By Charlene Macaulay
Outer-suburban roads will receive a third of all revenue collected from Victorian traffic cameras and on-the-spot speeding fines under new laws before Parliament.
Roads Minister Luke Donnellan last week introduced legislation that will permanently direct fine revenue to repairing and upgrading Victoria’s road network, with 33 per cent to go directly to outer-suburban roads and another 33 per cent to country roads.
The remaining 34 per cent will be used to repair and upgrade roads and level crossings anywhere in the state.
The state government did not answer Star Weekly questions about how it will allocate funding for outer-suburban roads once the legislation comes into effect.
Mr Donnellan said the new legislation was on top of a “massive program” of major road projects, including the West Gate Tunnel, the M80 Ring Road, the $4 billion suburban roads upgrade, the North East Link and upgrades to the Tullamarine and Monash freeways.
“We’ve locked roads funding into legislation, delivering on our promise to build better roads for outer suburban and regional communities,” he said.
Wyndham acting chief executive Stephen Thorpe said the funding would only go towards roads for which VicRoads was responsible, which includes freeways and major arterial roads.
“Given that our residents consistently tell us that road congestion is a top priority for all levels of government to fix, and with approximately 1500 kilometres of roads in Wyndham, any commitment of ongoing funding to repair and upgrade our local roads is extremely welcome,” he said.
“Roads that we would like to see upgraded … include the Ison Road Overpass, Ballan Road and Sayers Road, along with the intersections at Point Cook and Sneydes Road, Ballan Road and Evergreen Road, Ballan Road and McGrath Road, and Geelong Road and Alfred Road.”
