Female pedestrian symbols could soon become the norm in the west.
The Brimbank council passed a motion during its May meeting to advocate for female symbols to be used for pedestrian signals on new and replaced traffic lights throughout the municipality.
The motion comes following a push by the Albion Action Group to have female symbols included at the proposed lights at the Perth Avenue-Ballarat Road intersection in Albion.
Cr Victoria Borg introduced the motion and said it was an important step in achieving gender equality.
“The importance of gender equality in society is highly recognised by all three levels of government,” she said.
“We have come a long way since the middle of the 20th century. The road has been rough and still is quite bumpy.
“The community and city of Brimbank made quite the statement when seven female councillors were elected in 2017. We now have the opportunity to make another statement by supporting this motion.”
Cr Daniel Allan was the only councillor to vote against the motion.
“In terms of gender equality, there’s no argument here.
The facts surrounding the gender gap are well understood,” he said.
“But advocating to have these female crossing lights is something I think is very gimmicky, tokenistic and I don’t think there’s any lasting economic benefit to them.
“At other crossings like children’s crossings where you see a female holding a child’s hand, you don’t look at it and think fathers are excluded.”
Councillors also flagged concerns about associated costs to installing new symbols, however traffic lights fall under VicRoads’ umbrella, meaning any cost is unlikely to fall to the council.
