Two notorious level crossings in Brimbank will be removed if the Labor Party wins next year’s state election.
LeadWest chief executive Craig Rowley welcomed the state opposition’s plans to remove level crossings in Main and Furlong roads in St Albans, saying the lobby group and its member councils had pushed for safety upgrades for many years.
Opposition leader Daniel Andrews last week released his Melbourne transport plan, which includes removing the 50 worst level crossings within eight years and investing $2 billion in outer suburban and regional roads.
Mr Andrews has pledged to build a metro rail tunnel to increase capacity on the city loop, remove 5000 trucks a day from the West Gate Bridge and widen the Tullamarine Freeway to six lanes.
He said Labor would pay for the projects by selling the Port of Melbourne. The state government criticised Labor’s ‘Project 10,000’ plan, saying it would disrupt train services and increase traffic. Mr Rowley said he didn’t expect the projects to cause widespread disruption to train services or cause gridlock in the western suburbs.
“It is not necessarily the case that because you are doing a number of them you are going to cause congestion in the west, because they are on different lines.”
A Public Transport Users Association spokesman said Labor’s plan was a win for motorists and public transport users as it would remove unpredictable delays and political obstacles to improving train services.
Western Metropolitan Liberal MP Bernie Finn said while works at the Main Road East/West crossing would begin next year, Labor’s plan for Furlong Road was based on the assumption of the sale of Port Melbourne.
“That’s a pretty big assumption.”
