Werribee motorists faced havoc at the Cherry Street level crossing last week with the gates jamming on two separate occasions.
Traffic came to a standstill on Monday and Tuesday, February 15 and 16, creating backed-up traffic along Cherry Street and surrounding roads.
Hoppers Crossing resident Rowena Simmons-Curtis said she was fed up with waiting at the crossing.
She found herself caught in a Monday night gridlock while taking her ill seven-year-old daughter to the doctor.
“As I was driving towards the Cherry Street crossing, the boom gates came down,” she said.
“I spent half an hour waiting and watched my daughter getting paler and paler while we sat there.
“She ended up vomiting out the window because we waited so long.”
Ms Rowena-Curtis, a former employee at Woolworths in Werribee, said it wasn’t the first time she had been caught at the crossing.
“I used to sit there … before or after six out of 10 shifts,” she said.
Metro spokeswoman Sammie Black confirmed there had been issues at the Cherry Street crossing.
“On the Monday at 5.48pm, an interstate train travelling near the boom gates at Cherry Street stopped due to an ill passenger,” she said.
“At 6.14pm, the interstate train was cleared to continue travelling.”
Ms Black said there was an equipment fault at the same crossing the following day. “That fault was rectified at 3.42pm,” she said.
Werribee state MP Tim Pallas, in an interview with Star Weekly late last year, said there was a lot of community concern about the Cherry Street crossing.
He said the state government gave a commitment that its Melbourne level-crossing program would be completed within the first two terms of the state Labor government, but he didn’t anticipate the Cherry Street crossing would be completed in the first term.
He said there were other things the community needed more urgently.
