Westlink
Here we go again. The Victorian transport agenda has been hijacked by the road and petroleum (and finance) lobby and actively promotes solutions that are not in the interests of the community despite irrefutable evidence...
The Sunshine community does not want a new truck road through our suburb and have been trying to find out crucial alignment details from the Dept of Infrastructure for many months. Suddenly a tender document appears that calls for a contractor to develop and evaluate a route for not only a dirty great road tunnel under Footscray, which the government did announce, but also a road out the other end, to take extra cars through the inner western suburbs
We also have to realise that the road they are planning is for trucks not cars.
This proposed road will shift the truck problem that currently exists in Yarraville, to a truck problem in Sunshine as trucks are led from the tunnel out through Sunshine and trucks seek alternative routes.
Spending the same money on public transport to move both freight and passengers would remove many more heavy vehicles from our roads than a new road.
If the state government actually spent money to upgrade the existing public transport system properly by making sure there are more trains, greater efficiencies, more buses and connections actually work, they would pull so many cars off the westgate that they wouldn't need to build a new road
We are shortly going to have a massive increase in petroleum prices and are going to have to grapple with peak oil. Now is not the time to invest in more big roads when public transport would clearly do a better job.
