FRUSTRATION came out of the Macedon Ranges Shire Council meeting last Wednesday night, after a stern debate about Grahams Road, a local road that connects Melbourne-Lancefield Road and Lancefield-Kilmore Road.
Members of the community attended the meeting, representing a voice to the petition which was lodged with 27 signatures.
They wanted the council to write a letter to the Department of Transport (DTP) to make the road safer at the Racecourse, Grahams and Tickawarra Road intersection as well as reducing the speed limit along Grahams Road from 100km/h to 60km/h.
But it wasn’t as simple as thought out to be, with the first of three debates resulting in a negative vote for the large speed reduction, instead arguing that council would rather press the DTP on their systems of changing speed limits to all roads, instead of making changes to just Grahams.
The Review spoke with a resident from Grahams Road who was extremely frustrated with the outcome, saying 80km/h is still too quick for the dangerous road.
“It was an underwhelming response, It felt a bit like the council were trying to kick the can down the road,” they said.
“It says on the DTP’s website that community concerns can be taken into account (when lowering speed limits) and it’s interesting that the mayor was completely overlooking that.”
Crs Kate Kendall and Andrew Scanlon were the key movers for the motion stating local government has a major role to play in helping the community with issues just like this.
“Listening to the community is very important. When I saw the officers recommendation, that it did not not recommend a speed limit reduction, I really wanted to propose this alternative (speed limit reduction to 60km/h),” Cr Kendall said.
Local residents believe that Google and Apple Maps are to blame for the high number of people now using the road, as it creates a short cut from Kilmore to Romsey.
After travelling both options, doing the speed limit on the normal route, and trying to do the speed limit on Grahams Road, which was evidently difficult, the difference was 45 seconds.
Although the ‘shortcut’ does provide a quicker option, it was a far more dangerous option and also says “local traffic only” at the start of the road.
The report mentioned that there was a lack of crash data available for the road arguing that the road isn’t as dangerous as it seems.
“Community members have told me that they frequently have to use tractors and four-wheel drives to assist people who’ve come off this road. And one resident personally said they’ve assisted five cars in 12 months. Which all of this is not reported,” Cr Kendall said.
Councillor Jennifer Anderson wasn’t in support of the speed limit reduction though, saying it doesn’t always work.
“Reducing a speed limit won’t necessarily change driver behaviour. They may well still speed regardless of the limit and it’s unlikely we’ll have the police sitting there 24 hours a day to catch and find those,” she said.
“What I think we need to do is probably advocate very soon to DTP that maybe they need to change their matrix so that they can take on board those incidents, the photos from the locals, the local knowledge and perhaps that may change their matrix and lead to an assessment that allows the speed limit to be reduced on this road.”
The resident for Graham’s Road was frustrated at Cr Anderson’s comments saying: “If we all use that kind of line, we wouldn’t have 40 zones in school areas would we, there’s not enough police to police it so therefore people will just do what they want anyways so we may as well not bother we any speed limits.”
Mayor Cr Cassy Borthwick doubled downed with Cr Anderson saying: “In this evening’s case, engineering realities as outlined in this report, their professional assessment is clear. This road does not meet the criteria for a speed reduction. If we choose to support the alternative, we are stepping out of our roles as strategic governors and trying to act as amateur traffic engineers.”
“I don’t think we can pretend that this is a one-off. I don’t think that a road-by-road scenario is the way forward. Additionally, if we support the alternative, we’re trapping residents into a cycle of false hope,” Mayor Borthwick said.
But Cr Kendall completely disagreed with the Mayor, saying it’s not poor form to represent the people.
“I completely disagree with probably everything you’ve just said then. I think that there’s absolutely the role of local government and it’s not some sort of pseudo-governance to actually represent local people.”
The debate continued, with Cr Kendall and Cr Bonanno speaking up for the people who handed in the petition, but residents of Grahams Road found it interesting that Cr Daniel Young, who is a Lancefield resident, stayed out of the vote instead of helping his locals out.
After close to an hour of debate and three separate votes, the councillors concluded on the decision to write the letter in the end, saying the speed limit should be 80km/h and although residents aren’t thrilled, it is a step in the right direction.
