Just over a fortnight until Victorians head to the polls for the state election, the political campaigning is in full swing with Liberal Western Metropolitan MP Bernie Finn last week warning the west was at “grave risk” if the East West Link did not go ahead.
While the Coalition will build the project if re-elected on November 29, Labor is vowing to dump plans for the controversial toll road and tunnel, despite contracts already being signed.
Labor is spruiking its proposed West Gate Distributor, which will add an extra lane on either side of the West Gate Freeway and remove up to 30,000 vehicles and 5000 trucks a day from the bridge.
Mr Finn called on Wyndham council to get behind the project because it was “the right thing to do”. “It [East West Link] is the only way to unclog the Princes Freeway. The time has come to put politics aside … if the council doesn’t support East West Link, it’s not doing its job on behalf of the people of Wyndham.”
Mayor Peter Maynard said that while the council was yet to formally consider its position on East West Link, it had endorsed the Western Transport Strategy, produced by the Western Transport Alliance and LeadWest, which identifies the western section of the link connecting the Port of Melbourne to the CBD as the “highest priority” for the western suburbs.
