carden said.

“And, in the meantime, come to one of our sessions where we have traffic specialists who have done all the modeling and can actually run the model for you.”

But it’s too late now. The design has been done. Tenders have been run and won and John Holland and CPB Contractors have been selected as the successful contractors and are waiting to start work.

The authority will claim two year’s of public consultation. But the only real question that Docklands has ever asked about this project will not be answered until after the event.

Surely the traffic modeling should have been shared with us before the design started?

The authority is likely to do us no favours when it comes to E-Gate as well. The word on the street is that the 20ha site will be used for a construction depot for the duration of the project. That scenario puts the earliest E-Gate start at least five years away. When it finally does get going, dreams of connecting E-Gate with communities across the railway will be challenged by legacy elevated roadway.

Being an authority with a single purpose, the West Gate Tunnel Project has no care or interest in what happens outside its boundaries. Once the job is done, it will be up to someone else (presumably VicRoads) to fix the mess it will create downstream.

Add to this mix the effect of the Metro Tunnel construction, as even more city traffic is diverted off St Kilda Rd towards alternative western options.

There’s a tragic irony in what will happen here in the utopian planners’ car-less suburb as gridlock becomes the norm.

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