Motorists heading to Werribee for last Thursday night’s launch of Wyndham council’s congestion campaign were given first-hand insight into the city’s traffic problems.
Shortly after 5pm, outbound traffic on the Princes Freeway came to a standstill following an accident near the Forsyth Road exit. Drivers faced delays of up to an hour as traffic banked up towards the Western Ring Road.
RELATED: ‘Hell’ of a wait on Dohertys Road
RELATED: Commuters in for a long wait
Among those caught up was comedian Dave Hughes, who was heading to the Wyndham Civic Centre to host the Get Wyndham Moving campaign launch.
When Hughes finally arrived in Werribee, two hours after leaving Melbourne’s CBD, he said he was angry on behalf of Wyndham residents.
“There is no flow on that road. Irony is being stuck in a traffic jam thinking you are going to miss a gig about traffic jams.”
Mayor Bob Fairclough said the accident highlighted the need for a second river crossing from the west.
“Our reliance on the West Gate Bridge as the only access point is a huge risk for Wyndham and Victoria,” he said.
“If the West Gate is shut for any reason, traffic grinds to a halt.”
As reported by the Weekly, a 2012 “cost closure analysis”, by MacroPlan Dimasi, found that the West Gate Freeway was becoming “a major risk to the operations of the entire metropolitan area”.
The analysis found that if the bridge were to close for one year, the state economy would lose $8 billion.
The council is running a two-year, $2 million transport campaign, with Cr Fairclough calling on residents to let the state and federal governments know they had had enough of travelling on congested roads and overcrowded trains.
