Yarra Campaign for Action on Transport

How to Fix Hoddle Street - Public Forum, All Welcome.

There are concept plans for a series of overpasses and underpasses at major intersections along Hoddle St. Is this the way to go?

Hoddle St Transport Forum meeting at Collingwood Senior Citizens Room, Eddy Ct Abbotsford, behind the Collingwood Town Hall, just north of Collingwood Railway Station.

This Thursday 18th  Feb 7:30-9pm.

Organised by The Greens, presented by

• Greg Barber MLC
• Cr. Amanda Stone
• Kathleen Maltzhan (Greens candidate for Richmond and former Cr)

Date: Thursday 18 February 2010
Time: 3.00 pm - 4.30 pm
Venue: BMW Edge, Federation Square, Melbourne (off Flinders Street)
Entry:  Free.

Speakers: Professor Ross Garnaut, eminent economist, The Hon Greg Hunt MP, Federal Shadow Minister for Climate Action, and Kelvin Thomson MP, Federal Member for Wills

This is part of the Sustainable Living Festival (SLF) from 15-21 February 2010

The full festival program can be viewed on www.festival.slf.org.au

RALLY PARLIAMENT HOUSE STEPS - FEB 24 12PM

From: Save our Bush Alliance

ONE MORE NAIL IN THE COFFIN, OUR BUSHLAND IS BURIED

Melbourne’s bushland reserves are under attack like never before, by a Brumby state government obsessed with freeway construction. 2010 might be the Year of Biodiversity everywhere else, but in Melbourne – unless Brumby can be stopped – it will be the year of bio-destruction.

[Read more →]

From The Age 15 February, by Kenneth Davidson

Before the 2002 state election I was asked to chair a meeting of Banyule citizens who had good reason to believe the Bracks government was planning to build a freeway connecting the Metropolitan Ring Road to what is now EastLink.

The Heidelberg Town Hall was full. The audience was sufficiently large and threatening that the then transport minister, Peter Batchelor, and local ALP state member Craig Langdon each promised that it wouldn’t happen. From the platform, I saw the tension go out of the audience.

How easy it is to gull the electorate. The freeway was on the VicRoads agenda even before the first stage of the ring road was built. It was classic salami tactics - one slice at a time.

In parliament in 2001 Batchelor was even less circumspect. Hansard records he said: ”It is not on our radar … there is no truth in the suggestion. It is a tragic and sleazy attempt by a conspiracy of the deluded to try and frighten people living and working in this area. I need to set the record straight once and for all, and these people will have no basis for making the suggestions in the future.” [Read more →]

By John Legge,  a Melbourne author, educator and consultant.

Printed in The Age, January 22, 2010

VicRoads and its minister are talking of spending $750 million to move the main traffic jam from the corner of Hoddle and Victoria streets to the intersection of Hoddle Street and Bridge Road.

This gives new Transport Minister Martin Pakula an opportunity to make an early mark by fixing the Hoddle Street traffic snarl with a few tram and light rail extensions.

The simple fact is that more cars are attempting to use the road between the end of the Eastern Freeway and Victoria Street than the road can handle at anything faster than a bumper-to-bumper crawl. Drivers endure this because the alternatives are worse. [Read more →]

City of Yarra - Media Release: Yarra rejects Hoddle Street overpass proposal (10 December 2008)*

Proposed multiple overpasses on Hoddle Street would only worsen gridlock on the arterial and create local eyesores, the City of Yarra said today. City of Yarra Mayor Cr Amanda Stone said the local community would be horrified with the Government’s proposed “spaghetti” solution to fixing congestion along Hoddle Street.

“I would anticipate that we are going to work hard as a community in the next 12 months to make sure that the overpass plan meets the same fate as the now-dumped East-West road tunnel proposal,” Cr Stone said.

“The City of Yarra is working to develop Hoddle Street into a boulevard and then the government comes out with a proposal that would only make it even more of a traffic sewer,” she said.

“We don’t want concrete eyesores plonked along one of our main arterials, with no consideration for how they impact on our residents’ visual amenity or how they create physical divisions between our communities.

“Melbourne cannot build its way out of congestion through creating new roads.

“Research as well as real life has shown us again and again that new road projects might work for a while, but in the long term, you end up with roads just as congested as what you started with.

“The only lasting solution to traffic congestion comes when you create real public transport alternatives.” [Read more →]