By Graeme Hammond, President, Save Willy Road
Anyone expecting massive freight trucks to vanish from inner west roads when the West Gate Tunnel opens in the next few weeks is set for a shock.
Although the state government’s catch-cry throughout the arduous seven-year-long construction process has been ‘Trucks off local roads’, the project’s own traffic projections reveal that for hundreds of inner-west residents and thousands of road users, the outcome will be the exact opposite.
Figures contained in key tunnel project documents show that while the number of trucks on several roads will drop sharply, those using Williamstown Road are expected to more than double, bringing more trucks than it has ever had.
Already around 2200 trucks a day thunder along this residential road — and the alarming projections are that they will be joined by another 2500 trucks daily once the tunnel opens.
In the busiest hours of the day, it will mean two more trucks a minute, clogging lanes, blocking intersections and delaying progress through traffic lights for other users. And if there is no curfew it is highly likely the surge in truck numbers will continue throughout the night, shaking houses as close as five metres from the road and disrupting sleep for residents.
As a comparison, the predicted 4700 trucks a day is worse than Francis Street now — and that road has night and weekend curfews.
There are two distinct sources of those extra trucks, many of which will be among the oldest, noisiest and highest polluting on Victorian roads.
The first is that Williamstown Road was deliberately omitted from the list of six inner-west roads that will benefit from 24/7, camera-enforced truck bans once the tunnel opens.
That cruel decision means that massive container trucks, many of them with the same dimensions as a ten-storey building, will be free to continue using Williamstown Road as a rat-run between transport depots in Brooklyn/Tottenham and the Port of Melbourne’s Webb Dock, which they access via the West Gate Bridge.
Roads Minister Melissa Horne is reported to be finally considering a night and weekend curfew for trucks, which is great news. In the past – and as recently as March this year — she has rejected pleas from residents group Save Willy Road for either curfews or a 24/7 truck ban on Williamstown Road, claiming that such restrictions would create “efficiency issues” for truck operators. That is nonsense. A key component of the $11 billion tunnel project was the construction of four extra lanes on the West Gate Freeway, boosting road capacity. Those port trucks should be compelled to use the freeway, which provides direct access to Brooklyn and Tottenham via Grieve Parade, McDonald Road and Market Road. Those roads are industrial routes far more appropriate for 30m long, 70-tonne trucks than a single-lane road passing close to homes, cyclists and pedestrians.
The second source of the expected truck tsunami is punitive new truck tolls on the existing freeway once the tunnel opens. Tolling points between Millers Road and Williamstown Road will sting every truck almost $20 a trip, or $30 for longer trucks, regardless of whether they use the tunnel or not. Taking into account multi-trip and night discounts, operators will pay up to $178 a day to use the ‘freeway’. But trucks travelling to and from Webb Dock, or with destinations or origins over the West Gate Bridge, can exit the freeway and use Geelong Road and Williamstown Road instead before rejoining the freeway. And why would they not? Off-peak, that detour will add just five minutes to their journey but yield huge cash savings.
It was an act of greed by Transurban to demand trucks pay tolls on an existing freeway. It was an act of callousness by the government to not only give its consent, but also leave open a zero-cost alternative route that sends those trucks back past hundreds of homes.
For thousands of inner west residents, the new tunnel will be life changing, at last ridding suburban roads of dangerous, pollution-emitting trucks. The outcome is hard-won, largely due to years of pressure by the Maribyrnong Truck Action Group. But for Williamstown Road, the ‘trucks off local roads’ banners have turned out to be a cruel hoax. The reality is more trucks. That means more noise, worse air quality, less safety, degraded amenity.
A camera-enforced curfew, if introduced, is the least the government can do to ease the pain for Williamstown Road’s 800 residents and the 20,000 drivers who use that road daily. Residents accept they live on a busy arterial road. But no one accepts their road being turned into a new 24/7 dedicated freight route.
