A PROTEST against the planned Mordialloc freeway landed on the doorstop of state MP Tim Richardson last week.
About a dozen Residents Against Mordialloc Freeway (RAMF) protesters visited the Labor MP’s Nepean Highway office on Monday (23 April) to make their discontent known about possible environmental impacts of the project.
Concerns about the impact of the $375 million bypass on the nearby Edithvale-Seaford Wetlands and the possible obstruction of the flight path of rare and endangered birds have been flagged by RAMF.
The 9-kilometre Mordialloc bypass will link the Mornington Peninsula Freeway in Aspendale Gardens to the Dingley Bypass
“It’s becoming a sky road and there’s going to be a lot of concrete and noise,” RAMF president Scott Fothergill said.
“Most of it will be an elevated road.”
Mr Fothergill also believes traffic “bottlenecks” will occur at Dingley.
“It’s basically leading into another gridlock.”
The Labor state government announced earlier this month that the bypass will be a freeway without tolls.
“People have come up with excuses for so many years on why not to build this project,” Mr Richardson told The News.
“This will get tens of thousands of cars off local roads. It has to be done but we respect the environmental effects statement and the process and making sure mitigate environmental risk.”
RAMF group secretary Alex Breskin, who has previously stood as a state and federal candidate for The Greens, said changing the Mordialloc bypass to a freeway made no difference to potential damage costs to the environment.
“The upgrade of the Mordialloc bypass to Mordialloc Freeway confirms our fears this road will adversely impact the local environment, and further divide our community. It entrenches car dependency when we know this money could be spent on improving public transport in the area,” Mr Breskin said.
“Residents would much rather new solutions such as those proposed by the Rail Future Group with light rail that links our communities rather than an outdated freeway that would go nowhere.”
RAMF is urging concerned residents to attend a Kingston Residents Association forum at Mordialloc Neighbourhood House, 457 Main Street, Mordialloc at 7.30pm on Thursday 26 April.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 25 April 2018
1 Comment
RAMF really need to get their facts straight. First of all the claim of a ‘sky road’ is just silly, as is the claim that most of the freeway will be elevated. There is going to be a short bridge over Mordialloc Creek, surrounding wetlands and Bowen Parkway. Total length of this bridge is going to be about 800 metres – less than 10% of the total length of the road, hardly ‘most’. Yes there will be other bridges over roads such as Springvale Road etc. but these are standard freeway overpasses and no one calls them ‘skyroads’. The rest of the freeway, the vast majority of it, will be built at ground level in the existing freeway reserve. Anyone who is familiar with the area, which obviously RAMF would be, would know that this freeway reserve exists and there is no need for the freeway to be elevated above it.
As for bottlenecks – no doubt traffic will slow down at the end of the freeway when it meets the Dingley Bypass, but traffic in and of itself is not the only cause for concern, but rather where that traffic is. White Street, a two-lane residential street, has for years been a traffic sewer, totally incapable of handling the heavy load of traffic seeking to link between Nepean Highway and the Mornington Peninsula Freeway. The Mordialloc Bypass will instead move this traffic to the Dingley Bypass, a dual-carriageway road designed to carry the level of traffic (and more) that White Street currently takes. The Dingley Bypass then links to Nepean Highway via South Road, another dual-carriageway designed to take high volumes of traffic. So to suggest this is a ‘road to nowhere’ is just silly, they are deliberately ignoring the intended design of the road and how it links the Nepean Highway with the Mornington Peninsula Freeway.
RAMF are free to oppose the freeway, but please don’t try and mislead people. Also maybe don’t claim to speak for the entire community, you know that’s also not true.