by Sahar Foladi
Businesses are rallying against the State Government’s plans to close road access at the Progress Street level crossing in Dandenong South.
A road bridge is proposed by the Level Crossing Removal Project (LXRP) which will create a new connection between Progress Street and Fowler Road in the busy industrial precinct.
According to the LXRP, the new design creates safer access for businesses to Princes Highway via an upgraded, signalised intersection at South Gippsland Highway.
Progress Street, Nathan Road and Fowler Road are made up of manufacturers such as Vulcan, Pakaflex, Simmonds Lumber Group, JDN Monocrane and also Australia Post.
Access across the rail line at Progress Street would be closed permanently and the businesses in the area are just not having it.
Managing Director of Pakaflex, Andrew Hamer said he plans to file a petition as soon as possible.
He intends to speak with the State Opposition to see if they will support the petition in Parliament.
“Truth is, a decision has been made here and it’s a bad decision. All I’m trying to do is say we shouldn’t accept a bad decision,” Mr Hamer said.
“Someone’s had a look at the map and said build that bridge there, we’ll close this one and that be all right.
“It’s not a good enough solution. As a community we’re being told, you’re not worth the crossing.”
Traffic from the south of the existing level crossing would link directly to Fowler Road via the new bridge over Eumemmering Creek.
The one-kilometre detour will take about four minutes for drivers, according to the project report.
“You ask me is that a safer better solution and a less congested option? It’s not even a debate. It’s more congested, more unsafe,” Mr Hamer said.
“I mean (Australia Post) bikes, B-doubles going down Fowler Road. It’s mind boggling how you can take a perfectly safe crossing that’s non-congested and try and shunt us down sideways.”
According to Level Crossing Removal Project (LXRP) there were five near misses on Progress Street where the gates were down for nearly a quarter of the morning peak, “causing congestion for the 5,200 vehicles that use the crossing each day”.
“The data will not be released by the LXRP to say what the actual incidents were,” Mr Hamer said.
“My office looks directly at the crossing and the last five years I haven’t seen no incidents or aware of any incidents whatsoever in the last five years.”
Manufacturers in the area also say there’s no congestion and the level crossing on Progress Street is not a dangerous one.
Rather there’ll be traffic added to the already congested South Gippsland Hwy with the proposed solution
“We have got the VicRoads statistics on the South Gippsland Highway and we will be adding 18 per cent to the traffic in an already congested highway. It’s a mess and we’ll be adding 18 per cent to that traffic.”
According to Mr Hamer the gates are barely down for 40 seconds on Progress Street.
Australia Post is among the many other businesses impacted by the decision, he says.
“Australia Post biggest distribution centre in Australia is in this cul-de-sac.
“Every letter and post in Melbourne has to go through this level crossing. You’re going to divert it down to Fowler Road into an already congested road?”
Colin from manufacturer JDN Monocrane says their vehicles with long and heavy loads will be diverted on a road which is not designed to take on those vehicles.
“We’re arguably the longest of any vehicle load carrier in this country. It sounds exaggerative but we move items up to 45 metres in length, done under special permit conditions.
“We build to whatever the client needs, we’ve even made 60-metre long items.”
He holds serious safety concerns for its items and drivers.
“It’s going to kill but these people don’t care.”
Human resource manager, Saffron from Cosmax says their staff would be looking elsewhere to work.
“Some of our staff has already said if it’s going to take them extra 20 minutes to work they’ll be looking elsewhere for convenience.
“With staff shortages already in Australia that’s going to impact us greatly just because of a decision being made to remove this level crossing.”
Program Director, Level Crossing Removal Project Travis Edmonds said each of its level crossing design solutions across Melbourne was “determined after extensive engineering assessments to deliver the best possible outcomes for each community”.
“We’ve been in touch with local residents and all the businesses in the area and appreciate their feedback on the project so far, and we’ll continue to engage with them throughout the planning and construction phases of the project.”
However manufacturers say that LXRP has refused to meet with them as a community but insist on one-on-one discussions only.
Saffron from Cosmax said there were no consultation with them prior to the decision was made.
“Consultation with the businesses in the area would’ve been much better approach so that we could’ve come up with something that’s suitable for everybody,” she said.
AusPost and VicRoads were contacted for comment.
